Sunday, July 14, 2013

busy week - unwound yesterday


This past week was our Summer Institute - a yearly conference put on by TETA - http://www.teta.org -  and was hosted at Dyersburg High School. Needless to say it was a busy week. :-) When Friday at 3 PM finally came I had over 600 unread emails...

I did get to play some music with some guys that I don't get to see very often. Spencer Goin and Bill White are two GREAT bluegrass pickers from East Tennessee. We did some "lobby picking" at the hotel late at night as is customary. We have several people come and listen and everyone seems to have a good time.

One night Denton Jordan from Henry County joined us on banjo too. I would have picked a little but I had given my thumb pick to Royce Barnett when one of his broke and I haven't replaced it yet. :-)

On Wednesday night we had an event at Reelfoot Lake. Vanessa and I were waiting to board the pontoon boat and she was telling some guys from out of town about the snakes in the area and they were talking about snakes in general. I had stepped over to talk to someone else when I heard her scream. I thought it was part of the story. Nope - she had been stung by a wasp on the end of her finger.

I bummed a cigarette from someone and wet some tobacco to put on it. Made it better but it was still sore, and I felt bad for her. It was fun seeing the reactions to everyone riding the boats and seeing the lake for the first time.

Back inside we had catfish and country ham from Boyettes across the street. Yum! A guy was running a karaoke machine and I did a song and Vanessa did a song, but mainly I worked. Finally toward the end we had to have "Brick House" for John Simi and the karaoke guy asked me to sing it with him. You know that's NOT my style of music, but I did it - and it was fun. :-)

Thursday night saw us at the Lannom Center in Dyersburg for a county fair themed event. We had a mechanical bull, cotton candy, popcorn, ice cream & games. We also had a stage for live music. A singer songwriter friend from Nashville - Mike Willis - http://www.mikewillismusic.com - was the musical host and emcee. He did a few songs then several of us hit the stage one at a time and did some songs. Bill, Spencer and I did a couple and called ourselves "The Lobby Pickers." Before the night was over we called John Simi up on stage and sang Brick House while he danced.

Everyone really seemed to have a good time and it was good for me because not only did I play for myself and Vanessa, but I also played for Cindy French (one of the caterers) so she could do a song and I played for Paul Wooten so he could sing Simple Man. He wanted to sing it but didn't have the soundtrack. I also played, as I said, with Bill and Spencer and I did the lead vocals on the two bluegrass songs we did. Then Mike and I sang Brick House together. So I got to play along on several different ones and again - it felt good. :-)

I "unwound" by playing in the Magic: The Gathering pre-release at the FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) yesterday. First time playing Magic in OVER A YEAR and I won my first game so I was happy! Lost the second game but won the first match. Felt good!

It was swiss, so it was four rounds. Won my second match. Third match I just couldn't answer what the guy had (we were both undefeated so far). Last match was against one of the best players there from back when I was playing before and I won that match too. I came in third in the tourney! Won three boosters, but didn't open them (that's part of the overall story...).

One of the guys I met is named Donnie and he looks like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. I wasn't going to say that, of course, cause I didn't want to offend him, but then I overheard him talking to someone and he said he gets that all the time and is not bothered by it. He said a woman stopped him in an airport and told him that and said, "I think that guy is cute." So now he REALLY doesn't mind. LOL

Anyway, he and I seemed to really hit it off and had a good time playing each other in both tournaments. I had bought a "playmat" to use since "all the cool kids had one" and he mentioned that his girlfriend likes purple and would have liked that one but he didn't see it in the store. He took a pic and sent it to her and sure enough she liked it so I gave it to him. What's funny is I just wanted my money back but offered to trade for some cards if he'd rather. He said he'd rather do that - not because of the money but because he wanted me to come back and play again. :-)

So the second tournament started and I only won one of the four matches. I had a COUPLE of better cards than the first time, but overall just not as solid of a deck. One of the cards I pulled (sealed deck) the owner of the store saw and said, "that's one of the two most expensive ones to come out of this set." I had SEVERAL people want to trade for it and I probably could have gotten a ton of cards for it, but it's one that I plan to use if I get to go back and play any constructed.

After I was finished with the second tournament I opened my three packs that I won the first time. I pulled the OTHER of the two "most expensive" cards. I literally could sell them on eBay and get back more money than I spent all day. I don't plan to, though, because one is green and the other is white and I already see those as two colors I would probably build a deck with. It's kinda like my Mirari and Reya Dawnbringer from the old days... I could have traded for several cards, but why? I enjoyed using them... :-)