Irvine Fall Huckfest 08

http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=18&id=5377
Long Beach X (Mineshaft) won. That was the LB team with Smeltzer and Cos on it (arguably the 'stacked' LB team seeming as they made the finals of their home tournament a few weeks ago as well.)
I think the tournament went really well. No huge injuries this year, which is always a plus. I think the last time I ran this tournament we had a broken rib and a severely bruised hip? All I remember is this guy's hip swelling into the size of a small watermelon in front of my eyes. Anyways, nothing like that in the case of injuries.
One really cool thing about this tournament was that it was the biggest one Irvine had ever hosted. Once I announced the bids on RSD I received record response so decided to open the tournament up to 20 teams total. It also helped that I did not have to run a women's division concurrent with the men's division. So 20 teams. Good stuff. Gave a lot of teams the opportunity to go X/Y which I know helps at this time of year. UCI even went X/Y. At first I was apprehensive about this decision by the captains (doesn't help when we only get ~17 max at practice.) But in the end I think it worked out. Teams of 11 weren't super ideal, but I think the teams were able to bond better that way. Plus we had some help from some LPC kiddies that came down looking to pick up.
This post lacks coherence. Probably because it is 2:40am and I'm at work doing my Wind Tunnel Lab.
BJSS hosted a bunch of Arizona guys Friday and Saturday night (always cool guys.) Apparently one other car showed up in the middle of the night Friday night. When I went to sleep the Sunburn guys had taken over every available spot in the living room, but when I woke up I almost tripped over someone sleeping at the top of the stairs. Then went downstairs to see the entire downstairs covered in AZ bodies. Last year's Callahan Award winner Joe 'Loppi' Kershner was actually sleeping on my kitchen floor. Anyways.
Got to the fields Saturday morning by 7:30 to meet the club sports people with Fish. About half of UCLA was already there in the parking lot waiting around. Club sports people were slow to open the gates and every time I passed Linux he would ask if the gates were open yet. (Note to self for next time, don't say 8:15 at the latest, because that is the earliest they will open the gates.) Check-In went smoothly from what I heard. I delegated that to Thunder, Phil, and Dad. Only narrowly avoided a major problem (no cones) with some stellar help from KG and Iris (thanks you two.) Captain's meeting went a lot smoother than I remember from the last time I did it. Also helps to have another 2 years under your belt. Plus knowing most of the captain's helps the nerves I guess. I did forget to mention that the upper fields were going to be used for a field hockey game, but it ended up not mattering. Once things got underway Fish and I flipped a coin to see which of us would play in the UCI-X (Roeder's Runners) vs UofA Y (Decepticons) game (not really, he said they would need me more.) So he stayed to run the tournament while I cleated up. That game was fun. Sunburn always wears the best costumes. Plus I got to play against Kellen again (played with him over the summer at Rocket Sauce.)
I'm going to make this more abbreviated now.
Phil got injured and decided that Fish and I should both play and that he would worry about the tournament. Things were running smoothly so I didn't put up a fight.
Roeder's Runners went 2-2 on Saturday with wins against SDSU Y and Pepperdine and losses to Arizona Y and CSULB X. My mom and sister showed up for the last two games.
I had a sweet huck to Stig (ok, it was a little janky) that got him into the school newspaper (kudos to Claire for getting that picture btw... and to Meeko for getting the same exact timing only from 10 feet away.)
BTW, the reason I'm at work at 3am doing a lab write up instead of at home is because my computer crashed and I had to reinstall windows. And my wireless card needs drivers, but I can't connect to the internet to get the drivers. Isn't that a paradox?
I think I played well during the tournament. I really need to get back to writing my lab report. So I'll post this as an unfinished entry and hopefully get back to it later.

P.S. It is now almost 4am. Just wanted to add a few things.
After games ended on Saturday I headed over to watch one of the UCLA teams play APU (I think.) It was fun to catch up with Dot and Linux and Kiosk again. I miss Monster 08. Too bad the rest of the Monster guys couldn't make the trip to Irvine. Hopefully they will all be at So Cal Warm Up.