Ok, figure I should finish the rest of one jam write up before I leave for another one.
Where'd I leave off? Oh yeah, go to sleep Saturday night. Sleep sleep sleep. Hey! Wake up! There's stuff to do! So yeah, we get up a little later this day, try to remember what movies we watched the night prior (not so easy at the time) and take our time making it over to the event site. When we got there we decided to get breakfast at the same place we had dinner the night before. Our server was this girl Melissa, who we all agreed looked ( . ) ( . ).. smart. However, Pete decided it was a good idea to let her know that she was a slut and was taking too long with our food.
So of course after she overheard said remark we waited another 15-20 minutes til our food was ready. I got an omelette. It was okay. Not very filling. Annnnyway, after we finished up we headed over to the shred spot to kick and warm up for sick 3.
Now, if you recall, final circle was this day... and if you also recall, Matt Isanek, who won the 2nd chance circle had left... and Mike Toolan sucks at footbag. So I'm kicking, when all of a sudden Bruce walks up to me and says, "Ready for final circle?" I groan, and say no and that Mike should play instead. Mike declines cause he's a bitch and tells me to Just Do It Nike Swoosh. So I reluctantly say yes and spend the next half hour shredding with Tristan and alone feeling nervous and guilty just trying to warm up my non-existant stepping set because I decided that that seemed like the best time to school one of my worst concepts... yeah, I'm good at footbag.
Oh btw I forgot to mention this earlier, but Tristan did a routine! Two actually! He's only been playing for... 5 months? Maybe I'm not sure, but he did a good job. It was completely unplanned and a lot of dropping (which was expected for someone who didn't even know what a routine was until after he did it) but he also hit a lot of moves within the two minutes. So major props to him for that!
So, back to ME.
There I am feeling stupid bc I'm only playing final circle bc of a technicality... then I realized. Fuck it. This is happening. I am going to play in a circle with Dave, Johnny, and Ryan Thomas. That is fucking cool. And from then on I was okay. Still kinda nervous, but not feeling shitty or anything... Yeah, I'm scheduled to appear on Oprah next week for an episode entitled "Empowerment". Anywho, I go back inside and Sick3 begins shortly after. Everyone did really well! Kevin hit, blur>dimwalk>ripwalk, i think? Something like that. Pete went off and hit 3 Sick3s within 4 or 5 tries. I remember surge>smoke>blurry whirl, but forget the other two. All very legit. I barely managed blurriest>diving osis>ps whirl. It was funny, my second attempt was assassin>merlin>symp whirl and I couldn't get past assassin, but then when my turn was over I walked to the side and hit it first try.
It was cool though cause John Goode saw it and came over and gave me a high 5.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, (I know you were) Dave hit mullet>jani>blurry whirling swirl... I think. It might have been ps instead of blurry, not sure.
Ok. End sick 3. Time for final circle. The moment of truth. My first time playing with the pro's with everything (nothing) on the line. I'm first. The first string will make or break you.....Kick kick kick, and.... a decent string! Haha, I played pretty okay. I only had one string where I dropped on the first move (twice with pass back. Really quantum set?) and the rest weren't bad. Too much spinning and ducking, but hey, it's better than dropping. Anyway, after my ego remained in tact the rest of the time at the gym was fun. I played a little with Ryan Thomas and saw him hit a mobius and some gyro toes. Wrrrrrrreaks of style. Then eventually we all headed over to Times Square.
Times Square. What an amazing place. The epitome of American consumerism and straight up Whoa. Lots of interesting characters. One in particular.
www.maninwhitedress.com especially comes to mind. This was a really fun place to kick. Ben Cooke mentioned how it was a historical moment considering that it was the most footbaggers Times Square had ever seen.
Making it even more historical (at least for one person) was when I was in a circle with Will T, Waylon, and John Goode, and John was saying how he'd only ever hit 5 contacts of rubberman. I told him "Do it" and just like that, BOOM! First try. That kid is going to be incredible. Just textbook form on everything. That bastard.
After that I did some crowd demoing with Johnny, Matt Cross, John Schneider, and Dave for a little bit (this is where we used those Landes juggling balls) and that was fun, but my legs were pretty beat so I only got pity claps.
Blah blah blah, shred shred shred
-Drew and Barret tell us to get the fuck out and go to dinner
-my stuff is locked in John S's car
-Toolan finds random subway stub on ground
-I walk to subway with BSC and others to try and use it
-it doesnt work
-I wander back to shred spot
-eventually find John S and get a ride with him.
Okay. So Idk how many of you have ever ridden with John Schneider driving, but let me tell you, it is an experience. On the way there Matt Cross was in the front seat talking to John and at one point John mentioned how he shouldn't be talking bc it's distracting and can result in bad things... but he decided "fuck that Im John fuckin Schneider and I do what I want" cuz well, he's the man. So John gives us a mini-tour of NYC, shows us a really cool library with some awesome architecture and eventually finds his way over to Roosevelt Island.... Okay, I just realized I rode with John on two separate occasions and that part about talking and driving doesn't apply to this situation, but comes after dinner, so just remember that.
