Nationals

Sweet location, amazing derby, nice people, lots of food covered in copious amounts of cheese. I approve of this so far. :D








-- Post From My iPhone

Next Stop: Nationals

One of the other things that has kept me from having blog-time has been planning for the quilt's next trip: Uproar on the Lakeshore, the 2010 WFTDA National Championship Tournament.

Exhibiting the quilt at regionals was a blast. I can only imagine how much fun it will be to throw in derby at the national level, deep dish pizza, sausage, and the pride that will (hopefully) come from overcoming my crippling fear of flying to actually make this trip.

My poor husband will have to babysit me on the plane. I predict a lot of hand crushing holding.

Oh posting, you have gotten away from me!

Some of you may assume I've been eaten by bears. That's really the only good reason for not posting about the second and third days of regionals. Hell I should also have posted about the pile of squares I've received since the trip. I'm a jerk, I know.

Thankfully I haven't been eaten by bears, I've simply been overwhelmed with the start of freshmeat season. Between tryouts, two rounds of decision meetings, and all sorts of other meaty goings-on, I've been running myself ragged. I'm psyched for the new meats, but man, the off season made me forget how hard it is to blog when I'm doing all derby all the time while not sleeping or showering, like, at all.

This was the least creepy images that came up
when I googled "fresh meat." The LEAST.

I assure you that regionals was pretty neat. I spent much of it tired, hungry, and buzzed on way more caffeine than I've ever had in my life. However, I wouldn't trade that weekend for any amount of sleep or balanced-meal type food. There were many exciting highlights: 

I ate two of these every day. I am
aware of how bad an idea this was.

Thank goodness I caved and got room
service later. Still, it was mostly cheese.

Squares were donated. The Rev repped for Montreal.

Bane-ana was confusing and terrifying as always,
and yet somehow funny and adorable.

Yes, this is a photo of me sleeping under my
vendor table. Thank you PeeJay for holding
down the fort.

My monster hat from mymonsterhat.com.
There is totally a hole in the back for
my dreads. Convenient!

Another donation! Thanks Potomac Ripper
for leaving this shirt on my table.

More donations! Rock on Raci Lords.
River City now has a spot on the quilt.
thanks to you.

People signed my "guestbook." Thanks Reverend
Al for being a good roommate. No sharpie
moustaches for you when you're asleep.

So much happened, it's hard to sum this up in photos. Also, I took fewer than I had planned because I was having such a great time. If I could find a way to get the quilt to every tournament, I'd be thrilled. It was so exciting to see the quilt where it belonged - surrounded by the people who contributed squares and materials. 

Regionals: Day 1

Johnny Deep keeping me company

I'm sick. Being a high school teacher and spending several days around sick teenagers will do that to you. Because I'm a glass half full kind of girl, my immediate reaction to this is to say "well, at least this gives me time to write that regionals update." My loss is your gain.

Hooray for tables!

We left for NY following a full day of work plus an equally full evening of parent teacher's night. I'm sure the ride to White Plains would have felt long if I'd had a different set of car-buddies. Pelvis is always a great traveling companion, and we were also rooming/carpooling with the Reverend Al Mighty and Hayley Contagious. When we hit up a nearby diner, they didn't even make fun of my choice to have a banana milk shake and chili cheese fries after midnight, even though it was clearly a bad idea. That's friendship.

We slept for what felt like ten minutes in our very comfortable beds, only to be woken up in the morning by a very awake Reverend Al serenading us with "Springtime for Hitler." The fact that I didn't attempt to drown him in the toilet speaks volumes about his charm. That, and the fact that I realized we all had to be at the venue by 9AM to fulfill our vendor/announcer obligations, so he was actually doing us a favor. We raced to the venue to do our respective thangs. The big day had arrived.

I could hear their strategy. It was neat.

With the help of the very accommodating and generally wonderful ladies from Suburbia Roller Derby, we hung the quilt and set up shop. To say I had The Best Spot Ever is an understatement. I was right behind turn 4 and could see everything! I got a ton of foot traffic as well. In fact, I got so much foot traffic that I needed to make more copies of my flyers before I ran out entirely. Thankfully there was a Staples next door. As they say in the commercials, that was easy.

Convenient!

I spent the day talking about the quilt, handing out tons of flyers, and watching bout after bout after bout. It was an incredibly enjoyable day. My face hurt from smiling so much, even though I was so exhausted I felt like I might vomit under my vendor table. My roommates all went to one of the after parties to go ride a mechanical bull, I stayed home to watch the Discovery Channel and eat the best pizza I've had in years. Seriously, look at the photo and tell me you don't want some. Yum.

Fancy knife and fork pizza.

My day ended with me falling asleep and being vaguely aware of everyone else coming back to the room at some point. I definitely had pizza dreams, mainly consisting of the Reverend Al regaling me with stories about his life. Since these dreams so closely resembled the actual car ride, I won't trouble you with details.

More on the trip soon, once I've absorbed more cold meds and I feel slightly more human. Amazing experiences often come with a price, and for me it's usually a few day's worth of some kind of cold. Clearly this tournament is no exception.

Eastern regionals. Yeah, that happened. *THUD*

Back from regionals and taking a quick second of my lunch break to let you all know I'm not dead. Ok, so I know you read this to keep up on the quilt's progress and not take notes on my general well being, I get it.  Still, a dead Dread is an unfinished quilt, right?

I have a massive update to post once I get a nap and some time with my family. Expect tales of chili dogs, an amazing vendor spot right by turn 4, squares donated during the tournament, and that time when Pelvis and Dumptruck were creeping me the hell out in gravelly stereo. Oh, and if I find ways to delicately phrase things I might be able to throw in some Reverend Al Mighty stories. There could have been no better roommates than him and Hayley Contagious.

I loved showing the quilt at Derby in the Burbs. Can I do it again, right now?

The only upside of today's schedule...

Steve has to load the car. Sure, it'll be rough going from a full work day to parent teacher night to the tournament with no break in between, especially considering that we'll arrive after midnight and have to be at the venue by nine AM. Epic fail. However, because I can't go home before we leave for the trip, Steve offered to save me from having to play the wild game of car-tetris that is loading the quilt into the trunk.

Thanks Steve. You are truly a total sucker the best husband.

Packing for Eastern regionals

Suburbia Roller Derby was kind enough to hook me up with some hanging space for the quilt this weekend during the WFTDA Eastern Regionals tournament. How nice are they, eh? I couldn't be happier. Well, now that I've figured out a possible way to maybe hopefully hang it up, I couldn't be happier. 

You see, the old hanging system was just godawful. I have no desire to ever see binder clips again let alone use the things to hold up a heavy, ten-foot-by-ten-foot quilt. Last night I put our sewing machine through hell attaching a ten-foot tube to house a length of rope. Hopefully this will be sufficient to keep this bugger off the ground for three days.

I'll have to ask if there's a nearby hardware store just in case something goes terribly awry. I hope to avoid spending my trip to regionals standing on a ladder and holding up the quilt with my hands.