Pete De Shaw said:
I know this is a minor point, but I have seen many similar statements by others and it bugs me. I am not calling JanPDS out in particular here. His statement is not impolite, just conveniently located.
No, we could not have started the grinder at 10:00. 3:00 is about as early as we could push it. We would have preferred a 5:00 start but changing to 8 or 9 rounds instead of 5 or 6 made that unworkable.
If the grinder started at 10:00 we would have lost an entire day of viable flight options. Nobody coming from the East coast or Europe who wanted to participate in the Grinder could have arrived on Friday.
The reason this sort of thing bugs me so much is that there is the part about it being easier on everyone. No, not true at all. It would be easier on people like the poster who live near him. It would have been far more difficult for people from other parts of the world.
Pete,
I am sorry but I have to disagree with you on this.
For most Europeans it would have been better if the grinder had started 10 of 11 am.
( I cannot speak for Eastern USA).
Almost everybody from Europe will at the latest try to arrive thursday, but the majority will try to be at the destination 2 or 3 days prior.
Arriving Friday is the worst option you can have and anybody would try to avoid that.
Mainly because a lot of flights arrive late in the afternoon/evening and because you have to get rid of the timedifference (a bit).
Playing at the same day you arrive is for children to much and for adults killing.
I think many international European players arrived wednesday,some before, but not many after.
People flying over to join a grinder are already spending a lot of money and 1 night hotel adding to that budget is paying itself back, you can have some rest before you have to play.
It's worth it.
Just a simply example, we left from home our local time tuesday 10 am, we arrived in Anaheim at the hotel around 10.30 pm.(local) At that moment we were on the move for 21 hours.
We went to bed immediate, but were awake again around 4-5 am. WHY, because of the timedifference.
For our body's it was 2 pm.
Now imagine that day my kids could have play the grinder, what would be a better time to start? 10 am or 3 pm?
I can tell you 10 am, because starting at 3 pm (Local) would feel as starting at Midnight.
So meaby for Eastcost USA players it's a viable day to fly, but for European people it would say not.
Li@