James K. Pooooooooooooooooolk HUH!

Lei-Out weekend was, for the most part, a resounding success. Saturday morning, I avoided setting up a single field and finally met Adriana from VC, who had a set of fantastic sublimated jerseys for my team. I led Dark Horse, a hearty band of Claremont alumni and friends, to four victories in our Saturday B-bracket pool. Huzzah! Our field was right next to that of Rodrigo Prudencio and Maria, Paul, and Monica had easy viewing of both teams. Afterwards, Saturday night clean-up was relatively quick and I repaired to a shower and then indulgent Italian dinner with the Stout family.

Trina and I returned to our hotel room to find it full of relaxed, beer-sipping Greenshirts, who were soon rallied to the tournament party. After a few hours of dancing, and being danced upon (I'm looking at you Alex and Joaq), we headed to bed in a cozily full room, quite reminiscent of arrangements at Trouble in Vegas. The weekend renewed a bit of aching for my life in Claremont and the beautiful Frisboleras y Frisboleros with whom I spent it.

Dark Horse moved to the A-bracket on Sunday, with a first round game against 19-player-having, club-mixed-team-based Andrea Kelly Experience. They were not so spirited (who gives Claire Storck a bloody nose? Seriously!), we did not do so well, and I was not impressed. I promised Claire that next year they would spend all Saturday on field 37, in the ocean, playing sharks. We came into our second game rekindled, hungry and rolled Aguasueño 11-4. We kept the fire but lost focus in our next game against Pretzel Factory, going down 6-2 in the first half only to match them point for point to lose 11-7. We truly played well in the second half and finished the tournament at peace.

My teammates expressed how happy they were with our level of play, our level of fun, the team connection, and, of course, the Dark Horse Juice. For me, and I would like to think for most, this tournament team experience was near perfect. We gave our hugs and thanks, mixed some more juice, and got down to serious spectating. Thank you, Mikey, Becky, Brooke, Lindsay, Claire, Alex, Nikki, Sam, Hovey, Nick, Daniel, Johnny, and Trina. I send you my love.

Trina and I spent the end of Sunday and the beginning of Monday dining and otherwise relaxing with my Bolivian family and friends: Maria, Paul, Adela, Cecilia, Rodrigo, Monica and Ronnie. Finally, far more exhausted than a three day trip would usually entail, we flew back to Seattle to welcome rest.

There were a few minor disturbances to the otherwise smooth execution of revelry. Brian, the Lei-Out staff, and I encountered tournament issues that certainly need addressing for future years. Far more significantly, the prior week of congestion primed my lips, mouth area, and nostrils for absolute punishment in the sun and cold, dry wind. By Sunday night, the lower bit of my face was reduced to raw, cracked red and just applying moisturizer produced almost blinding pain. No, really. My strict regimen of Neosporin slathering has mostly cleared up the situation.

I will post photographs as soon as I acquire them from Brooke and Carlyle. I chose to enjoy the rare luxury of a weekend without my own expensive camera to guard from thieves and omnipresent sand particles and therefore lack photographs of my own.