Round trip to St. Paul and worlds and back.
Well, as my wife put it, I reached a 'new level of nerddom' when I won a local HST in May. At the local store I play at a few times a year, I have done pretty well. This past May when I made it to the top 4, I had to ask my wife if I should pass the worlds invite on if I won. Our son was born in early September and at that time I figured a trip to MN for worlds was out. Being the awesome wife she is, she said no, keep it. If I won we could make a trip out of it. (A lot of her family lives in the Milwaukee area). A 1,480.7 mile story short, I won the HST, went, conquered (5-2 day 1b), was vanquished (round 1 to a another local & legend), and returned late last night.
In short I had a blast. Not that yall care about us visiting family, picking up our Goddaughter to help with our son, and letting my son visit his great grandma on the way out; but it did make the long haul feel a lot shorter. We were able to rent a house a few blocks from the venue and this let me play Friday and part of Saturday. I want to thank all of the awesome players I met and played with during my stay. Players from around the US to Belgium, Poland, and beyond. It was an experience and the prize support was great. I was able to turn in enough tickets to set my Goddaughter up with some of her favorite characters stuff ( Luke ).
Special thanks to the Gold Squadron Team who made the slightly intimidating experience of being on stream easy and low(er) stress. Tapping me out two games running let my Goddaughter watch part of a game in person and two on stream from the house! (She may have stayed up WAY past bedtime to watch streamed games until I returned). My other nephews and nieces were able to watch and cheer me on from home in Milwaukee and loved my photo bomb thumbs up during Dion's commentary after that round!
Also cool was to be able to see in person a lot of the people I only 'know' through the forums or podcasts. To cheers some tall fellow with a beer in my hand (turned out to be coach) or have others like @boomowl pointed out to me at a distance.
Running on little sleep and less prep (newborns tend to do that) I was shocked to make it 5 and 2 on day 1b and make it to day 2. When another local (@Rstan) came up to me as I walked in concerned we might get paired up in round one and 'eat one of our own' (both from MI) I wrote it off. I'd rather get knocked out by him and have a lower stress fun game if that was to be the end of my run. Not that my prediction was that prophetic, but we did get matched up, the game was a blast, and I was out. Faced with the five hour drive back to Milwaukee and the side events looking packed, I decided to make my rounds, cheer on the new and old acquaintances, and head out. Thanks again to everyone I knew and got to know!
Leaving early allowed me to run a Star Wars D6 event with my nieces and nephews. I'll post that recap later in the off topic like I did the last session.
- Croaker
Edited by Cr0aker