================ Horace Mann 2005 ================ ======================================================== Thursday, May 26th The Bus Trip [Nashville, TN to Raleigh, NC] <13.5 hours> ======================================================== I thought it would be cool to hang out with Chris Hardwick, since I hadn't seen him since RWC 03'. As it worked out, I planned to stay at his apartment Thursday night, and ride to New York with him and Becky. Since I was strapped for cash my only option was taking the bus to North Carolina. The bus ride ended up being over thirteen hours long, and filled with interesting experiences all by itself. I left at 4:15 a.m. (CST), and I got to sit next to a cute brunette for a while. The conversation was typically very strange. She even told me how freezing grapes and then eating them was a great experience. She said, "It's like an explosion of fruity goodness in your mouth". Then she took out an apple, and ate the _entire_ thing (and I do mean the entire apple, core and all!). I had never seen this before, and I really had nothing witty to say. I just watched in awe. After she left I decided I could actually concentrate on cubing, so I took out my 3x3x3 for some practice solves. Of course this was grueling, as everyone nearby had something to say about it. Inspired by Macky's section of his site, I'll fill you in on what I went through: AA- "You're pretty fast, but I know a guy who can solve it in under ten seconds every time". Me- "Wow. Maybe I've heard of him! What's his name?" AA- "You wouldn't know him." BB- "I used to take the stickers off that thing." Me- "Really? I never thought of that." CC- "Can you show me how to solve the cube?" Me- (proceeds to do a brief explanation) CC- "You're going to fast." Me- (makes 1 turn a second explaining the basic concepts) CC- "I don't understand." Me- "Sorry." DD- "Are you a genius or something?" Me- (Finally getting annoyed with so much attention) "Well I must be!" DD- "Seriously though!" Me- "Seriously" I got tired of talking with people about the cube so I tried to go to sleep, only to find the sun wouldn't allow it. The trip was long, but eventually I did make it to Raleigh, NC around 7 p.m. (EST). Chris looked totally different than when I had seen him at RWC! He had the long hair thing going on. =P I also had the pleasure of meeting Chris's girlfriend Becky. We ran some errands, got some food, and went back to Chris's apartment. We ate, and then started cubing. The cubing lasted for more than five hours, but it went by quickly. Time flies when you're having fun! We had a few cupstacking races as well. I forgot how much I enjoyed stacking until that point! It was especially fun to race someone who stacked at relatively the same speed as me. ================================================== Friday, May 27th Car Trip [Raleigh, NC to Riverdale, NY] <12 hours> ================================================== We only got three hours of sleep before we had to leave Friday morning! The exhaustion faded away soon enough, as the ride was enveloped in excitement for the upcoming tournament. Nearly the whole trip involved some kind of puzzling. It was also great to listen to Dane Cook & Brian Regan (comedians). Neither Chris or Becky had heard of Brian Regan, and it was a real treat for them. Chris was laughing so hard I thought he was going to crash us. =P I hadn't listened to Mr. Regan in a while, so it was fun for me too. Among the favorite Regan lines that were listened to, and eventually quoted and requoted: "Lunch and no cleanup! Can life get better? I submit that it cannot!" "I call in the back, in the middle with my feet on the hump./He's callin' the hump Walt, he shouldn't want the hump" "What ya got their Brian?/ A cup of dirt / Can you explain it? / Well it's a cup...With dirt in it. I call it cup of dirt" I could go on forever! Of course I should mention a few of the Dane Cook favorites: "Wouldn't it suck if you dove into a pool, and while you were under there swimming around, someone covered the pool with oil and lit it on fire. And then you would be swimming around looking for a spot with no fire, and when you finally did, a big dude would punch you in the face. / Get back in the fiery water! Somebody cover up that hole with some fire!" "If I got to a house and it was fully on fire, I would just watch it burn with everyone else. And the lady next to me would be like /Please my son, he's screaming in there!