The return of the beginning of the end of Grand Prix Salt Lake City
Short version:
Our stay was plagued with travel difficulties. I did pretty badly in the main event, and didn't manage to play in anything on day 2. I had a lot of fun, played in a few drafts, went to some crazy mayan restaraunt, and all in all had a good time.
Long Version:
So Thursday night we're headed to the airport to take our 8:30 flight out to Salt Lake. We check in, everything's going fine, plane is listed as on time, so we grab some dinner and head for the gate. We get to the gate, and sure enough, the high tech sign displaying flight statistics says 'CANCELED' in big red letters. After about 20 minutes in line we find out that there was mechanical problems on our plane, so they canceled the flight, and we were being put on standby for a flight tomorrow at 8:30. STANDBY. United couldn't even give us a real ticket. Yaaay not premier members. They were, however, nice enough to give us a ridiculously hard to use coupon for $100 off our next flight on united in lieu of a hotel stay. So we leave and go home.
(side note, this gave me a chance to meet Jen's new man Ben. Oh shit, I just noticed how awfully those names work together. Benifer. Tee hee. Anyway, he seems like superman, so hopefully this one will work.)
Friday, getting up at 5:30 so I can make it to Victor's by 6:30 so we can make it to the airport at 7:30 to make it in time for the flight at 8:30 which, it turns out, was overbooked but had 3 no-shows, so ONE of us can fly, and the other one gets to be standby (again) on an 11:something flight that arrives at 2:12 in SLC. Just in time to RACE from the airport to make the Grand Prix Trial at 3. So Victor takes the early flight, and picks up our baggage there, and I take the later flight, and make it to the event center with just enough time to finish up my deck and get it registered. I seem to have no record of what actually happened in the GPT, but I didn't do very well. Anyway, no big deal, it was fun, and we head off to our hotel afterwards. Turns out our hotel is a Days Inn that isn't listed on the Days Inn website. Our theory was that it didn't meet the Days Inn quality standards, and lost their franchise license. Because it was kind of a dive. Not like roaches-in-the-bathroom dive, but just really low quality in terms of maintenance and service (although I don't know how much service you should be expecting from a Days Inn anyway). Biggest problem, our door didn't lock most of the time. You had to really push it to get it to lock. We just didn't bother most of the time, and used the security handle when sleeping. Great place, really.
Saturday, day 1 of the main event, Grand Prix Salt Lake City. Due to a combination of bad matchups and playing, in part, like a lobotomized monkey, and I went lose-win-win-lose-lose and dropped. Victor did his 'GP Special', going undefeated in the first 3 rounds, then never winning another GAME, let alone another match. I played in a side draft and got absolutely worked. Victor played in a Legacy constructed event that had some weird decks. Legacy is the format for that sort of thing, apparently. Fun to watch though. Afterwards, we went to this restaraunt called 'Mayan', which had some strange Aztec jungle theme, and had animatronic birds singing 'Born to be wild', and occasionally had some random people in speedos doing dives from about 20 feet up into a pool. The food was pretty sub-par mexican fare, but the entertainment was... well, entertaining, I suppose. After that we went to Denny's and drafted, then slept in preparation for the Pro Tour Qualifier for PT Los Angeles on the next day.
Sunday, day 2 of the main event. Everybody registered for the PTQ except me, since I am already qualified for the PT. My bad. I sat around for a while, watched people in the GP, watched people in the PTQ, and then decided to borrow a standard deck to play in one of the side tournaments. Turns out, nobody else wanted to play, so that event got canceled. I then borrowed Victor's legacy deck to play in one of the side tournaments. Nobody signed up for that one either, so it got canceled as well. At this point I've given up on constructed, it being 6PM already, and I signed up for one of the side drafts. Since I was the last person that day to do so, that never happened either. So, net result of day 2, nothing. At all. First place in the GP was taken by Antonino De Rosa, a sizeable frenchmen who won U.S. Nationals. Afterwards, we got together with some of the judges from our area, and played another side draft. That, at least, went better for me. After that, sleepy time.
Monday, time to go home. We had an 11:54 flight at SLC. Our alarm, for some reason, didn't go off, and Victor's cell phone, which was our backup alarm, somehow turned off in the middle of the night, so we wake up at ~10:30 and go "Oh shit, we're fucked." We race to get our shit together, and call a taxi, then head downstairs. Turns out the dispatcher had no idea what she was doing (as should have been evidenced by the fact that when victor called in and said "We're at the Days Inn Midvale" and provided the address, she responded with "Is that a business?") so the taxi got sent to the wrong place, even though Victor gave her the address over the phone, so we end up waiting 45 minutes for a taxi. (side note... why the hell do I keep wanting to capitalize taxi?) We get to the airport at 11:30, which is just in time to not be able to check in for our flight anymore. Our options become a) get put on standby for a flight at 4:40 or b) pay $100 to be confirmed on same. I opt for standby, and after a bit of hemming and hawing, victor decides that he's not gonna make it into work regardless and does the same. We get told that 44 people are booked for the flight on a 50 person airplane, so our chances look pretty good. 4 hours of hanging out at the airport later, we're waiting at the gate, at the completely unattended desk, hoping somebody will eventually come by and help us. Nobody shows, but eventually someone who looks like he should be doing something starts saying announcements over the loudspeaker, so we harass him. He tells us that we're SOL for this flight as 51 people are booked. This is a different number than the last number we heard, but apparently that's how United rolls. He turns out to be really nice (even if he does have an aversion towards helping people waiting in line at the desk) and gets us confirmed on the next flight out (6:30) without us having to pay an exorbitant fee. We finally make it onto that flight, and, at long last, with a pair of 8 yr old german kids sitting behind us and singing the entire way, we get back to California.
