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“I don’t care, just do what you have to do to win!!!” Christopher to Eddie in the wheelbarrow finals. This quote perfectly summed up the competitive spirit of the day.
Setup Friday Night: Eddie, Robert, Jack, Andrew, and John were there to set up the LAN party. Ann cooked a nice meal for us. To avoid any potential lawsuits, the wire running the Ethernet from the living room to Ann’s office, John put hooks on the wall and strung it from the ceiling. Jack was very brilliant in deciding to put none of the cables on the ground, all on the tables, so people didn’t kick anything.
Saturday: Robert and I got to the park early to set up. Austin and Archana were wandering around, he was showing her his stomping grounds. People got there and chose names, determining their teams for the entire day, as Eric had made a beautiful, intricate chart so people were always on different teams, and groups. Andrew chose Exiled Monk, Brian Park chose Dark Traveler, Chris Fong (Marilyn) chose Lightning Reverent, Christopher Fong (Andrew) chose Cat of the Canals, Adam went along with Jade Dragon, Eddie took Shadowdancer, Austin got there seconds before Juan, and Juan planned on stealing Rice Bucket from Bobby (Rice Bucket is funny, because in the Chinese language, calling someone a rice bucket means they are only good for eating rice) However, much to Juan’s dismay, Austin scooped up that prized name. So Juan ended up with Enigma, Jack went with Phantom Lancer, Robert took the Binary Spirit, Eric chose Crimson Ninja, and Ken, who was a bit late, ended up with Beastmaster, which he complimented the movie of, although no one else had ever seen it. Several times during the day he tried to explain it to people.
Everybody sunscreened themselves up, and we were off. We started with a pair of games of ultimate Frisbee. The first game was extremely competitive, and people were working really hard. When the game ended people were saying, one down, nineteen to go!
Ahh, competition =)
The second game was tug of war. When the first game started, everybody thought they had won right away, because although the rope looked very stout, it actually had a lot of elastic, so each side took three big steps, and the middle hadn’t actually moved. Also, while we were tugging, Ken’s face rammed itself into Eric’s fist, which would be the first time but not the last that that happened. Jack had borrowed this work from one of Patricia’s coworkers who used it with third graders. After the competition, Jack commented, “I’m just glad the rope didn’t break”
  The next game was the wheelbarrow race. In both the semifinals and finals Eddie was yelling at his pusher to push faster! It was like a steed asking to be whipped. In the finals, Eddie and Christopher were paired against Jack and Andrew. As Eddie was yelling to be pushed faster, Andrew realized he needed to go faster to have a chance to win. Jack was not prepared for this burst of speed and did a face plant. Andrew seemed to be falling right on top jack, when he nimbly leaped over jack and did a face plant of his own, which nearly took out Chris. Jack commented dryly “that was Eddie yelling to go faster, not me!”
 Sharks and Minnows: (on dry land) In one of the heats, Christopher was tagged barely on his shirt, and for his next heat as a minnow, he decided to remove extraneous clothing to make himself more competitive. This was also the second time that Eric’s fist found Ken’s face. Making it to the final heat was Christopher, Chris, Austin and Robert. Christopher and Robert got tagged the first round, and the next round, Austin and Chris realized since there was little chance they’d make it across the “pond” they were both just trying to stall in order to be tagged last. Austin stalled more successfully and ended up the winner.
 The following event was Bushido Melee. The two people who had played before, Andrew and Eddie, were paired in the same heat. Only Andrew made it out of that group. The heat that Chris, Christopher and Robert was an exciting heat. Chris had lost both arms, and both legs! At the same time he had destroyed both of Roberts legs, so Robert couldn’t finish him off. Helplessly he hopped and rolled away from Christopher. Instead of being executed by Christopher, Chris eliminated himself by rolling out of bounds., The other exciting heat was the one that Christopher and Robert were in. Robert had lost both legs, and so was kneeling on the ground. However, he had gained someone else’s sword. Christopher, able of body, except one missing arm, had to attack Robert, and although he did freeze one of robert’s arms, Robert prevailed, able to get to the finals, albeit with no legs and one arm.
 In the finals we had Andrew dual wielding with no damage, Eric with a single shot to the chest (which meant one more shot would eliminate him) and Robert sitting in his corner with one sword at the ready like a spear to get that shot on Eric. Originally Andrew seemed content to allow Eric to go after Robert at his own pace. But as Eric was being careful and skittish around Robert, Andrew started advancing on him. This put Eric into a panic mode where he charged at Robert and barely deflected Robert’s spear. He then eliminated Robert before being summarily executed by Andrew who was at that point triple wielding.
After our second sunscreen application break, and a plethora of bananas to ward away cramps, we played three games of volleyball. At one point, Chris hit the ball into the net, and just in time ducked, as Eric vaulted over him to save the point.
   Next was the carry someone game. It was totally randomized who would be the carried person in each heat. The first heat got Brian Park. Robert came within a foot of dropping Brian on his head before recovering and stumbling across the finish line. Amazingly, Andrew and Eddie both crossed the line with Brian in 3.63 seconds. Ken was determined to complete all the events, since Juan doubted him. So Ken started the race, and Eddie was in charge of timing him, but Eddie totally missed that ken had started, so Ken had to walk in a circle back to the beginning and start over. Then we took the watch away from Eddie. Since Eddie and Andrew tied we decided they should both go into the finals. Ironically, since Eddie was supposed to be the carried person, and if he was the person who won his heat, Andrew was supposed to be carried. Since they tied, Chris was designated the carryee. In the finals Andrew ended up with 2.78, Eric was 2.81, Eddie was 2.84, and Christopher was 2.88. All within one tenth of a second!
