Winter War '07
Feb. 5th, 2007 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqWinter War had it's ups and downs. All the good things that happened where directly related to WW and all the bad things were not. What does this mean? Well I'll probably go again next year but I'm going to make some different decisions about the logistics.
Got up early Saturday morning and dropped off![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thebrucie (who had slept over after a rousing night of World of Warcraft). Then I picked up hislittlekitty who wanted a ride up to the event. I was expecting really crappy roads but once I was out on the highway things were clean and dry the whole way.
A few hours later we ended up at Pipestone Creek archery an hour early. Unfortunately I was the only Montengarde archer to show up. AM was there too, and he did shoot for the enemy side - the enemy being not Borealis - but he doesn't identify himself as being from Montengarde so much as he's from Avacal. The end result was about five enemy archers and fifteen or so Borealis archers competing against each other. Even so, Litton (who ran the tournament) decided to compare just the top five from each group to determine which side won the war point.
Didn't matter, we still got our asses kicked. The Borealis total was twice the score of the enemy total.
Me? I shot well, good enough that I didn't get pissed off at myself. I've said it before - If I lose because I was out-shot that's OK. If I lose because I fucked up, that's not OK. I didn't fuck up, so I'm satisfied, even though I didn't win (I think I got 14 points and the winner and second place contestant both got 17).
I also fell in love with another Myrgan Wood Hottie™. Sadly she was like fresh bloody chum in a pool full of sharks. Others got to her first. From what I observed over the rest of the event, she enjoyed herself immensely. sigh.
I dropped K off at the event (after discovering that Mapquest lies) then went to book a hotel room for the night. I went to the Rose Country Inn, it being the closest hotel and also because it had a nice look to it from a distance. The look was deceiving. My first real indication of what a charming place it was, was when I went up to the front door and found homeless debris (including an empty bottle of Listerine). Also found out that the hotels front desk wasn't manned - you had to go into the local saloon to book a room. I was having second thoughts at this point so I wanted to actually see the room before I committed to anything. Basically this was a cockroach check. The room being clean, well appointed and bug-free (if a little worn) I decided that it would do. After all, the only thing that K and I were going to do in it was sleep - it even had two single beds so that we wouldn't be disturbing each other.
Went back to the Wetaskiwin Drill Hall and changed into my garb. The hall is nice, roomy and there were lots of people there. I watched the heavy fighting scenarios and once again thought that I should get into that. The thought of shooting a bunch of heavies appeals to the bitter portions of my self ("get all the girls will you - take that" *twang* *whack*. "I'm never going to be a prince or the king but at least I can shoot them" *twang* *whack*). It is, however, a huge capital investment in terms of my money and time. I wouldn't want to do it until I could be warranted as a heavy fighter (even if I was just an archer), because I don't think anyone belongs on the war field unless they can take a hit. I've heard too many stories of archers being clobbered when the heavy "forgot". Because someone is going to ask, I'll preempt now - these are not local stories.
As expected, the enemy lost again - they were outnumbered by Borealis over two-to-one. From the sounds of it though, both sides had a good time. I certainly didn't hear anyone speak of it in anything less then glowing praise.
In the end, the only thing we won was the A&S point. Cool, because it means we weren't skunked.
Dinner came and I learned an important thing about pot-lucks: Don't bring soup. My soup was barely touched. I think this is for two reasons. First, there was a huge variety of exotic things there - under those conditions, why go for something as humdrum as soup? Second. Most people only have one bowl. If there is more then one goopy thing on the table, people will pick and choose, rather then have the soup/chili/stew combo.
Me? I ate way way too much. And I started drinking. This combination led me to feeling almost sick enough to puke. Seeing it coming I stopped eating and drinking. This was good and after a few hours I felt better again. I'm not sure if this was just the eating and drinking, or if it was an early onset to the flu that clobbered me Sunday morning. Probably it was a combination of the two. The food was good though. Next time I'll listen to my Weight Watchers advice on buffets (pick a few things you don't have every day rather then trying to have some of everything).
Chatted some withmanyra, snooness, Beothuk and Wilma. I'm also coming to terms with the fact that if I want to talk to wendy_licious or wackynephews again it won't be at an event.
Good war, good food, good socializing. Others did not have such a good time (not my place to talk about that, suffice to say it had nothing to do with Winter War itself). Then things went to hell.
I had parked at the hotel, anticipating that I was going to drink. Turns out I only had one drink and after two hours without I was certainly capable of driving, but the car wasn't there so I had to walk anyways.
About a block from the hall I managed to drop my bag (the shoulder strap broke). Reaching the hotel room I discovered that all three containers of leftover soup had burst inside the bag. Thankfully, I had double bagged them inside the soup tureen - leakage was minimal. I ended up flushing it all down the toilet. I think this might have been a mixed blessing because by the end of this evening I was sick and tired of beef and barley soup.
Then we discovered the true horror of the Rose Country Inn - our room was directly above the saloon's dance floor. We could hear, quite clearly, the heavy bass of the dance/rap/karaoke music coming from below. We didn't get to sleep until three hours later when the bar closed - even then we could still hear a lot of noise from the club and from the other rooms. Also the heat in the room was cranked to maximum so it was over thirty degrees in the room. I even looked for a thermostat but to no avail. It was one of the worst night's sleep I've ever had. I think I may have dozed for about an hour total, and not more then half-an-hour at any one time. Around 6:30 I'd had enough. I had a quick shower then got the hell out of town. From Wetaskiwin to Airdrie (with a short stop at Donut Mill!) I was merely tired. Then the illness erupted.
Good event, but next year I hope that's all there is to cope with.
I'm feeling better today, but still not close to good. Hopefully I'll be ready to go back to work in a few days.
