2006 Invitational

Just got back from the Invitational...well, it was about two days ago, but it is today where I have gotten under control the homework situation. That Thursday at school my teachers have pounded me with a lot of homework. I was assigned to read a 100 page novel, 4 worksheets, 35 math problems, and when I returned, I needed to take 3 quizzes. Ugh. But I got it done....sorta (SparkNotes sorta counts for reading a book, right?)

Thursday afternoon, the last minute, is when I started packing. I went mad searching for everything I wanted. At the same time, I was trying to print out everything I needed: schedule, brackets, homework, a puppet outline (I'll explain later), etc. When I finished packing, I had 4 bags: a suitcase, a bag for my sleeping bag and pillow, my laptop case (I had to bring my laptop to Ohio to do homework) and a bookbag. All I needed was the kitchen sink, and I would be ready (lol). I finally was all packed to go. I took a shower, ate dinner, and headed to the Deitricks.

At the Deitricks, we started out with practice quizzing. We had 4 matches. After the matches, I said goodbye to the buzzer system, especially my buzzer, Black Thunder. Then we had some free time. We ate snacks, drank Kool-Aid and played games. Michael brought the board game Risk: The World Domination Game. It was my first time playing it, but I did good. Mike won the whole thing (most likely because he was the only one who knew how to play), but I survived to be second. We did get to bed by 1 AM (usually during the invitational, we don't sleep until 3 AM). I feel asleep listening to the quizzing material on my mp3 player.

We had to wake up at the early hours of 5:45 in the morning to get to the buses on time. We left the Deitrick house around 6:30 to get to the busses on time. The busses were parked at Dutch Wonderland, a little farther down than LMH. It took a while for us to get the overstuffed church van unloaded and on to the busses. There was a lot of luggage, so much...let's just say Mike packed the least with 3 bags. We loaded the luggage onto the bus, then loaded ourselves onto the bus. Then a little after 8:30 we left for Ohio.

We were on the bus with the 3 Slate Hill quiz teams, Zion and Conestoga 3. I didn't know Slate Hill, but I became quick friends with them. They all knew me and treated me and my team with high respects. And if they like us, I like them. In the beginning, it was kinda slow. Everyone was just doing homework. But in the middle of the ride we all started to open up and socialize. 19 of us played Mafia 6 times. 3 times I was the mafia, 2 times the dectective, 1 time the doctor. After that the Spring City team played some scum. Near the end of the trip, most of us began to study. Slate Hill teams were told to study by their coaches. Luckily, it got Jai to study more. I promised Bekah that I would play Rummy with her if she had some quality practice, so she studied hard too.

Along the way, we had two rest stops. The first was in Pennsylvania (Somerset), the second one in Ohio. Each was an hour 15 minutes long. Previously, before the trip, Morgen (quizzing friend from Reading) and I planned to do some fun things at the rest stops. We planned to cause some "pranks" to drive the fast food places nuts. Our ultimate one was to walk thru the drive thruat one of the restaurants as if we were in an invisible car. Morgen didn't help me as planned, so the ultimate "prank" we didn't do. But I had my own "prank" fun by sending the workers into mass confusion. The first restaurant we stopped at was Wendy's.Wendy's was a long line, so they had someone take orders ahead of time. So went I went up to her, I asked for a Kids Meal Cheeseburger without any onions, mustand or cheese. She said, "That's a hamburger" and checked off hamburger. I then asked for it to be a Biggie Size. She ignored it, gave me the slip, and moved on to the next person. In Ohio I ate at Burger King. After a long line, I was prepared. The one taking the orders was a guy a bit older than me. I ordered "a Big Kids Meal double cheeseburger without any mustard, onions, or cheese, I wanted onion rings instead of fries, no drink, King Size. I also asked for two hats." Once again, he said, "A cheesebuger without cheese is a hamburger." I insisted that I wanted a cheeseburger without cheese, like it was totally different. He gave me a weird look, but pressed something in anyway. I think he just pressed double hamburger. He said that you can't get onion rings in Big Kids Meal. Then he realized I said to King Size it. He's like "You can't King Size a Big Kids Meal!" So he decided to put in the Big Kids Meal Order an King Fries. When the order was done, money given, and changed received, I tipped him 2 pennies. He looked ticked. When I got my order, the woman who put it together just saw the "Big Kids Meal" part and gave me a regular Big Kids Meal. I decided not complain and just enjoy the food.

