I got a present from Dave Clavens in the mail today.
It kind of just spilled out of the envelope and puddled in my hand.
This bag is EXACTLY how I just described it; it's practically liquid. (I think I will call it Liquid (like Liquid Snake -- but you have to say it the same way that Snake says it...like really breathy and emphatically!)). I haven't been inspired to name a bag for, like, 4 years.
I'm so excited to fill my bags! Ahh! Two more days! (ish?)
It seems like I may miss Open Finals, and the Player's Party. I am looking into changing my flight for $120, but something's not right. I will know when I call again in the morning.
I'm totally bringing bubble tea stuff.
People better like it.
It looks like the Super WalMart is about a 10 minute walk away-ish. It looks like it's just North through Terra Verde, through a parking lot, and across some main street.
Muffinman
WORLDS 2007
Day 1
I met Ben Roscoe at the airport in the morning. We had agreed to meet at a certain time, but then I read in my itinerary thing that I should be there much, much earlier than I planned, so I left him a message on his sister's answering machine saying that I was going to be there at 4:00 instead of 5:30 and that he should too, so that he doesn't miss the plane. I got there and hung around until, like, 5:30ish until Ben appeared at the top of the escalator. I signalled him over and we boarded, like, 10 minutes later. (Close call!)
Everything was okay on the flights, except for a 2 hour delay at our stop-over in Detroit. We were supposed to fly 15 minutes to Flint (such a sort flight that they don't bother going high up into the sky), but were delayed 2 hours! Many people complained that they could have driven there in much less time. So in the end we ended up missing our ride with Jimmy Ball at the airport (our next connecting flight was the same flight in Flint to Orlando). We complained and got free food. We got, like, 3 slices of pizza, a spaghetti dinner with chicken, a drink, and cheesecake. It was way more than enough and pretty awesome. Then we went around trying to find out what to do. We tried to call the house, then I tried to call Henry Griese, because he was supposed to be in around the same time. Then we were wandering to get a taxi and or call Jimmy Ball, and just as we were looking for someone to borrow a quarter from, I noticed Waylon Lew (well not at first). I took a double take and he got up and started walking towards us and I heard him say onto his phone, "Oh nevermind I just found them." That was kind of neat. I think he was talking to Jimmy, and Jimmy knew that our flight was delayed, and told Waylon to find us so that he could come get us all together. We went a played a little at baggage claim, and talked about stitching and footbags. Then we got a call from Will Digges saying he just landed, so we waited with him and his luggage and then called Jimmy, and got a ride to Terra Verde.
We stopped at Tom Mosher's rental house and saw people playing footbag and everything. A few people came over to say hi. I think it was Tom and Peng, and we shook hands, and Matthew Cross, and Paul Agostinelli, and Chris Dean, and then I finally met Brian Dennis and PegLeg Holly Matthews. We got out and saug hi for a bit and stuff. Then we drove to our own house where we went in, figured out where our rooms were, and started putting things away. I came downstairs after dropping off my things and in the doorway stood a bunch of new faces that I recognized but never met before: Mike Hansen, Emily Kulchyk(?), Fletcher Funk (was there someone else too?) And that was really neat. I didn't get to hang out with Mike Hansen much, but he seems super, super nice. Then we hung out in the living room and Jeremy Mirken wandered into our house! So cool! I also met Ben Roscoe's friend, James, who we were worried about, since we weren't sure if he made it to Terra Verde okay.
We decided to go over to Tom's house to get in on that wicked shred. It was at least Johnny and I, but I forget who else. We pretty much got thereas everyone else was leaving, which sucked, and seemed to be a theme over the course of the first few days at least. I played in a circle with Johnny and John Bagi. Someone else too, but they left shortly after... Someone good, I think. In the other circle was Ben Roscoe, Matt Cross, Tom Mosher, and maybe Ianek. Shred was okay, but not good or great. It was really dark and it was my first shred in the Florida heat (INCREDIBLY hot and humid! -- pouring sweat just STANDING outside...) and I was literally pouring sweat, even at night. hen we arrived I think Jim Penske and Daryl and Lon and some people were just leaving. Jim said that he wanted to play with me at some point, and that was really cool. I'd never really met him before, really. Some highlights of shred were Johnny hitting genesis > blazing butterfly, janiwalker BSOS (meh -- he's much better than that), lots of blazing, and a close attempt at alpine fury. We played until about 1 or 2 in the morning, which was just a couple of hours. Fletcher and Emily came and watched a little, but then left. Other people did too, but with no glasses I couldn't see anything. John Bagi's girlfriend, Stefan watched a lot too, but I didn't really know her until later in the week. At the end John and Stefan offered us a ride back, but Johnny and I decided to walk (like 10 minute walk or so). Just as we were leaving, a convertible full of footbaggers drove by. There was Daryl Genz, and Sunny, Justin Dale, Jim Penske, and other people I forget, and Lon Smith laying on the back of the car, hanging off the end and being his eccentric self.
We went back to the house. I went and had a shower, and when I came out a bunch more people happened to be standing right outside the bathroom door on the second floor landing: Dave Clavens, Nathan Pipenberg, Gray Chadwick, and Ashley Danowski. I didn't recognize Nathan at all, which was kind of weird. That was really cool. Then Andrew Grant stepped out of the other bathroom from his shower, except he was wearing much less than I was, and there was a semi-awkward moment. I think Ianek also came to our house at one point that night. Ianek is so great -- I like him a lot. I also really like saying his name. Before I met him I always said "EE-aahn-ehk", and I like being able to say it properly -- it sounds good. Umm Then I guess... I went to bed?
(To be continued)
Day 1
I met Ben Roscoe at the airport in the morning. We had agreed to meet at a certain time, but then I read in my itinerary thing that I should be there much, much earlier than I planned, so I left him a message on his sister's answering machine saying that I was going to be there at 4:00 instead of 5:30 and that he should too, so that he doesn't miss the plane. I got there and hung around until, like, 5:30ish until Ben appeared at the top of the escalator. I signalled him over and we boarded, like, 10 minutes later. (Close call!)
Everything was okay on the flights, except for a 2 hour delay at our stop-over in Detroit. We were supposed to fly 15 minutes to Flint (such a sort flight that they don't bother going high up into the sky), but were delayed 2 hours! Many people complained that they could have driven there in much less time. So in the end we ended up missing our ride with Jimmy Ball at the airport (our next connecting flight was the same flight in Flint to Orlando). We complained and got free food. We got, like, 3 slices of pizza, a spaghetti dinner with chicken, a drink, and cheesecake. It was way more than enough and pretty awesome. Then we went around trying to find out what to do. We tried to call the house, then I tried to call Henry Griese, because he was supposed to be in around the same time. Then we were wandering to get a taxi and or call Jimmy Ball, and just as we were looking for someone to borrow a quarter from, I noticed Waylon Lew (well not at first). I took a double take and he got up and started walking towards us and I heard him say onto his phone, "Oh nevermind I just found them." That was kind of neat. I think he was talking to Jimmy, and Jimmy knew that our flight was delayed, and told Waylon to find us so that he could come get us all together. We went a played a little at baggage claim, and talked about stitching and footbags. Then we got a call from Will Digges saying he just landed, so we waited with him and his luggage and then called Jimmy, and got a ride to Terra Verde.
We stopped at Tom Mosher's rental house and saw people playing footbag and everything. A few people came over to say hi. I think it was Tom and Peng, and we shook hands, and Matthew Cross, and Paul Agostinelli, and Chris Dean, and then I finally met Brian Dennis and PegLeg Holly Matthews. We got out and saug hi for a bit and stuff. Then we drove to our own house where we went in, figured out where our rooms were, and started putting things away. I came downstairs after dropping off my things and in the doorway stood a bunch of new faces that I recognized but never met before: Mike Hansen, Emily Kulchyk(?), Fletcher Funk (was there someone else too?) And that was really neat. I didn't get to hang out with Mike Hansen much, but he seems super, super nice. Then we hung out in the living room and Jeremy Mirken wandered into our house! So cool! I also met Ben Roscoe's friend, James, who we were worried about, since we weren't sure if he made it to Terra Verde okay.
We decided to go over to Tom's house to get in on that wicked shred. It was at least Johnny and I, but I forget who else. We pretty much got thereas everyone else was leaving, which sucked, and seemed to be a theme over the course of the first few days at least. I played in a circle with Johnny and John Bagi. Someone else too, but they left shortly after... Someone good, I think. In the other circle was Ben Roscoe, Matt Cross, Tom Mosher, and maybe Ianek. Shred was okay, but not good or great. It was really dark and it was my first shred in the Florida heat (INCREDIBLY hot and humid! -- pouring sweat just STANDING outside...) and I was literally pouring sweat, even at night. hen we arrived I think Jim Penske and Daryl and Lon and some people were just leaving. Jim said that he wanted to play with me at some point, and that was really cool. I'd never really met him before, really. Some highlights of shred were Johnny hitting genesis > blazing butterfly, janiwalker BSOS (meh -- he's much better than that), lots of blazing, and a close attempt at alpine fury. We played until about 1 or 2 in the morning, which was just a couple of hours. Fletcher and Emily came and watched a little, but then left. Other people did too, but with no glasses I couldn't see anything. John Bagi's girlfriend, Stefan watched a lot too, but I didn't really know her until later in the week. At the end John and Stefan offered us a ride back, but Johnny and I decided to walk (like 10 minute walk or so). Just as we were leaving, a convertible full of footbaggers drove by. There was Daryl Genz, and Sunny, Justin Dale, Jim Penske, and other people I forget, and Lon Smith laying on the back of the car, hanging off the end and being his eccentric self.
We went back to the house. I went and had a shower, and when I came out a bunch more people happened to be standing right outside the bathroom door on the second floor landing: Dave Clavens, Nathan Pipenberg, Gray Chadwick, and Ashley Danowski. I didn't recognize Nathan at all, which was kind of weird. That was really cool. Then Andrew Grant stepped out of the other bathroom from his shower, except he was wearing much less than I was, and there was a semi-awkward moment. I think Ianek also came to our house at one point that night. Ianek is so great -- I like him a lot. I also really like saying his name. Before I met him I always said "EE-aahn-ehk", and I like being able to say it properly -- it sounds good. Umm Then I guess... I went to bed?
(To be continued)
-
PegLegHolly
- Swashbuckler
- Posts: 2475
- Joined: 02 Aug 2006 17:43
- Location: Cleveland, OH
- Contact:
Day 2
I made notes during the week in my little sketchbook so that I would have some highlights to remember everything and help me write my write-up when I got home, but this day in particular I put off too long and don't have many notes for. So I will kind of try to remember things as I write now.
I guess we woke up. Right, things are coming back to me. Sam took Johnny and the girls (Richelle and Shanelle(?)) to do some grocery shopping in Ashley's car. Since there wasn't enough room, Jon Haber, Zach Forth, and myself made a list for some stuff we wanted them to pick up. They also went to get pedicures (though maybe this was a later time, because Jon had painted fingernails and toenails, and I don't think he went grocery shopping in the first trip...). Anyway, then people kept coming over asking if we were going to the event site to shred and register and whatnot, and we all said that we would wait for our friends and groceries, because otherwise we would be bailing. I think Ashley went for a swim in our pool. I think Zach and I stitched some. Jon worked on his paper, on his computer. Oh yeah, then there was also a bit of pool-side shred with Jon, Ashley, and Zach, and I just watched. I guess when they got back, Sam, Ashley, and myself went over to "The Party House" (Jon Nagela's rental house), because we heard there was a big shred session going down there. This was the second time that we ended up jstu missing a huge shred. Everyone had apparently left just before we arrived. We went into their garage and there was a 4-some person circle. Henry Griese, and I remember Jeff something, and a couple other people whose names I can't remember. It seemed like everyone had been playing for some time already. Sam and I joined for a little bit. I played really badly, and it was pretty frustrating. Sam got out his camera and he tried to film wwhile also playing in the same circle. Ashley helped film a bit, and they tag-teamed a bit (shredding).
I forget how this session ended, but I ended up playing maybe 30 minutes-ish. We all left the house and we were going to carry on to the event site. Man, so it was Sam, Ashley, myself, and maybe Henry. But then a group of Canadians came walking up and they wanted a ride. In total there were 9 people in Ashley's 4-or-5 seater, and it was hardcore. Let's see, there was Ashley driving, Sam in passenger, and Kevin Regamey sitting on Sam's lap... Then there was myself, Johnny, and... was it Henry? Maybe. I think it was someone else, though. Then there was Byrin in the trunk with Richelle (Johnny's girlfriend), and I think it was also Shanelle (Richelle's friend). We drove to the host hotel first where we had to register and pick up our credentials. I saw Steve Goldberg (and I think this was the only time all week, though he is a super busy guy). Fletch was selling his bags at the desk for registering for events. Then I got my credentials and a Worlds tshirt, which I later got about a bajillion signatures on. I saw Vasek and Honza chilling, and was really intimidated, and knew that I would never be able to introduce myself. Umm, I saw Caro, and said hi. I also met Dylan Fry and Justin Dale. Justin knew who I was, and Dylan kind of knew after he asked some questions. What else. I never actually saw the hotel shred site, but I heard that people were kicking there that day, and wanted in. I saw some footage from Paul Gressett's videos and it looked kinda neat. What else. Oh yeah, so we were going to try to make it over to the event site for some shred. Emily said that it was about a 10 minute walk or so. Then someone said it was more like a 45 minute walk. Then someone said there was a shuttle, but someone else said that the shuttle takes 45 minutes with stops and everything. And then I saw Ashley and Byrin walking past with purpose, and I took off after them for a ride, not realizing until the moment after that it was kind of rude for me to abandon other people who were trying to get there. I felt badly about that.
So we got to the event site and went through the gate and everything, and a whole bunch of people were leaving, Kyle Hewitt, and Zeb Jackson, and some other people I hadn't yet met, and Aaron Orton, whom I met for the first time. They kind of directed us to this building with a really quite small room with incredibly terrible carpet that made it impossible to see the bag. However, it was soooo cold inside (in an awesome way) that you could feel the air conditioning from a couple of metres away, outside of the doors (which they had propped open for some reason). Some fun shred went down here. I was in a circle with Byrin, Chris Dean, Ashley, and Scott Behmer (who's really nice and fun). Byrin was, of course, going off. Chris Dean was playing amazingly too. I played pretty well too, and Sam Colclough said he got quite a bit of good footage of me, which makes me excited. I also hit, like, stepping rev whirl > rev tomahawk [repeat] while Peter Irish was watching, which felt neat. I played decently in that circle. After this I joined a circle with Kevin Regamey, Justin Dale, and Kyle Hewitt; that was kind of a frustrating circle. Meh.
Then I went aside to get some water and Kevin asked how I was doing. My shins were quite sore, but I said pretty good, not knowing what he was getting at. And he said he wanted to film me by myself for a segment in his video. That was neat, I think I was the first one he filmed? So I said that I needed to shred right away or I would get cold. We went and found a spot and he took forever trying to get a lens cloth for his wideangle lens (which it turns out later he lost and Sam was pretty frustrated about). Then we finally found the spot and we saw little lizards everywhere, and it was super nice...so he went and filmed the lizards for, like, 20-30 minutes while my muscles got completely cold. Good thing it's so hot there and it's basically impossible to completely cool down. I stretched and stuff, waiting. It was really fun. He filmed from different angles, and got me to do specific things. It started out, like, blurry reverse whirl > stepping [repeat] > gyro DLO, and then a bunch of ducking stuff, and then he wanted ducking PS mirage BSOS, and then what, like, a spinning and ducking drill, and then reverse tomahawk back-to-back. That was pretty much it. It was really fun. I hit the 2 reverse tomahawks on second try just as Byrin walked up to watch, and that was neat.
