In which we plan ahead. Way ahead.

Seeing that as often as not I’m planning the running of tournaments, as compared to simply planning attendance at tournaments, it’s not unfair to say that I tend to arrange things well in advance. Nevertheless, in our present tournament environment, where there are only just so many slots to go around, there are also usually just so many hotel rooms to go around as well, so it behooves one and all to also think well in advance. You can always find something, somewhere, but as a general rule, you probably want to stay in the tournament hotel because of its location and, if you’re lucky, its price. And, of course, there’s the negotiation of plane tickets for some tournaments, something I didn’t do much the last few years. I sort of molded a calendar that mostly kept me within driving distance, aside from the big events at the end of the year. And I managed to weasel out of them because, well, a week at NSDA? The Day Job simply would never allow it. I mean, there’s vacations and there’s vacations. A week at NatNats would seem to be anything but.

So I’ve been thinking everything through up to and including UPenn, which is close to the end of the season (I'll probably train it down and stay until Monday). But then there’s NDCA in April, a couple of weeks after Easter. Did I mention that it’s in Orlando? Think about that. All I have to do is add a couple of days to the trip—which I feel obligated to make, given that it will be my last tournament as a board member—and I can enjoy a solo Disney adventure. I can leisurely work my way through a bunch of things that we attacked commando-style at the DisAd. I can stop and smell the roses once in a while. I can even, if the spirit moves me, do a backstage tour. And while I’m at it, I can pop over and see Diagon Alley again. And again, more leisurely.

Oh, yeah.

I’ve thought it through at great length, and concluded that I will do it. And I’ve gone so far as to make virtually all the necessary arrangements. I mean, who knows when I’ll get back there otherwise? I have no compelling need for another family trip, and if you’ve been following all the announcements, you’re aware that all the new stuff, especially Star Wars, won’t be around for five years or so. Not to mention all the new stuff announced for Universal. It will be awhile before the spirit gets one moving again, either with family or friends. So why not take advantage of this? I’m going to be there anyhow. Why not take another spin on the old Doom Buggies and the like?

That’s the thing about Disney planning. It needs to be done as early as possible. April is only 8 months away. Time’s a wastin’.

In which we muse on the immediate up-comers

According to my calendar, I have this weekend off (really off, since my car is going hiking with my daughter), and the next weekend seeing Eddie Izzard in Providence, and then it’s Labor Day, and summer is over. Around here, schools usually open after Labor Day, but this year, with the first Monday of September being the seventh day of the month, the doors are swinging wide in advance of the long weekend. And then the games will begin.

I’m happy to have Byram to kick things off. It will allow me to shake a little of the tabroom.com dust off. Every time you open the thing it has new features, and while I’ve been opening it a hundred times a day lately for setups, I haven’t run anything since the NYSDCA Finals last Spring. So, lots of dust. And the numbers of Byram aren’t bad at all, and ought to hold up nicely. Plus it’s not far from the chez, and they apparently have wonderful wifi (as compared to the old days, when the computers all went home on Friday night, taking the internet with them, and Kaz and I had to go through the halls with a dousing rod to try to find a signal from her phone, in a building that is notoriously nasty about eating cellphone batteries). BenK has been managing the event fine, and I haven’t done much of anything except provide occasional advice. Piece of easy pie, in other words.

I do love high schools. As a rule, they have someone totally in charge, and all I have to do is show up and plug in the music and wave my hands around and look useful.

The Pups have a bustling team of overseers, and aside from endless advice and waitlist responsibilities shared with JV, I don’t worry about it much. Although I have to admit, I have some thoughts about the size of the thing. Given the idea of fairly sharing slots, and our limited number of spaces, it’s way too tight. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of our furthest travelers ultimately opt to stay home. The basic LD bargain is a guarantee of breaking all 4-2s for a quarters bid. And a visit to an Ivy, for those in the market for such things. Compare this to PF, where you get a visit to an Ivy, but the field is ginormous, and there’s no guarantee of much of anything except breathing Connecticut air (although I do know a good shwarma place not far from their venue). But that seems to be the fate of PF fields at the moment, and no one seems visibly upset by the prospect. I do think that the PF folks are as cutthroat as any debate people when push comes to shove, but they’re still feeling their way into the national universe and spend most of their time feeding off one another rather than launching into the tournament directors.

Bronx remains a special case, only because they are under interim management. This is the first time ever that JV and I have had this much of a role in things this early on. You’ve got to think about this, though. Kirby and Robert haven’t been involved in debate for well over a decade. Consider just the last few years, and the changes therein. They’re up to the task, though, I’ll give them that. But what a task. Their big accomplishment has been finding space that was previously unavailable to the tournament, which has allowed seriously good limits (6 in LD vs 3 at the Pups), which should enhance the tournament’s status. And 7 rounds assures all 5-2s break. So it’s worked out well. But, of course, there’s all the other stuff that they have to do: food, water, functioning lavatories, guaranteeing the presence of Mr. Softee, etc. They’ve got a tournament easily twice as big as what they used to run, and probably more. Talk about valor! As I told Kirby yesterday, those of us in tab have the easy job. When anything goes wrong, we know who we’re going to be pointing to to get a solution.

