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NY Update? Homeless Man Returns
Posted By: Rich Munitz In Response To: NY Update? (adambulldog)
Date: Monday, 2 August 2010, at 5:33 a.m.
Yes, the attendance this year was disappointing as a number of those who had been regulars in prior years did not attend this year.
But as always, it was a fun, relaxing, low-key event with breathtaking views from the playing room and out and around the hotel.
I brought my son Jonathan to the event. He was the "kid" in attendance but he has a full, think head of hair. Jason Pack who is somewhat more follicly challenged had lost to Eden Windish in the undefeated finals and then to me for second place. As it happens, he was merely following in Jonathan's footsteps. Jon had the misfortune of losing his first match to Eden. I got to watch much of this match since I had the dubious distinction of being the first player eliminated from the main flight, having lost a gammon on a 4-cube leading 5-away 7-away. When Jonathan lost to Eden, that made him the second loser. Coincidentally, he had to play me next in the loser's bracket.
The hotel story? Shall we call it "Homeless man returns"?
The procrastinator that I am, I called the hotel too close to the tournament date and they were entirely full. As we learned, there was a wedding being held there and presumably many of the guests were staying there. So I booked a room at the Rainbow Motel in Watertown, NY (about 40 minutes from the tourney) on hotels.com. It was dirt cheap and the reviews were not very flattering, but I would be arriving at like midnight and leaving at 8 AM, so I just needed a bed, and the review did say the beds were good. My plans were to try to find a place in Alexandria Bay for Saturday night when I arrived.
I got an email from hotels.com with the details for the Rainbow Motel. I printed out the directions and hit the road. We made good time and arrived around 11 PM. Well, what I mean is we arrived at the street address I got for the motel and the location the directions took us to. Only problem was, the motel was not there. It was dark, but it pretty clearly looked like a field of tall grass where that address should be. After driving up and down the road a few times, it was clear that this place did not exist. But I had the phone number, so time to make a phone call. I got some automated system that informed me that the wait time would be longer than expected. I held and after about 5 minutes on hold it simply told me that they couldn't take my call and hung up. So next thought was to try Google maps on my iPhone. Put in Rainbow Motel in Watertown and surely it will guide us there. Wrong. Out pops the same street address at the same grassy field. So next I tried the telephone directory. Success! Totally different location in town. Just one small problem - it gave the street, but not the street address. Well couldn't hurt to take a look. Well we drove up and down the street twice and no sign of the Rainbow Motel. By now, we had driven around Watertown for an hour. The entrance to the highway was right on this road and seeing it we decided that we'd just give up and drive up to the tournament hotel in Alexandria Bay. No bed Friday night. We would have to sleep in the car.
Saturday began on a promising note. We ate breakfast at a place right next to a motel. Stopping in afterward, we were told that they had half a dozen rooms available. Well, remembering how last year I was completely out of the tournament by mid-afternoon, and knowing that they had a bunch of rooms available, I decided we'd come back later once we were sure we'd be staying. The guy said it shouldn't be a problem and they'd be there till 11 PM. Oh, and I recounted the story of the previous night and he assured us that the Rainbow Motel was a dump, but most definitely on the second road we were on. Anyway, I kept winning all day and all night. Finally, at 10:30 PM I was done playing for the night and got out to the car where I had the motel phone number and called ahead. We're completely full they said. No rooms available. What? You had 5 rooms earlier and the guy said it shouldn't be a problem. Well, we did have 5 rooms, but we rented them all today, they said. But if any place would still have a room available tonight, it would be this other place. We gave them a call and the person who answered informed me that she just got married and is on her honeymoon. But she'd be back on Monday and they'd have rooms then if I called back. Homeless once again. Another night in the car.
I am completely exhausted from this trip. How I managed to string together 7 consecutive match wins to take 2nd place (really 1st Consolation) with just a few hours of real sleep for the entire weekend is beyond me.
I'm not an expert in making drawsheets, but why I should need to win 7 matches to win a consolation with only 19 players is also beyond me. The tournament winner got a bye and won the event with a 4-0 record. Had he lost the final (loser goes to progressive consolation final), he could have won the consolation with a 4-1 record. Meanwhile, I had to go 7-1 to do that. There's got to be a better way.
But it was all fun and I'm glad I went.
And on the trip back this afternoon, passing Watertown on the highway, there was the sign right before the exit: "Lodging this exit: Rainbow Motel". And there it was - the sign visible from the highway. Not 30 more seconds drive further down the road from where we gave up looking.
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