Our stay was plagued with travel difficulties. I did pretty badly in the main event, and didn't manage to play in anything on day 2. I had a lot of fun, played in a few drafts, went to some crazy mayan restaraunt, and all in all had a good time.
Long Version:
So Thursday night we're headed to the airport to take our 8:30 flight out to Salt Lake. We check in, everything's going fine, plane is listed as on time, so we grab some dinner and head for the gate. We get to the gate, and sure enough, the high tech sign displaying flight statistics says 'CANCELED' in big red letters. After about 20 minutes in line we find out that there was mechanical problems on our plane, so they canceled the flight, and we were being put on standby for a flight tomorrow at 8:30. STANDBY. United couldn't even give us a real ticket. Yaaay not premier members. They were, however, nice enough to give us a ridiculously hard to use coupon for $100 off our next flight on united in lieu of a hotel stay. So we leave and go home.
(side note, this gave me a chance to meet Jen's new man Ben. Oh shit, I just noticed how awfully those names work together. Benifer. Tee hee. Anyway, he seems like superman, so hopefully this one will work.)
Friday, getting up at 5:30 so I can make it to Victor's by 6:30 so we can make it to the airport at 7:30 to make it in time for the flight at 8:30 which, it turns out, was overbooked but had 3 no-shows, so ONE of us can fly, and the other one gets to be standby (again) on an 11:something flight that arrives at 2:12 in SLC. Just in time to RACE from the airport to make the Grand Prix Trial at 3. So Victor takes the early flight, and picks up our baggage there, and I take the later flight, and make it to the event center with just enough time to finish up my deck and get it registered. I seem to have no record of what actually happened in the GPT, but I didn't do very well. Anyway, no big deal, it was fun, and we head off to our hotel afterwards. Turns out our hotel is a Days Inn that isn't listed on the Days Inn website. Our theory was that it didn't meet the Days Inn quality standards, and lost their franchise license. Because it was kind of a dive. Not like roaches-in-the-bathroom dive, but just really low quality in terms of maintenance and service (although I don't know how much service you should be expecting from a Days Inn anyway). Biggest problem, our door didn't lock most of the time. You had to really push it to get it to lock. We just didn't bother most of the time, and used the security handle when sleeping. Great place, really.
Saturday, day 1 of the main event, Grand Prix Salt Lake City. Due to a combination of bad matchups and playing, in part, like a lobotomized monkey, and I went lose-win-win-lose-lose and dropped. Victor did his 'GP Special', going undefeated in the first 3 rounds, then never winning another GAME, let alone another match. I played in a side draft and got absolutely worked. Victor played in a Legacy constructed event that had some weird decks. Legacy is the format for that sort of thing, apparently. Fun to watch though. Afterwards, we went to this restaraunt called 'Mayan', which had some strange Aztec jungle theme, and had animatronic birds singing 'Born to be wild', and occasionally had some random people in speedos doing dives from about 20 feet up into a pool. The food was pretty sub-par mexican fare, but the entertainment was... well, entertaining, I suppose. After that we went to Denny's and drafted, then slept in preparation for the Pro Tour Qualifier for PT Los Angeles on the next day.
Sunday, day 2 of the main event. Everybody registered for the PTQ except me, since I am already qualified for the PT. My bad. I sat around for a while, watched people in the GP, watched people in the PTQ, and then decided to borrow a standard deck to play in one of the side tournaments. Turns out, nobody else wanted to play, so that event got canceled. I then borrowed Victor's legacy deck to play in one of the side tournaments. Nobody signed up for that one either, so it got canceled as well. At this point I've given up on constructed, it being 6PM already, and I signed up for one of the side drafts. Since I was the last person that day to do so, that never happened either. So, net result of day 2, nothing. At all. First place in the GP was taken by Antonino De Rosa, a sizeable frenchmen who won U.S. Nationals. Afterwards, we got together with some of the judges from our area, and played another side draft. That, at least, went better for me. After that, sleepy time.
Monday, time to go home. We had an 11:54 flight at SLC. Our alarm, for some reason, didn't go off, and Victor's cell phone, which was our backup alarm, somehow turned off in the middle of the night, so we wake up at ~10:30 and go "Oh shit, we're fucked." We race to get our shit together, and call a taxi, then head downstairs. Turns out the dispatcher had no idea what she was doing (as should have been evidenced by the fact that when victor called in and said "We're at the Days Inn Midvale" and provided the address, she responded with "Is that a business?") so the taxi got sent to the wrong place, even though Victor gave her the address over the phone, so we end up waiting 45 minutes for a taxi. (side note... why the hell do I keep wanting to capitalize taxi?) We get to the airport at 11:30, which is just in time to not be able to check in for our flight anymore. Our options become a) get put on standby for a flight at 4:40 or b) pay $100 to be confirmed on same. I opt for standby, and after a bit of hemming and hawing, victor decides that he's not gonna make it into work regardless and does the same. We get told that 44 people are booked for the flight on a 50 person airplane, so our chances look pretty good. 4 hours of hanging out at the airport later, we're waiting at the gate, at the completely unattended desk, hoping somebody will eventually come by and help us. Nobody shows, but eventually someone who looks like he should be doing something starts saying announcements over the loudspeaker, so we harass him. He tells us that we're SOL for this flight as 51 people are booked. This is a different number than the last number we heard, but apparently that's how United rolls. He turns out to be really nice (even if he does have an aversion towards helping people waiting in line at the desk) and gets us confirmed on the next flight out (6:30) without us having to pay an exorbitant fee. We finally make it onto that flight, and, at long last, with a pair of 8 yr old german kids sitting behind us and singing the entire way, we get back to California.