Done Thoroughly In Time

Given a bit of time to think about it, here's my report on the big event from yesterday: One of the organizers (who is a member of my own club) asked me to be there early help to help set up. Thusly, after sleeping not very much the night before, I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning. I got the coffee going, and jumped into the shower. Once my bathroom routine was through, it was time to dress. I suppose I have something of a reputation among some circles for dressing quite casually.

Therefore, I was asked to dress "business casual". I don't have a natural understanding of such terms, but went with a pair of black slacks, a nice collared shirt and no tie or jacket. I tastefully restrained my hair and moustache, and headed out around 6am. The event was at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club at Universal Citywalk, which is fairly near to me and easy to get to. I caught the bus at about 6:11 and arrived at the bottom of the hill on which Citywalk lies about 6:24. It took just a few minutes to walk up there, as their shuttle does not start running until 7 on Saturdays.

I made contact with the other Toastmasters a bit after 6:45, and we got to the matter of setting up. It took a few minutes to get our things situated in there, and I took to my post helping run the registration desk. It's not my favorite thing to do, but it's not too bad, and doing it meant I could take part in the event for free. Within a couple hours, however, my services as a ballot counter were required by the chief judge (a very nice man seemingly of some Caribbean origin) of the two speech contests being held that day. I enjoyed that better, as it is a little less frenetic and puts me in a position of possessing privileged information. Not that I would leverage that, but it's neat knowing things others don't.

The first thing of the day was a business meeting, to which I paid no attention. The keynote address which followed was interesting, and I was glad for the chance to hear it. It concerned the speaker's own background and journey into speaking. After another break, we got into the Table Topics contest. This was of particular interest to me and fellow club members in attendance, as our own president was a contestant.

Contestants were faced with a scenario wherein they are facing a rickety bridge across a chasm with hostile headhunters behind them, and had to tell what they would do. I was surprised by the nature of the question. The especially sensitive might object to the presence of headhunters in the question, but apart from that the question was not of the kind that contests usually seem to employ. I have observed that they usually ask questions of the sort that you hear used in beauty pageants. Rather than that, contestants yesterday got more of a club question with no pretence of seriousness or social relevance.

A number of the contestants, who do not hear the speeches of those they are following, covered the same ground: namely, the exploits of Indiana Jones. In the end, it would be a lovely older lady who won first place by advocating the use of diplomacy to steer the headhunters toward a vegetarian diet, with our friend and president winning third. It was no doubt a disappointment, but we were happy with how far she had gotten, and I hope she was as well.

With the Table Topics contest over, there was a discussion panel which featured another of our club members. There was some good information and inspiration in it. I was rather tired at this time before experiencing a second wind, but did enjoy the panel.

Following the panel was the Tall Tales contest. A harrowing story about killing a butterfly won first place, with others including one about a string of improbable relationships with celebrities before finding her own husband and another about the hard-boiled story of the Northern Michigan Better Business Bureau.

Of the functionaries speaking, the MC and Tall Tales Toastmaster were of particular note. The former evidently is a comedian, and effectively (judging by the crowd) employed his style of humor throughout in the service of his task. I personally greatly enjoyed the latter, who was as funny and had a great vocabulary and vocal style in introducing the contest and contestants.

Once all that and the raffle (for which I did not buy tickets) were done, it was time to break down. This did not take nearly as much time as I imagined it might. With that done, I was given as a gift a pineapple (for the theme was 'Riding The Waves'), and headed home to watch a taped college football game and Saturday Night Live (perhaps the best episode of the season so far). And that was my day.