Meet Me In St. Louie, Louie...

Can it be that Seth and Grace just finished up their second St. Louis quiz?  Time is flying...

We were fortunate to be coming from a part of the country that did not experience the winter storm, so our ride there was uneventful.  In fact, we were almost to St. Louis before we saw any snow, at all.  Other teams had to fight their way through the weather, and a few had to cancel or even started out on the trip and just couldn't quite make it, but thankfully everyone was safe.

 

I spent the weekend Quizmastering and had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people and to connect with a lot of old friends.  I think they all secretly like me for the candy that sits on my table, but I'm good with that.  Bribes aren't always bad, right?

Phil got to coach the MI District team, which was great, because he is most fully "in his element" when coaching.  The team took 10th place, overall, out of 34 all star teams!  Grace was 17th individually, and Mary was 19th.  I know that Grace was a little disappointed with her own quizzing and placement this time around, but when you consider that she was 45th at St. Louis, last year, and finished 12th in the world by the end of the season; I don't think there's really anything to cry about... mostly...   

I did have a few issues with what I would call "dirty" quizzing, throughout the weekend.  Now, let's be real...  When our family walks into a quiz, the intensity level skyrockets!  People don't even try to talk to us in the middle of rounds.  We are focused.  We memorize the material, and we take the best jumps we can.  We don't mess around.  But there is a fine line between this kind of attitude and the one that says, "I am going to do whatever I have to do to win, even if that means taking jumps on questions that I could never hope to answer (ex. According to Rom...) or flat out lying in challenges and rebuttals".  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, the most experienced Quizmaster out there.  But I've been a part of the quizzing world since 1994, and I'm just going to say that I don't put up with that stuff.  Don't try it in my room.  And that might sound harsh, but to this point I think I can count the number of quizzers who don't like to quiz in my room on one hand, so whatever.  Most quizzers are amazing!  There is something to be said for ethics.

As another note, if you catch us between rounds or at lunch, we really are fun people...

  

Alright...  That's another one in the books...

L.