Got up early Saturday morning and dropped off
thebrucie (who had slept over after a rousing night of World of Warcraft). Then I picked up hislittlekitty who wanted a ride up to the event. I was expecting really crappy roads but once I was out on the highway things were clean and dry the whole way.A few hours later we ended up at Pipestone Creek archery an hour early. Unfortunately I was the only Montengarde archer to show up. AM was there too, and he did shoot for the enemy side - the enemy being not Borealis - but he doesn't identify himself as being from Montengarde so much as he's from Avacal. The end result was about five enemy archers and fifteen or so Borealis archers competing against each other. Even so, Litton (who ran the tournament) decided to compare just the top five from each group to determine which side won the war point.
Didn't matter, we still got our asses kicked. The Borealis total was twice the score of the enemy total.
Me? I shot well, good enough that I didn't get pissed off at myself. I've said it before - If I lose because I was out-shot that's OK. If I lose because I fucked up, that's not OK. I didn't fuck up, so I'm satisfied, even though I didn't win (I think I got 14 points and the winner and second place contestant both got 17).
I also fell in love with another Myrgan Wood Hottie™. Sadly she was like fresh bloody chum in a pool full of sharks. Others got to her first. From what I observed over the rest of the event, she enjoyed herself immensely. sigh.
I dropped K off at the event (after discovering that Mapquest lies) then went to book a hotel room for the night. I went to the Rose Country Inn, it being the closest hotel and also because it had a nice look to it from a distance. The look was deceiving. My first real indication of what a charming place it was, was when I went up to the front door and found homeless debris (including an empty bottle of Listerine). Also found out that the hotels front desk wasn't manned - you had to go into the local saloon to book a room. I was having second thoughts at this point so I wanted to actually see the room before I committed to anything. Basically this was a cockroach check. The room being clean, well appointed and bug-free (if a little worn) I decided that it would do. After all, the only thing that K and I were going to do in it was sleep - it even had two single beds so that we wouldn't be disturbing each other.
Went back to the Wetaskiwin Drill Hall and changed into my garb. The hall is nice, roomy and there were lots of people there. I watched the heavy fighting scenarios and once again thought that I should get into that. The thought of shooting a bunch of heavies appeals to the bitter portions of my self ("get all the girls will you - take that" *twang* *whack*. "I'm never going to be a prince or the king but at least I can shoot them" *twang* *whack*). It is, however, a huge capital investment in terms of my money and time. I wouldn't want to do it until I could be warranted as a heavy fighter (even if I was just an archer), because I don't think anyone belongs on the war field unless they can take a hit. I've heard too many stories of archers being clobbered when the heavy "forgot". Because someone is going to ask, I'll preempt now - these are not local stories.
As expected, the enemy lost again - they were outnumbered by Borealis over two-to-one. From the sounds of it though, both sides had a good time. I certainly didn't hear anyone speak of it in anything less then glowing praise.
In the end, the only thing we won was the A&S point. Cool, because it means we weren't skunked.
Dinner came and I learned an important thing about pot-lucks: Don't bring soup. My soup was barely touched. I think this is for two reasons. First, there was a huge variety of exotic things there - under those conditions, why go for something as humdrum as soup? Second. Most people only have one bowl. If there is more then one goopy thing on the table, people will pick and choose, rather then have the soup/chili/stew combo.
Me? I ate way way too much. And I started drinking. This combination led me to feeling almost sick enough to puke. Seeing it coming I stopped eating and drinking. This was good and after a few hours I felt better again. I'm not sure if this was just the eating and drinking, or if it was an early onset to the flu that clobbered me Sunday morning. Probably it was a combination of the two. The food was good though. Next time I'll listen to my Weight Watchers advice on buffets (pick a few things you don't have every day rather then trying to have some of everything).
Chatted some with
manyra, snooness, Beothuk and Wilma. I'm also coming to terms with the fact that if I want to talk to wendy_licious or wackynephews again it won't be at an event.Good war, good food, good socializing. Others did not have such a good time (not my place to talk about that, suffice to say it had nothing to do with Winter War itself). Then things went to hell.
I had parked at the hotel, anticipating that I was going to drink. Turns out I only had one drink and after two hours without I was certainly capable of driving, but the car wasn't there so I had to walk anyways.
About a block from the hall I managed to drop my bag (the shoulder strap broke). Reaching the hotel room I discovered that all three containers of leftover soup had burst inside the bag. Thankfully, I had double bagged them inside the soup tureen - leakage was minimal. I ended up flushing it all down the toilet. I think this might have been a mixed blessing because by the end of this evening I was sick and tired of beef and barley soup.
Then we discovered the true horror of the Rose Country Inn - our room was directly above the saloon's dance floor. We could hear, quite clearly, the heavy bass of the dance/rap/karaoke music coming from below. We didn't get to sleep until three hours later when the bar closed - even then we could still hear a lot of noise from the club and from the other rooms. Also the heat in the room was cranked to maximum so it was over thirty degrees in the room. I even looked for a thermostat but to no avail. It was one of the worst night's sleep I've ever had. I think I may have dozed for about an hour total, and not more then half-an-hour at any one time. Around 6:30 I'd had enough. I had a quick shower then got the hell out of town. From Wetaskiwin to Airdrie (with a short stop at Donut Mill!) I was merely tired. Then the illness erupted.
Good event, but next year I hope that's all there is to cope with.
I'm feeling better today, but still not close to good. Hopefully I'll be ready to go back to work in a few days.
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Date: 2007-02-06 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-02-06 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-02-06 05:00 pm (UTC)Oooh.
Date: 2007-02-06 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 11:05 pm (UTC)I'm the one who "did not have such a good time" but its really not a story for public consumption.
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Date: 2007-02-07 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 12:41 am (UTC)