Then we went back to the shred area. We'd missed our ride, and we tried to bum a ride off of the only people left, which was Zeb, Kyle, and the Las Vegas crew (Evan Gatesman, Ben Skaggs, and the other guy (Jeff?)). It ended up that there wasn't enough room, and Ben didn't want to risk anything (was it Ben driving? Yeah.) so he said he would drive them and then come back for us. It took, like, over an hour, which we learned later was due to this ridiculous traffic by Terra Verde. Basically there was a HUUUGE line up of cars in both directions, and only one lane available, which construction crews would direct a few cars at a time from each side. STUPID. It took us another hour or so to get back. Mucho props to Ben for being so wicked about that. Super props to EVERYONE who gave rides to everyone! You guys are the best and Worlds would have been impossible without you all!!!![b/] This is particularly aimed at Ashley Danowski and John Bagi, who drove me around the most. I gave Ben some money for gas, and he dropped us off at our house. While we waited for Ben to come back for us, Kevin taught me to 5-ball cascade, which I didn't get too well. Byrin went and sat down. Kevin did lots of juggling. We also met a player from Austria, whose name I forget, but I was glad we could get him a ride too, because he didn't seem to speak English too well, and he was the only one from Austria and didn't really know anyone. Then Kevin started talking about this dinner that he wanted to make -- shell pasta with a white sauce with shrimp and prawns. He asked if I wanted some, and of course I said yes, and I was really excited because the food that the guys picked me up earlier was just snacky stuff, and I didn't really have any meal food. I don't think I ate out the entire week, actually, which was mostly due to not having a ride anywhere. So my meals were mostly bananas, beef jerky, and granola bars... We also had a pizza night later on in the week, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So Kevin and Byrin's house was right across the street. I went into my house to shower and stuff and then hung out with my house a bit, and then went over for dinner. It was WEIRD. I didn't recognize anyone except my ShrEdmonton crew. It turns out that their house was a net house and it was all older people I didn't know! Weird, weird, weird! One offered me salad, and that was neat. Kevin gave me a beer and I hung out while he prepared dinner. I helped a bit, but felt kinda bad that I couldn't do more. The Vegas crew came over and hung out and I talked with them for a while, and that was neat. They did a bit of barefoot shred. I sat down and hung out with Denton for a bit with them too. Kolo also came over and advertised his wares, spread out across their dinner table. Actually, I met Kolo for the first time earlier that day at our house, while waiting for our groceries. I was, like, "Are you Kolo?" and he was, like, something in a French accent. He had this wicked haircut, advertising footfighters; it was the footfighter logo cut into the back of his head. I took a couple of pictures while he posed for me. So, yeah, I ate Kevin's pasta, and it was incredibly delicious -- man, was I hungry. And looked at people looking at his bags, and listening to Kolo try to scam them into buying stuff to support his trip back and other such fabrications... in a funny way. Kevin had to clear up that Kolo was not serious. Yip.
So I went back to my house. I think Kevin gave me another beer and he came over too (though, maybe this was a different day, also). I hung out with my house crew for a while. Then I think we were doing some stitching (Zach, Ben, Ashley, and myself did a bit of stitching off and on in our house every now and then), and I was excited to go to Tom's house and pick up the steel shot that Peng ordered for me. I asked if anyone wanted to go over there with me, and, like, Ben Roscoe and Johnny came with me (and others?). I got people to sign my Worlds shirt, and then I got more signatures at Tom's house, as everyone was leaving. I got Daryl, and Sunny, and Paul and Chris, and Will, and some others. Sunny really put a lot of effort into hers! I also got Jon Schneider, and met him for the first time, and he was really cool and said it was nice to finally meet me
Then I caught Tom, and asked for the filler, and he brought me this huge, super heavy bag of steel, and I was stoked, but also got a little worried about how I would get it back home, since it was so heavy, and...shotgun shot... Anyway, yeah, so that was Sunday. I forget what happened then. Oh yeah, everyone went to bed around 2 or 3, and I stayed up and filled, like, 2 bags that I had pre-made. Johnny lent me his scale and you know... that other tool that's wider at one end... I forget the word. I went to bed a bit later, maybe like 3:30 or 4.
Too bad I don't have pictures to go with all of this writing... stupid camera died
Actually, it hadn't died by this point, but I kept putting off picture-taking until a later date, and when I finally did it just fucked up...blah! I don't know if I will even be able to salvage those pictures... we'll see. It just seems kind of boring with all of this writing and nothing to accompany it.
(To be continued)
I made notes during the week in my little sketchbook so that I would have some highlights to remember everything and help me write my write-up when I got home, but this day in particular I put off too long and don't have many notes for. So I will kind of try to remember things as I write now.
I guess we woke up. Right, things are coming back to me. Sam took Johnny and the girls (Richelle and Shanelle(?)) to do some grocery shopping in Ashley's car. Since there wasn't enough room, Jon Haber, Zach Forth, and myself made a list for some stuff we wanted them to pick up. They also went to get pedicures (though maybe this was a later time, because Jon had painted fingernails and toenails, and I don't think he went grocery shopping in the first trip...). Anyway, then people kept coming over asking if we were going to the event site to shred and register and whatnot, and we all said that we would wait for our friends and groceries, because otherwise we would be bailing. I think Ashley went for a swim in our pool. I think Zach and I stitched some. Jon worked on his paper, on his computer. Oh yeah, then there was also a bit of pool-side shred with Jon, Ashley, and Zach, and I just watched. I guess when they got back, Sam, Ashley, and myself went over to "The Party House" (Jon Nagela's rental house), because we heard there was a big shred session going down there. This was the second time that we ended up jstu missing a huge shred. Everyone had apparently left just before we arrived. We went into their garage and there was a 4-some person circle. Henry Griese, and I remember Jeff something, and a couple other people whose names I can't remember. It seemed like everyone had been playing for some time already. Sam and I joined for a little bit. I played really badly, and it was pretty frustrating. Sam got out his camera and he tried to film wwhile also playing in the same circle. Ashley helped film a bit, and they tag-teamed a bit (shredding).
I forget how this session ended, but I ended up playing maybe 30 minutes-ish. We all left the house and we were going to carry on to the event site. Man, so it was Sam, Ashley, myself, and maybe Henry. But then a group of Canadians came walking up and they wanted a ride. In total there were 9 people in Ashley's 4-or-5 seater, and it was hardcore. Let's see, there was Ashley driving, Sam in passenger, and Kevin Regamey sitting on Sam's lap... Then there was myself, Johnny, and... was it Henry? Maybe. I think it was someone else, though. Then there was Byrin in the trunk with Richelle (Johnny's girlfriend), and I think it was also Shanelle (Richelle's friend). We drove to the host hotel first where we had to register and pick up our credentials. I saw Steve Goldberg (and I think this was the only time all week, though he is a super busy guy). Fletch was selling his bags at the desk for registering for events. Then I got my credentials and a Worlds tshirt, which I later got about a bajillion signatures on. I saw Vasek and Honza chilling, and was really intimidated, and knew that I would never be able to introduce myself. Umm, I saw Caro, and said hi. I also met Dylan Fry and Justin Dale. Justin knew who I was, and Dylan kind of knew after he asked some questions. What else. I never actually saw the hotel shred site, but I heard that people were kicking there that day, and wanted in. I saw some footage from Paul Gressett's videos and it looked kinda neat. What else. Oh yeah, so we were going to try to make it over to the event site for some shred. Emily said that it was about a 10 minute walk or so. Then someone said it was more like a 45 minute walk. Then someone said there was a shuttle, but someone else said that the shuttle takes 45 minutes with stops and everything. And then I saw Ashley and Byrin walking past with purpose, and I took off after them for a ride, not realizing until the moment after that it was kind of rude for me to abandon other people who were trying to get there. I felt badly about that.
So we got to the event site and went through the gate and everything, and a whole bunch of people were leaving, Kyle Hewitt, and Zeb Jackson, and some other people I hadn't yet met, and Aaron Orton, whom I met for the first time. They kind of directed us to this building with a really quite small room with incredibly terrible carpet that made it impossible to see the bag. However, it was soooo cold inside (in an awesome way) that you could feel the air conditioning from a couple of metres away, outside of the doors (which they had propped open for some reason). Some fun shred went down here. I was in a circle with Byrin, Chris Dean, Ashley, and Scott Behmer (who's really nice and fun). Byrin was, of course, going off. Chris Dean was playing amazingly too. I played pretty well too, and Sam Colclough said he got quite a bit of good footage of me, which makes me excited. I also hit, like, stepping rev whirl > rev tomahawk [repeat] while Peter Irish was watching, which felt neat. I played decently in that circle. After this I joined a circle with Kevin Regamey, Justin Dale, and Kyle Hewitt; that was kind of a frustrating circle. Meh.
Then I went aside to get some water and Kevin asked how I was doing. My shins were quite sore, but I said pretty good, not knowing what he was getting at. And he said he wanted to film me by myself for a segment in his video. That was neat, I think I was the first one he filmed? So I said that I needed to shred right away or I would get cold. We went and found a spot and he took forever trying to get a lens cloth for his wideangle lens (which it turns out later he lost and Sam was pretty frustrated about). Then we finally found the spot and we saw little lizards everywhere, and it was super nice...so he went and filmed the lizards for, like, 20-30 minutes while my muscles got completely cold. Good thing it's so hot there and it's basically impossible to completely cool down. I stretched and stuff, waiting. It was really fun. He filmed from different angles, and got me to do specific things. It started out, like, blurry reverse whirl > stepping [repeat] > gyro DLO, and then a bunch of ducking stuff, and then he wanted ducking PS mirage BSOS, and then what, like, a spinning and ducking drill, and then reverse tomahawk back-to-back. That was pretty much it. It was really fun. I hit the 2 reverse tomahawks on second try just as Byrin walked up to watch, and that was neat.
Then we went back to the shred area. We'd missed our ride, and we tried to bum a ride off of the only people left, which was Zeb, Kyle, and the Las Vegas crew (Evan Gatesman, Ben Skaggs, and the other guy (Jeff?)). It ended up that there wasn't enough room, and Ben didn't want to risk anything (was it Ben driving? Yeah.) so he said he would drive them and then come back for us. It took, like, over an hour, which we learned later was due to this ridiculous traffic by Terra Verde. Basically there was a HUUUGE line up of cars in both directions, and only one lane available, which construction crews would direct a few cars at a time from each side. STUPID. It took us another hour or so to get back. Mucho props to Ben for being so wicked about that. Super props to EVERYONE who gave rides to everyone! You guys are the best and Worlds would have been impossible without you all!!!![b/] This is particularly aimed at Ashley Danowski and John Bagi, who drove me around the most. I gave Ben some money for gas, and he dropped us off at our house. While we waited for Ben to come back for us, Kevin taught me to 5-ball cascade, which I didn't get too well. Byrin went and sat down. Kevin did lots of juggling. We also met a player from Austria, whose name I forget, but I was glad we could get him a ride too, because he didn't seem to speak English too well, and he was the only one from Austria and didn't really know anyone. Then Kevin started talking about this dinner that he wanted to make -- shell pasta with a white sauce with shrimp and prawns. He asked if I wanted some, and of course I said yes, and I was really excited because the food that the guys picked me up earlier was just snacky stuff, and I didn't really have any meal food. I don't think I ate out the entire week, actually, which was mostly due to not having a ride anywhere. So my meals were mostly bananas, beef jerky, and granola bars... We also had a pizza night later on in the week, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So Kevin and Byrin's house was right across the street. I went into my house to shower and stuff and then hung out with my house a bit, and then went over for dinner. It was WEIRD. I didn't recognize anyone except my ShrEdmonton crew. It turns out that their house was a net house and it was all older people I didn't know! Weird, weird, weird! One offered me salad, and that was neat. Kevin gave me a beer and I hung out while he prepared dinner. I helped a bit, but felt kinda bad that I couldn't do more. The Vegas crew came over and hung out and I talked with them for a while, and that was neat. They did a bit of barefoot shred. I sat down and hung out with Denton for a bit with them too. Kolo also came over and advertised his wares, spread out across their dinner table. Actually, I met Kolo for the first time earlier that day at our house, while waiting for our groceries. I was, like, "Are you Kolo?" and he was, like, something in a French accent. He had this wicked haircut, advertising footfighters; it was the footfighter logo cut into the back of his head. I took a couple of pictures while he posed for me. So, yeah, I ate Kevin's pasta, and it was incredibly delicious -- man, was I hungry. And looked at people looking at his bags, and listening to Kolo try to scam them into buying stuff to support his trip back and other such fabrications... in a funny way. Kevin had to clear up that Kolo was not serious. Yip.
So I went back to my house. I think Kevin gave me another beer and he came over too (though, maybe this was a different day, also). I hung out with my house crew for a while. Then I think we were doing some stitching (Zach, Ben, Ashley, and myself did a bit of stitching off and on in our house every now and then), and I was excited to go to Tom's house and pick up the steel shot that Peng ordered for me. I asked if anyone wanted to go over there with me, and, like, Ben Roscoe and Johnny came with me (and others?). I got people to sign my Worlds shirt, and then I got more signatures at Tom's house, as everyone was leaving. I got Daryl, and Sunny, and Paul and Chris, and Will, and some others. Sunny really put a lot of effort into hers! I also got Jon Schneider, and met him for the first time, and he was really cool and said it was nice to finally meet me
Then I caught Tom, and asked for the filler, and he brought me this huge, super heavy bag of steel, and I was stoked, but also got a little worried about how I would get it back home, since it was so heavy, and...shotgun shot... Anyway, yeah, so that was Sunday. I forget what happened then. Oh yeah, everyone went to bed around 2 or 3, and I stayed up and filled, like, 2 bags that I had pre-made. Johnny lent me his scale and you know... that other tool that's wider at one end... I forget the word. I went to bed a bit later, maybe like 3:30 or 4.Too bad I don't have pictures to go with all of this writing... stupid camera died
Actually, it hadn't died by this point, but I kept putting off picture-taking until a later date, and when I finally did it just fucked up...blah! I don't know if I will even be able to salvage those pictures... we'll see. It just seems kind of boring with all of this writing and nothing to accompany it.(To be continued)
Just to clarify, I was passing on the information that I had received about the walking distance. Only later did I find out that it was too far to walk and that the bus took 45 minutes to get there. 
It was great meeting you. Everyone feels this way about everyone at worlds, but I wish I had gotten to spend more time hanging out with you.
See you next time,
Emily
It was great meeting you. Everyone feels this way about everyone at worlds, but I wish I had gotten to spend more time hanging out with you.See you next time,
Emily
"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
Emily Kulczyk
Day 3
I woke up around 10 or 11. One night Andrew left the door of our room open when he went to bed and in the morning I could hear if people were up, and I kind of liked that, and wasn't sure if he did it on purpose, so the next night I asked if he wanted the door left open, and he was just, like, "It doesn't matter." So I left it open every night after, and I liked that I could tell when others were up so I could judge when to wake up myself. Some mornings the phone ringing would wake me up too, and that was good later on in the week when I was expecting calls (especially from Fletcher Funk on my last day to figure out our airport transport). So I woke up and a couple of people were up, I suppose, and I filled a third bag of mine, the one that I knew ahead of time was my best bag so far. It was green atomic with alternating white and pink, and it was really pretty. Then what, I think I filled another, 'cause I'd finished four. After coming home and playing around with one of them I realize that they are quite a bit too big after all, so my current bag has some tighter gather and it should be radical.
We were going to leave for the event site, but I think we were waiting for someone, so we went next door to Jorden and Dave's house and hung out a bit. I saw Tina Aeberli, but didn't introduce myself yet -- more intimidation. I think I just hung out at the front door and waited around. Sam had bought a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread the other day, and he hit swirl with it for David's camcorder... like, a loaf of bread! We left Dave's house and waited outside for Phil Morrisson, who was staying across the street at ShrEdmonton's house (footbag neighbourhood!! -- I think we had the BEST location!) Then we went and picked up Jon Haber from the clubhouse (which I never actually ended up seeing, but was apparently really nice with a huge pool (our house pools were pretty small). And before heading to the event site we stopped at a few places to try to find an ankle bandage for Phil (he was injured from socccer just the week before Worlds and couldn't play at all except comp (and maybe a little more). We stopped at a grocery store first and I picked up some snack food, beef jerky, bananas, snapple, and crackers, and Phil couldn't find his bandage. After checkout, someone was tossing peanut M&M's into peoples mouths (I think it was Sam) and everyone caught except Ashley, and that was neato. We had Sunny's son with us too, whom we picked up at the Freedom house, I guess. Then we checked at WalMart and we had a huge discussion about why WalMart is evil, although this may have been a different day, because I remember Emily being there, and I don't think she was there this time...although maybe she was, if Sunny's son was... Oh yeah, she was, I think, Jon and Dylan (is that his name?) sat in the trunk, and Phil, Emily, and myself sat in the middle. That's right. We got beeped at by the WalMart security thingies, like, three times.
