State (as O'C insists on calling it)

We got off to a rollicking start for last weekend when Meh announced that she was coming down with the yaws, or something, and couldn’t debate. With Zip out of commission because of the break, there was nothing for it but to drop the single Sailor entry at State.

Sigh.

That didn’t stop me personally, of course. I’m on the board, for one thing, and I’m expected to tab, for another thing, and it’s actually what I wanted to do this weekend, for a final thing. I don’t do this because I hate it, in other words. Without the burden of all those pesky students (well, 2 pesky students), I was free to come and go as I pleased. Big deal. The only difference this meant was that I didn’t have to find Meh’s house again, even though her family has obligingly kept the Christmas decorations up for me.

There were mostly the usual trials and tribulations over the weekend. We played around with the pair-on-screen function, but ended up preferring cards. Still, I finally did get the hang of it. Maybe next year. We screwed one poor kid by misreporting who broke, so we’ll never do it that way again (i.e., scribbling it vs. pulling a pdf). However, said screwee was scheduled to debate the one other kid who didn’t show for his own reasons, meaning he both got screwed and managed to advance to quarters. There’s worse ways to go.

Our biggest problem was disappearing judges. One school changed virtually all their preffed judges on arrival, which is about as unprofessional as a team can get. This was matched by the disappearing judges who didn’t fulfill their obligations. Do they really think we don’t remember? My list of schools not welcome, when I have the opportunity to pick and choose, grows and changes. One school that had been on that list performed admirably, staying till when they should have and checking with us to make sure. Good for them, and so noted. One judge who’s been on my radar as never being around to pick up a ballot, ever, proved herself again by disappearing completely. Sorry, but you’re on that list now. We call them invitationals because we’re inviting people. But we’re not inviting you…

Mostly, of course, it was a fine event. We did some single-flighting and got out at reasonable times on both days, which is always nice. It continues to grow, and that’s a good thing. And the best news is, we found a new tab room for Big Jake. O’C, who claims that this was all my fault, has been holding out on us, falling back on my declaration back when he was a pup that we needed a central tab room. That was when we had 200 runners, all of them running at the same time, in all directions, willy-nilly. Once the operation got organized, what we needed was a tab room with couches, space and a microwave. Such a room has been found.

If O’C doesn’t deliver next season, there will be hell to pay.