Let’s enjoy these last few unencumbered weekends.

If this is Wednesday it must be Nostrum

Two of my favorite characters existed only in the Epistles of St. Jules to the Forensicians.

Anyhow, I said I would explain the Falutin sisters, so here goes. They are identical twins, both HDS students. One is an Episcopalian and the other is a Unitarian; I do not understand how one clan can process offspring (especially genetically equivalent offspring) in different denominations, but I can accept that, I guess. Anyhow, the young ladies in question are of French origin, and the name is pronounced fal-you-tan, and they say that it was, originally, de Falutin. This is, of course, a completely ineffectual attempt on their part to control our referring to the Episcopalian as High Falutin and the Unitarian as Low Falutin. As if—we simply cannot help ourselves. Nor can we help ourselves from being totally beguiled by these two lovely ladies, who have taken over our collective life as only divinity students can. They even have Unix the Cocker Nostrumutt eating out of their hands (although we are training the three of them to use the dog-food bowl in the future). We met High and Low about a month ago, and our fancies have been engaged ever since. The attraction seems to be requited, except that neither of them can figure out this whole Nostrum business. Non-forensicians, obviously. When they want to go out and boogie, or at least do whatever is the divinical equivalent of boogying, they don’t want to wait around while the Mite and I come up with new plot lines for H.P. Buglaroni. So there is a little tension in the old Nostrum homestead. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, try hell with two women who look alike and study the Bible all day. Whew!

In which we are officially Admiral, Ret.

They said it couldn’t be done.

A couple of weeks later, they did it.

I have been replaced.

Sigh.

Word is that the Sailors have found a willing soul to whom to give both a day job and the team. Approval from the board should be forthcoming in a week or two. I can’t tell you who it is because every description I’ve seen spells his name differently and parenthetically apologizes for it probably being the wrong spelling. It’s not someone familiar to me, though. In other words, much needed fresh blood, in an activity that’s seen a lot of blood-letting lately.

At least it wasn’t by a robot. But I have to admit that it’s a funny feeling. Retiring felt sort of final, but that was undermined by working backstage on about 30 tournaments at the same time. But knowing that a warm body has been captured in the wild and will, if all goes according to plan, soon be leading the tars down the yellow brick road without any need of me whatsoever, is true closure. It’s not as if I were wavering or anything, but we ended last year as always, and this summer has gone as always (and maybe even moreso, what with my upped commitment to the Bronx), so it hasn’t felt real. But getting new topics and not having the gobs over to the chez to hash it out is starting to bring it home, added, as I say, to the new commander coming on board. I have, for all practical purposes, now completed walking the plank.

Splash. Gurgle, gurgle

gurgle

gur

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In which we look at the Sept-Oct resolutions

I think the fact that reparations wasn’t chosen in LD is pretty interesting. From what I hear, issues of race are front and center in rounds these days, at least around here, regardless of whether the resolutions have any direct connection to racial issues. It seemed to make sense to me, therefore, that people would jump in and want to argue a race-related issue directly, especially when it is one as rich as reparations. But, I was told early last season, this was one topic that the membership would never agree to; it was too controversial, or maybe more to the point, the speaker felt that the membership was inherently too racist and simply wanted nothing to do with it. I would have thought that was simple paranoia a couple of years ago. Today? What the hell do I know?

Folks will get to argue it in PF, on the other hand. If you look at the voting numbers, it won over the alternative by only a couple of points in the team vote, while earning an easy win in the student vote. And this despite the alternative being one of those non-arguable, dreadful topics that PF loves to put forward, where you sort of think you know what they were supposed to be talking about, but they lost it somewhere between the topic meeting and the cocktail lounge, and now you can only guess what it might be about, and hope that your opponents are making the same guess. Anyhow, it doesn’t strike me as the world’s greatest PF topic, because it’s not so much about facts and statistics, although there are certainly plenty of facts and statistics about the lack of parity among the races. It’s more about cultural history and the morality of actions taken in the past that directly affect the present, but taken by actors no longer present themselves. In other words, it’s a thoughtful, deep and sort of profound situation. PF, as a general rule, is none of those things. Given the nature of a PF round, the research won’t be terribly thoughtful, deep or profound, I would imagine, although it will at least venture into such territory in its search for cards for the rounds. I’m not saying that the literal rounds of LD would have been much better, but the research would have been. Maybe.

My original take on the actual LD topic, back when I heard it, was mistaken. I hadn’t thought it through to realize what it was actually about. A big aspect is sexual health and decision-making, a subject that has important impacts in the lives of adolescents, regardless of their own personal histories (not that personal histories won’t, I regret to say, probably be dragged out fairly often). It is not what one does that matters, but what one can, could and should do. Society as a whole troubles over this subject, and there is not a lot of clarity of opinion. Even the legal findings remain controversial. So I think that it should work out well, if people really argue it. I will say this. Back in the day when there were lots of parent judges, debaters making a claim to own their own bodies would have had to overcome a lot of innate if perhaps subconscious prejudice. Arguing this in front of college judges and the like? Almost the opposite innate if perhaps subconscious prejudice, but probably way more easily overcome into the realm of neutral decisions.