Then we got lost for a long time trying to get to the Disney World of Sports (event site), as with most days, until, like, halfway through the week. Lucky for John Bagi, they had a GPS system (I rode with them more near the end of the week). I got Jon to take a picture of me in front of the Disney thing, and then I took one of him. We arrived at the site at about 1:30, in that same crappy carpeted room. Oh, the other day, during shred, a bunch of net players had come in and watched us for some reason, and that was weird. There's something a little unsettling about net players...maybe because we just don't associate, or because I don't know any of them, or something... I don't know. It's weird. So yeah, then Ianek asked if I would judge circle comp, and I said yeah. I played a bit with Zach Forth and some other guys. Then I went outside and played with Henry G, and Kevin Regamey, and Ben Skaggs, and... I think Mathieu G? Then Tom Mosher wanted to start a new circle, and I left with him and Jay Boychuk. Then Pengpeng joined, and that was neat because I had never ever seen her play before, but now that I think about it, I don't really remember seeing her play, although I must have at least a little. Then another guy came and asked if he could join, and Tom was, like, "I kind of wanted to keep this a 4-person circle". And I felt badly, so I left and started a circle of just him and me. I played pretty well with him, and did lots of just ducking and spinning runs. Then someone else joined just as I was close to finished (man it was hot outside!!! -- actually, half the time I left outdoor circles was due to the excessive sweating, and not to tiredness or soreness...), so I went back inside and mopped myself up and ate some food and caught some of the epic circle of Scott Bevier, Jorden, Jim, and Lon. I'm in the background in Paul Gressett's video of that circle. I'm the sweaty one. Jim hit pdx torque > barroque [repeat], and he also had a sick run with stepping ducking everything (like ripped, spikehammer, maybe jacknife all BSOS), and then a leviathan, and ended on alpine food processor... There was a run some time, too, where he BSOSed leviathan, I'm sure.
Then I sat and judged circle for quite some time, with Matt Cross, and Dave Clavens (I've always said "CLAY-vens", for some reason, but learned that it's "CLAH-vens"... that was kind of weird, and I'm not sure if I will be able to change how I say it. I probably called him "CLAY-vens" to his face. That's kind of embarassing.) I was soaked from my sweaty clothes and had to change after a few rounds of circle, 'cause I was started to get REALLY REALLY cold. I shared some food, and stole a few handfuls of Ianek's awesome trail mix. Dave really loved Johnny's shred, and I felt proud, which is kind of weird I guess. Johnny is so awesome... and so untapped. He hit, like, nuclear ducking swirl, and nuclear same symple swirl, or something... and Dave loved it. At one point, during a break from circle rounds I looked away for a second and missed Jim hitting triple whirl clean, apparently. Justin Dale hit, like, spinning ducking pincher in circle, and he got big points for that. Most players didn't really seem to understand the "variety" round of circle -- what an awesome event though -- Ianek is the man! He is soooo nice too. I love Ianek. At one point, Matt and Dave were making fun of players and laughing at them for some reason, and so I called them (Matt + Dave) jerks, in a fun way, and they seemed to like that. I also talked to Pegleg and Brinard a bit while watching the epic circle, and that was nice.
After circle, I went outside for more shred. I joined a circle with Henry and some other players and Dave wanted to film. I played really badly and I felt dumb because every single time Dave watched me during the week, which he seemed kind of excited about, I played terribly. I think the same about a few people. Like I never played well in a circle with Henry, and I think he felt the same way. I played bad with Ken, and I played my worst probably, with Jim. Bleh. It feels so sucky to play your worst when the big names are there! After a bit, Wiktor wanted to join, and he was kind of ignored for some reason, so I split off and started a circle with him. Then Kevin Crowley joined. Justin Dale also joined, but started toe scraping Kevin's bag. Kevin said, like, super politely that he didn't want his bag toe scraped, and Justin was, like, "Oh, okay, thanks for telling me!" and stalked away -- we were pretty shocked. I noticed a lot of bigger players toe scraping and also heard a story about how Lon had this super old Lonn Irish bag and, like, told someone "No hands", and commanded him to toe scrape this super old bag...played kinda bad, and Kevin played awesome as usual (averaging, like, 40+ contact runs!). Wiktor played decently, and his game started to get better after a bit too. He hit symp whirl > pdx flail [repeat] and other stuff. Oh yeah, Kevin also hit merlin > symp torque!! That was huge! Then Wiktor tried, and I forget if he hit it or not. Then, I think, after Kevin left I played some of the best I did all week, and that was neat. I started a pretty long run with dimwalk > fog [repeat], and another run with pixie ducking clipper > blur [repeat]. Wiktor found a big water bottle and filled it as a communal bottle for us all, and that was nice. Daryl joined, and then Aaron Orton joined. I think I got props for, like, every single turn around I had -- it felt sooo neat!! Daryl was busting pretty large; he had a run with pixie muted same DLO BSOS, and then went for it again same run, I think. He did lots of pixie ducking stuff, and his pixie muted stuff. What else? Phoenix > blur [repeat], smog and pixie same DLO both BSOS. He was playing well, and that was so cool. Aaron hit blurriest > tomahawk. Gosia also joined near the end, but I had to leave due to sweat, again. Oh yeah, and in that earlier circle, Dave offered to keep my glassed in his pocket for me, but then I changed circles, and after a while he kind of disappeared, and I had no idea where he was, and couldn't see him, because... I didn't have my glasses on. Eventually I got them back, though, and I'd asked someone (I forget his name -- Josh?) to tell Dave if he saw him.
I went back inside and collected my stuff, and then came back outside again. I went and watched that initial circle that I'd joined with Henry, a bit, because I saw Andrew watching, and I hadn't really seen much of him yet. So I stood and talked to someone about something that I forget, and then I said that I wanted to go watch Yoga shred -- there was huge hype about him, and I wanted to see him play more (only watched him while judging circle, and he is smooooth!) So I went over, kind of down the corridor of palm trees, past the foursquare, to the circle of Jon Schneider, Yoga, Byrin, and Rory. I didn't end up getting to watch too much because I saw Dan Ednie watching, and kind of wanted to meet him, so I said hi. He misheard my name, and thought I said "Rick", so he kept calling me "Rick", and then he asked where I was from, and he was, like, "Oh, do you get to play with Andrew Grant, and Erik Chan?" And then I was, like, "I am Erik". And then I forget what happened, but he asked about Derek a lot, and seemed really interested. Evan Gatesman came over and talked with us for a bit too, while watching. Then Dan spotted Phil Morrisson watching anotehr circle, or something, just sitting alone, and he said he was going to go over and hang out with him, and that I should come, so I did. I was super excited. For some reason I thought Dan was in BAP -- he isnt?? Well, whatever, he is that good anyway (man his routine was incredible!! And his shred is even moreso! He is so consistent, with sick tricks and combos!!!), so I was super excited to just be hanging out with Dan Ednie and Phil Morrisson. I brought up the sensative subject of footbaggers confusing Australia with New Zealand, when I myself couldn't remember where each was from. I will always remember, now, though, that Phil is from New Zealand, and Dan from Australia.... (right??)... haha. They went on about that for a bit. Then later I was hanging out with Johnny Suderman, I think, and these two, and he made that mistake and, like, asked Phil what it was like in Australia, and I was just, like, "Oh no, Johnny!" and, like, shaking my head. Maybe it was someone else, though.
Then we saw Seb playing in a circle with Evan Gatesman and Byrin and Ianek, and that was SICK! So I said I was going to go watch, so I went and sat with Henry and Mathieu and watched. Seb is amazing. Then Paul Gressett came and sat down next to me and introduced himself, and that was neat. I think that was the only time I really talked to him, though, and that was too bad. I watched the shred for some time, and it was wicked. I shared some crackers with Henry as I did with Dan and Phil, and then Ashley came and asked if I wanted a ride and if I was ready to go soon. I said yeah, and waited as they tried to round everyone up. I got up and got my stuff, but they still weren't ready. I saw Yoga watching the same circle, but sitting alone, and he was another that I was intimidated by, and didn't plan on talking to, like, because he is too cool for me, but then I felt bad that he was alone, so I went and talked to him, and it was really neat, and he was, like, "Yes, Erik Chan, I watched your latest video" and that was so cool! And so we talked about, and it was really nice, and then Ashley was ready so I said bye and we walked to the car. I sat in the back with a player from Michigan (Ashley gave me props for "stepping up and sitting in the back"), whom I talked to in teh trunk for, like, an hour or so, but I totally forgot his name and felt bad all week for that. We talked about everything, and it was really nice. Oh yeah, 'cause we got lost on the way back to Terra Verde too...
Sam lost his wallet, and said he'd forgot it at the foursquare, at the event site. he was really distressed, and we tried to contact people. Eventually it turned out that Andrew Grant had picked it up and saved the day. I think we had maybe stopped to buy some more food? I remember I had something that needed to go in the fridge. But I helped Phil carry some beer across the street ot the ShrEdmonton house. Kevin offered me a beer and I hung out a bit and worried about my thing that needed to go in the fridge (oh right -- I bought smokies... this must have been a different night... I am confusing times...) Oh, no, wait. We got back, and they went out to find Sam's wallet, Phil and I went to our own houses to shower, then Ashley came back, and the three of us went grocery shopping. That was fun. I gave some money for gas, but felt bad that I wasn't giving more, which was weird, because it seemed like she didn't want to accept my money each time I gave it to her. Yeah, so then that happened, and Kevin gave me a beer and we ended up going over to our house and what?... Byrin played some pool with James (Ben Roscoe's friend), and we hung out at our dining table and Kevin and Jon Haber advertised that website where they buy all of their tshirts. Then Rory was really excited about the flipside water balloon fight at the Freedom house, and got on his complimentary emergency poncho. Jon did too. Then Dave came over and hit ripstein with the bag that I made and gave me a tip as we walked over to the Freedom house.
I felt pretty awkward at the party, and kind of really just wanted to hang out with a couple of people...or much less anyway. I felt very out of place. I liked watching the water balloon fight. Umm. Jorden was organizing workshops (of which I never really heard much about...), and... yeah... some stuff happened and that's all. I noticed that Big Add Chad was standing in the kitchen and got really excited (another person who is too awesome to talk to...) Then I stole the chance to escape with Jon Haber, Ben Roscoe, and James. Then we came back and told some stories (according to my notes here), and I wrote stuff... Then Byrin came over and said that Ken Somolinos had arrived (it was about 1 AM). So Andrew, myself, and Byrin went over to Tom Mosher's house and we met Ken! Oh, though, after leaving out house, we saw Chad and someone else across the street, leaving the ShrEdmonton house. I was, like, "Whoa!" Chad came up and was, like, "Erik Chan!" and gave me a hug, and I was just flabberghasted, and then Byrin and Andrew both introduced themselves. That was sooo cool. Then Byrin and I started to walk away and I giggled and freaked out and was, like, "Big Add Chad knows my name!" Then when Andrew caught up to us and said the same thing again, and he said that he knows and he heard me say that when he was still back there talking to them... So we walked around back of Tom's house and met Ken; I got a sloppy wet hug, since he had been swimming in the pool and then Andrew and Ken caught up and Byrin and I kind of just stood there (and Scott Behmer and Jeff too, I think? or something else... maybe not Scott). And it was kind of awkward and I couldn't really see anything because it was so dark out, and we were outside... and stuff. But it was nice to finally meet Ken. Then we walked back home and went to bed.
Well that was a long one. More to come!
I woke up around 10 or 11. One night Andrew left the door of our room open when he went to bed and in the morning I could hear if people were up, and I kind of liked that, and wasn't sure if he did it on purpose, so the next night I asked if he wanted the door left open, and he was just, like, "It doesn't matter." So I left it open every night after, and I liked that I could tell when others were up so I could judge when to wake up myself. Some mornings the phone ringing would wake me up too, and that was good later on in the week when I was expecting calls (especially from Fletcher Funk on my last day to figure out our airport transport). So I woke up and a couple of people were up, I suppose, and I filled a third bag of mine, the one that I knew ahead of time was my best bag so far. It was green atomic with alternating white and pink, and it was really pretty. Then what, I think I filled another, 'cause I'd finished four. After coming home and playing around with one of them I realize that they are quite a bit too big after all, so my current bag has some tighter gather and it should be radical.
We were going to leave for the event site, but I think we were waiting for someone, so we went next door to Jorden and Dave's house and hung out a bit. I saw Tina Aeberli, but didn't introduce myself yet -- more intimidation. I think I just hung out at the front door and waited around. Sam had bought a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread the other day, and he hit swirl with it for David's camcorder... like, a loaf of bread! We left Dave's house and waited outside for Phil Morrisson, who was staying across the street at ShrEdmonton's house (footbag neighbourhood!! -- I think we had the BEST location!) Then we went and picked up Jon Haber from the clubhouse (which I never actually ended up seeing, but was apparently really nice with a huge pool (our house pools were pretty small). And before heading to the event site we stopped at a few places to try to find an ankle bandage for Phil (he was injured from socccer just the week before Worlds and couldn't play at all except comp (and maybe a little more). We stopped at a grocery store first and I picked up some snack food, beef jerky, bananas, snapple, and crackers, and Phil couldn't find his bandage. After checkout, someone was tossing peanut M&M's into peoples mouths (I think it was Sam) and everyone caught except Ashley, and that was neato. We had Sunny's son with us too, whom we picked up at the Freedom house, I guess. Then we checked at WalMart and we had a huge discussion about why WalMart is evil, although this may have been a different day, because I remember Emily being there, and I don't think she was there this time...although maybe she was, if Sunny's son was... Oh yeah, she was, I think, Jon and Dylan (is that his name?) sat in the trunk, and Phil, Emily, and myself sat in the middle. That's right. We got beeped at by the WalMart security thingies, like, three times.
Then we got lost for a long time trying to get to the Disney World of Sports (event site), as with most days, until, like, halfway through the week. Lucky for John Bagi, they had a GPS system (I rode with them more near the end of the week). I got Jon to take a picture of me in front of the Disney thing, and then I took one of him. We arrived at the site at about 1:30, in that same crappy carpeted room. Oh, the other day, during shred, a bunch of net players had come in and watched us for some reason, and that was weird. There's something a little unsettling about net players...maybe because we just don't associate, or because I don't know any of them, or something... I don't know. It's weird. So yeah, then Ianek asked if I would judge circle comp, and I said yeah. I played a bit with Zach Forth and some other guys. Then I went outside and played with Henry G, and Kevin Regamey, and Ben Skaggs, and... I think Mathieu G? Then Tom Mosher wanted to start a new circle, and I left with him and Jay Boychuk. Then Pengpeng joined, and that was neat because I had never ever seen her play before, but now that I think about it, I don't really remember seeing her play, although I must have at least a little. Then another guy came and asked if he could join, and Tom was, like, "I kind of wanted to keep this a 4-person circle". And I felt badly, so I left and started a circle of just him and me. I played pretty well with him, and did lots of just ducking and spinning runs. Then someone else joined just as I was close to finished (man it was hot outside!!! -- actually, half the time I left outdoor circles was due to the excessive sweating, and not to tiredness or soreness...), so I went back inside and mopped myself up and ate some food and caught some of the epic circle of Scott Bevier, Jorden, Jim, and Lon. I'm in the background in Paul Gressett's video of that circle. I'm the sweaty one. Jim hit pdx torque > barroque [repeat], and he also had a sick run with stepping ducking everything (like ripped, spikehammer, maybe jacknife all BSOS), and then a leviathan, and ended on alpine food processor... There was a run some time, too, where he BSOSed leviathan, I'm sure.
Then I sat and judged circle for quite some time, with Matt Cross, and Dave Clavens (I've always said "CLAY-vens", for some reason, but learned that it's "CLAH-vens"... that was kind of weird, and I'm not sure if I will be able to change how I say it. I probably called him "CLAY-vens" to his face. That's kind of embarassing.) I was soaked from my sweaty clothes and had to change after a few rounds of circle, 'cause I was started to get REALLY REALLY cold. I shared some food, and stole a few handfuls of Ianek's awesome trail mix. Dave really loved Johnny's shred, and I felt proud, which is kind of weird I guess. Johnny is so awesome... and so untapped. He hit, like, nuclear ducking swirl, and nuclear same symple swirl, or something... and Dave loved it. At one point, during a break from circle rounds I looked away for a second and missed Jim hitting triple whirl clean, apparently. Justin Dale hit, like, spinning ducking pincher in circle, and he got big points for that. Most players didn't really seem to understand the "variety" round of circle -- what an awesome event though -- Ianek is the man! He is soooo nice too. I love Ianek. At one point, Matt and Dave were making fun of players and laughing at them for some reason, and so I called them (Matt + Dave) jerks, in a fun way, and they seemed to like that. I also talked to Pegleg and Brinard a bit while watching the epic circle, and that was nice.
