In which we start switching to the standby mode

And just like that, the season goes lite.

Running Columbia and Penn practically back to back, plus a little seasoning of tabbing Biglex and godfathering Baby Bump, does fill up the dance card. There’s not much left now except for CFL Grands, which is fun but on a micro level, and maybe helping out Kaz at Lakeland, although no one has actually asked for my help there, and maybe they have other people to do it. I’m cool with it either way. I have to say I always enjoy all the hoo-ha of a tournament, especially a big one like Penn, with all its complications. But I do admit that I also enjoy when I’m not doing it. It just takes a little time to ease on back to civilian life. I’ll get there soon enough.

This has been a banner year, especially on the e-balloting front. I resisted it for a while at the colleges because of the nature of the pools. I mean, we already did it a bunch of times for VLD divisions, but those pools are the usual suspects and we kept them isolated. But to take on PF and various novice and JV divisions, populated by parents and nannies and wandering hobos? I wanted to see some proof that we could make it happen, especially over the long distances and multiple venues of a college tournament. So we did it at controlled high school venues, always with an eye on the big switch. And this year, we made that switch. All LD at Princeton (two divisions), LD and PF at Columbia (two divisions, including PF for the first time), and finally all debate at Penn (5 divisions, 2 each of LD and PF and 1 of Policy). In a word, we did it, we being myself and Kaz and the Paginator, with help along the way especially from Catholic Charlie and JV. And, of course, the existence of tabroom.com, and Sans-Culotte's gentle (?) urging to get a move on and make it so. Along the way we determined some best practices, which I’ve put together from some of the things I’ve talked about here. I’ve added them to my own Tournament Director’s Toolkit on jimmenick.com, and, sub rosa, also on the NDCA toolkit. Here’s a link, if you want to read it as it ended up: http://www.jimmenick.com/vault/E_tournaments.pdf.

While I was at it, I threw in my old spreadsheet pyramid for figuring break round results. I’ve been using the Debate Mobile app, but I read that it won’t function in the next IOS update, so that’s the end of that. I already get a message whenever I use it that I am endangering the lightning speed of my iPhone with this horse-and-buggy app, but in the next update, h-and-b apps are going to be rendered non-functional. Feh. Anyhow, the pyramid is no big deal, and as I say, I put that in the toolkit as well. Can’t hurt.

As we drift away from the debate season—and I’m not the only one doing so, since we’re now heading into qualifiers and finals and the like, when most of the hoi and polloi of the event are now off doing spring track events—I will no doubt start bloviating on other subjects, and for that matter, posting less. So it goes. On the other hand, I will continue posting entertainments on Facebook, where we can all use a break from the constant pre-Civil War II ranting, and political comments of Twitter, where I can if so inclined comment directly to our Commander-in-Chief that he is less than the man he thinks he is. That will keep me occupied, at any rate. As for you, well, that’s your problem.