/ Well he's probably on fire." "I just stared at the clock, hoping it would sprout little legs and just be like /I'm just kidding, I was just being a stupid clock playing stupid clock games, I'll set it back now/ Dont do that clock! I don't like when you play stupid clock games!" For those of you interested: Brian Regan Live Dane Cook 'Harmful if Swallowed' We finally got to New York, and Becky came up with a new car maneuver in _heavy_ traffic. I like to call it the non-lane change. :P Good driving though Becky for real, I couldn't have handled that crazy traffic! We got to Ian's, and we were greeted by Theresa. Apparently the California guys were having trouble with their travels, and Ian was sorting all that out. We brought all of our stuff in and waited. After an hour or so, Ian showed up with some cubers and we talked it up for a while. It was great to finally put faces with all the names! Slowly most of the cubers left and/or went to sleep. I finally passed out around 3 a.m., and woke up at 6:15 a.m. I wasn't all that tired really! The adrenaline rush for the tournament was keeping me going. ======================= Saturday, May 28th Horace Mann Tournament ======================= We got to the school with plenty of time to practice. It was cool to see Bob Burton again (met him first at the Midwest Competition). I met a few other cubers for the first time. I realized very soon that this was going to be a strong tournament. I signed up for all the events except for the BLD, and mingled until the first round began. I wasn't neccesarily happy with the format for competition. As cubers were cycled through one solve at a time, instead of taking all their times consecutively. In my opinion this wasn't the most efficient way to do things. Here were my 1st round solves: 26.56 (28.59) (18.80) 21.33 23.44 AVG=23.78 I am an _extremely_ nervous competitor, and my first two times showed this. Chris kept saying to me "Slow-Fast Richard, Slow-Fast". I calmed down a bit, and got my first sub-20 time in competition! The following two times weren't anything to be excited about, but they didn't look to bad in contrast to the 26.xx and 28.xx times. I was ranked 9th overall out of 32 people. The top 16 proceeded to the 2nd round. In the 2nd round I was more consistent, but just not good enough to make it to the finals. Here were my times: (24.16) (20.57) 23.60 22.36 23.94 AVG= 23.30 For the 24.16 time my shoe wasn't tied, and I think that's what messed me up =P. I placed 9th again, less than a second behind Anthony Hsu. Unfortunately for me the top eight advanced, and I missed the cut. :( On the bright side, I got my best ever tournament single solve (18.80), and my best ever competition average (23.30). I also competed in the Magic, and Rainbow Cube, even though I don't own either of these puzzles. In fact, before the this tournament I hadn't solved either one in about a year. Here are my times for each: Rainbow Cube: 36.99 38.69 38.69 Mean=38.12 Magic: (2.39) 4.55 2.67 (8.88) 2.49 AVG=3.24 I competed in 2x2x2 and 4x4x4 as well! I had to borrow a 4x4x4 from Chris, which turned out to be his super-cubing Revenge with a bunch of numbers on it. This was a bit distracting (=P), although I did set a competition PB with it. For the mini-cube, my goal was a sub-10 average, but I just had too many errors for this. I did break 10 seconds twice though! :D 2x2x2: 9.94 (24.68) (8.37) 11.98 14.54 AVG=12.15 ...Don't ask about the 24.68 solve please! =P 4x4x4: 2:37.42 2:13.90 The real highlight of competition for me was for the Square-1. I had really been focusing on this puzzle for the last couple days, which might be why my 3x3x3 times suffered a bit. The US record was 102.xx seconds, and I aimed to beat it! In practice I only did worse than this approx. 1 in 100 solves, so I was fairly confident! Here are the results: Square-1: 1:09.99 0:46.34 1:10.96 Mean= 62.43 I broke the US record all three times! The 46.34 was icing on the cake, nearly beating the old record by a minute. It wasn't a lucky solve, but very favorable. (Especially the 3 twists to get it into a cube shape!) The tournament winded down, and the 3x3 finals were very exciting, with six people averaging sub-20! Quinn Lewis beat the US record with a great time of 13.41 solve. The 3rd trial in the final round must have been incredibly easy though...There were so many great times! I have to mention Chris's great effort as well, he broke the US record, averaging 16.86 in the final. Also worth mentioning is how close Chris got to breaking the WR for 4x4x4 average. It literally came down