After circle, I went outside for more shred. I joined a circle with Henry and some other players and Dave wanted to film. I played really badly and I felt dumb because every single time Dave watched me during the week, which he seemed kind of excited about, I played terribly. I think the same about a few people. Like I never played well in a circle with Henry, and I think he felt the same way. I played bad with Ken, and I played my worst probably, with Jim. Bleh. It feels so sucky to play your worst when the big names are there! After a bit, Wiktor wanted to join, and he was kind of ignored for some reason, so I split off and started a circle with him. Then Kevin Crowley joined. Justin Dale also joined, but started toe scraping Kevin's bag. Kevin said, like, super politely that he didn't want his bag toe scraped, and Justin was, like, "Oh, okay, thanks for telling me!" and stalked away -- we were pretty shocked. I noticed a lot of bigger players toe scraping and also heard a story about how Lon had this super old Lonn Irish bag and, like, told someone "No hands", and commanded him to toe scrape this super old bag...played kinda bad, and Kevin played awesome as usual (averaging, like, 40+ contact runs!). Wiktor played decently, and his game started to get better after a bit too. He hit symp whirl > pdx flail [repeat] and other stuff. Oh yeah, Kevin also hit merlin > symp torque!! That was huge! Then Wiktor tried, and I forget if he hit it or not. Then, I think, after Kevin left I played some of the best I did all week, and that was neat. I started a pretty long run with dimwalk > fog [repeat], and another run with pixie ducking clipper > blur [repeat]. Wiktor found a big water bottle and filled it as a communal bottle for us all, and that was nice. Daryl joined, and then Aaron Orton joined. I think I got props for, like, every single turn around I had -- it felt sooo neat!! Daryl was busting pretty large; he had a run with pixie muted same DLO BSOS, and then went for it again same run, I think. He did lots of pixie ducking stuff, and his pixie muted stuff. What else? Phoenix > blur [repeat], smog and pixie same DLO both BSOS. He was playing well, and that was so cool. Aaron hit blurriest > tomahawk. Gosia also joined near the end, but I had to leave due to sweat, again. Oh yeah, and in that earlier circle, Dave offered to keep my glassed in his pocket for me, but then I changed circles, and after a while he kind of disappeared, and I had no idea where he was, and couldn't see him, because... I didn't have my glasses on. Eventually I got them back, though, and I'd asked someone (I forget his name -- Josh?) to tell Dave if he saw him.
I went back inside and collected my stuff, and then came back outside again. I went and watched that initial circle that I'd joined with Henry, a bit, because I saw Andrew watching, and I hadn't really seen much of him yet. So I stood and talked to someone about something that I forget, and then I said that I wanted to go watch Yoga shred -- there was huge hype about him, and I wanted to see him play more (only watched him while judging circle, and he is smooooth!) So I went over, kind of down the corridor of palm trees, past the foursquare, to the circle of Jon Schneider, Yoga, Byrin, and Rory. I didn't end up getting to watch too much because I saw Dan Ednie watching, and kind of wanted to meet him, so I said hi. He misheard my name, and thought I said "Rick", so he kept calling me "Rick", and then he asked where I was from, and he was, like, "Oh, do you get to play with Andrew Grant, and Erik Chan?" And then I was, like, "I am Erik". And then I forget what happened, but he asked about Derek a lot, and seemed really interested. Evan Gatesman came over and talked with us for a bit too, while watching. Then Dan spotted Phil Morrisson watching anotehr circle, or something, just sitting alone, and he said he was going to go over and hang out with him, and that I should come, so I did. I was super excited. For some reason I thought Dan was in BAP -- he isnt?? Well, whatever, he is that good anyway (man his routine was incredible!! And his shred is even moreso! He is so consistent, with sick tricks and combos!!!), so I was super excited to just be hanging out with Dan Ednie and Phil Morrisson. I brought up the sensative subject of footbaggers confusing Australia with New Zealand, when I myself couldn't remember where each was from. I will always remember, now, though, that Phil is from New Zealand, and Dan from Australia.... (right??)... haha. They went on about that for a bit. Then later I was hanging out with Johnny Suderman, I think, and these two, and he made that mistake and, like, asked Phil what it was like in Australia, and I was just, like, "Oh no, Johnny!" and, like, shaking my head. Maybe it was someone else, though.
Then we saw Seb playing in a circle with Evan Gatesman and Byrin and Ianek, and that was SICK! So I said I was going to go watch, so I went and sat with Henry and Mathieu and watched. Seb is amazing. Then Paul Gressett came and sat down next to me and introduced himself, and that was neat. I think that was the only time I really talked to him, though, and that was too bad. I watched the shred for some time, and it was wicked. I shared some crackers with Henry as I did with Dan and Phil, and then Ashley came and asked if I wanted a ride and if I was ready to go soon. I said yeah, and waited as they tried to round everyone up. I got up and got my stuff, but they still weren't ready. I saw Yoga watching the same circle, but sitting alone, and he was another that I was intimidated by, and didn't plan on talking to, like, because he is too cool for me, but then I felt bad that he was alone, so I went and talked to him, and it was really neat, and he was, like, "Yes, Erik Chan, I watched your latest video" and that was so cool! And so we talked about, and it was really nice, and then Ashley was ready so I said bye and we walked to the car. I sat in the back with a player from Michigan (Ashley gave me props for "stepping up and sitting in the back"), whom I talked to in teh trunk for, like, an hour or so, but I totally forgot his name and felt bad all week for that. We talked about everything, and it was really nice. Oh yeah, 'cause we got lost on the way back to Terra Verde too...
Sam lost his wallet, and said he'd forgot it at the foursquare, at the event site. he was really distressed, and we tried to contact people. Eventually it turned out that Andrew Grant had picked it up and saved the day. I think we had maybe stopped to buy some more food? I remember I had something that needed to go in the fridge. But I helped Phil carry some beer across the street ot the ShrEdmonton house. Kevin offered me a beer and I hung out a bit and worried about my thing that needed to go in the fridge (oh right -- I bought smokies... this must have been a different night... I am confusing times...) Oh, no, wait. We got back, and they went out to find Sam's wallet, Phil and I went to our own houses to shower, then Ashley came back, and the three of us went grocery shopping. That was fun. I gave some money for gas, but felt bad that I wasn't giving more, which was weird, because it seemed like she didn't want to accept my money each time I gave it to her. Yeah, so then that happened, and Kevin gave me a beer and we ended up going over to our house and what?... Byrin played some pool with James (Ben Roscoe's friend), and we hung out at our dining table and Kevin and Jon Haber advertised that website where they buy all of their tshirts. Then Rory was really excited about the flipside water balloon fight at the Freedom house, and got on his complimentary emergency poncho. Jon did too. Then Dave came over and hit ripstein with the bag that I made and gave me a tip as we walked over to the Freedom house.
I felt pretty awkward at the party, and kind of really just wanted to hang out with a couple of people...or much less anyway. I felt very out of place. I liked watching the water balloon fight. Umm. Jorden was organizing workshops (of which I never really heard much about...), and... yeah... some stuff happened and that's all. I noticed that Big Add Chad was standing in the kitchen and got really excited (another person who is too awesome to talk to...) Then I stole the chance to escape with Jon Haber, Ben Roscoe, and James. Then we came back and told some stories (according to my notes here), and I wrote stuff... Then Byrin came over and said that Ken Somolinos had arrived (it was about 1 AM). So Andrew, myself, and Byrin went over to Tom Mosher's house and we met Ken! Oh, though, after leaving out house, we saw Chad and someone else across the street, leaving the ShrEdmonton house. I was, like, "Whoa!" Chad came up and was, like, "Erik Chan!" and gave me a hug, and I was just flabberghasted, and then Byrin and Andrew both introduced themselves. That was sooo cool. Then Byrin and I started to walk away and I giggled and freaked out and was, like, "Big Add Chad knows my name!" Then when Andrew caught up to us and said the same thing again, and he said that he knows and he heard me say that when he was still back there talking to them... So we walked around back of Tom's house and met Ken; I got a sloppy wet hug, since he had been swimming in the pool and then Andrew and Ken caught up and Byrin and I kind of just stood there (and Scott Behmer and Jeff too, I think? or something else... maybe not Scott). And it was kind of awkward and I couldn't really see anything because it was so dark out, and we were outside... and stuff. But it was nice to finally meet Ken. Then we walked back home and went to bed.
Well that was a long one. More to come!
Your worlds stories are fantastic 
They give a real feel for the event, thanks for posting them.
what did you think of the Australasian shred? Dan has a rock solid style eh? Pity Phil was injured, he sure can bust out some large moves.
just curious, why did you feel intimidated to introduce yourself to some of the other players?
They give a real feel for the event, thanks for posting them.LOL!Then later I was hanging out with Johnny Suderman, I think, and these two, and he made that mistake and, like, asked Phil what it was like in Australia, and I was just, like, "Oh no, Johnny!" and, like, shaking my head.
what did you think of the Australasian shred? Dan has a rock solid style eh? Pity Phil was injured, he sure can bust out some large moves.
just curious, why did you feel intimidated to introduce yourself to some of the other players?
Stitching tangent
(I just finished a new bag! It is going to be so key!
One of my biggest highlights at Worlds was a handful of awesome stitchers fawning over one of my bags. It was soooo cool. It was Tom, and Peng, and Matt, and Waylon (and maybe Holly and Brian, though I don't remember if they said anything about it) and they were all saying how nice it is and everything. And then Peng asked if she could have it, and I actually meant to give her a bag at Worlds anyway, but realized when I started filling them that they wouldn't be good enough yet, so I was really excited when she seemed like she actually wanted it! So I was, like, "Okay". And then Matt and Waylon were all jealous that she got to keep the bag:D:D And then she gave me another bag! Man alive! I tried to refuse it, in kindness, but I ended up with a new Peng bag. I think I fooled around with it once, and it was so nice that Nathan Pipenberg asked if he could use it for shred 30!! Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, since I will probably write about this next. Actually, I may just cut and paste this into my Day 4 write-up.
So, yeah. I started a tighter gather, and realized that the bag that I gave Peng is really quite large, well, I realized this beforehand, and that's why I tried a tighter gather. This one is NICE! It is about the size of my broken-in PegLeg and should get a bit bigger, like a Clavens. The thing with the other bag was that it STARTED a bit bigger than a Clavens, so it started getting much bigger. Anyway, yeah, I'm gonna fool around with this one now! It's light blue pents, and dark blue hexes -- I was excited about this combo before I ever started! It's a soccerball pattern too -- my first one, maybe!)
(I just finished a new bag! It is going to be so key!
One of my biggest highlights at Worlds was a handful of awesome stitchers fawning over one of my bags. It was soooo cool. It was Tom, and Peng, and Matt, and Waylon (and maybe Holly and Brian, though I don't remember if they said anything about it) and they were all saying how nice it is and everything. And then Peng asked if she could have it, and I actually meant to give her a bag at Worlds anyway, but realized when I started filling them that they wouldn't be good enough yet, so I was really excited when she seemed like she actually wanted it! So I was, like, "Okay". And then Matt and Waylon were all jealous that she got to keep the bag
:D:D And then she gave me another bag! Man alive! I tried to refuse it, in kindness, but I ended up with a new Peng bag. I think I fooled around with it once, and it was so nice that Nathan Pipenberg asked if he could use it for shred 30!! Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, since I will probably write about this next. Actually, I may just cut and paste this into my Day 4 write-up.So, yeah. I started a tighter gather, and realized that the bag that I gave Peng is really quite large, well, I realized this beforehand, and that's why I tried a tighter gather. This one is NICE! It is about the size of my broken-in PegLeg and should get a bit bigger, like a Clavens. The thing with the other bag was that it STARTED a bit bigger than a Clavens, so it started getting much bigger. Anyway, yeah, I'm gonna fool around with this one now! It's light blue pents, and dark blue hexes -- I was excited about this combo before I ever started! It's a soccerball pattern too -- my first one, maybe!)
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Badnfluenc
- Shredaholic
- Posts: 155
- Joined: 23 May 2005 20:48
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xXLoss_of_ControlXx
- Egyptian Footgod
- Posts: 1001
- Joined: 16 Aug 2005 22:01
- Location: Chicago,IL
Gee, thanks guys
Janis: I was intimidated because some people are superstars, and I am very timid.
Emily: I didn't mean to make it sound like it was your fault for relaying that it was a 10-minute walk, but yeah, I'm glad we didn't try to walk it
And yeah, I wish we could have hung out more too. You were really nice, and I liked meeting you a lot.
PegLeg: It was awesome to meet you too Too bad I didn't get to see much of you guys, though. And you missed out on bubble tea that I made just for Brian on his birthday. Sniff sniff.
Day 4
I woke up at around 10 or 11 (man, I -- like most people, I suppose -- got so little sleep this week! Usually, since my job ended, I have been sleeping, like, 12 hours a night...or more...). Andrew was making some calls about his luggage (he had quite an adventure trying to get to Florida via standby flights...and the neventually Greyhound, or whatever), and he was very excited when he got a call back saying that they confirmed the descriptions he provided and that they had his bags. So I think Ashley (though maybe John Bagi) drove him out to the airport. No, no, wait a second, did I already write about this? I think this must have been the second day, when they picked up groceries for us, because I remember they took a while and we had to wait for them to get back because they were getting something for us. So nevermind. This morning Johnny, Jon, and the girls went to WalMart, maybe to pick something up for us again? But also to get pedicures. I actually wanted to go with and experience one too. Oh yeah, wait, we were waiting for them to come back because we were all going to go to the event site together, and we thought that they would need rides? So, wait, they took John Bagi's van, and Ashley was here with us. Ashley and I watched some cooking TV, and it was kinda boring. Then what... I talked to Sam about filming and stuff, and he showed me some of the stuff he'd filmed of me, and the style he was using for his video. We went over to hang next door, at Jorden's again, waiting for them to get back. Steve (Jorden's dad) talked to me quite a bit about footbag and things. Dave was excited to show me a bag he was working on (the reason I went over in the first place, I think?) and we talked about facile, and we were going to make a trade, since he wanted some black, and I wanted some of his lighter brown. I introduced myself to Tina, kind of awkwardly, since she was sitting across the room on a couch. Then Ianek and Wiktor and Jorden were having a discussion about nicknames in Europe, and how "Honza" is the nickname for every Jan in Czech Republic (and how it's different for the same name in, say, Poland). And have Vasek is the nickname for Vaclav (or whatever), and how it is KIND of like how Tom is the nickname for Thomas, but how it is obviously not the same thing as just shortening the name... maybe it is more like how Dick is short for Richard? Anyway, that was a neat discussion.
Then I suggested that we should maybe go check to see if they'd returned, because we wouldn't know inside a different house. We decided that we would just go without them (it turns out that after waiting, like, 2 hours, that they'd gone straight to the site anyway). We drove out, Sam, Ashley, Dave and myself, and picked up Henry on the way. He asked if it was okay to give a ride to someone else too, though that would mean stuffing someone in the trunk, and there was a copcar right behind us. We were, like, "No time!" as Henry was getting out of the car to go get this other person, and then hopped back in again, looking really suspicious, so we drove oft, and the copcar followed us, but it turned out to be just coincidence, because outside of Terra Verde they weren't following anymore. When we got to the World of Sports, some other footbaggers where entering with us, Chad, and Justin, and Emily, and Fletch, etc. I looked around, put my stuff down in the bleachers, and went to change. I played in a circle with Henry, and Rory, and some others. I stayed in this circle for, like, half the time that I was there that day.
Then I sat down because I had quite a bit of pain in my shins, and I watched for a bit. Matt Cross (or was it Peng?) asked if he could see one of my bags. I had left my stuff by the Freedom kiosk thingy, actually, not the bleachers, and went and brought everything to the bleachers and showed him my bag. Matt, and Peng, and Tom, and Waylon all seemed to love it, and gave me lots of compliments. I kind of wrote about this in that last tangent post. Dave also gave me a tip on how to get a bag to break in better, which I want to try.
Then I got back into that circle and played some more, and the pain left. I didn't have my glasses on (my shred get-up for the week was my blue shorts, blue tanktop, black hat for sweat-retension, and black Climas, but I heard a whole bunch of props from the bleachers after some okay runs of mine, and that was super cool, especially since I saw people like Chad clapping for me! I didn't play too well in that circle, but not terribly either, at first. Then after a bit Ken joined and I played really badly. Ken hit some nice stuff, like, all of his 5s in runs and stuff. Highplains and then flurry other side and then, like, alpine parkwalk, blurriest, fog, fusion... That was a neat run. He didn't seem too impressed with himself, though. A bit later, Yoga wanted to join, but he was kind of ignored like Wiktor in that one circle the day before, and after he kind of dejectedly wandered away, I left the circle, and went after him and we formed our own. Then someone else joined, and then left. I think it was that same guy from...Vancouver, I think? The one that had scars all over his arm and face. We were kind of shoved over to the bleachers on the other side of the freestyle area (the small, three-tier bleachers), and some circle comp started, so we were really on the sidelines. I played some of my best with Yoga. Like, again, every single run he gave me props I did some stuff like stepping rev whirl > rev whirlygig BSOS, and other cool stuff in the same run, and I hit backside bedwetter for the first time. I think I footed alpine reverse whirlygig too. I don't know -- I played well! Yoga left, and the other guy came back, then Yoga came back, and the other guy left, and overall it was probably a 1-hour + session with Yoga, and it was so much fun!!
