Hey Chrissy. I probably wouldn't have been at my phone anyway because I was at SJFF.
This made me happy to read today:
cammel wrote:Name: Gray Chadwick
What is the best tournament you have ever attended? Santa Cruz Invitational!
Name one really good friend you have made through footbag: Santa Cruz crew
SJFF
save.cullen wrote:Does anyone have footage of Kevin eating shit on the basement tile of Richie's house?
No, but that moment will live until we forget about it... which won't ever happen. Neither will the sight of Jim Penske as Michael Jackson.
I will also remember:
-Buying a frozen pizza with Dustin, bringing it to Kevin Richie's house to eat, preheating the oven, Dustin putting the pizza in the oven, and 20 minutes later walking up to get it out of the oven to see a lot of people with pizza in their hands. You must understand that there were just as many, if not more non-footbag people at this party as footbag people. I looked in the oven and sure enough, my pizza was gone. A girl saw me look in the oven, and was like, "we just found a pizza in there" or something, and someone else said something else. I saw that one person had two pieces of pizza, so I asked for one back, since it was my (and Dustin's) dinner. Then I asked someone else for the pizza they were eatting, and two other people. I came back with one piece with one bite taken out, and three that were about 1/3 eaten. Dustin and I ate them anyway. Those jerks were not about to get to eat
all of my pizza.
twisted:8) If anyone's going to steal my $3 pizza, it should be hungry footbag people, not normal people.
-One of our team was washed away in the river during the torrential rain. May our fallen brother live on forever in our hearts.
-Practiced ducking in a circle with Scott Behmer, and we were soon joined by Dustin Rhodes. Ducking, diving, zulu and weaving were all that anyone practiced, and everyone had to hit their own certain number before they could leave the circle.
-Felt like I played
okay compared to how I usually play at events. Maybe that's because "usually" means hurt or my back is acting up, or I'm out of practice. Whatever, it
felt fun even if I wasn't playing well.
-On Thursday Fletch and I got dropped off at the bus station in downtown Santa Cruz. As I was grabbing my two bags I realized I forgot my sleeping bag in the dryer. Why did I have to clean it??
Oh yeah, cause it smelled like campfire and damp car trunk. Sorry Brad Nelson. So the whole weekend I was trying to find extra blankets or sleeping bags. Who brings "extra" blankets to events? No one. But I lucked out with being able to use Sam's sleeping bag the 1st night, and a hotel blanket the 2nd and 3rd night. The last night we were at Justin's, and Fletch shared his sleeping bag and was willing to sleep on the carpet with nothing under us. I felt bad for asking someone to do that, but it would have felt worse to freeze all night.
-Justin Dale:
On the last day Justin and I were kicking and he started giving suggestions and asking to see specific moves/sets. I got a lesson on stepping, whirl, and some other stuff, it was
great. It's really unusual (in my experience) for someone to offer that kind of intense one-on-one help without being asked for it. It was very helpful. I hit DLO on both sides with no problem on command for Justin. His suggestions with flip whirl should be helpful.
-Once again, I brought RKT's (Rice Krispies Treats) to an event. I made two batches and they were done just before I had to leave my house. Probably why I didn't remember to get my sleeping bag out of the dryer.
-Team Green reunited, with large and lovely earlobes.
Shows
Friday night was the Renegade Show. I had never been to a juggling competition and had never heard of that kind of show before. It was explained to me, "It's a juggling thing." People get up and do acts, performances, tell jokes, etc. At the end of the night Kevin Richie, Peter Irish, Matt Baker, Dylan Fry, and someone else acted out a song... what was it again? Anyway, it was pretty fantastic.
Saturday night was the All 4 Limbs show at the Cultural Center. That's the one that people needed $10 tickets for.
A Theatrical Vaudeville Experience
This one-night only show features some of the northwest's best variety entertainers. See what happens when breakdancing acrobats, a shadow puppet master, a real-life cartoon, and a 5-time world champion jump roper and Cirque du Soleil veteran perform together on one stage. The Brothers from Different Mothers have assembled a dream team of entertainers and you can witness them live one night only.