 Before lunch we decided to play the getting sick game of Spin and Run. In Eric’s heat, he spun around the bat ten times, and promptly ran five steps before wiping out, and he thought his chances of winning were over. Then he looked up, and nobody was running. So he started to crawl toward the finish line. Eventually regaining enough stability to stumble diagonally across the finish line. Ken once again completed with satisfaction, and unlike at fantastico where Austin ran sideways, this time he decided for a different geometric shape. He ran in a circle. In the finals Christopher glided across the finish line with ease, and Eric was slightly behind Robert, when he decided to take bigger strides to try and make up the difference, which led to a dry grass wipe out.
 
Eric crawls for the win!
Then we had lunch at the Elephant Bar. Word was passed among all the players about the water balloon fight that would happen after the water balloon toss (a secret ambush on Andrew) Adam told the waitstaff it was Andrew’s birthday, so we got to sing. After lunch we had the third sunscreen application time, and started with the water balloon toss. After the water balloon toss, we set up a “fair” water balloon fight, where everybody got one water balloon, five seconds to disperse, and then they could go after whomever they desired. Andrew casually mentioned that he should have two water balloons since there were some extra. Since I knew eleven balloons were about to be tossed at him, I didn’t think this was a problem. After the five seconds were up, all eleven other participants converged on Andrew. At first he didn’t understand what was going on and tried to choose his target, but it soon became clear.
  Throwing contest: football, softball and Frisbee. After getting three throws with each item Eric ended up on top, and Juan and Chris tied for second. After throwing the football the first time, Eric’s arm started hurting a little bit, so he didn’t use his extra throws since his first was beyond everyone else’s.
We then moved on to three flies up. The tall/aggressive people tended to be on one group of three flies up, and they consisted of: Eddie, Chris (cramping), Andrew, Juan, Jack and Eric. Even though they were aggressive, nobody knew how to hold onto the tennis ball. There were many times even though the ball hit someones hands, it popped right out. So even though Chris was cramping, by standing on the periphery, he managed two catches and almost a third, which would have gotten him to the finals. At one point, Juan went up to catch the ball in a crowd, and allegedly was elbowed in the back. After he lands, he turns around and the only person standing there was Jack. Jack maintains that he was not part of the jumping crowd, someone else threw the elbow. Juan has yet to identify his assailant. After Juan and Eric had their three catches, and were standing on the side waiting for one more person to get three catches. Eddie, Jack and Chris each had two catches, and Andrew was sitting at zero, although many, many, MANY, had hit his hands and bounced out. But somehow he made a comeback, without anyone else catching one he got three! Once he got to the finals he was on a roll. He was the first to catch three and won the event!! Basically he got six of seven catches in a row. Eric came in second, and Christopher took third.
Next was soccer. This game took a long game and because of the dimension of the field was very difficult to score. After half an hour it was tied one-one. Finally one team snuck ahead two to one. Many goals were not counted because they hit the cones. So then even though the first game took longer than anticipated, we decided to do a second game. Andrew’s team was ahead one nothing, and people started cramping. A lot. At least six people started cramping in this game. After twenty minutes we called first person to two wins. After that time Andrew had three shots that went off the cone instead of going in. The other team eventually evened it one to one, but at that point we’d been playing more than half an hour, and with all the cramping, and general tiredness, we asked Andrew to declare a tie. Andrew was reluctant, saying we’d play five more minutes. After fifteen minutes, and many more cramps, we decided to broach the subject again. Andrew’s reply was “two more minutes” After a loooonng two minutes, where people were limping and rolling, and cursing, we decided to ask Andrew again for a tie. He responded with one more minute. And then it happened. Andrew was on a breakaway, and Jack made a beautiful slide tackle that got all ball. Andrew goes flailing to the ground, and he grabs at a leg, wait, make that both legs. He couldn’t even get up to hop around and continue to pretend it was ok. And so, we decided without his consent to declare a tie, and dragged poor Andrew off the field.
Early in the second game, Eric’s left lower leg was cramping, and I knew we were going to have hopping soon, and thought “dang, I’ll have to use my weaker right leg.” As the second game wore on… and on.. the hamstring on his upper right leg started cramping. So he no longer had a leg to stand on, let alone hop. Although with the amount of time and pain the soccer caused, we decided to cut off the hopping, which was probably a good idea.
The last even we completed that day was the home run derby. Wes was the only person brave, or foolish enough to try and hit overhand pitching. Early on Eric hit eight of his ten balls over the fence, and everyone thought that would be untouchable. Then Andrew came up. He hit seven out, and had a chance to tie on his last swing, and some of his were mammoth shots. Juan squeaked into third with three home runs, over a cadre of people with two.
 With light going down and people hurting, we decided to call it a day.
Final scores:
1st place: Andrew with 207 (He chose the mosquito)
2nd place: Eric with 198 (Eric chose the board game Descent)
3rd place: Jack with 180 (Jack chose the 8 gig stick)
Christopher 146
Eddie 140
Robert 137
Chris 135
Juan 130
Ken 115
Austin 87
Brian/Wes 57
Adam 55
After that we went to the Wainright house to eat McHart’s pizza. Eric forced everyone to try the baja pizza. Since everyone was tired we didn’t jump right into the LAN games but leisurely talked and ate. Eventually we started up several warcraft three modules, mostly hero defense or tower defense, and we stayed up until 5 am playing them. Next day we woke up latish and continued to play some games. We picked up Thai food for lunch. And continued the fun until the evening time.
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