Greetings again peeps!
So there has been some changes to my epic adventure this last week. Peter will not be joining me for the duration of my trip, it turned out to be that he had things in his life that made it impossible for him to continue. I wish him the best in everything he does, and look forward to working with him at an event in the future.
That being said, I made the choice to pursue working a pre-release in the midwest, instead of shipping out to San Jose as planned. I sent out an email to a couple contacts, and Nick Short from PASTIMES in Chicago replied and said he would be happy to staff me for the weekend. Awesome! I have been to Pastimes, and love working with Jason Long, and this would be my first opportunity to work with Nick Short. I saw this as a chance to gain more experience from these two judges, who have been judging for a while and have so much experience between them both, being that they work for Pastimes, and run GenCon every year, and I have worked with Jason numerous times, I can't wait!
Dr. Elliott extended the the offer for me to stay with him for a couple days, and of course I took him up on it, I really love being around the Doc, and every time I visit him or work with him, I leave feeling that I am a better judge because of it. We had some discussions about my upcoming presentation on "PROPER COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN JUDGES AND PLAYERS- BREAKING DOWN THE WALL" at the Judge Conference at GP-Boston-Worcester. Doc Elliott is a perfect example of how I see myself in the future as a judge, so taking his opinion into account seems like the proper thing to do. He gave me some very good tips, topics to consider, and we had some pretty good discussions. I like seeing things from his perspective, he really sees things from all angles, which I bet is why he is such a well-respected judge.
I then head out to Chicago, and meet up with Jason Long, and get ready to play in FNM, then the midnight release of M13. I bombed FNM, just couldn't get my deck to operate properly. It was a decent draft pool, but just wasn't my tournament. My sealed pool for midnight release however, was pretty solid! I had Garruk, 2 of the new fireball, a magmaquake, a couple visionaries, and some mana dorks. I get mana-flooded game three of round 1, but then didn't drop another game all night! The prizes were based on record, so I was happy with the 5 packs. There were less players at the three events than expected, but I hear that that was the case across the board, so it makes me wonder if this core set may not keep value....who knows.
This was the most difficult week so far for my journey, and there is no way I could have continue my travels without the help of Dr. Elliott and Jason Long, both are amazing people and judges, and am so very happy to have people like that in my life now. They opened their doors to me and gave me a place to stay when I needed it the most. They both seem to want to see me succeed as a judge, and for this I am very thankful, and am able to continue my growth because of these two gentlemen.
I am next in St. Louis for the SCG Open series....my first TEAM LEAD detail!!!! I cant wait, and am insanely nervous, but am sure that I will knock it out of the park, I will not allow myself to fail.
Until next time!
Mike
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