Rumble on Route 66

The Table’s Edge

I’m excited, readers. Why? Because the Rumble on Route 66 was just 1 week ago! If it’s over, then why am I excited? I’m always excited, but the event known as the Rumble on Route 66 has really had me going since I first stepped foot in their venue. A week later and I still haven’t come down off that high.

The Rumble on Route 66 started way back in early 2014 as just a simple idea of a man, Joe Hill, as he was planning on passing through Amarillo, Texas. He thought and dreamed of having a “central” area where Infinity players of the South West could gather and have a grand time. Thus was born the Dire States: Rumble on Route 66.

How big of a deal was this? Take a look for yourself:

Carlos “Bostria” Lorenzo was in attendance! But who else was there?

Near 60 players from several states. North West Texas, South East Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Kentucky, Colorado, and California. All represented.

This year, Brandon Newburg was the primary Organizer and Judge for the event. Let me tell you, he did a spot on job! Let’s break down what occurred.

• Friday: Beerfinity, dinner, and generally just hanging out. Oh yeah, Carlos “Bostria” Lorenzo was there.
• Saturday: Main tournament, dinner, then some late night BOWLING.
• Sunday: Farewells and driving. Lots of driving.

Beerfinity is as it sounds: Infinity with lots of beer! Be amazed at your (lack of) tactical prowess! Really, this is just an excuse to socialize while also playing some Infinity and just doing crazy things. There was also some graffiti work going on before I managed to show up. I heard Carlos even had a couple games in.

Dinner this year was at “The Big Texan” which is famously known for a 72 oz. Steak Dinner. Eat a 72 oz. Steak, a fully loaded mashed potato, salad, and a couple dinner rolls in under an hour and you get the normally $72 meal for free!

Unfortunately, I did not attend the Big Texan and don’t have any footage for this.

We started the Tournament bright and early at 8 AM, starting pairings and rolling dice at about 8:30 AM. First round was full of challenges and rivalries. I, myself, had been challenged to a “Princess Challenge” in which the loser would wear a dress for the remainder of the tournament! Luckily, I didn’t lose! Between the second and third rounds of the tournament, Carlos held a little seminar where the great attendees of the Rumble were privy to some very cool information. New reinforcements for PanOceania, Yu Jing, Nomads, and more were shown. We learned that shorter skirts is the way to go and some more “special” information was shared that will be general information soon enough. It’s going to blow minds.

After individual awards (where yours-truly took 2nd place!), we all went off to the IDK Sports Bar and Grill for some winding down, food, state awards, and to recount the experiences we had accumulated so far in the weekend.

Around midnight or so, people started filtering out to drive back to their home towns and some farewells were made. More importantly, BOWLING was going to get underway! Arriving close to 1 AM, we rent out two lanes and get set to knock over some pins in our own “unique” fashion. Dancing, jumping, backwards, sideways, however you can think to get to bowling ball to the pins, we did (or tried to). Kip (of Mayacast fame) and Dexter (of The Krug fame) officially celebrated their anniversary, Gavin (of early The Krug fame) tried out being a bowling alley attendant, and everyone made fools of themselves. It’s a miracle we didn’t get kicked out!

Front of the shirt: “Ask me about shirtless Leper”

All this sound interesting? See the Data-Sphere Facebook page for videos of the seminar and see my post in the forums here for my Flickr account full of photos!