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This was my first Sunday in a while where I could tackle the caravan of minutae that passes through ones life and I fealt a primal link to every man who’s ever spent an afternoon ‘cleaning up’.  I don’t like the term “cleaning” for the rearrangement of items we call stuff and entropy incarnate we call dust and dirt and much prefer to call it “sorting”.  My arrangement system is as ideopathic as the next man’s as despite using my scarves but once or twice a year and my 7 7/8ths Lock and Co hat never they both have a more prominent place than the gloves and ushanka that are my talismans of winter.  Such is the way of things.

I enjoy the act of boxing, whereby disparate items undo their diaspora and are containerized into the embodiment of forgetting of the attic.  This was different as I was moving Scout stuff that is pulled out with an insistent seasonality that rivals the migration of geese.  Looking over the list makes me look like some mad pack rat or alternatively MacGuyver’s supply division:

1) 130 glass eye droppers
2) 600 flexible straws
3) 1.5 miles of sissal binder twine
4) 300 wooden yellow pencils
5) 12 pairs of scissors

All these items went into “Fall Scout Program Box #6” and were placed in my attic which is slowly turning into a program armory that is strangly exempt from my normal organizational rules.  Every January 1st I reseason my cast iron cook wear and reverse everything in my cloths closet.  If by the next Jan 1 the wearable hasn’t been used, the hanger will still be backwards and will be moved to a box in the bottom of my closet.  After another cycle, the box moves to the attic where I will theoretically donate it to charity after another year but I’ve yet to do this.  I’ve been slowly losing weight over the past 8 months and it tickled me to rewear something I’d expanded out of but my tastes have changed and the golf shirt is now the acme of a different Terry.

I found a boat model piece my brother made when he was 14 or so, clocking in at 15 years ago.  Is there a statute of limitations on how long I have to wait after someone moves out before I can trash their stuff?  I hope I never find out and can depend on something like the roof collapsing to serve as my mnemonic brushfire, clearing out the weeds to make room for more things.  That, or I could build shelves.

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The meet time was 9:30 AM at the Federal Triangle station of the DC Metro and even rising at 5:30 AM this was an impossible goal that would require perfect road and rail conditions of which neither materialized.  The drive averaged out to the speed limit between normal highway driving and the imposing menace of orange construction beacons which ended when I reached the Metro Station where I was awash in ebullient whiteness.  “The ticket machine lights just went out, what should I do?” some tweener asked as every other person had no difficulty grasping that the machine display illustrated entered funds, and in that he’d yet to proffer the money his mom gave him there was no response.

The train car filled after the first two stations and then filled again at the third.  I was glad to have a seat but the close quarters and my stature led two children to use my legs as structural supports to anchor them during the starting and stopping of the train.  They had fleece jackets on so I had tiny sentient leg warmers until they got bored and nonchalantly started pulling at each others hair in a space on the floor made by the serendipitous arrangement of Ugg boots in a gaggle of sorority girls.  The train moved in fits and starts while the person to my right vicariously lived my attempt to make meeting arrangements as 9:30 receded with her intent eyes staring at my phone screen.  11 was the new target.  Someone shouted “a monument, a monument” and cheers erupted as if some latter day re-enactment of Xenophon’s Anabasis had just occurred and in under an hour the bolus of passengers was ejected and I tried to make a transfer to another line.  After four full trains passed I walked to the Federal Triangle station pylon and began firing off coordinating messages when I was then met by three of the eventual party.

While waiting I spied a former girlfriend of a friend and shot out this sublime call to the girl whose name I didn’t know

Hey you!  Yeah, you who didn’t turn around, you dated Craig Harris for a bit but then you split up and you don’t like your picture being taken even though you look nice.  You work for a school or something in education and you’re wearing a green coat!

My friend’s wife leaned to me a politely said “next time, lead off with coat color”.

Tocks ticked and sometime before 1 we were all together but opted for lunch over rally.  We consume and depart through a crush of humanity that seems to be moving in the wrong direction when arriving at the mall we realize why, seeing that even with my 400mm lens I couldn’t make out the Jumbotron on which the event was being rebroadcast.  I’m passed by a moan of zombies whose fake bloodsoaked shirts reveal the depth of their convictions when contrasted with the pristine designer jeans.

I give up keeping up and regroup at the Washington monument and one of the three worthwhile moments of the day occurred:

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Moment Number 1

The shadow of Washington is cold and I depart north finding the leaving far easier than the arriving and tired of having met every progressive Caucasian in the time zone I head back to Ockanickon.  Worthwhile moment 3:  saying “yes, I’ve played some Egyptian Rat Screw, what rules do you use?”  Games 45 and 46 of my winning streak have been logged.

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Tomorrow I hope to be in DC and have no expectation that I’ll be within a quarter mile of the presenters of The Rally for Sanity and I’m overcoming this by renting a 100-400mm lens.  When I stopped in I was asked for a copy of my license:

Me: Why?
Sales Person: So we can find you in case there’s a problem.
Me: But you already have my credit card.  What could my license do?
Sales Person: You know, so we’ll have it.  It’s not that big of a deal.
Me: Sure, give me your license.
Sales Person: Why?
Me: That way if you charge me anyway, I can, you know, have it.
Sales Person: *Angry stare*

I went on to camp, theoretically to campmaster, but by and large to see Kevin Ott.  Until he arrived I took pictures with excessive zoom of Chuck’s parrot:

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A Meeting of Minds

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Chuck Gets to First Base with a Parrot

Joe arrived in his Ron Burgundy garb, and I tried very hard to make it look old tymie.

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I should have made it blurrier.

