Ode to the Tourney Directors

The people that run tournaments for us have taken on a lot of responsibilities trying to run organized games for us in a friendly, helpful and polite fashion. They set it up, spam it, mass it, answer the questions about the tourney repeatedly for every new person to enter the room or has missed the spam, explain the rules to all who need it repeatedly, answer general questions, be ready explain for games like MP, NBIH, do you have to sink on second break and so on, repeatedly and answer the never ending yim’s as well as take all the reports as they come along.

This is the reason a non typist like myself is deathly afraid to try be a TD and if you catch my drift, can be a very, very busy job. Yet it does not stop members from complaining when pairing mistakes are made and when you put all of the above into a busy lobby we should only praise these wonderful people and always thank them for the efforts for what they do for us and our enjoyment and fun.

When a league or a TD cordially asked you to jump a tourney yourself or report it with opponent, tourney name it is not because they are lazy or don’t want to accommodate, it is because it is a very busy job and they need our help to run it timely, successfully and make it enjoyable for all of us. We should always thank them for the jobs they do for us.

Suggestions to assist our TD’s

Jump tourneys ourselves or have “friends” ready to link us.

Instead of always asking “am I waiting” keep standings available to you and     refresh to find your answers and will tell you if TD has missed your report because of a busy lobby.

Look “up” in lobby to see if questions were already asked and answered.

Ie: BIH, rules or do I have to make break on second rack.

Pay attention because so many questions are repeated.

Only play the amount of tourney’s that you can stay alert in because TD’s are not our slaves, they are trying to direct the games, please allow them to do so.

Do not be in a rush to be critical which causes needless confusion and always try to help.

 Be an “ATDNTA” (assistant TD-no tourney’s allowed) and be helpful to our wonderful friends and all will be run more smoothly.

    As some of you know I was in the hospital for 6 days.   I am out now, and hope to be back at work soon.   Here is a view of my week. Wednesday round noon started having pain in my right side.   By 5 the pain was so bad I went to the emergency room, and found not only did I have a kidney stone a fifth of an inch in size but it also caused a kidney infection and a blood infection.   They did not do anything about it other then try to keep me comfortable till the next day.   The next day they put a stent in to open the passage so the kidney could pass the infection and hopefully the stone.  The pain was stopped after I woke up, and the plan was to send me home the next day with antibiotics for 2 weeks then follow up with a urologist to have the stent and maybe the stone removed, but my body had other plans.   I went into afib round midnight, and was transferred to the cardiac wing where I was quickly hooked up to a heart monitor  and an iv.They were monitoring the drip with a blood pressure meter every 15 min. and it caused my iv to blow out.   They finally decided to let me go Monday.  I have to go back in a week and have the stent removed hopefully this will go without another afib episode.   I came home to a note from the meager stuck in my door.   He wanted to renew my lease and could not find me.   What and idiot I am bedfast in the hospital and he thinks I should be answering my phone at home. My arms are not that long. lol   Now tomorrow I got to go sign the stuff.   I appreciated all the calls and good wishes I got from my net friends while I was in the hospital.  More as this goes along. Night all.

     Have you ever noticed how some parents think if someone does not have children of their own that they have no clue about children, and what is worse no right to have an opinion on the subject of children?   From time to time they will even play the parent card to get other parents involved in a subject that really has nothing to do with them.   This haughty attitude is not only condescending but also a form of predigest.   Most people think predigest must pertain to color or race or religion, but you can be predigest against anyone that is different they yourself. 

     What makes me angry when parents say if you do not have any kids you have no opinion on them.   Just last night in a room I was in someone made the remark ( Should I allow my 19 year old daughter to move in with her boyfriend.? )   It was just a passing question.  To which two of us in the room pointed out 19 years old is legally an adult, so the parents do not get to allow or not allow them to do anything anymore the choices are all the 19 year olds.  From that the subject shifted a little, and I made a remark that parents do not refer to their children like one person referred to some of his children.     It was at that point another girl asked me if I had kids to which I said HELL NO LOL.   What I did not say then is I do not have children by choice.   I got an inherited condition and I chose not to pass it on to another generation.   When I said I did not have kids I was told that since I did not have children I had no way of knowing how a parent would react to a situation.   She was looking down on me like I did not know anything because I chose not to add bad genes to the gene pool.   It was the right decision for me.   However I have been babysitting and mentoring and parent aiding sense I was 13 years old.   Plus I had a really great mom who taught me  much.   One of the things she taught me was how to let the children be their own adults after they reached the age of adulthood.   My mom and dad raised 5 kids and none of us have ever been in jail or on drugs and we all were supporting ourselves right out of high school, so  I would say they did a really good job, and mom taught me much about being a good parent.

     By the standards of some parents today adopted parents do not know anything about children , because they did not have the children themselves.   I know better though!   One of my best friends was adopted and her mom could not have loved her more if she had been her own biological child, so when people give me this you have to be a parent to know anything about kids I call bull.   

