the jam in NYC was excellent. Not by any means a personal victory for footbag with me, but as a whole this was my favorite jam yet. Met LOTS of new people. Played with almost everyone there at least once.
a summary to some great length:
Friday -
Got in waaay too early. In hindsight I definitely didn't have to skip those two afternoon classes to go to this. But oh well. It's what I do.
So I get there around 3:45. Call Barrett. He and I struggle with finding out where I am for a little bit and then I finally meet up with him. He's wearing a t-shirt, an undershirt even. So he was pretty cold. We get up to his dorm and I meet Waylon and Benny and Jorden had been there. I was kind of ready to play so Jorden and I had a little session where we were pretty much just goofing around. I didn't want to wear myself out so I wasn't doing anything more than spins or ducks or BOPs. And Jorden was juggling and doing strange showman tricks.
Now this is getting too long. Time to speed things up. ARROW TIME!

Waylon and I made all the player bags and put all the shirts in them.

we ate some chocolate croissant cinnibun things. Yum.

made our way to the first night shred spot. It was pretty sweet. We had lots of candy.

Waylon showed me his stitching book. Yeah, that's right. I gots the inside scoop.

I believe the correct term for what happened next for the next hour + was "hacky slacking to the max". Lots of fun. Circle kicking with Jorden, Timo (sp?), Waylon, and Brian (my crash host). And I showed them all my drunken style of circle hack. That was fun. Wore my legs down even more. By this point I knew in my head that as soon as I focused on shred I wouldn't be able to do it. Too tired.

stitched a little with floss.

BSC came in. Time to shred. Oh wait. Shit. I'm spent. Time to eat more marshmellows and twix. Oh is that Mountain Dew? Sweet.

went back to Brian's house somewhere far away, played guitar hero and wii sports and went to bed. Doug's eye veins kept popping according to him. We don't believe him, though.
Saturday -

first to make it to the MANDATORY 9 o'clock players meeting, whatever the fuck that was. Whatever. Started playing as people were setting things up. It was by far the most professional footbag setup I've ever seen except in videos of Worlds and whatnot.

playing like shit. But this was true for Friday too. I'd be surprised if I got more than 10 contacts all weekend. Meh. As Sunil Jani said, "Are you having fun!?!" "Yes." "THEN THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS!!" but I already knew that. At the end of the session with Jorden I was more or less happy with the fact that I won't play well. I'll just be having a great time anyway. Which I did. Can't let fluke shortcomings get in the way, right? RIGHT!

met and played with Chris Miller. He hit whale tail.

it was ridiculously cold. I lost track of how much I drank. Two cups of coffee? Ugh. that's bad. But it really had no good effect on me. It got cold really fast and the caffeine seemed to bounce right off me. Fucking Starbucks. Steal my money and I can't play footbag still!

the dinner was excellent. Sat at a table with Waylon, WDigges, Pete Bowler, Doug Tank, and the extra seat was occasionally filled by Dave Clavens, Barrett, Brian, Matt Cross at one point, and um. . I can't remember who else. The waffle fries made me happy.

went to this really "chill" studio apartment and pretty much played non-stop for ANOTHER like. . 4 or 5 hours. Insane.

Drank a lot of NYC tap water. That could be why I still feel like shit today and I'm sick now.

oh oh um. A little trick called CLOWNFACE was hit by Sunil. Right the fuck in front of me! Bowler and I fell about the place. Couldn't believe it. One of those things you never think you'll see in real life.
Unfortunately I had to leave quite a bit earlier than anyone else Sunday and didn't get to shred yesterday. Sucks. But it was a pretty stress free ride back to Siena and I was about ready to pass out the entire time. Had dinner, listened to my friends talk about something not related to footbag, and then I slept for 12 hours.
So at the end of all things I'd like to thank Barrett for putting on this little hacky sack get together. Thanks to Dave Clavens for giving me some tips on style, body movement considerations, barfly tips, and remembering who I was!!! That was awesome. And thanks to Matt Cross for giving me some help on what I need to get solid quantum sets.
I'm taking the next few days off from shred so that I can catch up with work, see where this sickness is leading, and um. Well just because I played nearly non stop while I was there. Even if I was playing shitty that still counts for something!