First of all let me thank all the people that slept over for being awesome house guests. After everyone left, there really wasn't anything to clean up. Thanks again for patiently dealing with the extreme heat too. It really could have gotten ugly but thankfully it didn't.
Special thanks:
-Tom, Meinard and Holly for driving everyone to the different places they needed to be.
-Josh, Al, Henry and Reile for the food
-Brian totaly saved the house from burning down
I biked home from work on Friday to see a bunch of unfamiliar faces at the apartment. It was freaking hot so instead of hanging around indoors we all drove to Welles park for a jam. A freestyle circle immediately started up while Kamil, Tom and I chilled and watched from the sidelines ("This is how we roll"). I even jumped in just to hit a a few short runs and even hit a Royale within 2 tries

We started playing squares later in the afternoon. Henry and Josh were brushing off some rust while we taught Tuan (Josh's friend) how to play. This guy was amazing, I think took his first win after playing only 2 games! WTF?!?!?! It was a lot of fun showing them our trick shots and double team plays. And by 'showing' I mean 'killing'. Soon Tom and Kamil had left to pick up Zach from Union Station in downtown. Unfortunately the train was delayed up to 3-4 hours. Back at the park we were winding down while tossing a disc or two around. When we learned of the delay we all went back to the steaming
hot-ass apartment.
Reile was home from work and greeted the first few guests at the door. Soon more players started trickling in. Several of them went out to the nearby Target to shred. Zach, Tom and Kamil eventually arrived. Now there were at least a dozen people just broiling and partying at the house. We gave
Emily a call just so she could be included in all the fun. She didn't pick up so I left her a... uhhh very unique voicemail.
I bust out my footbag collection while we played 'guess the stitcher' with about 20 bags on the table from 4 different people's hoardes. I still regret not taking a picture of all of them while I had a chance. Then with everyone back Tom and Reile started serving up the fresh home-made italian beef that had been cooking since the day before. Tom showed incredible restraint as he calmly made sure everyone else got a sandwich before finally making his own. We watched a video game wrestling match with the CIC and other various footbag characters beating the crap out of each other while we ate.
Zach, being the shred machine the he is, rounded up a few more players for a second late night shred at the Target and a few of us crashed early. I went out to tell the shredders to just come in the back door after the jam so as not to disturb any of the sleepers. Zach persuaded me to try some tricks before I left. Couldn't hit atomsmasher as he requested but bailed to legbeater which rolled off. I told them I'd bring my lavers on Saturday. After the shred some of the players "chilled" in my room. Josh Rose was valiantly trying to get Al to stay and not drive home in his condition. One particularly brutal technique stood out in my mind... then Al returned the favor and drove home, not comfortably I would imagine. Josh also used the same method on me but I reminded him that this
was my house!
Registration on Saturday began @ 11am. Most of us finally crashed at 4am that morning.
READ:THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL WE WERE GETTING THERE ON TIME! Or so I thought. Oddly enough by 8:30am almost everybody was up! WTF?!?!?!?! Shawn took the initiative to go get some breakfast since there was a long day of footbag ahead of him. We eventually managed to pack everyone into 2 vehicles and drove out to a nearby
IHOP. I nearly passed out in the back of Reile's van from the heat on the way over. Breakfast was fun, I was sitting with Brian, Holly, Zach and Shawn. We settled the check in an amazingly efficient manner which is not common from my experiences in a group that large. Outside, Josh was introduced to some good old Chicago charm. We all jumped back into the cars and headed to the train station. I almost passed out again.
The train ride was long but uneventful, thankfully. We found the site easily enough but were a bit disapointed when we found that there was no airconditioning there. Several shred circles started up right away as more players came in. I immediately found a spot under a table to try and catch up on some sleep. It was about 20 minutes after that I realized that it was just too hot in that room. Someone suggested we start a game of mini-squares. Basically we just used the existing tiles as the court. Each square was about 2 feet wide with 9 inch thick lines.
HenryG wrote:midwests were really fun, except for the competition and exhibition.
To be continued.