Seattle
I was in Seattle over the weekend for the Grand Prix. While the tourney was nothing special for me (or really any of my close friends, grats to Shapiro and Gau on top 64 finishes) there were a couple fun/funny/aweful events that I should tell the story of.
First the Hotel:
So room accomidations were Box, Sam, myself and DHoward. Dan had booked the room with rewards points so it was super cheap and going to be a suite with a king and a pull out bed/couch. This seemed to ideally suit our needs. Dan and I got into Seattle on the same flight all within 40 or so minutes of Sam and Box landing. To our suprise Gau and his girl were there to pick us up from the airport and drive us to our hotel, which wasn't the same as theirs, nice of them to do at 11 at night. So we all crammed into the smallish SUV, with Sam in the "trunk". We discuss how hungry we are, and decide that ordering Pizza should solve this issue (yes Pizza is a propper noun damn it). We get to the hotel and the "fun" starts. Dan checks in, we go to the room, the key doesn't work. Dan goes back down to the desk, gets new key, this one works. Get into the room, discover that only a king bed and a chair with automan are in the room...not exactly what we were looking for. Dan goes back down to the desk, Box and I play a game of Magic while we're waiting, and discuss food and decide to wait to order in case our room number changes. Dan comes back up, lady at front desk said "sorry about that we have the suite you want on the same floor, heres the keys for that". We pick up our stuff and go down the hall. Open the door to a very nice romantic suite....with just a king bed and nothing that resembles anything else that someone could sleep on. Cue Dan going back downstairs, he comes back up with a defeated look, not only are they a "full house' they've some how booked the room we just left for someone else so we can't even go back and have a cushy chair for someone to sleep in. They had offered a free Breakfast certificate, Dan had offered them his middle finger. At this point we call and ask for a cot, they say "Sure no problem". We order food as it's no like 12:45 in the morning and we are starved. Ten minutes later we get a call, "We are out of cots...but how about some Free Breakfast". Dan accepts this time. Sam decides he's going to try as he knows this is not going to be ideal. He heads downstairs, comes back up 15 minutes later, and has discovered that the old room wasn't re-booked, it was just reserved for a "Mr. Dan Howard"...lol. He has gotten keys for that room again, and discovered that the key to this room still works....we mull over just keeping both rooms, and decide we'll at least camp out in this room till food comes. Food shows up, we eat and get a phone call...its the front desk....they've found us the "correct" room. They send up a guy with the key, we go to Room C. This room, while not what we ordered is really really nice, and has a full size couch. Being the guy that snores gets me on the couch the other three take the bed, I fail at my threat of getting a good picture for facebook for them.
The "Madison Brain Trust":
This is the story of Madison Smith, John Treviranus and their friend Link from Janesville. They all want to go to the GP, but have little/no money/job etc. On Wednesday Link purchases a car for $250, they decide this will be a great vehicle to get them from Madison, WI to Seattle, WA, a journey of a small distance (1900+ miles). They set out on their journey with one legal driver (Link), and two passengers without licenses (or even state ID's). They sell a few cards to DBock to get some gas money and drive on. They arive in the Twin Cities 4:30 hours or so later, and discover that they have filled up already, are almost out of gas again and have only $150 between the three of them. John makes a suggestion that perhaps they should scrap the trip...Link keeps on driving. Cue Friday evening, get a call while Dan and I are in the airport in MN from John. They are in Billings, MN. They are out of gas and money. They found a local card shop to try to sell cards...the store only did store credit. They spent some time trying to convince some of the locals to drive with them to Seattle and just pay for gas...they fail. Lastly Madison gets his aunt to wire them $200 to get there...how they plan on getting back, still unknown. At 6:15 in the morning Sam gets a call from them, wondering if we know anyone that has a car, as their car has died, about 80 miles outside of the Seattle/Tacoma. A very nice Sheriff has agreed to give them a ride to the county line, but they are still going to be about 30 miles away. We tell him to call Gau (sorry Gaudenis, your fault for having a car). We arive at the site and find them there. The sherrif got them a little closer, like 15 miles out and they had enough money to get a cab to the site, but they are now out of money...and low-and-behold Magic tourney's cost money to play in. They need to borrow some cash...Shaprio is willing to pay but he's going to be to the site late, so I spot them the money temporarly and Shaprio hits me back when he gets there. Proceed to scrubbing out of the tourney. They discover that John's girlfriends friend is driving back the following weekend (randomly in school in Seattle and driving back to Wisconsin), but both Link and Madison need to work....so that won't work. They find out that Southwest has a sweet $70 one way flight to Chicago, and decide they are going to do that. Later in the day John walks up to me and asks "So do you think I'll have a problem flying without any ID?".....why yes John I do think that will be an issue....scrap that plan. They look up Greyhound...it's similar costed, but would take 5 days, at which point both Link and Madison would prob loose thier jobs and they might as well wait for the gf's friend. Finally they look into Amtrak(2 days or so to get back), which will take a student ID, etc, which Madison has, but not John. They figure they'll just try the begging option, and if not then maybe John can stay behind/take greyhound. On Sunday night they have sold most of their stuff...and are still about $150 short of being able to get home...I tell Madison I'll lend him the money, we go to ATM one...it's out of cash, so is ATM two...Dhoward steps up, and lends him the money. I still don't know if they managed to get home or not...