We arrived at Kidron, OH at around 7:30 PM, just as it began to snow. Each coach got off the bus and waited for their host family to arrive. A little after 15 minutes, after seeing 2 teams getting off, our coach got on and called us off to load our stuff into the host family's car. It was an older retired couple. They lived about 5 minutes from the school. Their house looked small on the outside, but bigger on the inside. The house was very nice. It had 3 spare bedrooms, meant for when the couple's children and grandchildren visit. The boys slept in one room, the girls in another, the coaches in the third. Bekah slept in the walk-in closet in the girls room. We had some practice rounds of questions, then we went to start another game of Risk.

Ever since we were on the second half of the bus ride, Christine started to get a little itchy. It got worse and worse. By the middle of the night, she was very pink, rashes and hives everywhere. The coaches and host family believe she should be taken to a doctor. So she went to the hospital. She was given two different pills (one a antihistamine, the other a steroid) and an anti-itch cream. It provided temporarily relief.

Saturday morning came, with little sleep for the Deitricks and Christine. The host family made us a breakfast casserole. I'm not one for eating breakfast, but since they went through the trouble, I took a little. Then they drove us off to the quizzing at Central School. After a quick explanation of the rules and directions, the quizzing began. During this time, I popped out my brown bag puppet - SKINNY BONE JONES!!!

I'ts a long story, but I'll try to make it short. Last invitational, when Josh was still quizzing, he drew a figure of a skeleton on a brown bag. He named it Skinny Bone Jones. He also gave a theme song, which the lyrics could go with any type of music. He sung it over and over and over and over. Everyone was getting sick of it. Christine's rage grew so much, that she ripped him up and threw it away. Mike wanted to show he also disapproved, so he ate some of it! A brown bag in the trash went into his stomach! The next day he got stomach sick (we said it was the revenge of Skinny Bone Jones) and was in the bathroom for 20 minutes. So with that memory in my mind for the year, I decided that Skinny Bone Jones would "come back alive" for his revenge. The coaches got a laugh, but Mike and Bruce looked disgusted.

The first match I went to see was Oak Grove 2 (West Liberty, OH) vs. St. John's (Northwest OH). The loser would play us. It was an exciting match. At the last question, St. John's went into extra questions. After 3 extra questions, still a tie. That led up to a sudden death question. A kid on St. John's buzzed in and got it right. It seems like they won, but then they realized he had already quizzed out. He was fouled 5 points and a bonus went to the other team. They got it right. It didn't matter though, even with it wrong they would have won because of the foul. So we were going to face St. John's in our next match.

When the time came to play St.John's, we were ready. For my quizzing buddy, I had Skinny Bone Jones and the Furby I got from my Kids Meal. That match was a blow away. We got team bonus. Mike, Jai, and I quizzed out, totalling 3 quizouts. Christine was one away from being the fourth quiz out. The final score was 115-0.

Then I went to go watch other matches. I saw my friends at Reading 2 lose their second placement match. Then I saw Reading 1 win their second placement match against Maple Grove 1, the once threat. Still a while until our next match, I went back to copy the present brackets. Then I saw Reading 2's third placement match. The match began as normal, and Reading 2 took a good lead. Then both coaches realized that these were the last set's questions! They had to start the match all over again. Reading 2 couldn't handle these questions, and lost. They were going to be in the single-elimation bracket instead of the double elimation brakcet.

Finally our second match came. It was against Akron 3. The team once again got team bonus. I took an early lead for our team and quizzed out. We won. Our next match was the set directly after the last one. So we had to hurry off to the next room. The next match was against Petra 2. Once again, they use to be a threat, but were no longer any more. Our coaches were familiar to some of the quizzers. I sat across from their best quizzer. Between him and me, it was a fast start to the match. By question 6, both of us had quizzed out, tying the score at 35 each. After that the match slowed down. Even so, Petra 2 continued to error. They errored so much they lost points. We ended up winning again.

