Wednesday
-Jeremy Mirken arrives
-Watch a cool documentary about Chinlone
-I am the worst Scrabble player/partner ever
Thursday
-Power kick with Jeremy in the morning. It was COLD!
-Tom spikes a netbag into my nuts. Tahnk god teh pillow was there.
-I get blasted in the mouth by a Nelson Mandela.
-Dat & Fletcher arrive, enjoy the new couch and tv. They rescue flaming hostages
-Brian, Holly, Matt & Cody. The latter 2 thought I was the girl in my avatar
-Matthieu, Henry and Colin arrive
-Most tense game of scrabble ever - griptits!
-Group sushi dinner, while I hang out with Nathan, Matt and Cody, we share our common dislikes.
-The group comes back then Matt, Peng and Mosher arrive
-Get some good advice from Dat & Holly
-Mosher gives me a shuttle cock, and I give him a big hug!
-SO many new footbags
-I get sacreligious
Friday
-SMOOOOOOOOTTTHHHH transfer from LaRAZA to McCormick Place
-Check into the suite
-Make my way to the site with a big smile on my face
-2-square with Steve
-Mathieu gives me Bacon and films it
--Fun with Bacon in the room with Tom and Mathieu, first of the incriminating photos
--Used and abused, I toss a wet and nasty Bacon to a less than amused Zach J.
--Bacon has dinner with me, much to everyone's disgust
-Giordano's Pizza! Pleasant chats with all who stopped by the CIC OG's
-Watch Freddy, Zach & Henry play Crotch fire with the high ceilings, they all get gottened.
-4-square comp
--Climbed up 16 flights of stairs to get second rope court. STUPID FUCKING ELAVATORS!
--Climbed down 16 flights of stairs. STUPID FUCKING ELAVATORS!
--Long prelim with David, Matthieu & Freddy
--I walk out of finals
-Steve makes his stand against the villanous Vernon English
Saturday
-Freddy gets Baconed
-Nathan ironically gets baconed trying to Bacon Reile, hardest I laughed all weekend.
-Nathan's awesome banana pancakes
-Net!
-Takraw circle!
-Threw a baseball at 56mph
-Sumo Wrestling against Marty, Freddy & Cuba, won them all!
-some 2-square with Steve and shuttle cock 4-square, Dan is my nemisis.
Sunday
-Traditional Sunday breakfast with Tom + Jeremy, Thanks Emily
-Awards ceremony, I hate being on the mike
-Grueling game of 6-square for my Mirken bag*
-Left Hand throwing at the shred room
--nailed Tom in the nuts with strong arm
--Freddy blasted me in the face
--David gets one in the nads within minutes of entering
--Dat gets one in the junk too, I quit soon after
-Traditional 'how do we get to LaRAZA Snafu
-Fall asleep to Rock Band
Monday
-My body is still trying to recover from the past few days. Passed out most of the time
-If I was awake I was making sure Bacon got some intimate time with the guests
-Lunch at the Lincoln Diner, death stare from several of the cooks
-Snowball fight at Lincoln Park Zoo
--Took down Jeremy in the snow and fled like a wuss
--Barraged Fletcher "Welcome to Chicago, BITCHES!"
--Then right after, Jeremy gets his revenge and I get blasted in the face with a massive snowball
-Zoo Lights were cool, how did they do that?
-Big cat house was cool
-Saw a chimp with a canon ass
-Watched a gorilla violently rub one out... then lick his hands clean
-We all went back to LaRAZA to nap before New Year festivities
-Chicago has terrible drivers.
-Spent a quiet New Years Eve with Mike Hansen, we watched the traditional spanish countdown
Tuesday
-Snow Takraw session with Jeremy, Tom, Reile & Fletcher
-Say goodbye to Fletcher
-Big warm hug with Emily
Wednesday
-Say goodbye to Jeremy as I leave for work
-Work sucked
*
Zeke wrote:After award ceremonies on early Sunday afternoon, I announced that all interested participants for the Mirken bag challenge to gather near the prize table. I think like 18 players came up! So in an attempt to thin out the crowd I said that any one who had already won a prize through competitions were not able to compete. I think that eliminated all of 2 people. My second stipulation was that you had to be a freestyler and you would actually
play with the bag. I would prefer that it not sit in anyone else's collection.