Then Kevin arrived with a friend.  It was swell.

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This evening’s lodge meeting lasted under an hour and I wasn’t prepared for this.  I’ve been to lodge meetings that had gone past 10, where an hour was spent on a single patch design, and in ones where the meeting was extended so we could go pick up the person we needed to have a quorum.   There weren’t any motions, patches, resolutions or extended discussions on parli pro or operational minutia and that prevented me from taking advantage of the late night menu at Applebees.  When will kids learn that doing things like providing minutes and agenda ahead of time and delegating quagmires to committees have consequences.

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Me: I noticed you keep leaving the grape juice and cranberry juice out.  You should probably put it away.
Housemate’s Guest: There isn’t enough room in the fridge, so I leave them out because they’re tart and won’t go bad.
Me: I don’t think it works that way.  Some juices are slower to spoil but all will.
Housemate’s Guest: Maybe, but the worst case scenario is we wind up with wine.

I’m glad I don’t drink.

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Someone in our marketing department was having trouble formatting something for the web and she came by to ask us for advice.  I happened to be in the room when they were talking and I gave my point of view that to save space in simpler images she should use PNG with custom palettes instead of jpegs.  She didn’t seem swayed and we went back and forth until finally a coworker burst out with “Mary, listen to the kid.  He may not have formal computer training but he has a blog”.  That is apparently a standard of some note and she departed without any more questions.

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I’ve commented before on Canada’s signage, but by far my favorite are the penalty signs for going 50 KPH over the speed limit.  They include notes like “10 year loss of license”, “$15,000 fine”, “1 year in prison”, which all seem reasonable but I think one could capture a more visceral fear with ones that say “Go 50 KPH over the speed limit and your name is Peaches”, “Go 50 KPH over the speed limit and you’ll learn what a black bear in estrus can do”, and “Go 50 KPH over the speed limit and you will be hit by a cruise missile”.

Ambiguous signs combined with a few other strange map moments lead me to drive straight to work and where I arrived at 9 AM as I had told someone that I’d have something done by 10 AM and I had no intention of failing.  I hadn’t shaved, I was wearing day old clothing and my eyes were a spot red but I got the task done after which I triumphantly reported to my boss:

Me: I had a rough weekend and only came in to take care of a quick thing for a requester, do you mind if I leave now?
Him: Can you take care of just one thing before you go?
Me: Sure.
Him: Could you test fluid infiltration on these three different pouches, with two different challenge fluids at these 5 different conditions?
Me: That’s 90 pouches if you assume 3 per condition and that would take… many hours.
Him: I’d get started, then.

Lesson Learned: Old Boss – Analog, could match task to ability to do them.  New Boss – Digital, you are either present and working, or not.

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Our report time was 8:00 AM, all of us, that is which is something I’d never encountered previously at a GP.  We stared blankly into the middle distance while sorting basic lands (something that I think should be included in judge exams) and listening to how the task assignments for the day would have the constancy of a desert rain puddle.  For a few brief periods, I had a judge candidate/judgeling/level zero to proctor and I began working my magic.  Most judges go over rulings with protojudges, I focus on more prosaic concerns.

Me: The three most important questions you’ll ever receive are “where are the bathrooms”, “how much time is left”, and “uh, what does this card do”.  Most of the time you’ll be answering the first two so don’t feel bad if you don’t know the last one occasionally.
Judgeling: So rules knowledge isn’t important?
Me: No, it’s very important for a tournament, but you don’t need to be the expert all the time.  That’s like expecting a librarian to memorize rather than locate books.   It’s important to have your docket of speeches prepared.
Judgeling: Like what?
Me: When I start a booster draft I introduce myself “hi, my name is Terry Robinson and I’m a level two judge from Philadelphia.  I do two things: run 8-mans and screw up judge calls.  Remember that before you raise your hand.”
Judgeling: I think I understand, do you have any other advice?
Me: Wash your judge shirt inside out to reduce wear on the logos.

I was flattered when my name came up during his interview.  I don’t know in what context, but I still felt good.

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7.5 hours of sleep approaches a record for a GP but I still felt behind my a day or two, maybe it was the timezone change.  The hotel offered a continental breakfast which consisted entirely of bread products and cereals, in the words of Brian Coval “It’s a continental breakfast; the continent is Africa”.  The venue itself was long and without cheap WiFi and my first experiment of the day failed when I was told that suspenders were not acceptable.  Wearing them gives me an extra round as they don’t impede my breathing and let my pants fit in a more comfortable overall configuration, plus I can use a urinal with my hands above my head.  The opening announcements noted the location of the fire exits; something I’d never heard although few people heard as the sound system blew.

After the opening comments, we were asked to introduce ourselves with “our name, level, and something about ourselves”.  I said “My name is Terry Robinson, I’m a level 2 judge from Philadelphia, and I collect trivets” which is at least partly true as I possess three trivets; many more than most people.  Judges are a strange lot of people who dump time and energy into a community activity that benefits a for profit company.  We are self-trained rules-wise with little structure to support us between events and are poorly paid.  Each GP makes me want to quit playing Magic a bit more.  See everyone at GP: Nashville.

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I left work at 11:30 and discovered something had happened to my vehicle:
1) If I broke suddenly, the radio would skip a track
2) If I made a turn, the radio would restart
3) If the air conditioner kicked on, my dash lights would dim
4) If I broke suddenly, my GPS would turn off

And then…. there was Canada.  So, I-95 has a clearly marked north and south, but some Canadian highways simply list next exit cities, requiring knowledge of things like “geography” and “how not to drive into the great white north”, like as if there were I-95 Boston and I-95 Miami.   Boo.