I sat and watched some Circle comp. Then I joined a circle with Andrew Grant, Dan Ednie, Byrin Wylie, and...another Canadian? Dan was BUSTING! I forget what, but his runs were just so long with huge links and stuff; so impressive!! Dan left shortly after I joined and it was an EPIC Canada circle -- who was that fourth player?? Oh yeah, Johnny! Hellz yeah! What a wicked circle!! There was some more of my best shred ever! We had a couple rotations of Canadian shred with the Canada #3 finger (famed for Byrin hitting cheese processor with it on in Kevin's MFJ4 video...). I hit backside bedwetter again. I was playing awesome and hard. After a while Nick Landes came up and gave me super props and he was, like, "I had no idea you were this good!" And he seemed super excited, and that felt sooo nice. I hit this one combo quite a few times at Worlds, tapping diving clipper > bedwetter (and then to various things, like, pixie rev whirl > blurry rev whirl, etc). I dunno; cool! Gray Chadwick filmed that circle, and I am STOKED to see his videos! I also had a run with pdx tap BSOS and lots of other stuff, and that was neat, 'cause that was the only nuclear I did all week. (I saw Brian Dennis hit nuclear same reverse whirl at one point, and that was neat!)
Then I watched more Circle comp. Then I joined a circle with Kevin Crowley and Byrin, and Nick Landes and then Justin Dale joined, and then Iron Clad joined later too. I think I played really awesome in that circle too. I had one bloody epic run where I did, like, everything that I can, like stepping rev whirl > blurry rev whirl [repeat], and gyro DLO, and spinning rev whirl, and then reverse whirlygig > reverse whirlygig midstring!! and then more, like, spinning rev whirl > rev tomahawk dropped (actually I remember hitting a rev tomahawk in that run, so either I dropped the BSOS, or I hit that one combo...). WOW! I was so stoked about that run, and I was really excited that a couple big players saw me do that! I also did some reverse whirlwinds in that circle, which I never do. I was also pretty close to spinning ducking nova (my would-be first 7) a couple of times! I should try that when I play next!!!
Circle was intense. Vasek hit nemesis BSOS in one run, furious flail BSOS, one run, started one run with whirring swirl, hit 4 superflies in a row in one run, also started a run with backside clownface (though, that may have been the next day?). Johnny started a run with whirr > whirlwalk. Apparently someone (Jorden?) hit a quad dex (other than Vasek's nemesii, obviously...). At the end of the day, I left with Ashley and Sam, and Tom, and Peng, and Matt, and sat in the trunk with Ken Somolinos (props again for sitting in the trunk). We "caught up", if that is possible having not met before, but we had an okay talk, and that was basically the only time I hung out with him. Oh yeah, while walking to the car I gave him a card that I made him, and he said that it was really touching, and he gave me a hug, and said that it was going to go in his scrapbook. That was sweet. I also gave Dave a card, but I forget when that was. He said it meant a lot to him. That was neat. I liked making them cards. I wish I'd have had more time to make some cards for people like Johnny for organizing the house, Peng for getting me shot, and being so great, and I didn't know ahead of time, but Ashley for being so awesome about rides and...awesome in general. And other people, of course. A highlight of our trunk talk, was his remembering Marita's name (my girlfriend), and I thought that was really neat of him, and in reading my surprise, he was, like, "I read" (referring to my blog). We made a stop for alcohol. We dropped off Tom, Peng, and Matt, at Tom's house, and then went back to our house. I made bubble tea for Ken, and, like, 15 other people. I tried to find Waylon for bubble tea, and called his phone, and it turned out that he was playing pool in our garage. Everyone liked the bubble tea. I apologized in advance to people who I thought knew their tea, because it turns out that I had semi-cooked bubbles, which are different from what I usually use, and so I didn't cook them quite right. Ken is like, super open and honest, and said that he didn't like the consistency of the bubbles. Waylon liked it. I didn't like the bubbles too much either, but they weren't terrible. Oh yeah, Ken also gave me a beer, and we toasted.
For some reason, TONS of people came over, and I got a lot of signatures on my shirt. (our house "Johnny and the kids" was supposed to be, like, the official "non-party" house, so at one point Johnny and Andrew had to tell people to be quiet because people were sleeping). Chad came and sat with me and we talked for, like, 30 minutes, and that was definitely a highlight. I talked about how it was him who basically got me into footbag, through "She's All That". I'd met Chad before at CSS4, like, 2004, but actually, we may have never actually MET, so I was super surprised by how nice he was to me, and how interested he was in talking with me. We talked about life and eveything and about his band (which I was super thankful later, when I wrote on his birthday card and had something person to talk about!) He's in a metal band, and we talked about his influences and stuff. We also talked about his job and stuff. We also talked about footbag and how he hasn't played for quite some time, but that when he gets back he is going to call Chris Pinkus and get back into the game (oh yeah!), and about injuries, and he said that he wanted to play with me the next day (we never ended up playing together). I had a talk about Chris Pinkus earlier, too, with Sam. I think he got back into Judo, after his World of Warcraft addiction. So yeah. Then there was a bit of awkward silence, and I took an opportunity to leave our talk on a good note, and disappeared for a bit.
Vasek was standing right beside me and I followed him back to our pool area, outside, and introduced myself (something I never thought that I would do!!), mostly to take advantage of his happening to be right there, and getting him to sign my shirt. I didn't really talk at all or anything... it was hard enough as it was to say hi. I also got Seb's signature (he said hi to me too, which was neat -- I had never met him before!), and I got Caro's signature, and maybe Dylan Fry? And Justin Dale, and Aaron Orton... and others. Ben Roscoe practiced his routine for, like, and hour or more, and it was rad. He is SO good. Somehow a Terra Verde poker game was taking place in our house, and people were hanging out and playing their game for quite some time. Then later one Jon Haber decided to make up his routine on the spot, so we coached him and made stuff up... after a few hours of awesome fun, and hilarious choreography, we came up with what we saw at comp, and what everyone seemed to love (although apparently Lon gave a disapproving look to Andrew when he found out what might be happening...). That was so much fun, just sitting out in our pool area at, like, 2 in the morning and later, just working on this over and over! I couldn't stop laughing. Oh yeah, there was also some barefoot shred later on, during the poker game. It started with Gray and Kevin. Kevin hit pixie chainsaw massacre, and Gray kept overdexing pixie same chainsaw massacre. Kevin also hit something that he invented. It's like the reverse of massacre, but different. It's like downtime omelette, but the second dex is symple (not symposium)... it is VERY hard to describe this trick, but with watching it in slowmo and watching it explained in person a whole bunch I finally understood it. I tried to explain it to someone the next day and failed miserably. Wait, no, I've written here in my notes that's it's like a symp eggbeater bailed to op toe...so, first dex symposium, and second dex symple... I think it was Brian Dennis and Josh Raye; yeah. So yeah, then he hit the pixie version, which he said he'd done before. Other sick stuff from Kevin and Gray. Then Aaron joined and was trying some clipper stuff. He wanted to know if I could do the spinning clipper ducking clipper drill barefoot. I said I'd done it before. Then I hit it, like, first try
Then Marita called around 2ish, actually (so, I guess it was earlier before), and we talked for like 2 hours or more. I felt kind of bad because my house crew cleaned up the whole place, basically, while I was on the phone, and they kind of had a house meeting about parties and stuff...like what we felt about it and how we would prevent people from coming and partying when people had to get up early for comp, and when people had to sleep, even just to sleep. Oh yeah, and then, if that wasn't enough, John Bagi, and Jon Haber, and Johnny, and myself spent, like, 30 minutes trying this move where John sets the bag, Jon ducks, or dexes with his hand on the way up, and way up on our second-floor landing, Johnny would hand-dex the bag and the duck the bag and then hand-dex again, and then it would come down, Jon would duck or dex, and I would clipper. It was eventually dumbed down to, like, 2 or 3 dexes total, the one peaked duck, and my clipper (we also tried to get John to add a butterfly dex over my clipper). Sam got it on video and it looks pretty sweet. On one of them I hit a diving clipper out of it too, which was a neat twist. I tried reverse swirl a few times, but my swirls aren't consistent enough. Then I had this really, really nice talk with Sam and life and everything, and then I wrote up the day's highlights in my notebook, and got to bed at around 4:30 (I think I just slept on the couch, since Richelle and Shanelle were going to make us a bacon and eggs breakfast at 7:30...
More, still, to come
Ugh. I am so sick.
I can barely breathe, and sucky stuff like that. And my throat hurts, and stuff. Blech, blech, blech. I think I have a fever.
Janis: I was intimidated because some people are superstars, and I am very timid.
Emily: I didn't mean to make it sound like it was your fault for relaying that it was a 10-minute walk, but yeah, I'm glad we didn't try to walk it
And yeah, I wish we could have hung out more too. You were really nice, and I liked meeting you a lot.PegLeg: It was awesome to meet you too
Too bad I didn't get to see much of you guys, though. And you missed out on bubble tea that I made just for Brian on his birthday. Sniff sniff.Day 4
I woke up at around 10 or 11 (man, I -- like most people, I suppose -- got so little sleep this week! Usually, since my job ended, I have been sleeping, like, 12 hours a night...or more...). Andrew was making some calls about his luggage (he had quite an adventure trying to get to Florida via standby flights...and the neventually Greyhound, or whatever), and he was very excited when he got a call back saying that they confirmed the descriptions he provided and that they had his bags. So I think Ashley (though maybe John Bagi) drove him out to the airport. No, no, wait a second, did I already write about this? I think this must have been the second day, when they picked up groceries for us, because I remember they took a while and we had to wait for them to get back because they were getting something for us. So nevermind. This morning Johnny, Jon, and the girls went to WalMart, maybe to pick something up for us again? But also to get pedicures. I actually wanted to go with and experience one too. Oh yeah, wait, we were waiting for them to come back because we were all going to go to the event site together, and we thought that they would need rides? So, wait, they took John Bagi's van, and Ashley was here with us. Ashley and I watched some cooking TV, and it was kinda boring. Then what... I talked to Sam about filming and stuff, and he showed me some of the stuff he'd filmed of me, and the style he was using for his video. We went over to hang next door, at Jorden's again, waiting for them to get back. Steve (Jorden's dad) talked to me quite a bit about footbag and things. Dave was excited to show me a bag he was working on (the reason I went over in the first place, I think?) and we talked about facile, and we were going to make a trade, since he wanted some black, and I wanted some of his lighter brown. I introduced myself to Tina, kind of awkwardly, since she was sitting across the room on a couch. Then Ianek and Wiktor and Jorden were having a discussion about nicknames in Europe, and how "Honza" is the nickname for every Jan in Czech Republic (and how it's different for the same name in, say, Poland). And have Vasek is the nickname for Vaclav (or whatever), and how it is KIND of like how Tom is the nickname for Thomas, but how it is obviously not the same thing as just shortening the name... maybe it is more like how Dick is short for Richard? Anyway, that was a neat discussion.
Then I suggested that we should maybe go check to see if they'd returned, because we wouldn't know inside a different house. We decided that we would just go without them (it turns out that after waiting, like, 2 hours, that they'd gone straight to the site anyway). We drove out, Sam, Ashley, Dave and myself, and picked up Henry on the way. He asked if it was okay to give a ride to someone else too, though that would mean stuffing someone in the trunk, and there was a copcar right behind us. We were, like, "No time!" as Henry was getting out of the car to go get this other person, and then hopped back in again, looking really suspicious, so we drove oft, and the copcar followed us, but it turned out to be just coincidence, because outside of Terra Verde they weren't following anymore. When we got to the World of Sports, some other footbaggers where entering with us, Chad, and Justin, and Emily, and Fletch, etc. I looked around, put my stuff down in the bleachers, and went to change. I played in a circle with Henry, and Rory, and some others. I stayed in this circle for, like, half the time that I was there that day.
Then I sat down because I had quite a bit of pain in my shins, and I watched for a bit. Matt Cross (or was it Peng?) asked if he could see one of my bags. I had left my stuff by the Freedom kiosk thingy, actually, not the bleachers, and went and brought everything to the bleachers and showed him my bag. Matt, and Peng, and Tom, and Waylon all seemed to love it, and gave me lots of compliments. I kind of wrote about this in that last tangent post. Dave also gave me a tip on how to get a bag to break in better, which I want to try.
Then I got back into that circle and played some more, and the pain left. I didn't have my glasses on (my shred get-up for the week was my blue shorts, blue tanktop, black hat for sweat-retension, and black Climas, but I heard a whole bunch of props from the bleachers after some okay runs of mine, and that was super cool, especially since I saw people like Chad clapping for me! I didn't play too well in that circle, but not terribly either, at first. Then after a bit Ken joined and I played really badly. Ken hit some nice stuff, like, all of his 5s in runs and stuff. Highplains and then flurry other side and then, like, alpine parkwalk, blurriest, fog, fusion... That was a neat run. He didn't seem too impressed with himself, though. A bit later, Yoga wanted to join, but he was kind of ignored like Wiktor in that one circle the day before, and after he kind of dejectedly wandered away, I left the circle, and went after him and we formed our own. Then someone else joined, and then left. I think it was that same guy from...Vancouver, I think? The one that had scars all over his arm and face. We were kind of shoved over to the bleachers on the other side of the freestyle area (the small, three-tier bleachers), and some circle comp started, so we were really on the sidelines. I played some of my best with Yoga. Like, again, every single run he gave me props
I did some stuff like stepping rev whirl > rev whirlygig BSOS, and other cool stuff in the same run, and I hit backside bedwetter for the first time. I think I footed alpine reverse whirlygig too. I don't know -- I played well! Yoga left, and the other guy came back, then Yoga came back, and the other guy left, and overall it was probably a 1-hour + session with Yoga, and it was so much fun!!I sat and watched some Circle comp. Then I joined a circle with Andrew Grant, Dan Ednie, Byrin Wylie, and...another Canadian? Dan was BUSTING! I forget what, but his runs were just so long with huge links and stuff; so impressive!! Dan left shortly after I joined and it was an EPIC Canada circle -- who was that fourth player?? Oh yeah, Johnny! Hellz yeah! What a wicked circle!! There was some more of my best shred ever! We had a couple rotations of Canadian shred with the Canada #3 finger (famed for Byrin hitting cheese processor with it on in Kevin's MFJ4 video...). I hit backside bedwetter again. I was playing awesome and hard. After a while Nick Landes came up and gave me super props and he was, like, "I had no idea you were this good!" And he seemed super excited, and that felt sooo nice. I hit this one combo quite a few times at Worlds, tapping diving clipper > bedwetter (and then to various things, like, pixie rev whirl > blurry rev whirl, etc). I dunno; cool! Gray Chadwick filmed that circle, and I am STOKED to see his videos! I also had a run with pdx tap BSOS and lots of other stuff, and that was neat, 'cause that was the only nuclear I did all week. (I saw Brian Dennis hit nuclear same reverse whirl at one point, and that was neat!)
Then I watched more Circle comp. Then I joined a circle with Kevin Crowley and Byrin, and Nick Landes and then Justin Dale joined, and then Iron Clad joined later too. I think I played really awesome in that circle too. I had one bloody epic run where I did, like, everything that I can, like stepping rev whirl > blurry rev whirl [repeat], and gyro DLO, and spinning rev whirl, and then reverse whirlygig > reverse whirlygig midstring!! and then more, like, spinning rev whirl > rev tomahawk dropped (actually I remember hitting a rev tomahawk in that run, so either I dropped the BSOS, or I hit that one combo...). WOW! I was so stoked about that run, and I was really excited that a couple big players saw me do that! I also did some reverse whirlwinds in that circle, which I never do. I was also pretty close to spinning ducking nova (my would-be first 7) a couple of times! I should try that when I play next!!!
