Pro Tour Honolulu

I'm finally back from gorgeous Waikiki in the city of Honolulu (on the southern coast of Oahu). As this is a full-fledged trip, you can (and should) view all my pictures at singleh.shutterfly.com.

I arrived on Tuesday night and was somewhat disappointed to see that it was cloudy and raining. However, it was such a peacful rain and it was just so calm outside that I couldn't help but feel at peace - and the 73 degree weather wasn't bad either. The trip to the hotel was horrendous as Honolulu has the worst city highway structure in the world. The main issue is that there aren't enough roads to handle the volume of cars traveling about. All the cars tend to cluster in specific areas, like Waikiki (where I stayed), because those are the touristy places. For those that don't know, Waikiki is Hawaii's version of New York City with a shot of Vegas. The main strip has such stores as Niketown, A/X, Tffany's, etc.). Still, it didn't take me long to find the Quiznos around the corner. Mmmm...toasty.

By arriving on Tuesday evening, I gave myself all of Wednesday and Thursday to, ideally, explore Waikiki, get a nice tan, and swim in the ocean. As of Thursday WotC was picking up the bill for my room (yay partial sponsorship!), so I negotiated to move into that same room on Tuesday night. After sweet talking the hotel clerk I managed to get my way (I was getting a better room - the WotC room - for those two days). The room was nice, though it didn't have a view of the ocean. It did have a very odd tag around the bathroom showerhead instructing guests to not shower outside the tub. Interesting. It's hard to imagine people unlatching the extendable showerhead and showering in the bathroom, but what do I know.

When I awoke on Wednesday I was disappointed to see that it was mostly cloudy. I wandered around a bit and got my picture taken, but was worried that it might be worse on Thursday, so I decided to go to the beach anyway. As it turns out there were lots of people on the beach and quite a few people surfing and swimming. Hawaii is just that nice - any day is a good day to go to the beach. In addition, as I found out by accident, any day is a good day to get a tan (or burn) since the UV index is so darn high. So, despite the mostly cloudy, I got a nice burn on my back for not using suntan lotion. D'oh! Fortunately it wasn't too bad.

When I awoke Thursday there was even more disappointment as the news talked about flooding that closed schools. I looked outside and it was clearly raining, but no real flooding. The funny thing is that Waikiki normally gets less than 20 inches a year. It appears they got all of that while I was staying there. However, during my early morning walk (never did get off of NYC time really) it cleared up completely and I was like hot damn I gots to get my beach stuff! So I ran back to my room, collected my stuff and headed to the beach. I got some good sun, though I had to lather up so as to protect my wounds from the previous day. While chilling on the beach (Queen's Beach) I met some really nice guys and we met up later that day at a nearby bar for drinks. Good times.

Friday meant that the hardcore vacation was over and it was time for Day 1 of the Pro Tour. There were so many great things about this event that it's hard to know where to begin, but the first thing that happened was us all being told to take off our pinstripe judge shirts and put on these kickass Hawaiian judge shirts made exclusively for this event. To the left you can see the different shirts. There was a head judge shirt, player shirt, staff shirt, and judge shirt (modeled by none other than Damn Sexy). Anyway, on Friday I was Team Lead for the Feature Match team and had two L3 judges with me. I learned a lot from this and really started to see myself grow as a judge. I'm happy to say there were no problems with this aspect of the tournament and that was a relief for my first day at a Pro Tour.

Saturday was Day 2 of the Pro Tour and that had me judging on Side Events because the local side events people didn't have enough staff to handle things (and there are a lot less Pro Tour players on Day 2). However, in the end, they got a lot more staff than they needed and mid-way through the day I was struggling to find things to do. Fortunately, I got to talking with Lee and he offered to have me sit in on a L1 certification inteview. This was a great experience - to see the interview from the other side of the table. I spent a lot of time on Saturday talking to various judges about my work over the years, my Magic community, and what I need to do to prepare for my L3 test.

Sunday was the slowest of the days for me (and many other judges) as only a few judges are needed for the Top 8 and sides. Still, there was lots of learning as I got to attend two judge seminars, one on building a community and one of how to deal with problem players. Paul Morris led the first and Scott Marshall led the second. Both were immensely useful to me and I took a ton of notes. On Sunday I also had a pre-L3 interview with two L3 judges. The purpose of this was to get a better idea of where I am on the road to L3 and to make sure I know what I need to do to get there. To my surprise, both L3s were impressed with my thinking, interest, and philosophy. They said that based on the way I answered questions, I was much closer to a L3 than L2 and that once I got my rules knowledge up to par, I should have no concerns about testing. Wow. Never thought I'd get such a positive response. So, it looks like I'll be seeing more of the world as I pursue my L3. I'm not going to be able to make Prague, but probably will hit Charleston...and may even test there.