With a few sets before our next match, we went to watch our friends in Reading 1 quiz against Slate Hill 1. The score was ridiculous. Reading lost points because of errors. Slate Hill was winning by just picking up bonuses. Slate Hill 1 was victorius, and Reading 1 lost with only 15 points. If I remember correctly, Reading 1 collected 8 errors. Then we had lunch consisting of BBQ chicken and sides. I only had applesauce. Their lemonade looked dull and weak, so I decided to drink a Mountain Dew Code Red instead.

Now our match was ready. It was against a team we knew from the ACC - Neffsville 2. They finished 23rd in their league, and never were known much as a threat. It should have been an easy win. We were leading at the end of question 14. At question 15, one of their quizzers quizzed out on the last question. We lost by 5. It was a tough loss to face up to, but we had to throw it off our shoulders and move on. Sadly, we couldn't. It still loomed over us in our next match. Our oppenents were New Hope, the first place team in Northwest OH. They were a strong oppenent. They got team bonus on question 6. By the end of question 13, we were losing badly. We needed a quiz and a team bonus to tie it up. I got us the quiz out, but we couldn't get the team bonus. We lost our second match, knocking us out of the double elimination tournament.

When our host family came around to drop off Christine's medications, they wanted to watch a few of our matches. Sadly, we told them we were out. They were sorry and offered to drive us around town if we wanted to sight see. We were grateful for the offer, but declined, wanting to see how the matches turned out. We found out that there were 3 inner-church showdowns at the same time. Goods 1 vs. Goods 2; Petra 5 vs. Petra 6; Reading 1 vs. Reading 2. Since I had friends on both Reading teams, I went to go and watch them battle it out. I predicted a few contests and a close battle to the finish. always wanted to know what it feels like to be against someone from your own church. I have a hard time thinking about it. How many times must they have done it in practice, just for practice and fun, goofing around, laughing, and having a good time. Then in comes to a real match, where you have to be dead serious, and everything is on the line. Talk about a tight situation.I found it funny that the contest and rebuddal on question 14 was coming from the 2 biggest contesters from Reading, who were originally from the same team! (And if the staff allowed more conversation on it, the 3rd biggest Morgen probably would have thrown something in.)But I had fun that match. Both sides wanted me to cheer for them, and I didn't want to take sides, so I made numbers up. One time I cheered for Reading 9 (1+2 squared), then I cheered for Reading 3 (each team had members previously on Reading 3), followed by cheering for Reading 8 1/2, then Reading pi (3.1415...), Reading -27 (-3 cubed), and last Reading infinity. Jai thought I sounded stupid, but I had fun. In the end, Reading 1 was victorius.

Zion had previously fallen out, so I decided to watch and see if Reading 1 would make it all the way. They continued to make it past Petra 1, but then they struggled against another Petra. It was Petra 2, the team we beat before. It was a close match, but Reading 1 lost by 5 points in the last two questions. It was tough for them to deal with not going on to the final match of the single-elimination tournament, but they eventually got over it. I went to see the final match of the single-elimination bracket. Petra 2 won against Byerland 115 to 45. Petra 2 got a plaque recognizing their accomplishment.

There were a few more matches after that. My new friends from Slate Hill also fell out, too. But the end of the night, three teams remained: E-Town 3 (ACC), Sand Ridge (NW Ohio), and Hope Community (Wayne County). We had some pictures taken and then went back to our guest home. Mike and I finished our game of risk, I changed my mp3 player from the text to music, and went to sleep.

We got up to another pleasant breakfast again. Christine was getting up a little better. The host family made us another nice breakfast. At the end of breakfast, we gave them a gift for thanks. To our suprise, they gave us a gift back! His retirement job was in wood carvings and personalizing engravings in wood. So we got a lot of wood crafts. The best one was a pen with our names engraved in it! I loved that pen. After a few pictures of us, they drove us back to Central Christian with our luggage.

