[Specialagentjim]

Well, Team 108 stayed at the Hyatt, which wasn't nearly as bad as team 71 had it at the Radisson. The Hyatt's rooms were really pretty nice. The only thing I miss that I had at the other hotels this year was internet at the hotel. There was one computer at the concierge desk running windows 98 with a REALLY slow net connection for all of the hotel to use. THAT didn't work out well, especially when you need to VPN home to get that crucial interface file. Other than that it wasn't too bad, it was within walking distance of the hard rock and tehy had a starbucks (as overpriced as it was) downstairs. Im not sure how many teams were there, but at any given point there were about 5 teams staring at each other in the lobby waiting for the elevators to get there.

Houston itself had its ups and downs. I personally liked the epcot atmosphere a lot. It was awesome that when nothing was going on, you could run into epcot for an hour or so, and if someone needed you, be back out in 10 minutes back working in the pit. The astrodome was a bit bland, lots of grey floors, backdrops just put out into the middle of the field, juss really bland. Good point was there was plenty of seating, as opposed to the old fields at florida, where you really had to fight to get INTO the curie, newton, etc. fields. Closing ceremonies just kinda of ended, no big show with fireworks and fire and green lasers meticulosuly designed to be go off at an exact point in the night for that awesome effect disney always managed to do. Disney did a lot of things right when they hosted the event.

The Real big plus was the pits I thought. Whereas the walk was horrific. Like goose said, 10 minute 4 ramp hike, usually performed running with a robot on a handtruck. That resulted in some robot spillage a few times. I saw one of the candian teams take a bad robot fall off their cart. Running up a ramp with a robot is NOT a good idea. The pits themselves were really nice though. I found the pits to be resonably noisy, as in I could actually carry on a conversation with somone without having to yell like a pshyco and the teams weren't exactly jam-packed together like usual. I found the pits to be an extremly work-friendly environment for the most part. Maybe it was just us, but it also seemed like there was a lot less "ROBOT COMING THROUGH, GET OUT THE WAY!!" this year.

...and we went all the way to houston and didn't even see the space center! AHH!

Team party afterwards I can't comment on how good it was. For me, it was one of the best times I've ever had, but I have no idea what most of the park looks like