The "Bucket" and other stuff:
So Saturday night Danner, Box, Dan and myself head down to a food place called "The Rock", it's a pizza place/bar/resturant, they have something called "The Bucket", I get one...it's 5 different rum's in a bucket like a kid might take to the beach to make sand castles...it's good stuff and we all have a good time drinking and carrying on, food is also amazing, we vow to come back, which we do the next day minus Danner for lunch after Box and I scrub out of playing Magic. At about 4 on Sunday Gau is done with cards so we drive up to Seattle (Gau, his gril(Aushra? spelling Lithuanian is not for me), Box, Dhoward and me, to check out stuff. We go to the Sci-Fi Musuem, which is pretty fun, if a little short for $15, has stuff like Kirk's Chari from the original series, and some tricorders/communication/weapons/costumes etc from bascially every sci-fi movie ever, the model of the first Death Star, Yoda, etc, cool stuff. Then there is the Jim Hensen project that has all things muppets and seasame street which was kinda neat, but had too many darn kids :). We walk over to the space needle, it's $16 to go up, Dhoward and I decide to find a drink instead, the others go up. We get overcosted drinks, but they have lots of booze in them...so maybe not that overcosted, get chatted up by a lonely bartender. The others get down from the needle and we head down to the bay and find a seafood place. It's a bit expensive but looks nice. We all get some sweet stuff, I get a pound of crab legs myself...it takes some work but I manage to eat them all. Some sweet pictures of me with a bib are taken. We have a great time joking around dinner etc then head back to the hotel. Decide to to get to sleep...and the Crab gets it's revenge at about 2 AM as I puke my guts out for a solid hour...it was not the most fun I've had. Get up super early to get to the airport for our 7 AM flight. I feel like crap but manage to make it home. Go to see UP with Kate, it was really good I recommend people going to see it :).
First the Hotel:
So room accomidations were Box, Sam, myself and DHoward. Dan had booked the room with rewards points so it was super cheap and going to be a suite with a king and a pull out bed/couch. This seemed to ideally suit our needs. Dan and I got into Seattle on the same flight all within 40 or so minutes of Sam and Box landing. To our suprise Gau and his girl were there to pick us up from the airport and drive us to our hotel, which wasn't the same as theirs, nice of them to do at 11 at night. So we all crammed into the smallish SUV, with Sam in the "trunk". We discuss how hungry we are, and decide that ordering Pizza should solve this issue (yes Pizza is a propper noun damn it). We get to the hotel and the "fun" starts. Dan checks in, we go to the room, the key doesn't work. Dan goes back down to the desk, gets new key, this one works. Get into the room, discover that only a king bed and a chair with automan are in the room...not exactly what we were looking for. Dan goes back down to the desk, Box and I play a game of Magic while we're waiting, and discuss food and decide to wait to order in case our room number changes. Dan comes back up, lady at front desk said "sorry about that we have the suite you want on the same floor, heres the keys for that". We pick up our stuff and go down the hall. Open the door to a very nice romantic suite....with just a king bed and nothing that resembles anything else that someone could sleep on. Cue Dan going back downstairs, he comes back up with a defeated look, not only are they a "full house' they've some how booked the room we just left for someone else so we can't even go back and have a cushy chair for someone to sleep in. They had offered a free Breakfast certificate, Dan had offered them his middle finger. At this point we call and ask for a cot, they say "Sure no problem". We order food as it's no like 12:45 in the morning and we are starved. Ten minutes later we get a call, "We are out of cots...but how about some Free Breakfast". Dan accepts this time. Sam decides he's going to try as he knows this is not going to be ideal. He heads downstairs, comes back up 15 minutes later, and has discovered that the old room wasn't re-booked, it was just reserved for a "Mr. Dan Howard"...lol. He has gotten keys for that room again, and discovered that the key to this room still works....we mull over just keeping both rooms, and decide we'll at least camp out in this room till food comes. Food shows up, we eat and get a phone call...its the front desk....they've found us the "correct" room. They send up a guy with the key, we go to Room C. This room, while not what we ordered is really really nice, and has a full size couch. Being the guy that snores gets me on the couch the other three take the bed, I fail at my threat of getting a good picture for facebook for them.
