TAILSKID - T = me

Thanks to all for the support. My head is still swimming ... I thought about typing a longer, FO post tonight but it'd end up 30,000 words and I'd be typing into next Tuesday. Eventually I will, though.

Nathryn is awesome. The female half (my co-worker at the college newspaper and current LSJ writer who alerted me to the Lansing job) insisted that I spend the night with her and her husband (I was groomsman at the wedding). The male half baked cookies just for me and gave me a plate to take home. We spent almost all of the night talking and laughing and I feel a lot better now as opposed to when I posted earlier. I am truly lucky to have such good friends here and elsewhere.

I am a firm believer in two things: 1) That life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I respond to it and 2) that everything happens for a reason. I guess tonight I'll be saying the "Sarah Palin prayer": God, don't let me miss the open door.

A lot of today will probably be spent doing "adult" stuff (i.e., scheduling dentist and doctor's appointments before my Gannett health insurance expires) but then I get to see how good my compartmentalization is. It'll be hard to come up with the focus necessary to play a good 15-game tournament this weekend, but I'll be very proud of myself if I can pull it off.

In that vein, while it may be trifling to even be thinking this, in the three-week period while the axe was ready to fall, I reminded myself of the silver linings; namely, that I'd be able to do the Albany or Atlantic City tourneys. The latter looked more likely until I saw 1) The Albany hotel room is like half the price of AC and 2) Northwest has direct flights from Detroit to Albany, which stunned me.

I can picture my parents (who are now 2-for-2 in the "unemployed children" department ... fortunately for them no immediate family get-togethers are planned) sh*tting a brick at the notion of me spending hundreds of dollars to do Albany again while unemployed, but if I can do it on the "cheap" (which appears possible), it's very tempting. I mean, 41 games! Another stacked D-1 for the main event! It'd probably be my only "traveling" tourney until BAT, if I do that. I'd also be looking to share rental car fees ... hopefully I'd be able to find an LJ friend arriving/departing about when I am or willing to pick me up from and drop me off at the airport. If I decide to do Albany, though, I'll need to move quickly.

However, there is a Fenton tournament that weekend ... and I haven't supported that local tournament since my double-dip in September of '07. The second-day open wouldn't exactly help my 1750 cause, but maybe that's more fiscally responsible. I dunno. Somebody talk me into Albany/out of Albany/into Fenton/out of Fenton.

There are a lot more silver linings. For example, look at what unemployment has done to Bihlmeyer's game! Give me an extra 40 hours a week, I'll be 1750 in five, six months max! :)

And this is always good for a pick-me-up.

Jason