It's EVO Time! and IM NOT THERE!!
I wrote an entire entry last week about how excited I was for EVO. I had hoped my next blog post would be my stories of success and a drop of all the pictures I got with my crew; perhaps some selfies with my favorite players. But apparently it was not meant to be.
I worked a normal shift on Thursday. Up at 6 am, bowl of Apple Jacks, and off to work. I knew that to make my flight, i had to leave home about 7 pm. So all day at work it was :
10 hours until i leave for my flight.
9 hours until i leave for my flight.
I get an email - my flight has been delayed by half an hour.
Upsetting, but whatever. 9 and a half hours until i leave for my flight.
8 hours
7 hours
and so on.
When I finally left I practically skipped out the door. Its an hour and a half drive from my house to the airport in Belgrade. I checked my bag at the desk at 9 pm. Then i walked over to check the departures board. I did a double take, rubbed my eyes, thinking I must not know how to read, and look a third time. My flight, originally scheduled for departure at 10:09 was now leaving at 12:45.
This was when I started to worry. I booked a flight out of Belgrade airport on Allegiant. People who like to travel in confidence, who find things like arriving on time or having an airplane to ride, don't ride Allegiant. They take better, faster means of travel, like Southwest Airline, or a donkey. I had already been burned by Allegiant Air, and I got that disturbing sense of foreboding that comes with the knowledge you might be about to witness a disaster.
At that point I had to check in with the crew. Not only was I going to be late, I was going to be so late I would have to consider skipping my morning Tekken match.. The crew, having basic knowledge of American travel, had already arrived by other methods. They were comfortably set up in the room and already practicing. They told me what I already suspected: I was an idiot for putting an important trip in the hands of Allegiant air, and I get what I deserve for living in rural Montana.
A Quick google and some simple division tells us that Allegiant has 80 flights that are delayed or cancelled EVERY SINGLE DAY
After that I tried napping, thinking perhaps if I slept now I could still make my morning matches. I actually did manage to fall asleep against one wall, propped up on my stick bag like a pillow. When I awoke, I found more good news, plane was another half hour behind. I'd already been waiting at the airport for two and a half hours. Flight's new arrival time - 1:15 am.
Around this time, I was trying to make peace with the fact I wouldn't be making my morning match. Half the country away, a tech company I've never heard of started their nightly software update. Within an hour, this unknown fart of a company would cripple international infrastructure.
It was around 1:45 when the copilot made an announcement that there was some sort of trouble with software and we cant board yet. Being Allegiant though, they let us know how much we meant as customers - we dont know if were going to take off. we dont know if the flight is cancelled. we dont know if there will be a flight for you to take tomorrow. if you leave, you are not entitled to a refund.
At 3:00 (thats 0300 - 6 hours since I parked outside) the pilot made the announcement that something called Kr0wdStryK3 had forced an update and travel all over america has been grounded. we dont know if there will be a flight tomorrow, probably not.
Travel was disrupted across the globe. It takes a big BIG event to cause problems that big. In my lifetime all i can think of are Covid, and 9/11. We're talking once every few decades type of travel disruption.
I dont travel often, maybe twice a year. and that once-a-decade event happened minutes before my ultra-delayed flight came in.
If Allegiant was a competent, reliable company, I'd be at EVO. If CrowdStrike, a company I didn't know existed, had been a competent, reliable company, I'd be at EVO. The cascade of bad-luck-horseshit that had to happen to lead to me missing out on EVO has left me stunned and oh so bitter.
All my friends and family are sympathetic of course, they offer their condolences and they are sincere. But they really don't know how deep it cuts. It's not like I missed a vacation, it's more like a holiday got cancelled. Imagine a Hindu acquaintance tells you how upset he is because Navratri was cancelled. You feel bad sure, your friend is clearly upset, but you don't really know what Navratri is, and you can't understand how much it means to him. (Its a celebration of their goddess Gurga, and it involves alot of dancing)
I was going to give one of these to each of the people that eliminated me from the tournament. No idea what to do with them now.
I'll remember Friday July 19th as one of the worst days of my life. I was up waiting for the damn plane all night, but managed to get a few hours nap in that morning. The rest of that day was spent feeling like my heart had been carved out. I was so tired and miserable that it physically hurt. If you've ever had your heart broken, you know the feeling.
Writing this has been therapeutic. I've been avoiding watching the stream, I'm afraid it will just make me more upset. But my crew played well, and good luck to everyone still in it!
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