In which we throw water on troubled oils and watch the MHL tentatively rise from its death bed

If you followed the comments to my last post, you will have seen O’C questioning my assertions about break rounds. He is right to do so. The issue of break rounds is more complicated than it might appear offhand, insofar as most tournaments are settled into a routine and people are used to those routines and don’t really question them, even though the routines vary wildly. We’re going to do a podcast on it in the very near future. Also on that agenda will be the management of wait lists, since when I was talking about that a while ago himself also took O’Cean umbrage at the way I was handling that issue. That seems to be another good subject for discussion. Those of us in our traveling tab room have long ago committed to transparency. We’ve also committed to learning as we go along, and improving if we can. Exploring the issues openly is the name of the game. Stay posted.

(On the other hand, I will point out that, as always, I am right and he is wrong, but the VCA knows that from the getgo, so it’s hardly worth mentioning it. Then again, if I were stuck in the middle of Georgia with nothing but a tarnished Emory Key for solace in the deep, dark nights while planes continue to not fly overhead, I’d be taking umbrage at everything that wasn’t nailed too. The plane home from Columbia to Hudville was right on time and didn’t even lose my baggage.)

In the middle of all the hoo-ha of the Gem, there was also an MHL down at Stuyvesant. (The Gem is up and the Battery's down, to put it into a song.) Since I’ve been sitting at the MHL’s deathbed for a while now, holding its little hand and giving it ice cubes to suck on while the doctors and nurses ignore us as they share ribald stories in the break room, I was on tenterhooks for the success of this one. It has been put forth that holding these events out of the city was part of the problem, and that does seem to be true. Even though the day was hit with a storm that cost us a few northern teams (including the Sailor novices), the event was a success. I zipped down there after I got the opening VLD round of the day organized at the Gem, and working with James Bathurst, we got everything set up and everybody going on Chambers Street, and then James took it from there. So I guess the MHL isn’t quite dead yet. But we need to rethink a few things. The Workshop is good, the First-Timers is good, the Blowout is good. The so-called normal MHLs are what we need to work on. We’ll have plenty of time to figure out a plan, probably during the NYSDCA championship.

By the way, if you’re not from around here, the storm missed us last night, and we only got a not terrible few inches. Boston, on the other hand, looks as if it was hammered. Thank God for the timing, vis-à-vis forensicians. After last year’s pounding weekend after weekend, the storms this year seem to be shifting to the work week, where they belong. In any case, I stayed home today and did DJ work, reading a really good book. Yes, they pay me for that. It’s not as good as it sounds, though. They mostly pay me to read really bad books in order to find that small handful of really good books among them. Usually my brain is in pain from it. But you probably knew that already.