Friday, August 07, 2015

I guess I'm a Scrabble player

So Matt and I left for Nationals a week ago.  Somehow I got on a roll and played very well in my division - at least up to the new format of an elimination round.  Day 1 I went 6-1.  Day two I think I only lost two games.  By the end of day 3, I had a record of 15-5, I think, and I was in second place going into the elimination bracket of the top 8 competitors.  Unfortunately, I lost the first bracket to the young man who ultimately won in my division.  (I did beat him twice, however.  Once in the preliminary rounds and once in the elimination round when we played best out of 4 games.)  After that I was vying for 5th-8th place.  I had a record of 3 wins and 3 losses and ended up in 7th place because of the spread.  (Number of cumulative points after 6 games.)  I won $300 and hope to get the check in another week or so.

Matt didn't do very well.  He had a lot of bad luck in drawing tiles.  He was happy for me though.  We did have a nice time visiting with fellow Scrabble friends and going out to dinner.  The best dinner was at a nice Italian restaurant.  It was so much food and I was frustrated I couldn't box it up to take back to the hotel.  Our room didn't come with a refrigerator.  I found that during the week, I couldn't eat a whole lot.  We did try the Mexican restaurant at the hotel but it was fairly bland.  It seems that places outside of Texas really don't know how to do Mexican food very well.

We went to the movies while there and saw Mr. Holmes.  Matt needed a night to decompress and not think about Scrabble.

Our last day was very long.  I had to play 3 rounds in the morning and then I had about 3 hour break.  I went to the awards room where they were live streaming the final rounds in the first division.  It was interesting to watch two master players at work.  I discovered that they each took quite a bit of time before making their plays.  I'm always worried about my time so I often try to play fast when I can.  I had to wait for awards of course so once I received my recognition and they finished announcing for my division, Matt and I rushed out to catch the shuttle to the airport.  It was just before 3:30 and the shuttle was supposed to leave at that time.  Luckily the shuttle was delayed so we did make it.  Our flight was at 5:30.  We had a layover in Las Vegas that was supposed to only be about 2 hours but turned into about 3 1/2.  We were supposed to get in at 1:15 a.m. but didn't make it until a little after 3:00.  Once we got luggage, took a shuttle to the car, and got home, it was almost 4 a.m.  We slept in until almost noon the next day.

Today we went clothes shopping since it is the start of the tax-free weekend.  Matt really needed new pants and shoes.  He found four pairs at Kohl's while I got one pair and a blouse.  Next we headed to the outlet stores in San Marcos.  There it was really crazy - took us 15 minutes to get a parking spot.  Matt was able to find some shoes at the Nike store.  I found two pairs of shoes for myself at the Sketcher's store.  We headed home around 3:00 and then went to an early dinner around 5:30.  Tomorrow I've got to see if I can get my hair cut again and then head to Michael's for more Scrabble stuff.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is school starting soon? It is here, and I thought Texas usually started about the same time we do.

Billy said...

Sounds like the extra preparation for Scrabble has been paying off! Congrats! Hope you have a great school year!