Cast Includes:
Comedy Magic-Sukuma Avery
Comedy Duo-Brothers from Different Mothers
Kung Fu Acrobats-Nanda
Acoustic Blues Band-Slim Pickins
Singer/Songwriter-Jeron Faulkner
Cirque De Solei - Rene Bibaud
Variety Comic-Louie Foxx
Prop Comic-Eric Haines
Comedy Cook-Marko Ellinger
Footbag Competition
And More Coming Soon
I liked Peter's act a whole lot. Again, I'm not a normal juggling watcher, so everything that went on during the performances was really impressive. But the stuff he did with 5 and 6 balls using all 4 limbs was really wowing. Everyone pretty much agreed that the final act (that came just after Peter) took the cake. The 5 time world champ jump roper and her crew of 4 or so were just awesome.
-
Are those crumbs on your shirt?
-Car sliding behind us
-Geese vs. Turtle Doves
-Fletch and I had a free place to stay every night, and a ride everywhere the whole weekend. When we arrived at the airport, we waited for those crazy Vegas guys (Evan and Ben), then Justin picked us up to head over to his house. Scott took us everywhere we needed to go for the whole weekend. Even when we had to get up and be out by 7:15am on Monday (after everyone had partied all night), Scott was already up from taking Fry and someone else to the bus station. He showed up and took us to the airport. The first night, Sam let us stay at his house. For the next two nights, we crashed with the wholesome and clean-living Missoula guys. And the last night we slept in the extra apartment Justin got just for the weekend.
-There is one bad thing that sticks out in my head about this event:
The competition itself:
- a) No one watched. Well, pretty much. The circle comp had a bunch of footbag and non-footbag players sitting down and watching. But the sick 1, 3, and shred 30's... there were four of us watching at one point. I don't really get that. There was a semi-circle around the competition area, and the chairs were mostly empty. Everyone was playing behind us. I can understand people needing to stay warm, but there had to have been at least a few more people not competing who could sit down for half an hour to support the competitors.
b) It was informally run. It's very possible that the players didn't mind or it was more comfortable for them that way, but I was uncomfortable with it as a spectator.
-Although I didn't like the informal feeling to the other competitions, I liked the way that Circle Shred was adapted to start from a full hack by the players instead of getting a hand toss from the announcer. It felt too weird that way, it's more natural and like the circle controlled the bag instead of an outside force telling them when to start.
-So I had the one gripe about it, but at every other point during the weekend I found myself thinking "This is a great event." Even after leaving the happy footbag event haze, I still feel the same way. Man, that was fun. There were at least two points that I found myself wanting to skip because I was enjoying myself so much. Yes, it was
that fun. It was also fun to see someone have their first experience at an event.
I felt like everyone was taken care of for rides, the venue was nice, there was evening entertainment and group meals,
DOUGHNUTS, Justin let everyone eat anything we wanted to from his kitchen- which is super generous, and that the group of people that came out was really fun to hang out with and every-amazing to watch.
EDIT: I hit ripwalk>ripwalk for the first time in a
long time.
Edit II:
-Pumpkins in the road
-Seeing Borat with a bunch of footbag players was way fun. We did it before the venue was open on Friday, so it wasn't even like it was taking time away from footbag. Very nice.
-I only brought my lavers. I thought it would be indulgent to have an extra pair of shoes with me. You can probably guess from this intro that I should have brought a 2nd pair of shoes. Why? Rain, and lots of it.
EDIT III!: I can't believe I forgot to include this part. Scott, Brett, Dustin, Fletch and I were in Scott's car. We went through a tunnel and at least four of us held our breath. We kept going as long as we could. I was winning... except for Dustin getting in my way. He decided to hold his breath twice as long as any of us could. Turns out he has held his breath for over two minutes in the past, and he used to be on the swimming team and yada yada. Way to hold out on us, Dustin. Way to be a ringer.
"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Emily Kulczyk
I had a few good runs, but mostly schooled. Lots of ducking practice all session. I still can't do it, ha! 
Crumbs, hahahaha. 