to his 3rd solve, and he unfortunately missed his mark. :( Anyone who knows of Chris's strong resolve knows this will only motivate him to try harder. He did strengthen his spot as the US record holder though, which is a plus! It seemed like records were being broken every other solve in this tournament. Here are the others: 3x3x3 one handed (single solve): 23.76 WR Shotaro Makisumi 3x3x3 one handed (mean of 3): 27.56 WR Shotaro Makisumi 2x2x2 (average): 6.29 WR Shotaro Makisumi 2x2x2 (single solve): 4.13 WR Shotaro Makisumi 2x2x2 (single solve): 4.20 AR Nathaniel Christian 2x2x2 (average): 8.05 AR Chris Hardwick Magic (single solve): 1.56 AR Bob Burton Magic (average): 1.85 AR Bob Burton Rainbow Cube (single solve): 10.20 WR Chris Parlette Rainbow Cube (mean of 3): 14.32 WR Chris Parlette If I missed anyone throughout my report, I'm sorry! Let me know and I'll include mention! *NOTE* Chris and I did some cupstack races after the tournament, and I broke my PB of 12.85 for the cycle, with a time of new PB of 12.78. It was inspiring to say the least. After the tournament Ian hosted a BBQ, and it was sweet! Everyone ate contently while enjoying the company of other cubers. Quinn and Macky dazzled us with their juggling. It was that rare occurence where you are surrounded by cubers just like yourself! Imagine, the sound of ten cubes turning at full speed at any given moment...mmmm...ecstacy. =) The crowd died down a bit later on, but a handful of cubers remained. We all hung out for a bit, but my sleep deprevation took it's toll. I passed out on a sofa while other cubers continued on. ===================================================== Sunday, May 29th Car Trip [Riverdale, NY to Raleigh, NC] <10.5 hours> ===================================================== The original plan was to leave NY at 10 a.m. on Sunday, but when I woke up just before noon I figured we had a change of plan. It wouldn't have been good to find out my ride had left without me. (Although the excuse to hang out in NY for a few more days would have been great =P) We chilled with Ian and Raul until around 4 p.m. I attempted to prep Ian's square-1, but had bad luck with the tiles. No glue was found in the house, so I had to leave wondering if Ian would end up with a quality square-1. Sorry Ian! Chris and I cubed until sundown. This only gave us a few hours of cubing. :( Later on we discovered we could cube on the interstate anyway, using car headlights. This enforced a pre-solving strategy. "Wait til that truck is behind us...wait for it...I'm ready! 3-2-1, GO!" LOL. It really was a riot. Chris's best non-lucky time was a 19.xx (he had a PLL skip and ended up with a 17.xx on one solve). My best non-lucky was a 21.xx. Cubers are relentless! Even in the darkness, we cubers find the light! ;) Chris and I also started a BLD chess game, but didn't have a chance to finish unfortunately. Here's the start of our game though if anyone is interested: 1. d4 - d5 2. e3 - Nc6 3. Bb5 - g6 4. Nf3 - Bg7 5. O-O - Bg4 6. h3 - Bf6 7. Bd3 - Bxd3 8. Qxd3 - Nf6 9. Nc3 - O-O* 10.Re1* - Re8* *moves were made more than 5 hours from the initial start. We didn't have a chance to continue because my bus had to leave. :( Do to Becky's insanely fast driving, and quiet traffic, it took us less than 11 hours to get to Raleigh. We got back, and everyone went to bed soon thereafter. Everyone except for me that is! I couldn't sleep, so I just surfed the web for a few hours. I was really dreading leaving behind such great company, and having to endure another bus trip. All good things must come to an end though! ==================================================== Monday, May 30th Bus Trip [Raleigh, NC to Nashville, TN] <13.5 hours> ==================================================== I had everything ready to go, and I felt bad that I had to wake Chris up so early to get me to the bus station. Everything worked out as planned, and I boarded on time. There's really not much to say about the return trip. It was long, and I was tired. I couldn't get much sleep because of my arch nemesis the sun. =P I got back to Nashville around 9 p.m. (CST), and went to sleep right away. It was great to find my bed as I left it...not made. It was easier to slip under the covers this way. It was sweet to collect so many new memories, but I look forward to making many new ones. For all the cubers I met, it was a pleasure to meet you. Ian great tournament. Chris, thanks for the hospitality. This is Richard Patterson signing out...Good Day! :D