Sweet home Chicago, part two

Today was quite the bittersweet day, for many reasons...

Today was bitter because a certain neighbor of mine who shall remain nameless (actually... it was Branden Ly) was banging on my door at 7:12 this morning asking for a pair of headphones. I think he knew I was asleep and he was just doing it to piss me off.

Sweet because breakfast at this hotel is an all-you-can-eat buffet and I was HUNGRY. Three plates of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and biscuits with gravy, followed by some strawberries and pineapple for dessert? Count me in.

Bitter because breakfast for six set us back $97.

Sweet because we walked all over our first-round opponents from North Cedar, Iowa.

Bitter because New Trier, Illinois humbled us in the second round.

Sweet because one of the New Trier guys interrupted one question after the first four words, with the answer "syphilis." The reader's response was not "that's correct"; rather, his choice of words was "you know your syphilis." I struggled to control myself.

Bitter because the rest of the morning was an uphill battle, as we struggled to stay in the hunt, and finished at 2-3 at the lunch break.

Sweet because I had swiped two apples from the breakfast buffet, saving myself the arm and leg I would have had to pay for a real lunch.

Bitter because we realized that if you need a winning record to make the playoffs, that meant we needed to win four of our last five to finish 6-4 for the Saturday rounds.

Sweet because we got off to an excellent start toward that goal, winning three straight, and they weren't too close. We were feeling quite respectable at 5-3, only one win away from playing Sunday.

Bitter because Fort Mill, South Carolina's team wasn't about to let us coast into day two. They snapped our winning streak in a hurry.

Sweet because during the break between rounds, one Kenneth W. Jennings III was sitting around in a room right down the hall from ours, and I eventually built up the courage to approach the man and ask for an autograph.

Bitter because he wasn't as cheerful of a guy as he seemed to be on TV... although I suppose that's the result of being surrounded by four hundred nerds like me, all of whom are desperate for an autograph. I got the feeling I wasn't the first one to make the request this weekend.

Sweet because... who cares how nice he is, he's Ken Freaking Jennings and I got his autograph!

Bitter because not even a good luck kiss to my precious autographed NAQT scoresheet gave me the strength to lead the team to victory over Bergen County, New Jersey in the final round. They played well and they deserve to be playing tomorrow, but oh MY, are they annoying.

Sweet because not playing tomorrow means having a day to do some sightseeing around beautiful Chicago.

So yeah... it wasn't too bad of a day. It concluded with some deep dish Chicago pizza (filling, like whoa) and a ton of hilarious stories from Mr. Prather. And now I'm sitting here writing this, listening to all the new music I downloaded with this wicked-fast internet connection, drinking my three-dollar root beer, and preparing for what should be a fun day tomorrow.

Life could be worse.