Circle was intense. Vasek hit nemesis BSOS in one run, furious flail BSOS, one run, started one run with whirring swirl, hit 4 superflies in a row in one run, also started a run with backside clownface (though, that may have been the next day?). Johnny started a run with whirr > whirlwalk. Apparently someone (Jorden?) hit a quad dex (other than Vasek's nemesii, obviously...). At the end of the day, I left with Ashley and Sam, and Tom, and Peng, and Matt, and sat in the trunk with Ken Somolinos (props again for sitting in the trunk). We "caught up", if that is possible having not met before, but we had an okay talk, and that was basically the only time I hung out with him. Oh yeah, while walking to the car I gave him a card that I made him, and he said that it was really touching, and he gave me a hug, and said that it was going to go in his scrapbook. That was sweet. I also gave Dave a card, but I forget when that was. He said it meant a lot to him. That was neat. I liked making them cards. I wish I'd have had more time to make some cards for people like Johnny for organizing the house, Peng for getting me shot, and being so great, and I didn't know ahead of time, but Ashley for being so awesome about rides and...awesome in general. And other people, of course. A highlight of our trunk talk, was his remembering Marita's name (my girlfriend), and I thought that was really neat of him, and in reading my surprise, he was, like, "I read" (referring to my blog). We made a stop for alcohol. We dropped off Tom, Peng, and Matt, at Tom's house, and then went back to our house. I made bubble tea for Ken, and, like, 15 other people. I tried to find Waylon for bubble tea, and called his phone, and it turned out that he was playing pool in our garage. Everyone liked the bubble tea. I apologized in advance to people who I thought knew their tea, because it turns out that I had semi-cooked bubbles, which are different from what I usually use, and so I didn't cook them quite right. Ken is like, super open and honest, and said that he didn't like the consistency of the bubbles. Waylon liked it. I didn't like the bubbles too much either, but they weren't terrible. Oh yeah, Ken also gave me a beer, and we toasted.
For some reason, TONS of people came over, and I got a lot of signatures on my shirt. (our house "Johnny and the kids" was supposed to be, like, the official "non-party" house, so at one point Johnny and Andrew had to tell people to be quiet because people were sleeping). Chad came and sat with me and we talked for, like, 30 minutes, and that was definitely a highlight. I talked about how it was him who basically got me into footbag, through "She's All That". I'd met Chad before at CSS4, like, 2004, but actually, we may have never actually MET, so I was super surprised by how nice he was to me, and how interested he was in talking with me. We talked about life and eveything and about his band (which I was super thankful later, when I wrote on his birthday card and had something person to talk about!) He's in a metal band, and we talked about his influences and stuff. We also talked about his job and stuff. We also talked about footbag and how he hasn't played for quite some time, but that when he gets back he is going to call Chris Pinkus and get back into the game (oh yeah!), and about injuries, and he said that he wanted to play with me the next day (we never ended up playing together
). I had a talk about Chris Pinkus earlier, too, with Sam. I think he got back into Judo, after his World of Warcraft addiction. So yeah. Then there was a bit of awkward silence, and I took an opportunity to leave our talk on a good note, and disappeared for a bit.Vasek was standing right beside me and I followed him back to our pool area, outside, and introduced myself (something I never thought that I would do!!), mostly to take advantage of his happening to be right there, and getting him to sign my shirt. I didn't really talk at all or anything... it was hard enough as it was to say hi. I also got Seb's signature (he said hi to me too, which was neat -- I had never met him before!), and I got Caro's signature, and maybe Dylan Fry? And Justin Dale, and Aaron Orton... and others. Ben Roscoe practiced his routine for, like, and hour or more, and it was rad. He is SO good. Somehow a Terra Verde poker game was taking place in our house, and people were hanging out and playing their game for quite some time. Then later one Jon Haber decided to make up his routine on the spot, so we coached him and made stuff up... after a few hours of awesome fun, and hilarious choreography, we came up with what we saw at comp, and what everyone seemed to love (although apparently Lon gave a disapproving look to Andrew when he found out what might be happening...). That was so much fun, just sitting out in our pool area at, like, 2 in the morning and later, just working on this over and over! I couldn't stop laughing. Oh yeah, there was also some barefoot shred later on, during the poker game. It started with Gray and Kevin. Kevin hit pixie chainsaw massacre, and Gray kept overdexing pixie same chainsaw massacre. Kevin also hit something that he invented. It's like the reverse of massacre, but different. It's like downtime omelette, but the second dex is symple (not symposium)... it is VERY hard to describe this trick, but with watching it in slowmo and watching it explained in person a whole bunch I finally understood it. I tried to explain it to someone the next day and failed miserably. Wait, no, I've written here in my notes that's it's like a symp eggbeater bailed to op toe...so, first dex symposium, and second dex symple... I think it was Brian Dennis and Josh Raye; yeah. So yeah, then he hit the pixie version, which he said he'd done before. Other sick stuff from Kevin and Gray. Then Aaron joined and was trying some clipper stuff. He wanted to know if I could do the spinning clipper ducking clipper drill barefoot. I said I'd done it before. Then I hit it, like, first try
Then Marita called around 2ish, actually (so, I guess it was earlier before), and we talked for like 2 hours or more. I felt kind of bad because my house crew cleaned up the whole place, basically, while I was on the phone, and they kind of had a house meeting about parties and stuff...like what we felt about it and how we would prevent people from coming and partying when people had to get up early for comp, and when people had to sleep, even just to sleep. Oh yeah, and then, if that wasn't enough, John Bagi, and Jon Haber, and Johnny, and myself spent, like, 30 minutes trying this move where John sets the bag, Jon ducks, or dexes with his hand on the way up, and way up on our second-floor landing, Johnny would hand-dex the bag and the duck the bag and then hand-dex again, and then it would come down, Jon would duck or dex, and I would clipper. It was eventually dumbed down to, like, 2 or 3 dexes total, the one peaked duck, and my clipper (we also tried to get John to add a butterfly dex over my clipper). Sam got it on video and it looks pretty sweet. On one of them I hit a diving clipper out of it too, which was a neat twist. I tried reverse swirl a few times, but my swirls aren't consistent enough. Then I had this really, really nice talk with Sam and life and everything, and then I wrote up the day's highlights in my notebook, and got to bed at around 4:30 (I think I just slept on the couch, since Richelle and Shanelle were going to make us a bacon and eggs breakfast at 7:30...
More, still, to come
Ugh. I am so sick.
I can barely breathe, and sucky stuff like that. And my throat hurts, and stuff. Blech, blech, blech. I think I have a fever.
get well soon, muffinman!! it was fun judging circle with you. What were dave and I saying? I do recall us making fun of someone, or dissing their style, or something like this. your bag was so sweet! I didn't realize it was for peng when I asked for it. I'd like to trade with you. I liked the style of that big mushmaster bag we were all looking at, so make another like that (if you still want to trade). What style MC bag would you like? the floppier ones that I was making circa bag #50-60? or something tighter and smaller like I had at worlds? what weight do you like? I like 60 g.
it was great to see you. you're a wonderful, positive person and I'm glad we're friends.
matt
it was great to see you. you're a wonderful, positive person and I'm glad we're friends.
matt
BRICK!
rfa::never give up::
nyfa
rfa::never give up::
nyfa
Haha, mushmaster bag. Yeah I can still make you one of those. I'm not a fan of the mushmaster bags myself, though (after coming home and realizing the folly of my ways). And yeah, I like your newer bags -- that one, like, #98, or something, was really, really nice (is that the same one that Nick bought?). I forgot that we were going to trade! Cool! Actually, I have a pretty nice mushmaster that I never showed anyone, and it is just as nice as the other, I think. It is claw pattern with red on one side and off-white on the other (Canada colours, unintentionally -- actually there may be a picture of it folded up in a bag in a past post)). It's 60 grams-ish. (And yeah, I like about 55-60 too!). Let me know if you want this one, or if you would rather a custom one, or something. But it would be convenient to get rid of a bag that is too big for me :p I'd take a picture, but my camera died at Worlds
Yeah, actually, I think I just assumed that you were at Terra Verde and would be able to just walk over whenever. I also didn't have you number until you gave it to me on your birthday. Oh well Next time I see you, I hope I can make you tea!
Matt: Hey! Better yet, I could make you one of these new bags that I just finished that is actually playable and not huge and goofy.
I think this next update has a lot less actual footbag stuff...
Day 5
Woke up around 7:40, hearing commotion in the kitchen, thinking that maybe they wouldn't wake people up (which I don't think they did -- Richelle didn't even get up until later, although Shanelle said that she tried to wake her). I think John and Stefan missed out. Actually, I felt so badly, because I think Richelle and Shanelle mostly missed out too -- they finished cooking and they were, like, "Oh no, we're out, and we haven't eaten yet!". bAww it was very yummy, and we were all very grateful to... basically Shanelle for making us all breaky. It was scrambled eggs, and toast, and bacon, and hasbrowns! Oh, yum (said like Sam/Chris in Freestyle Fantasy). Then Sam and I went back to sleep on respective couches until, like, 11-ish when John woke up (competitors had to be at the event site by, like, 9:30 for a players meeting, so we decided the night before that we would all just show up later, since we weren't competing. Good plan, because we barely got enough sleep as it was... how terrible. 9:30?? Organizing better be better next year...man, if it wasn't for Terra Verde (thank you again, Peng!! And Johnny!) and Ashley Danowski, and Johny Bagi... whoo... it could have been a REAL sucky-ass week! For real. Oh yeah, so we woke up... I think it was because Tom called and asked if he could get a ride, so I took the phone from Sam and said that John was just getting up, and that we could probably give him a ride -- John said yeah, and so I said that we would pick him up. Then we kind of waited for John and stuff, and it turns out that there was a miscommunication and John was waiting for Tom and Peng to come over... Tom called again and we said that we would come get them after all. So we did, and then Tom was all excited to mod my Climas right there and then. He got me to help him cut the material off of the toe areas. I played with them later on and didn't really notice any difference, and people were kind of shocked. Oh well. I'm sure it helps, anyway. Then Tom said that we would get me some silicone stuff on the way back from the event site tonight.
We got to the event site and I just sat and watched for a while. I think I saw with Brian and Holly and watched some comp? Vasek and Dave were hanging out behind me, and Dave asked if he could show Vasek the bag that he made for me, so that was pretty cool. Then Brian asked me to take a picture of him with Dave and Vasek. Then I played a little. My shin splints were really bad and it was frustrating. I footed alpine reverse whirlygig a bunch, and then hit it a couple times. I can't remember if it was this day or not, but I was in a circle with Dylan Fry (I played with him a few times over the week, and I think I mostly played well when in a circle with him (cool!). I remember that I hit alpine reverse whirlygig first or second try in a circle with him. That was neat. Actually, every time that I hit it was either first or second try. It's not that hard of a move, surprisingly. Plantless stepping ducking has given me troubles in the past. I wonder if I can hit it flipside... I will try. I will also try flip backside bedwetter... maybe backside fog, because that is my good symp leg/symp DLO. That would be cool to be able to do that!! Yeah... my flip bedwetter alone is WEAK. ANYWAY... I think I skipped a bunch of stuff. I don't know. It's kind of hard to place what happened which day.
I left early with John and Stefan (I started to really, really like these guys over the week; John is soooo awesome. And so is Stefan. Am I spelling her name right? I don't know. She is really incredibly pretty too.) and we left where Tom was going to pick us up, having borrowed John's van. Brian and Holly were there too, and Josh Raye and... someone else? Maybe not. Yeah, it was, like, Holly, Brian, and Josh in the back, John, Stefan, and me in the middle, and Tom and Peng in the front. They tried a bunch of stores to pick up rolling papers. It was Brian Dennis' 21st birthday today, and he was rejected at a gas station for trying to buy some beer (they said that he wasn't 21 until "tonight". He was very upset and cursed them for, like, 10-20 minutes following :p People said some pretty bitter things, and I just kind of ignored it all. Then Tom dropped themselves off, and we drove back to our house. I cleaned up and made some smokies and went and ate outside where Andrew was smoking. Then Zach asked if I wanted to swim and I very emphatically said that I was wanting to anyway. So I went and finished my food on the edge of the non-hot tub... like I don't know what to call it. It was a little sitting area pool with jets, connected to the pool, so it was the same temperature, and the jets were really weak. I was excited to work on my shin splints with them, but sadly no. So then Zach and I tried to do a bit of underwater footbag. I went and got a bag that I'd made; John said that a heavy bag fell too fast, so I got excited and went and got my 25-some gram bag. It was way too light and the slightest movement in the water sent it flying away. Then Zach got a heavier bag and that fell too fast and also moved away. We couldn't figure it out and were really frustrated. I hit legover both sides, but apparently Scott Behmer had hit quantum flurry at the Freedom house... and Jorden hit delusional eggbeatering eggbeater... yeah right. We totally didn't believe that after trying and getting NOTHING. I saw Henry excitedly buying, like, scuba diving gear for underwater shred... there must have been some secret. Someone said that the secret was a chianmail bag, but...well, we'll get to that later. I stayed in the pool for quite a while. I think Ashley came out and ate at the "hottub" thing for a bit. Then John came out and played footbag for a while by the pool, and I just kind of floated around and watched him. Stefan came and watched too. I told him about the numbers game that I play with my brother (and apparently spread to FAT?) and go him to start drilling himself with that game, and that was fun. I was probably in the pool for an hour or so. That was nice.
Then I went over to Tom Mosher's house. I think I went alone, actually. Yeah. I brought my Climas, and wore my Lavers, because, oh yeah, Tom had picked up some black calking for my shoes, and said that I should come over and he would fix em up (or actually that Brian and Holly would do it for me (apparently they are awesome-awesome! Actually Brian showed me his and how incredibly smooth they are.) Brian explained to me the process and how tough it would be and that it might even take all week, and that he could get better stuff back in Nashville, and that maybe I should just give him my shoes and he could mail them back to me modded. I dunno. Then I sat down and started to stitch a bit. Waylon was on the other couch stitching. I think I was sitting beside Holly and Rory was playing raquetbag, and Peter Irish was demonstrating his prowess with balancing sticks (apparently at SJFF his "sick trick" balancing these two sticks on, like, a finger or two each, with his eyes closed for a minute... man. It's so much crazier than it sounds... like, if you try it yourself). Anyway, then Jorden dad came back with "Jorden's secret weapon". Matt was having bad back pain all week, and Mr. Moir (Steve, as he insisted on being called) came over with this prescription hand-held massage machine thing -- "The Thumper"! So gave Matt a massage, and then Matt gave, like, Holly a massage, and then so on and so on. Then I asked if someone would thump me, and so Matt thumped me INCREDIBLY for like 20 minutes or something. And then I said I would return the favour and thumped him for a while too. That was really nice. I miss my girlfriend and getting backrubs all the time. Bleh.
So yeah, so then Tom and Peng and Brian and Holly were going to go try underwater footbag with Waylon's chainmail bag, and I was all excited and was saying how we tried earlier and couldn't figure it out, and I went and was going to watch and Peng said that I should borrow Tom's shorts and towel and join them. So I did, and it was just as silly as before and nobody could do anything. Then they were trying to balance on these board thingies... And then it was kind of pretty awkward because it was, like, Tom and Peng, and Brian and Holly... and then me. Then Matt came in, but it was still pretty awkward. I'm not quite sure why. Brian talked to me for a while about something... I forget what. my shoes, I think. And then we talked about bubble tea at my place and stuff, I think. Oh yeah, and then eithuer before or after swimming, Rory and Holly were doing a collab drawing, and Rory asked me to add to it, so I did, and that was fun. Then Scott Behmer and Emily Kulczyk (I think I spelled it right this time!) arrived with a birthday pie and icecream and we all sung happy birthday to Brian! Yay. Then we got pie and icecream and that was cool. Then Brian was going to come over and I was going to make him bubble tea for his birthday, but then they heard that Johnny didn't want people over and there was confusion, and Emily was going to come too, but then she bailed, I think because maybe she promised something to Phil Morrison, or something? And then, oh yeah, Andrew had come over to find me because Marita had called with good news. Other people were over too, I think? Oh yeah, so I think I just walked back alone. A whole bunch of weed had arrived and everyone was like...gathered around it and I think Brian was pretty stoked to get high on his birthday, especially since he couldn't get that beer, which I think was for Holly anyway.