So with the players set, I announced that it would be a modified game of 6 square where I was always in king square and the winner of the bag had to ace me an x amount of times. Most players only had to ace me twice and the better players had to ace me 5 times, I believe. An ace is where a pass lands cleanly and uncontested in another players square without the defender ever touching the bag. The perfect kill IMO. I had to be in the court the whole time so any player that killed me (that wasn't an ace) resulted in me staying in ksq while re-serving to that same player. If I fouled someone, that player would automatically get a hack off. Any other player that got killed would go to the back of the line as normal. Steve happily judged from the sidelines but the players were encouraged (thanks Emily) to vote first and to vote fair. No lying, no whining, no CSI re-enactments (God, I hate those!), just point. If you didn't see the play, don't vote. So that's basically what I came up with to be fair to all the players that participated. I'm sure there a were a few flaws to be fixed and some tweaks to be made if I really put in more time to think it through.
The flow of players in & out of the court and gameplay moved quickly but lasted somewhere from 30-45 minutes. Probably boring for everyone else but it was definitely wearing me out as the game went on. I was a nasty, sweaty waterfall after only a few minutes into it. I could have easily played cheap and gotten some kind of contact on any inbound shots to get killed instead of aced but I went all out on defense to try and get control of the pass to set myself up for something.
If it seemed I was making an extra effort to kill you and get you the hell off the courts, please take that as my deep respect for your skill. I was
determined to
keep my bag and favored absolutely no one to win. The general strategy was to remove any major threats as soon as possible. If I was unable to kill you within a few volleys then I targeted an unsuspecting square to get a quicker kill and conserve as much energy as I could. At one point, I got 'in the zone' and I was in a long stretch of consecutive kills with no re-serves or hack offs. Sometime in the middle of that, Al had showed up and was trying to talk to me but I was so focused I didn't even know he was directly behind me.
I managed to get a few sips of water in between rounds to keep hydrated, but to be honest & and at the risk of sounding like an arrogant ass clown, the growing frustrations on peoples faces really kept me going. I savored all the eye rolling, the dropped shoulders and the shaking heads as you found your way to the back of that long line. I was particularly energized by reactions after any spectacular kills or saves. I utilized just about everything in my arsenal; axe kicks/sole shoves, snakes, double taps, flying knees, powershots, self-screens, kick fakes and dinks to keep that line moving. I even invented a shot on the fly that got some good reactions. On the flip side, I was equally disappointed with myself for every foul I committed, and every time I was killed or aced. I tried to stay focused and kept pushing myself to play as well I as I could. No one was just going to walk off with my bag.
Eventually Matthieu won (Read:
EARNED) the Mirken off me. Hope it was worth me (gently
) kicking you in the face! Much thanks and love to all of you that participated, it just shows how valued Jeremy's footbags are that y'all would all put up with all my bullshit to play for that bag. Props to anyone that killed me and much props to anyone that aced me that day, that's probably the best I've ever played for that amount of time.
Thanks again for all that played, you all helped to make that my absolute favorite moment of NYJ 07.
Keep playing squares!
Zeke
Edit:
photos by Scott Davidson
This year was so much fun but it seemed to go by so fast. I had a good time chillaxing and getting to know more players this year. It was good to see all my friends from all over the community. I'm sorry to say that there were still some poeple I barely spoke to just cuz there were so many people again. I think there should be a policy where if I had not talked to you yet, you should come up and introduce yourself and say, "Hey I'm -your name here- and I'm worth getting to know you short stubby bastard!" Or something along those lines. I'm really approachable, I just don't look that way all the time.
They're so painfully cute that I did not mind they were coughing in my face. Both of them instantly lit up when my parents arrived soon after. They love my dad's cooking (who doesn't?) and they're always very affection to my mom. Drew eventually came to me to show me her animal picture book. I'm impressed with all the animals that she knew. She must have rattled on for 10 minutes straight about her favorites animals and which ones scared her, which was anything with sharp teeth.