So, I've pulled about seven attempts at the question of "How was the HSNCT, Dwight?" and each time I've pulled back before I could figure out what my answer was. Maybe it's time to just take all the opinions and put them all down, thematic structure be damned.

Houston. I don't know if I've ever been more physically uncomfortable during an entire tournament. I mean, I've had attacks of various ailments during tournaments, and there have been tournaments which were held in hotter conditions (Atlanta and Tempe being two that I can think of.) But I really don't know when I've just felt more like I'm getting beaten down by the environment. Humidity and heat, bad combo. When they are combining to defeat the local air conditioning, or possibly the building is complicit in adding heat and humidity, worse combo. I just felt like I was oozing constantly. Maybe I was actually having humidity condense on me, because it felt as if I was sweating in places I didn't have pores (like the top of my feet. That shouldn't have ever happened.)

Clearing the 64 marker. This was probably the thing I was most hopeful for. We got there, and didn't lose anyone on their way there. (We've had teams register and then not show up. It's a very worrisome thing. Especially when they've already paid.) On the other hand, I'm now facing the double-edged sword, 64 was a big milestone for me. While I figure the next hurdle is 72 or 80 or 96, none of those are going to have that special quality.

I didn't really get the feeling of panic or full-on nervous energy that I normally get from these tournaments. Some would say this is a good thing. (We've lived through enough potential crises that we're running solutions before the first problem hits. No surprises, no panic.) I guess because I wasn't doing things central to tournament control (all my duties: consolation bracket, photography, double checking senior information, were peripheral to the main path of the tournament), I didn't have the stress hitting on me directly. Not that I wasn't getting stressed, I just was playing for smaller stakes.

Consolation brackets. When I first took this job at the first HSNCT, I did it because I figured it was the right thing to do. If the majority of teams a eliminated from competition on the first day, there should be something that offers them the chance to redeem themselves the next day. Of course, the beauty of our consolation rounds is the utter anarchy involved. Some teams just want to play a couple games, some just want to duel off against a rival, some just want to get prep in for next year and some want to beat up their coach. With all those agendas, it can't run like a normal tournament. You don't know who's going to show, who's going to want to leave, who's going to come late. All you can do is put two teams together, one room at a time, one match at a time. Every year I'm lucky, this has all the earmarks of complete fraught, and yet every year, it comes together, order from chaos. I used to believe in the theory that most of the arguments in quiz bowl are so bloody because the stakes are so small. Doing consolation brackets has made me recognize there's a lower limit to that statement. There's no stake involved, and because of it, everybody has more fun. It's a remarkable thing, and it almost makes me wonder if we could apply this sort of chaos to a regular tournament. Reduce the stakes, reduce the expectations of order, increase the enjoyment. Still don't know exactly how to do it, but it may be worth exploring.

Now if I could just keep from doing the opening lines from Rollerball "HOUSTON! the Energy City!" every time I land there.