So I got back and made bubble tea for, like, Ben Roscoe and Zach Forth, 'cause I'd promised them some before, and wasn't able to come through before since they weren't around and I'd made it for others instead. I think I made it another time too... I made it 3 times total. I used up all of the bubbles, because I couldn't really bring them back with me, and my syrup was close to gone. Actually I only had a very little syrup left. I made some for Ashley too, since she said she liked it from the time before. The bubbles came out TERRIBLY (Oh yeah, the other time I made it was... no, I don't remember. Hmm. Weird.) and I ended up just throwing them out and drinking the tea by itself. Blech. I felt bad for Ashley, though she said that she liked them. Man, those were TERRIBLE bubbles. What the heck is with semi-cooked? Dumb! I even tried one before I took them off and it seemed good. BLEH! So yeah, then I called Brian and said it was ready and that he could come over if he wanted. Holly answered and said that they had to bail. Good thing in the end, because I don't think I actually had enough syrup, and the bubbles were BAD. So, it all worked out, except that Waylon and Brian were the ones who I basically brought the bubble tea stuff for, and it was Brian's birthday. Oh wellz. Oh yeah, I made tea for the guys outside, drunk at the pool. I guess I did have a bunch but made for too many people or something? Apparently Zach offered some to Steve next door, too, who was doing Tai Chi, after a swim with Jorden, and he said that he would have some... Umm, yeah, so then I went and brought tea to the drunkards in the pool and, like, Jon asked me what I thought about boobs, and I looked awkward for a moment and then said, "I like boobs". And then I walked away and they kind of talked about that for a while, like they were having a debate about it as I walked up. Stefan said that all guys like boobs, and then Andrew said that in the four years that he's known me he's never heard me say anything like that, and that he was a little disappointed. I guess I do avoid talking about such things with most people... I guess I was brought up not to, and so I find it awkward mostly. I think I went out and sat with them for a while. Oh yeah, I think... like didn't Andrew and I change and join them and hang in the pool for a while? Maybe that was a different day. In any case, it says here that I stayed and talked for a while before bed.
More still...
Next time I see you, I hope I can make you tea!Matt: Hey! Better yet, I could make you one of these new bags that I just finished that is actually playable and not huge and goofy.
I think this next update has a lot less actual footbag stuff...
Day 5
Woke up around 7:40, hearing commotion in the kitchen, thinking that maybe they wouldn't wake people up (which I don't think they did -- Richelle didn't even get up until later, although Shanelle said that she tried to wake her). I think John and Stefan missed out. Actually, I felt so badly, because I think Richelle and Shanelle mostly missed out too -- they finished cooking and they were, like, "Oh no, we're out, and we haven't eaten yet!". bAww
it was very yummy, and we were all very grateful to... basically Shanelle for making us all breaky. It was scrambled eggs, and toast, and bacon, and hasbrowns! Oh, yum (said like Sam/Chris in Freestyle Fantasy). Then Sam and I went back to sleep on respective couches until, like, 11-ish when John woke up (competitors had to be at the event site by, like, 9:30 for a players meeting, so we decided the night before that we would all just show up later, since we weren't competing. Good plan, because we barely got enough sleep as it was... how terrible. 9:30?? Organizing better be better next year...man, if it wasn't for Terra Verde (thank you again, Peng!! And Johnny!) and Ashley Danowski, and Johny Bagi... whoo... it could have been a REAL sucky-ass week! For real. Oh yeah, so we woke up... I think it was because Tom called and asked if he could get a ride, so I took the phone from Sam and said that John was just getting up, and that we could probably give him a ride -- John said yeah, and so I said that we would pick him up. Then we kind of waited for John and stuff, and it turns out that there was a miscommunication and John was waiting for Tom and Peng to come over... Tom called again and we said that we would come get them after all. So we did, and then Tom was all excited to mod my Climas right there and then. He got me to help him cut the material off of the toe areas. I played with them later on and didn't really notice any difference, and people were kind of shocked. Oh well. I'm sure it helps, anyway. Then Tom said that we would get me some silicone stuff on the way back from the event site tonight.We got to the event site and I just sat and watched for a while. I think I saw with Brian and Holly and watched some comp? Vasek and Dave were hanging out behind me, and Dave asked if he could show Vasek the bag that he made for me, so that was pretty cool. Then Brian asked me to take a picture of him with Dave and Vasek. Then I played a little. My shin splints were really bad and it was frustrating. I footed alpine reverse whirlygig a bunch, and then hit it a couple times. I can't remember if it was this day or not, but I was in a circle with Dylan Fry (I played with him a few times over the week, and I think I mostly played well when in a circle with him (cool!). I remember that I hit alpine reverse whirlygig first or second try in a circle with him. That was neat. Actually, every time that I hit it was either first or second try. It's not that hard of a move, surprisingly. Plantless stepping ducking has given me troubles in the past. I wonder if I can hit it flipside... I will try. I will also try flip backside bedwetter... maybe backside fog, because that is my good symp leg/symp DLO. That would be cool to be able to do that!! Yeah... my flip bedwetter alone is WEAK. ANYWAY... I think I skipped a bunch of stuff. I don't know. It's kind of hard to place what happened which day.
I left early with John and Stefan (I started to really, really like these guys over the week; John is soooo awesome. And so is Stefan. Am I spelling her name right? I don't know. She is really incredibly pretty too.) and we left where Tom was going to pick us up, having borrowed John's van. Brian and Holly were there too, and Josh Raye and... someone else? Maybe not. Yeah, it was, like, Holly, Brian, and Josh in the back, John, Stefan, and me in the middle, and Tom and Peng in the front. They tried a bunch of stores to pick up rolling papers. It was Brian Dennis' 21st birthday today, and he was rejected at a gas station for trying to buy some beer (they said that he wasn't 21 until "tonight". He was very upset and cursed them for, like, 10-20 minutes following :p People said some pretty bitter things, and I just kind of ignored it all. Then Tom dropped themselves off, and we drove back to our house. I cleaned up and made some smokies and went and ate outside where Andrew was smoking. Then Zach asked if I wanted to swim and I very emphatically said that I was wanting to anyway. So I went and finished my food on the edge of the non-hot tub... like I don't know what to call it. It was a little sitting area pool with jets, connected to the pool, so it was the same temperature, and the jets were really weak. I was excited to work on my shin splints with them, but sadly no. So then Zach and I tried to do a bit of underwater footbag. I went and got a bag that I'd made; John said that a heavy bag fell too fast, so I got excited and went and got my 25-some gram bag. It was way too light and the slightest movement in the water sent it flying away. Then Zach got a heavier bag and that fell too fast and also moved away. We couldn't figure it out and were really frustrated. I hit legover both sides, but apparently Scott Behmer had hit quantum flurry at the Freedom house... and Jorden hit delusional eggbeatering eggbeater... yeah right. We totally didn't believe that after trying and getting NOTHING. I saw Henry excitedly buying, like, scuba diving gear for underwater shred... there must have been some secret. Someone said that the secret was a chianmail bag, but...well, we'll get to that later. I stayed in the pool for quite a while. I think Ashley came out and ate at the "hottub" thing for a bit. Then John came out and played footbag for a while by the pool, and I just kind of floated around and watched him. Stefan came and watched too. I told him about the numbers game that I play with my brother (and apparently spread to FAT?) and go him to start drilling himself with that game, and that was fun. I was probably in the pool for an hour or so. That was nice.
Then I went over to Tom Mosher's house. I think I went alone, actually. Yeah. I brought my Climas, and wore my Lavers, because, oh yeah, Tom had picked up some black calking for my shoes, and said that I should come over and he would fix em up (or actually that Brian and Holly would do it for me (apparently they are awesome-awesome! Actually Brian showed me his and how incredibly smooth they are.) Brian explained to me the process and how tough it would be and that it might even take all week, and that he could get better stuff back in Nashville, and that maybe I should just give him my shoes and he could mail them back to me modded. I dunno. Then I sat down and started to stitch a bit. Waylon was on the other couch stitching. I think I was sitting beside Holly and Rory was playing raquetbag, and Peter Irish was demonstrating his prowess with balancing sticks (apparently at SJFF his "sick trick" balancing these two sticks on, like, a finger or two each, with his eyes closed for a minute... man. It's so much crazier than it sounds... like, if you try it yourself). Anyway, then Jorden dad came back with "Jorden's secret weapon". Matt was having bad back pain all week, and Mr. Moir (Steve, as he insisted on being called) came over with this prescription hand-held massage machine thing -- "The Thumper"! So gave Matt a massage, and then Matt gave, like, Holly a massage, and then so on and so on. Then I asked if someone would thump me, and so Matt thumped me INCREDIBLY for like 20 minutes or something. And then I said I would return the favour and thumped him for a while too. That was really nice. I miss my girlfriend and getting backrubs all the time. Bleh.
So yeah, so then Tom and Peng and Brian and Holly were going to go try underwater footbag with Waylon's chainmail bag, and I was all excited and was saying how we tried earlier and couldn't figure it out, and I went and was going to watch and Peng said that I should borrow Tom's shorts and towel and join them. So I did, and it was just as silly as before and nobody could do anything. Then they were trying to balance on these board thingies... And then it was kind of pretty awkward because it was, like, Tom and Peng, and Brian and Holly... and then me. Then Matt came in, but it was still pretty awkward. I'm not quite sure why. Brian talked to me for a while about something... I forget what. my shoes, I think. And then we talked about bubble tea at my place and stuff, I think. Oh yeah, and then eithuer before or after swimming, Rory and Holly were doing a collab drawing, and Rory asked me to add to it, so I did, and that was fun. Then Scott Behmer and Emily Kulczyk (I think I spelled it right this time!) arrived with a birthday pie and icecream and we all sung happy birthday to Brian! Yay. Then we got pie and icecream and that was cool. Then Brian was going to come over and I was going to make him bubble tea for his birthday, but then they heard that Johnny didn't want people over and there was confusion, and Emily was going to come too, but then she bailed, I think because maybe she promised something to Phil Morrison, or something? And then, oh yeah, Andrew had come over to find me because Marita had called with good news. Other people were over too, I think? Oh yeah, so I think I just walked back alone. A whole bunch of weed had arrived and everyone was like...gathered around it and I think Brian was pretty stoked to get high on his birthday, especially since he couldn't get that beer, which I think was for Holly anyway.
So I got back and made bubble tea for, like, Ben Roscoe and Zach Forth, 'cause I'd promised them some before, and wasn't able to come through before since they weren't around and I'd made it for others instead. I think I made it another time too... I made it 3 times total. I used up all of the bubbles, because I couldn't really bring them back with me, and my syrup was close to gone. Actually I only had a very little syrup left. I made some for Ashley too, since she said she liked it from the time before. The bubbles came out TERRIBLY (Oh yeah, the other time I made it was... no, I don't remember. Hmm. Weird.) and I ended up just throwing them out and drinking the tea by itself. Blech. I felt bad for Ashley, though she said that she liked them. Man, those were TERRIBLE bubbles. What the heck is with semi-cooked? Dumb! I even tried one before I took them off and it seemed good. BLEH! So yeah, then I called Brian and said it was ready and that he could come over if he wanted. Holly answered and said that they had to bail. Good thing in the end, because I don't think I actually had enough syrup, and the bubbles were BAD. So, it all worked out, except that Waylon and Brian were the ones who I basically brought the bubble tea stuff for, and it was Brian's birthday. Oh wellz. Oh yeah, I made tea for the guys outside, drunk at the pool. I guess I did have a bunch but made for too many people or something? Apparently Zach offered some to Steve next door, too, who was doing Tai Chi, after a swim with Jorden, and he said that he would have some... Umm, yeah, so then I went and brought tea to the drunkards in the pool and, like, Jon asked me what I thought about boobs, and I looked awkward for a moment and then said, "I like boobs". And then I walked away and they kind of talked about that for a while, like they were having a debate about it as I walked up. Stefan said that all guys like boobs, and then Andrew said that in the four years that he's known me he's never heard me say anything like that, and that he was a little disappointed. I guess I do avoid talking about such things with most people... I guess I was brought up not to, and so I find it awkward mostly. I think I went out and sat with them for a while. Oh yeah, I think... like didn't Andrew and I change and join them and hang in the pool for a while? Maybe that was a different day. In any case, it says here that I stayed and talked for a while before bed.
More still...
Day 6
I think this is the day for which I have the least notes. My notes are completely out of order too, so unless memories come to me, this will be a really short one. Today, most of my house was planning on going to Daytona Beach for the day. Man, I wanted to go, but I also hadn't had my fill of footbag. After the day was over, even though I had some amazing experiences, I was kicking myself for missing the beach. Beach on the ocean! They all said it was amazing. They said the waves were incredible and that they played takraw and tried some footbag, and that I don't think anyone got that burned because they were in the water so much or something? I don't actuially know. Man I wanted to do more non-footbag things with footbaggers, though. I could foresee it (in retrospect) being a bit awkward, because like the pool at Tom's that one night, it was all couples. It was Johnny and Richelle, and John and Stefan, and... was that it? Shanelle too... maybe more, so it wouldn't've been completely awkward if it came to that, because then I would at least have Shanelle. I don't like getting in the way. Oh, there was a neato moment... one night, I forget when, but one night Paul Agostinelli and Ben Roscoe were jamming. I didn't know that Paul played guitar and sang -- he's really good! Ben has an amazing voice too. Maybe it was this same night, I went to see what was happening, and I could hear Sam singing, and wanted to watch, but saw him, like, serenading Johnny and Richelle in a dark laundry room... whoops. So anyway.
Yeah, so I think I started off not playing, when we got to the event site (I have no notes as to how I got there or what happened). I sat down and watched stuff go down. Big Add came and chilled with me and we sat together during the whole competition and stuff, and that was really rad. Oh yeah, so we watched some Circle comp. Vasek hit blurry symp torque midstring, furious flail BSOS again, and whirring swirl, swifter and reverse swifter in the same run as other crazy stuff. Chad and I liked the reverse swifter. Oh yeah, backside clownface was today. I felt hip and with it, because Chad missed a bunch of tricks and I had to tell him what was hit...like I don't think he comprehended backside clownface, since he has been out of the scene for a while. He, like, didn't react when I told him. Vasek also hit furious ps flux on the sidelines before Circle. Oh yeah, Jorden did some bubba stuff BSOS in one run and Chad was, like, "Whaatt?" Then we watched sick 3. Chad had some awesome reactions to stuff by Byrin and Kevin, in particular. Oh, and Will too. Let's see. I think Byrin's first sick 3 was sumo > reactor > whisk, and the judges said it was abit fluffy, so he hit it again on his final try. I'm not sure if he hit any of his others. Kevin missed all of his, but they were ridiculous, and Chad loved them all! Like, pixie ducking legover > pixie ducking legover > pandemonium -- this one should have been easy for him, I think. Actually, after, he said that they were all not too tough for him to have hit. He also tried, like...gee, I dunno... ridiculousness. One was a toe beast, I think. WIll Digges hit, like, alpine blurry whirl > highstepping mirage > toga attempt... WOW! He actually got the quantum in after the barraging same mirage. I think another was, like, sunilwalker > alpine blurry whirl > sunilwalker... I don't think he hit that one, but maybe? Geez, kid. he makes everything look so easy. If anyone else had made BAP I was positive that it would have been Byrin and Will. Apparently Vasek likes Evan Gatesman's style (I don't blame him...who doesn't love Evan Gatesman's style?? GEeezzz). Evan didn't believe it when, I think, Dan Ednie told him.
Anyway, yeah, then Sam came and sat with us, and I realized that I was sitting with Oops...and I was, like, "Whoa!" Man... Oops. Those were the days! It may have been this day, but maybe the day before, when they had an Oops circle, and I was just, like, "I want in!" But there were, like, 5 or 6 people already... and that's a big circle. Man. Chad. At one point I started playing a bit... maybe just on my own. And then I saw Team Japan and I saw Taishi and really wanted to go say hi, so I did. Taishi is so awesome. It was great to see him again. Then he introduced me to Takumi. Takumi turned to me, and he was, like, "Erik Chan, you're famous!" And then I was, like, "Takumi -- you're famous too!" and that was kind of neat. Takumi is so cool. Man... Japanese kids are so stylin'! Someone told me that the more girly you are in Japan, the cooler you are... I can dig it. So yeah, then Takumi proceeded to drop a bag to his foot and hit nemesis first try. it looked pretty clean. Taishi also pointed out the rest of Team Japan to me. They all kind of looked at me. I think someone told me once that Team Japan loves me for some reason. That's cool. I liked hanging out with them and feeling more Asian. Oh yeah, Ken made some cracks about stuff too, like... yeah, I can't really remember. Actually, yeah, I think meeting Team Japan was the day before... I remember I went and said hi as soon as I first saw a trace of them. And I remember that they were arriving, like, the day after Ken. I played in a circle with Zach Forth and Yama, from Team Japan, and I met Yama. Then Nathan Pipenberg joined. He wasn't really playing before because he'd twisted his ankle or something. Sucky. For a while he was only doing clipper stuff on one side. But he seemed to be okay, just not playing super great. I was SUPER sore at this point. I hit some okay things. I hit spinning rev whirl > ps rev whirl [repeat] to start a run, but didn't get props, and felt kinda sucky for that, but that's cool. I shouldn't expect props. But it was a really cool combo for me (even if I've hit it before). I guess maybe it is better to not get props than to get props for something that you feel frustrated about -- I hate that, getting props for something that I didn't like, or that was crappy, y'know? (Actually I got that quite a bit over the week, and someone, at one point, asked me, "You don't seem too excited about the props" and I explained why...)
