Rain, Rain, Go Away

A huge storm came through the Chicago area in the early morning hours on Friday.  It had been a wet week, but the clouds were breaking as I headed to the complex to take in a number of the U14 games at 11AM.  I had the day all mapped out.  Which games to see and for how long in order to make sure that I could watch all the U14 teams in attendance.  I was very interested in watching the Mustang Rampage team from California, as well as the Real Colorado team and the PDA Charge (NJ).  I also wanted to see the St Louis SC girls and the Michigan Hawks team as I know they are both top teams in Region II.

As I drove up to the complex, I didn’t see anyone at the entrance.  Sweet!  I can save the $5 weekend parking payment because I’m here so early.  But as I made my way into the 20 field complex, something obviously wasn’t right.  Where were all the cars?  I can’t be that early.  Halfway along the one way circle drive through the complex, I was stopped my a tournament volunteer.  All morning games had been cancelled due to the wet field conditions.  Field changes and future updates would be posted on their website, but the U13 games were likely going to be moved to fields in Geneva, about an hour away.  Perfect.

We had at least half the U13 team driving in that morning from Minnesota and on the road.  If we were going to play in Geneva (western suburb of Chicago), families driving in should alter their route and come through Rockford.  If people stayed on their current route through Milwaukee, they would have another hour of driving to get to Geneva.  A few frantic phone calls and word began to get out to the team.  Most coming in that morning had got an early start and were already past Milwaukee.  The team manger was just passing Madison and turned around, planning on taking I90 through Rockford and meeting the team in Geneva.

An hour later, we got word that all Friday games were cancelled and to keep an eye on the website for tomorrow’s schedules.  By that time it was too late to re-re-route the manager, so they had a nice 8 hour drive into the hotel.  Fun.

A little bowling, a team dinner, and a Rubik’s Cube (one of the girl's younger brother was toting around a cube and I asked to borrow it) saw the rest of the day fly by, still with no word about Saturday’s games.  The girls went to bed planning on getting up for a 9AM game as was on the website’s schedule.

I remember when the Rubik’s cube first came out when I was in 5th grade.  I was immediately hooked by the movable cube and spent many and hour twisting and turning the colored faces trying to hone my technique.  Me and my nerdy friends in junior high school used to take the cube apart and Vaseline the pieces in order to reduce the friction and thus improve on our already stellar sub-one-minute times to complete the puzzle.

Unlike riding a bike however, solving the puzzle in 2007 did not come easily.  I could finish one side, no problem, but I had forgotten the pattern algorithms for aligning the layer 2 edge pieces, permutating and rotating the bottom layer’s corner pieces, etc. that I had spent hours memorizing 25 years ago. 

When I first got the bube from TJ at the team dinner, I was confident I could solve it.  I ended up returning it to TJ with only one side completed.  Stupid puzzle.  I’ll get you tomorrow!

Looking at the website that night, I was still excited about the prospects for the weekend.  The U14 line up for Saturday looked good, and I would be able to catch a number of the U14 games I wanted to see in between the two U13 games scheduled.  I hit the hay still with a positive attitude about the weekend, trying to quiet my mind and meditate the Rubik’s Cube solutions back to the forefront of my consciousness.  Tomorrow would be a fun day of soccer and cube solving!