Gatlinburg
Apr. 15th, 2008 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jianantonicI'd actually been looking forward to this trip for a while, and this place definitely has fun potential, but I failed to consider what a history of complete emotional turmoil this town holds for me. Part of that is just that every other year I've been here, I've been absolutely worked to the bone. Part of it is also that visits to this town have been catalysts for major changes in my life each of the past few times I've come, and while I'm more or less pleased with the way things are going, I am happy to erase the memories of how I got here. It's just more triggering than I thought it would be, so I'm having sort of a rough time.
I'm here with a different crowd this year, and for the first time I'm here as a player, exclusively. I'm on my own, though, as Z is playing with his client and they picked up a fifth just before we got here, meaning my chances of joining them at all this week are slim. I had avoided making solid plans out of the hope of being called on to play with them at some point, but since that appears unlikely, I'm weighing my options for the rest of the week. I picked up a very nice team at the partnership desk for yesterday's single session swiss, but we were a mismatch. The three of them had come together from WI, and they wanted to play together, so I joined as a fourth. Their masterpoint holdings were 100, 300, and 2600, which put us in the A/X game. It wasn't pretty. We were actually 2-2, but there's no reason we shouldn't have beaten the two teams that beat us, one of them badly. But my partner was very sweet and I enjoyed the session a lot.
For the dinnerbells, Jay and I had talked about playing, and we scrounged up two more for a team. We are at the very bottom of bracket four of twelve, and we won handily in the first round. My partner is a p-desk guy from Florida, with 2200 masterpoints. He's very good, and very nice as well. I played fairly well in this set -- no HUGE mistakes, but I had a hand or two where I could've set the offense by an extra trick and failed to do so. No worries, though; we still picked up imps on almost every hand.
The evening session didn't go so well. We couldn't hang onto a big halftime lead and ended up losing horribly. So it goes. I'm giving myself the morning off to get some work done and catch up on sleep, then I'll walk down to the playing site and perhaps enter an afternoon event.
We're staying at the Rodeway Inn, which sounds like it would be a shithole (most of the hotels here are shitholes), but it's actually really pleasant. Our room is big, we have a great view, and everything feels clean. I'm pleased with it. It's a little over a mile away from the convention center, which is nice because I am happy to get the exercise. Except that it's effing cold here! It's the south! In mid-April! Warm the fuck up already!
I've got work to do.
Peace.
I'm here with a different crowd this year, and for the first time I'm here as a player, exclusively. I'm on my own, though, as Z is playing with his client and they picked up a fifth just before we got here, meaning my chances of joining them at all this week are slim. I had avoided making solid plans out of the hope of being called on to play with them at some point, but since that appears unlikely, I'm weighing my options for the rest of the week. I picked up a very nice team at the partnership desk for yesterday's single session swiss, but we were a mismatch. The three of them had come together from WI, and they wanted to play together, so I joined as a fourth. Their masterpoint holdings were 100, 300, and 2600, which put us in the A/X game. It wasn't pretty. We were actually 2-2, but there's no reason we shouldn't have beaten the two teams that beat us, one of them badly. But my partner was very sweet and I enjoyed the session a lot.
For the dinnerbells, Jay and I had talked about playing, and we scrounged up two more for a team. We are at the very bottom of bracket four of twelve, and we won handily in the first round. My partner is a p-desk guy from Florida, with 2200 masterpoints. He's very good, and very nice as well. I played fairly well in this set -- no HUGE mistakes, but I had a hand or two where I could've set the offense by an extra trick and failed to do so. No worries, though; we still picked up imps on almost every hand.
The evening session didn't go so well. We couldn't hang onto a big halftime lead and ended up losing horribly. So it goes. I'm giving myself the morning off to get some work done and catch up on sleep, then I'll walk down to the playing site and perhaps enter an afternoon event.
We're staying at the Rodeway Inn, which sounds like it would be a shithole (most of the hotels here are shitholes), but it's actually really pleasant. Our room is big, we have a great view, and everything feels clean. I'm pleased with it. It's a little over a mile away from the convention center, which is nice because I am happy to get the exercise. Except that it's effing cold here! It's the south! In mid-April! Warm the fuck up already!
I've got work to do.
Peace.