The "Madison Brain Trust":
This is the story of Madison Smith, John Treviranus and their friend Link from Janesville. They all want to go to the GP, but have little/no money/job etc. On Wednesday Link purchases a car for $250, they decide this will be a great vehicle to get them from Madison, WI to Seattle, WA, a journey of a small distance (1900+ miles). They set out on their journey with one legal driver (Link), and two passengers without licenses (or even state ID's). They sell a few cards to DBock to get some gas money and drive on. They arive in the Twin Cities 4:30 hours or so later, and discover that they have filled up already, are almost out of gas again and have only $150 between the three of them. John makes a suggestion that perhaps they should scrap the trip...Link keeps on driving. Cue Friday evening, get a call while Dan and I are in the airport in MN from John. They are in Billings, MN. They are out of gas and money. They found a local card shop to try to sell cards...the store only did store credit. They spent some time trying to convince some of the locals to drive with them to Seattle and just pay for gas...they fail. Lastly Madison gets his aunt to wire them $200 to get there...how they plan on getting back, still unknown. At 6:15 in the morning Sam gets a call from them, wondering if we know anyone that has a car, as their car has died, about 80 miles outside of the Seattle/Tacoma. A very nice Sheriff has agreed to give them a ride to the county line, but they are still going to be about 30 miles away. We tell him to call Gau (sorry Gaudenis, your fault for having a car). We arive at the site and find them there. The sherrif got them a little closer, like 15 miles out and they had enough money to get a cab to the site, but they are now out of money...and low-and-behold Magic tourney's cost money to play in. They need to borrow some cash...Shaprio is willing to pay but he's going to be to the site late, so I spot them the money temporarly and Shaprio hits me back when he gets there. Proceed to scrubbing out of the tourney. They discover that John's girlfriends friend is driving back the following weekend (randomly in school in Seattle and driving back to Wisconsin), but both Link and Madison need to work....so that won't work. They find out that Southwest has a sweet $70 one way flight to Chicago, and decide they are going to do that. Later in the day John walks up to me and asks "So do you think I'll have a problem flying without any ID?".....why yes John I do think that will be an issue....scrap that plan. They look up Greyhound...it's similar costed, but would take 5 days, at which point both Link and Madison would prob loose thier jobs and they might as well wait for the gf's friend. Finally they look into Amtrak(2 days or so to get back), which will take a student ID, etc, which Madison has, but not John. They figure they'll just try the begging option, and if not then maybe John can stay behind/take greyhound. On Sunday night they have sold most of their stuff...and are still about $150 short of being able to get home...I tell Madison I'll lend him the money, we go to ATM one...it's out of cash, so is ATM two...Dhoward steps up, and lends him the money. I still don't know if they managed to get home or not...
The "Bucket" and other stuff:
So Saturday night Danner, Box, Dan and myself head down to a food place called "The Rock", it's a pizza place/bar/resturant, they have something called "The Bucket", I get one...it's 5 different rum's in a bucket like a kid might take to the beach to make sand castles...it's good stuff and we all have a good time drinking and carrying on, food is also amazing, we vow to come back, which we do the next day minus Danner for lunch after Box and I scrub out of playing Magic. At about 4 on Sunday Gau is done with cards so we drive up to Seattle (Gau, his gril(Aushra? spelling Lithuanian is not for me), Box, Dhoward and me, to check out stuff. We go to the Sci-Fi Musuem, which is pretty fun, if a little short for $15, has stuff like Kirk's Chari from the original series, and some tricorders/communication/weapons/costumes etc from bascially every sci-fi movie ever, the model of the first Death Star, Yoda, etc, cool stuff. Then there is the Jim Hensen project that has all things muppets and seasame street which was kinda neat, but had too many darn kids :). We walk over to the space needle, it's $16 to go up, Dhoward and I decide to find a drink instead, the others go up. We get overcosted drinks, but they have lots of booze in them...so maybe not that overcosted, get chatted up by a lonely bartender. The others get down from the needle and we head down to the bay and find a seafood place. It's a bit expensive but looks nice. We all get some sweet stuff, I get a pound of crab legs myself...it takes some work but I manage to eat them all. Some sweet pictures of me with a bib are taken. We have a great time joking around dinner etc then head back to the hotel. Decide to to get to sleep...and the Crab gets it's revenge at about 2 AM as I puke my guts out for a solid hour...it was not the most fun I've had. Get up super early to get to the airport for our 7 AM flight. I feel like crap but manage to make it home. Go to see UP with Kate, it was really good I recommend people going to see it :).