At Central Christian we saw the last quiz matches. First Sand Ridge beat E-Town 3, knocking them out. The last two teams standing were Sand Ridge (NW Ohio) and Hope Community (Wayne County). Hope Community had not lost a match, and Sand Ridge had only lost 1. Hope Community had beat Sand Ridge before, so it was expected for them to win. But things happened differently than expected. Hope Community took an early lead, but near the end, Sand Ridge starting catching up, despite having four errors. They were still in the lead after question 14, but on question 15 Sand Ridge got the question "What are few?" correct (the answer is "The Workers") and won the match. Each team now had one loss. So they had to face each other again. After that loss, Hope Community couldn't get it back together. They got four errors the next match. The final score was Sand Ridge - 90, Hope Community - 55. Sand Ridge was victorius in the match, and was victorious in winning the Invitational Double Elimination tournament. This is how the double elimination finished:

1st place: Sand Ridge (Northwest Ohio)
2nd place: Hope Community (Wayne County)
3rd place: E-Town 3 (ACC)
4th place: Bethel 1 (West Liberty) (Not Awarded)

The matches followed by a praise and worship, led by a new youth praise band. They were good for being new. Then we got a short sermon from the local youth pastor. He was funny and good. He brought truth back to quizzing. It ended with the beginning of the next quizzing year. Quizzing 2007 was to be on Luke 16-24 and Acts 1-8. The Invitational would be held in West Liberty, Ohio. Then we used the bathrooms and mass herded back on the busses.

The trip was almost the same as the way up. This time we were with Akron, Blainsport and Hinkletown. They didn't like us, so the team mostly played and socialized with others on the team. We found it quite boring (and our coaches later apologized for that). But the rest stops were fun because we all were there. I did my usual restaurant pain in the neck stuff. The first stop home, I once again went to Burger King. It was a new person, but I wanted to keeep changing up the order, so I asked for an eight piece chicken fries and mozzerella sticks, extra crispy. She said, "Chicken fries only are in 6 and 9." So hearing the old story on a forward email that said a fast food resturant once wouldn't give him half dozen chicken nuggets because they only offered them in 6, 9, and 20 pieces. So I tried that, but she comprehended tha half dozen = 6, so I got the 6 chicken strips, along with the not-extra-crispy mozzerella sticks. Later, Morgen ordered me to go back and get her a second hat (which she didn't wear). So reluctantly, I went back. When I did, there was someone different. It was the same kid from the first BK visit! I said, "Don't worry, I just want a 99 cent drink and a hat." He still had the ticked look, but did it. Also at that same stop, I went to flea market open on weekends, and did a little shopping. I got fuzy dice from my car. At the flea market, I saw someone selling a giant bottle of Tabasco sauce. Next to him was a guy selling shot glasses. Put the two together. I got on the bus and said, "Mike! We're having a Tabasco shots competiton! The second Mrs. Deitrick heard, she was like "NO! I FORBID YOU! AT NO TIME WHATSOEVER!" That killed our fun. When Mike did go back into the bathroom, she said, "You didn't give him any Tabasco sauce, did you?!" I said, "No! I swear!" Despite no Tabasco sauce, he was in the bathroom for a good 10 minutes. The second stop was at Somerset once again. Still dead on ideas, so I decided once again to order 8 chicken nuggets. She said, "You mean 6 or 10?" I gave her a blank stare, like I was seriously thinking, "No, 8 chicken nuggets." So she said, "There are no 8 piece, only 6 or 10." Once again, tried the half dozen trick. She wasn't stupid and knew that meant six pieces. Then I tried the last trick up my sleeve. I ordered a "quadruple-thick milkshake" (instead of the advertized triple-thick). She just ignored that, and checked off milkshake. After the rest stop, we began our last stretch towards Lancaster, PA.

We arrived in Lancaster at 8:45 PM. Early for the team nearby, but much later for us, who still had to drive another 90 minutes. We were all tired and pooped. We got back to the Deitricks at 10:15 and my parents picked me aroun 10:35, and I got home at 11 PM. Exhausted, I didn't go to school the next day. Despite not getting far, I enjoyed myself and had a good time. I was sad to see most of my friends go because I knew I may not seem them again until next year. I thank all of you who were able to come to matches. Even if you couldn't I thank you for your prayers and support for afar. It was a great season.

LAST QUIZZING QUESTION OF THE POST:
Who took pitty...?

LAST QUIZZING JOKE?
Q: What religious group would make good quizmasters?
A: Pharisees and teachers of law, because they beseiged Jesus with questions