Soooo.....

[Alex Salomonsky]

i just want to be a nationals instead of this rained out place ( very rainy in Va. Beach, its never this bad, even for April ), plus i want to see some of my new friends from 122, but no dough, no go.


P.S.-What's up Christina, hope you guys can salvage something on day 2

[Elyse Holguin]

ok... first off: radisson- our room had roaches, about an 1/8 in. of mold inside the vents, very bad for people w/ allergies, smelled like mildew, spiders in the bed, had stucco falling everywhere, stains were all over...NASTY!!! chief delphi called the corporate headquarters because it was so bad, we had 2 rooms- mine was one of those 2- moved because the smell and nastiness was just way more than the other rooms. ugh. there are teams here, and we're all pretty unhappy. the new room isn't too bad... but it's still in the same building and all, so we don't trust it.

the pits are about a ten minute hike up four ramps on a nasty incline to the actual arena, longer to get to the divisional playing fields, which make you feel all special because it's all big and bright and in the reliant arena... that's the old enron field to most of you... but the stands make it harder to cheer on your team. the pits themselves are the astrodome, but there's dust and dirt from the moving of the pitching mound.... but that's tolerable. the field layout isn't bad.... two division fields back to back on each side, and einstein in the middle- which is going to be used exclusively for finals this year. still- i'd rather be on a rookie team or a team (or even a person) that hadn't ever been to florida nats, because then i might appreciate this all more... because epcot was soooo much better, the walk from the pit to the arena every match makes me wonder why we ever complained about the walk to einstein last year.... it seriously was less than half the walk of this year from the pits to the arena every match. great america isn't open all day like disney was either, so it's kinda like.... aww... we can't goof off on down time...

also... yeah.... we're not seeding too well, but we're hoping we'll be picked... and GOOO 108 !! (i've been adopted onto their team since i'm in their pits alomost equal to the time spent in mine...)and of course to everyonne, tomorrow's finals!!! w00t!!!

[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

[Matt Attallah]

YEA! Our bands where PINK !!!

We had 5 at the Howard Johnson - 5, 84, 181, 503, 957. We had our own little party Thurs. Night! What fun!!!

[Joe Matt]

Long live Epcot.

And if what I hear is correct, we might just go back to WDW....