     When my one niece was little I understood her better then her own mom.   There was one incident where I had to explain to the mother what was really going on, because she could not tell her child was not telling her what really happened.   I asked my niece what happened she first told me what she thought I wanted to hear the story her mom had just told me.   I took one look at her and knew that was not the truth.   I said to her ok what is the REAL story cause that is not it?   She then told me exactly what had happened and why.   When her mom got back home I told her mom she was wrong about what she thought happened, and I told her the true story.   She asked me how I knew that.   I told her my niece had told me.   I told her first she told me what she thought I wanted to hear and I could tell it was not true.  So I asked her for the real story and she told me.     Now here is the funny part.   My sister-in-law said she should have told me that.   I said did you ask her or just assume you knew what happened.   She was like she should have told me.   I laughed right in her face and asked her what planet she was from.   She was expecting a 7 year old to think like an adult.   I then explained to her kids minds do not work like adults and when she started yelling at my niece she shut down.    She asked me how I knew the first story was a lie.   I was surprised by this.   I told her I could tell by looking at her she was not telling the truth.   I then asked her can't you tell when you own child is lying to you?   I then told her how to tell if her daughter was lying.   Did not take long for her to learn that skill lol.

     Btw if anyone wants to know if someone is lying watch their eyes when they are talking.   One of 2 things will happen either they will not make eye contact with you or their pupils will jump bigger and smaller really fast.   Keep in mind if a child has autism they may not look in your eyes that does not indicate a lie in that child.

     Good and evil are very different things.   Evil does what ever it wants to get what it wants without any regard to who get hurts.   Good looks out for the betterment of the world.   It wants to make things better.   It has morals, respect, loyalty, and courage to make the world a better place.   I once heard a really profound quote.   It said evil does what ever it wants to (win) no matter how unscrupulous it is and that is ok because it is the nature of evil.   But good can not lie or cheat.   Good must do the right thing no mater what evil does to them, BECAUSE WHEN GOOD TAKES ON THE WAYS OF EVIL IT BECOMES EVIL AND EVIL WINS.   You need to trust good to win on its own merits.   

     Just because someone did something mean or evil or hateful to you does not justify you doing the same to them.   IF YOU ACT LIKE THE EVIL PERSON THAT HURT YOU, YOU HAVE JUST CROSSED OVER TO THE EVIL SIDE, and EVIL WINS.    You have just given those you are mad at exactly what they wanted.   You allowed them to drag you down to their level.   You can not think you are better then someone else if you do the bad things to them they did to you.   Just because you think you are on the side of righteousness does not give you the right to do the very thing you are angry at someone else for doing.    Evil wins.

     Then there is karma and trust me it exists.   I have been smacked down by karma a few times.   If you do bad things bad things come back to you.   If you wish harm to someone else harm comes back to you.   Karma is the great equalizer.   Karma knows even if someone hurts you it does not give you the right to hurt them back.    We all have to make our own choices.   Do we want to be good people and put good into the world, or do we want to be influenced to do the wrong thing by people who make a career of doing the wrong thing?    I know not what choices others take, but USUALLY I will take the high road most of the time.   On the rare occasion I have allowed my darker side out, I have ended up regretting it.  

     Today I had a close call and I actually thought I was going to die.   I live alone, and sometimes that is a bad thing.   Today I was eating some noodles that were not cooked properly, and one of them tried to get to my throat before I was done chewing it.   It wedged across my throat so I could not get it down or up, and it was blocking my air way.    I had a hard time getting it out of my throat , because there was no one here to help me.   It panicking because I could not breath was not bad enough, just as I started to choke my phone started to ring.   I managed to dislodge most of the noodle and grab the phone but I was still trying to get the rest of it out of my throat it had gotten lodged in the back of my nasal passage, and I could still fill it.   It took me several minutes before I was breathing freely again.

     When I got it all out and felt safe again I wondered if anyone would miss me if I suddenly was not here without a reason.   I think most people like me, but would anyone really miss me if I was gone?   Most of my own family have become so wrapped up in other things that I rarely see them anymore except at the Christmas gathering.   Most of us that are still alive come together once a year.   I can not help but think about last year.   We had lost both my brother and his wife last year, and the gathering went on just like nothing had happened.   I do not know how their sons did it.   The year my mom died I was not in a very Merry mood at Christmas.    There are times I really wonder if anyone would even notice if I died today.   That is my biggest fear that I will someday die and no one will even notice and my body will lay here and rot.   I did not have that fear till the mid 1990's when it actually happened to a guy in my neighborhood.   He lived alone and he died and no one noticed till the flies started covering his living room window and the smell started to escape his house.    The poor man had died in his living room and no one missed him.   They say he had been dead long enough his body had exploded from the decomposition.   A short time after that someone set that house on fire.   I do not know if they were trying to cleans it with fire or what, but I could not help think it could be me.   I live alone too, and weeks can go by without any of my family calling me to see if I am ok.    So I wonder a lot if anyone would miss me if I were dead.