Okay time for dinner, blah blah blah, sit down, everyone already has food, I mooch off people around me, Pete gives me half a cheese steak sub cuz he's the man and I get to know Dave Beyers who I never really talked to before but ended up being a really cool guy! Turns out he makes his own music and t-shirts and has an awesome sense of humor. It was also around this time that I notice Melissa, from breakfast that morning, is still on shift and serving us. Well lo and behold, Pete makes it his god given duty to make sure this girl knows we're all degenerates and manages to insult her TWO more times. I don't remember what he said, but I know it was lewd and hilarious. It didn't matter though cuz she was cool and wanted to know more about hackey sack so after dinner she had about 20 sweaty, adrenaline pumping, dirty minded footbaggers surrounding her encouraging her to hit a toe stall.... I don't understand why this sport doesn't have more girls.
End dinner. Time to go party at Ben Cooke's pad. Ok, NOW I get back into John S's car for a ride there. This time Drew M is sitting shotty with me and Bruce in the back seat with ample room (I found out later Pete rode in someone's trunk). So off we go to Ben's. Everyone's having a grand old time, Drew's telling footbagers in other cars he misses them, John's taking illegal turns bc Fuck the police, and Bruce and I are in the back discussing how being around footbaggers too long results in homoerotic behavior, aka Drew's phone calls.
So there we are all high and mighty when suddenly we enter a one way road... going the wrong way. We're about ten feet onto this road when all of a sudden John says "Shit! Its the cops." Fuck. One cop walks up to my window and says "license and registration" and I give him a befuddled look bc I'm in the back seat. Apparently the cops are trained to stand near the rear of the car when pulling someone over so the driver can't stick a gun in the cop's chest or something. Not a bad idea. So John and the police dude go through the routine and it ends with the cop saying "Okay, what you wanna do is turn around and keep driving down that road and blah blah blah". he was SO nice. I couldn't believe it. I think I already reflected on this, but I'm drunk and don't really remember. But yeah, the officer let us go and eventually we got to Ben's safe and sound. HUGE thanks to John S for being such an awesome driver.
Enter Party at Ben Cooke's. For those unfamiliar, Ben has an INCREDIBLE apartment. Too cool. The apartment itself was nice and everything but all the facilities were incredible. A giant pool, a pool table, ping pong, foosball, awesome hanging chair things that were WAY too much fun to sit in, and an awesome place to sit and shoot the shit that we ended up using as a place to shred. It was me, Kevin H, John, S, John G, and Dave Beyers and we just kinda fooled around. It was great, John S hit a few of his patented ripsteins and the whole circle just went off with excitement. He hit another really cool combo that I don't remember but I know it was ridiculous. Ha, that's interesting right? "It was the greatest thing ever but I can't tell you what it was!" Ugh. So yeah, we played there in the game room for a little until John had to leave and the rest of us decided to investigate the roof.
Aw man, the roof. Just another piece of awesomeness that is Ben Cooke's apartment. There were like 2 other parties going on up there at the same time. A few of us ended up shredding a little more, but I mostly just drank and hit a legover whenever someone passed me a bag. Kevin Hogan, man. That kid does not know when to stop. He was in pain doing a clipper and he just kept going. Absurd. That's another name to look out for in a year. Anyway, we chilled up there for a bit, I peed off the roof and on some electrical wires and eventually we made our way back downstairs to Ben's room and said our goodbyes to everyone. After that it got hazy. I remember walking to the subway, but I don't remember actually being on the subway, or anything after that. Kevin tells me when we got back to Bruces I was sitting up engaging in conversation then all of a sudden I just fell back and passed out.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Zzzzz. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! SHUT THE FUCK UP PHONE ALARM! I set my alarm for 7, wanting to get back to Boston by noon, but that simply wasn't happening so I slept for another 2 hours and then eventually got up and took a shower and apparently woke everyone else up b'c everyone was ready to go by 9:30. Thanks for being ready dudes. We said our goodbyes to Bruce and Mike and peaced out. We stopped to get breakfast burritos which were mad good but very filling and were on the road by 10. The ride back was pretty uneventful (which is a good thing, no police) and I got back to my place by 3:30. As I walked from my car to my apartment I took a look at my sad bike in order to get back into the normal swing of things (and to make sure no one stole the back wheel) and saw that it was still there and continued walking.... But hark! Something was off. My frame was parallel to the ground.... There was a front wheel on my bike! I walked over to investigate, and make sure it was real and I wasn't hallucinating, and it turns out it was the same bent wheel that was stolen a few weeks ago!
A great ending to a great weekend. Thanks to everyone that was there and made it great. You guys rule.
There was no traffic. This is unheard of in Massachusetts.
Then he passes to Toolan who ALSO hits it. So now I GOTTA hit this link. First attempt, footed. Second attempt not even close. Blah! Luckily on my next turn I was able to hit it x3 and regain some pride. 
"Maybe others are inside, already shredding!" But as I approached the door, the same two kids walked back out only to reveal that they were the first ones there. 
Mike and I actually ended up being the last ones shredding that night other than Chris Kovacs, who I didn't register as Chris Kovacs until someone said "Chris" and I saw him effortlessly stepping out of blurry whirl and stepping whirl and hitting pdx torques and whatnot. That was totally surreal since I'd only heard his name before and knew of him as the, for lack of a better term, "shred rival" of Dave Clavens back when Dave was beginning to get recognition. 
