Portland Cheers and Jeers

Dave and I headed to Portland Friday morning to meet Whit and Claire for a day of fun and then reunite with Shadrach for Kleinman Eruption, an annual mixed tournament.

Cheer: Lunch at Pok Pok offered distinctive and delicious Thai. I quite enjoyed my tamarind whiskey sour, the roasted game hen and the desserts—we sampled every single one on their menu. I recommend it highly.

Cheer: The Fisher have a beautiful home and offer fantastic hospitality. Add to this hospitality a brand new Wii, Francis and company's cooking (the polenta, oh my god, the polenta), and Abby Armstrong's birthday and we had a wonderful evening.

Cheer: Lilli and Krump came through in the pinch to increase our number of ladies from five to seven.

Jeer: I had quite a few execution errors and some uncharacteristic drops all day Saturday. All in all, I was feeling out of sorts and disconnected from the team—I blame our time off from practice in July and general discombobulation in my life.

Cheer: Despite any lack on my part, our team came away from with a three and one record on Saturday, only falling to the stacked Montana–Portland team who eventually won the tournament.

Jeer: I turned my left ankle quite badly during our last game on Saturday and sat out the remainder. Booo.

Cheer: The hot tub at our Best Western was the size of a normal pool shallow end. So good.

Cheer: Dessert and coffee at Pix Patisserie before the party. Krump and I shared the Queen of Sheba truffle cake, warmed up and with mocha ice cream, and the Shazam! concoction.

Jeer: On Deck, the sports bar hosting the tournament party, could not decide if it wanted to be in Los Angeles or Las Vegas. In other words, it did not belong in Portland and filled with Ultimate players.

Cheer: the looks on the faces of the excessively made-up women waiting in line as our Shadrach crew skipped said line. VIP, dude. Also, we still rocked the party.

Jeer: Shadrach came out sleepy and unmotivated Sunday morning to lose our quarterfinal against crosstown rivals Moonshine. This loss was perhaps our first ever to them? They played great and we did not. At least we have some angry motivation now.

Jeer: Our consolation opponents, Thompson High JV, left after they lost in the quarterfinals and we didn't even have a second game on Sunday.

Cheer: Dave and I hit up King Burrito for lunch, per the recommendation of a nice bearded fellow from Breaker's Mark. $5 for a fantastic burrito and horchata? Yes, very yes.

Cheer: I had a great weekend with old Claremont friends, our beautiful Shadrach crew, and all the Ultimate acquaintances I've collected over the years. Hooray for friends.

My next two stops are the work week and then the final two days of WUGC 2008 in Vancouver. I'll let you know how each go.