So I noticed that lots of big names were hiding in this curtained-off area for quite some time, all day. Vasek stepped out, and I went to check to see what was going down. Apparently it was all the best players either playing or watching in one sick circle, and I had just missed the end of it, seeing Vasek leave. EVERYONE was sitting there watching. It was, like, Byrin, Sam Potter, Ianek, Matt Cross... I dunno. It seemed like something I should have seen earlier. Man I didn't see Vasek play hardly at all all week What a disappointment. I probably missed a lot on the final day of shred too... Man, I played, like, every single day, though. That was neat. Anyway, I'm still on day 5 -- a couple more days to go still. So eventually we went back to our place. I don't really remember what happened for a span of time. Ben Roscoe had bought BOTS, and had never seen it, so a bunch of us sat down to watch, and it was fun. Ben Roscoe kept erupting with the greatest reactions! It was radical, if just to watch him Though, you can't really watch BOTS too many times... like, at all. I wish it had more Aleksi. In my opionion, none of the shred in the whole video comes close to how awesome his, like, 3-some runs are... man alive is he one of my faves to watch!!! Then some people were watching A Shark's Tale...although this was maybe earlier. Yeah. I think Andrew was saying that he was going to just spend the day hanging out in the house, and other people were too, and they watched this movie. Oh yeah, so I can't remember if this was before or after the venue, but we had a little knee-kicking circle by the TV while they watched this movie. Only knee-kicks. I hit, like, knee-ducking knee, and almost back-to-back, and knee-spinning knee. I actually have pretty solid knee kicks, since I practiced them a bit when I was injured. Then we got a knee-kick full-hack. Then Johnny showed off with some knee kicks while crouching, and Sam loved it and tried it a ton.
Oh, I think we were waiting around for 10:30-ish when we were supposed to go to Chad's birthday party at the Freedom house. Emily was going to take Chad out shopping or something during a hour's span, and everyone was supposed to show up and surprise him when they got back. So we headed there a bit late, Ben Roscoe and I, and James, and...some others? Oh, no, wait. First, nobody was really home, and James and I played, like, 3 games of pool (I totally won :p), then I heard the door close and Ashley's car drive away, and I was, like, "Oh...everyone has abandoned us." So then James and I were going to go over to the Freedom House, because we didn't know what else to do...or, like, check out Tom's house. So I went and had a shower or something, and then Ashley and Sam came back, and then others did too. So that brings us back to where I was. So we walked to the Freedom house and Chad wasn't there yet, but, like, EVERYONE was. I wore my signed Worlds shirt, and got more people to sign it, who hadn't yet. That was neato. Then I walked over and watched some fire hack. And I turned around and Matt Cross was, like, "Do you know who this is?", motioning to a girl sitting at the table beside me. And I was, like, "No." And she was, like, "I know who you are." And then I thought a bit, and it totally hit me, as I was putting my hand out to shake, and I was, like, "Crissy!!" And that was a neat way to meet someone. I'm glad I remembered before I had to be told, and looked dumb. Man, she was really nice, and I didn't get to hang with her nearly enough (like hardly at all), but it was super nice to see her! She had just arrived and was coerced into coming to the party. Chad came shortly after and we sung happy birthday! Then he wandered around a bit and said hi to people, and seemed really happy, and then Sunny and Emily came downstairs with more birthday pie, lit with candles, and everyone started to sing happy birthday again, hehe. Scott came in behind them or something and gave Chad his card and said more people could sign it, and so I went and signed finally (I was trying to sign it for the whole day, and maybe the day before?). Then Johnny and Richelle kept asking if I was going to stay, and I asked what their plans were. They didn't like how crowded it was, and I felt uncomfortable like last time at the Freedom house, so we decided to leave together. We got back to the house and I realized that I'd left my big 4-litre water bottle. I was really distressed and decided that the best course of action would be to go get it right away before it got lost or forgotten. So I jogged all the way back and was really sweaty and looked around and asked for it, and nobody knew anything, and I was distraught. For some reason I decided to jog back. I was really sweaty when I got back. On the way I saw some footbaggers standing at the corner of where the main street and our street joined in Terra Verde... it was some people... Like Aaron, I think, Pete Irish... some others. Then I continued to jog back. Yup. And then I explained my plight and people sympathized, and then, like, 30 minutes later I found it sitting on the kitchen counter.
Then Jeremy Mirken came over later and hung out with us for, like, 2-3 hours. He told us many stories, and also told us that Sunil Jani had showed up at the Freedom house!!! Whoa! Chad and then Sunil! I'd met Sunil at CSS4 also, and we had talked for a long while then and he was suuuuper nice to me. So, yeah. Jeremy told us how he got the name "Senor Grommet" (I think I spelled that wrong). How did that happen?... Gee. Like, they all needed nicknames for some game, or something? I should have written this down in my notes. Jeremy was studying Spanish at the time, and he'd gained the nickname Grommet in school, or something, and so the two came together. This is also when "Dr. Ridiculous" from "Footage" (Sam Colcough productions) fame came into being, and we all had fun mimicking his hand gestures of frustration when dropping the bag. Jeremy also told us that Sam's nickname for this...whatever it was, was "Doublee Nuts", or something. Andrew and Johnny continued to call Sam Doublee Nuts when he got home. Red Rocket also hung out, like, all night, and he was quite drunk. Oh, we also talked a lot about the segregation between Net and Freestyle, and how in the future, Worlds should -- and may be -- seperate between the two disciplines. And that's a night.
I think this is the day for which I have the least notes. My notes are completely out of order too, so unless memories come to me, this will be a really short one. Today, most of my house was planning on going to Daytona Beach for the day. Man, I wanted to go, but I also hadn't had my fill of footbag. After the day was over, even though I had some amazing experiences, I was kicking myself for missing the beach. Beach on the ocean! They all said it was amazing. They said the waves were incredible and that they played takraw and tried some footbag, and that I don't think anyone got that burned because they were in the water so much or something? I don't actuially know. Man I wanted to do more non-footbag things with footbaggers, though. I could foresee it (in retrospect) being a bit awkward, because like the pool at Tom's that one night, it was all couples. It was Johnny and Richelle, and John and Stefan, and... was that it? Shanelle too... maybe more, so it wouldn't've been completely awkward if it came to that, because then I would at least have Shanelle. I don't like getting in the way. Oh, there was a neato moment... one night, I forget when, but one night Paul Agostinelli and Ben Roscoe were jamming. I didn't know that Paul played guitar and sang -- he's really good! Ben has an amazing voice too. Maybe it was this same night, I went to see what was happening, and I could hear Sam singing, and wanted to watch, but saw him, like, serenading Johnny and Richelle in a dark laundry room... whoops. So anyway.
Yeah, so I think I started off not playing, when we got to the event site (I have no notes as to how I got there or what happened). I sat down and watched stuff go down. Big Add came and chilled with me and we sat together during the whole competition and stuff, and that was really rad. Oh yeah, so we watched some Circle comp. Vasek hit blurry symp torque midstring, furious flail BSOS again, and whirring swirl, swifter and reverse swifter in the same run as other crazy stuff. Chad and I liked the reverse swifter. Oh yeah, backside clownface was today. I felt hip and with it, because Chad missed a bunch of tricks and I had to tell him what was hit...like I don't think he comprehended backside clownface, since he has been out of the scene for a while. He, like, didn't react when I told him. Vasek also hit furious ps flux on the sidelines before Circle. Oh yeah, Jorden did some bubba stuff BSOS in one run and Chad was, like, "Whaatt?" Then we watched sick 3. Chad had some awesome reactions to stuff by Byrin and Kevin, in particular. Oh, and Will too. Let's see. I think Byrin's first sick 3 was sumo > reactor > whisk, and the judges said it was abit fluffy, so he hit it again on his final try. I'm not sure if he hit any of his others. Kevin missed all of his, but they were ridiculous, and Chad loved them all! Like, pixie ducking legover > pixie ducking legover > pandemonium -- this one should have been easy for him, I think. Actually, after, he said that they were all not too tough for him to have hit. He also tried, like...gee, I dunno... ridiculousness. One was a toe beast, I think. WIll Digges hit, like, alpine blurry whirl > highstepping mirage > toga attempt... WOW! He actually got the quantum in after the barraging same mirage. I think another was, like, sunilwalker > alpine blurry whirl > sunilwalker... I don't think he hit that one, but maybe? Geez, kid. he makes everything look so easy. If anyone else had made BAP I was positive that it would have been Byrin and Will. Apparently Vasek likes Evan Gatesman's style (I don't blame him...who doesn't love Evan Gatesman's style?? GEeezzz). Evan didn't believe it when, I think, Dan Ednie told him.
Anyway, yeah, then Sam came and sat with us, and I realized that I was sitting with Oops...and I was, like, "Whoa!" Man... Oops. Those were the days! It may have been this day, but maybe the day before, when they had an Oops circle, and I was just, like, "I want in!" But there were, like, 5 or 6 people already... and that's a big circle. Man. Chad. At one point I started playing a bit... maybe just on my own. And then I saw Team Japan and I saw Taishi and really wanted to go say hi, so I did. Taishi is so awesome. It was great to see him again. Then he introduced me to Takumi. Takumi turned to me, and he was, like, "Erik Chan, you're famous!" And then I was, like, "Takumi -- you're famous too!" and that was kind of neat. Takumi is so cool. Man... Japanese kids are so stylin'! Someone told me that the more girly you are in Japan, the cooler you are... I can dig it. So yeah, then Takumi proceeded to drop a bag to his foot and hit nemesis first try. it looked pretty clean. Taishi also pointed out the rest of Team Japan to me. They all kind of looked at me. I think someone told me once that Team Japan loves me for some reason. That's cool. I liked hanging out with them and feeling more Asian. Oh yeah, Ken made some cracks about stuff too, like... yeah, I can't really remember. Actually, yeah, I think meeting Team Japan was the day before... I remember I went and said hi as soon as I first saw a trace of them. And I remember that they were arriving, like, the day after Ken. I played in a circle with Zach Forth and Yama, from Team Japan, and I met Yama. Then Nathan Pipenberg joined. He wasn't really playing before because he'd twisted his ankle or something. Sucky. For a while he was only doing clipper stuff on one side. But he seemed to be okay, just not playing super great. I was SUPER sore at this point. I hit some okay things. I hit spinning rev whirl > ps rev whirl [repeat] to start a run, but didn't get props, and felt kinda sucky for that, but that's cool. I shouldn't expect props. But it was a really cool combo for me (even if I've hit it before). I guess maybe it is better to not get props than to get props for something that you feel frustrated about -- I hate that, getting props for something that I didn't like, or that was crappy, y'know? (Actually I got that quite a bit over the week, and someone, at one point, asked me, "You don't seem too excited about the props" and I explained why...)
So I noticed that lots of big names were hiding in this curtained-off area for quite some time, all day. Vasek stepped out, and I went to check to see what was going down. Apparently it was all the best players either playing or watching in one sick circle, and I had just missed the end of it, seeing Vasek leave. EVERYONE was sitting there watching. It was, like, Byrin, Sam Potter, Ianek, Matt Cross... I dunno. It seemed like something I should have seen earlier. Man I didn't see Vasek play hardly at all all week
What a disappointment. I probably missed a lot on the final day of shred too... Man, I played, like, every single day, though. That was neat. Anyway, I'm still on day 5 -- a couple more days to go still. So eventually we went back to our place. I don't really remember what happened for a span of time. Ben Roscoe had bought BOTS, and had never seen it, so a bunch of us sat down to watch, and it was fun. Ben Roscoe kept erupting with the greatest reactions! It was radical, if just to watch him Though, you can't really watch BOTS too many times... like, at all. I wish it had more Aleksi. In my opionion, none of the shred in the whole video comes close to how awesome his, like, 3-some runs are... man alive is he one of my faves to watch!!! Then some people were watching A Shark's Tale...although this was maybe earlier. Yeah. I think Andrew was saying that he was going to just spend the day hanging out in the house, and other people were too, and they watched this movie. Oh yeah, so I can't remember if this was before or after the venue, but we had a little knee-kicking circle by the TV while they watched this movie. Only knee-kicks. I hit, like, knee-ducking knee, and almost back-to-back, and knee-spinning knee. I actually have pretty solid knee kicks, since I practiced them a bit when I was injured. Then we got a knee-kick full-hack. Then Johnny showed off with some knee kicks while crouching, and Sam loved it and tried it a ton.Oh, I think we were waiting around for 10:30-ish when we were supposed to go to Chad's birthday party at the Freedom house. Emily was going to take Chad out shopping or something during a hour's span, and everyone was supposed to show up and surprise him when they got back. So we headed there a bit late, Ben Roscoe and I, and James, and...some others? Oh, no, wait. First, nobody was really home, and James and I played, like, 3 games of pool (I totally won :p), then I heard the door close and Ashley's car drive away, and I was, like, "Oh...everyone has abandoned us." So then James and I were going to go over to the Freedom House, because we didn't know what else to do...or, like, check out Tom's house. So I went and had a shower or something, and then Ashley and Sam came back, and then others did too. So that brings us back to where I was. So we walked to the Freedom house and Chad wasn't there yet, but, like, EVERYONE was. I wore my signed Worlds shirt, and got more people to sign it, who hadn't yet. That was neato. Then I walked over and watched some fire hack. And I turned around and Matt Cross was, like, "Do you know who this is?", motioning to a girl sitting at the table beside me. And I was, like, "No." And she was, like, "I know who you are." And then I thought a bit, and it totally hit me, as I was putting my hand out to shake, and I was, like, "Crissy!!" And that was a neat way to meet someone. I'm glad I remembered before I had to be told, and looked dumb. Man, she was really nice, and I didn't get to hang with her nearly enough (like hardly at all), but it was super nice to see her! She had just arrived and was coerced into coming to the party. Chad came shortly after and we sung happy birthday! Then he wandered around a bit and said hi to people, and seemed really happy, and then Sunny and Emily came downstairs with more birthday pie, lit with candles, and everyone started to sing happy birthday again, hehe. Scott came in behind them or something and gave Chad his card and said more people could sign it, and so I went and signed finally (I was trying to sign it for the whole day, and maybe the day before?). Then Johnny and Richelle kept asking if I was going to stay, and I asked what their plans were. They didn't like how crowded it was, and I felt uncomfortable like last time at the Freedom house, so we decided to leave together. We got back to the house and I realized that I'd left my big 4-litre water bottle. I was really distressed and decided that the best course of action would be to go get it right away before it got lost or forgotten. So I jogged all the way back and was really sweaty and looked around and asked for it, and nobody knew anything, and I was distraught. For some reason I decided to jog back. I was really sweaty when I got back. On the way I saw some footbaggers standing at the corner of where the main street and our street joined in Terra Verde... it was some people... Like Aaron, I think, Pete Irish... some others. Then I continued to jog back. Yup. And then I explained my plight and people sympathized, and then, like, 30 minutes later I found it sitting on the kitchen counter.
Then Jeremy Mirken came over later and hung out with us for, like, 2-3 hours. He told us many stories, and also told us that Sunil Jani had showed up at the Freedom house!!! Whoa! Chad and then Sunil! I'd met Sunil at CSS4 also, and we had talked for a long while then and he was suuuuper nice to me. So, yeah. Jeremy told us how he got the name "Senor Grommet" (I think I spelled that wrong). How did that happen?... Gee. Like, they all needed nicknames for some game, or something? I should have written this down in my notes. Jeremy was studying Spanish at the time, and he'd gained the nickname Grommet in school, or something, and so the two came together. This is also when "Dr. Ridiculous" from "Footage" (Sam Colcough productions) fame came into being, and we all had fun mimicking his hand gestures of frustration when dropping the bag. Jeremy also told us that Sam's nickname for this...whatever it was, was "Doublee Nuts", or something. Andrew and Johnny continued to call Sam Doublee Nuts when he got home. Red Rocket also hung out, like, all night, and he was quite drunk. Oh, we also talked a lot about the segregation between Net and Freestyle, and how in the future, Worlds should -- and may be -- seperate between the two disciplines. And that's a night.
Last edited by Muffinman on 22 Aug 2007 20:02, edited 1 time in total.