The northeast acquitted itself admirably at NDCA. A bunch of
new PF folks from around here went, and dominated the speaker awards, and,
well, Poly Prep won. Very nice.
I will admit to having gone in with mixed feelings about my own continuing
participation in the group, but as we were having our board discussions I
realized that much of what the organization does is directly filtered down to
what I do with colleges. Participation rules (i.e., official school entries)
and conflict designation are recent examples. A most interesting discussion on
harassment will also, no doubt, flow down. I’ll talk about that separately.
Anyhow, while I obviously have no horses in the race for the actual competition,
I have a spiritual horse in the race for what the organization does and how it does
it. There’s a lot of minutia that goes with board-ness, but a couple of
important things as well. The important things outweigh in the end.
Meanwhile, there was Las Vegas itself. I arrived very late
on Thursday and directly tucked myself in. On Friday I drove down to Hoover
Dam, and met up with Palmer. We took the tour, but in a way that was
unnecessary, albeit interesting enough. The real impact of the place is simply the
place. The geography is amazing. You’ve got to love the mountains and
the desert, at least insofar as they are places to see. You’ve got to love
signs that warn about mountain goats. You’ve got to love a drive at about two
miles an hour that scares the bejesus out of you as you feel as if you’re
teetering on the brink of doom. And when you get there, you’ve got to love the
human accomplishment of building such a marvel. The engineering prognosis is
that it’s good for about the next 2000 years. 2000 years! The only other thing
I can think of that seems to last for 2000 years is the Clintons and the
Bushes. I’ll take the dam any day.
The tournament started on Saturday. There was a board
meeting Friday night, and another Sunday afternoon. Other than that I mostly
hung around, as board members are prohibited from tabbing. I marginally trained
a few PF judges, as we had a herd of communications majors from UNLV enlisted
for a round each. They were amazing. They really got into the thing and wrote
up amazing ballots. There is minor controversy over whether they should be
judging a championship, but it seems to me that solid PF teams ought to have no
qualms about trying to pick up the ballot of a committed communications college
student. The teams got to this point by winning a lot of ballots from parents,
after all, who are a much dicier brand of adjudicator. This all seems to fit in
with PF’s original brief about appealing to the interested community member at
large. A good fit all around, I say.
We had a lot of conversation with Diane S about the Bronx
tournament. In a word, they need to begin planning now. As I’ve said, I’ve also
talked to Kirby, so we’re going in with six buns glazing. Continuity over a
rough stretch is the goal, so that when they finally have their new team
organization in place, they’ll be where they were when they left off. Hooking
Diane into the old tabroom files gave her access to a lot of things she might otherwise have to guess at. I'd say she's on her way.
I have to admit that I had no trouble walking around in the
nice desert 80 degree weather every day. No trouble at all. And Saturday night
Kaz and CP and I went to a nice tapas place for dinner, so we got to see the
strip in action on what I would assume is its busiest night. I could do that
brand of people-watching till the cows come home. Monday morning before my
flight home I did a full-on strip walk, camera in hand. I’m a student of the
sort of cultural studies that encompasses Las Vegas, of course. And I always
enjoy the architecture, the Venturi ducks and sheds. But this time out I was
left with one big question:
Why are there cup holders in the urinals at New
York, New York?
Answer me that, boyo. My initial thought that it had
something to do with urine tests and annual checkups is probably not correct.
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