Procrastination Doesn’t Pay

As long time readers of my blog will be aware, when CRPS spread to my right hip in June of 2017, I had to give up darts. Not just playing, but tasks associated with the administration of it. I felt bad, but I didn’t have a choice, I had to step away.

One of the problems with Lyrica was that I had issues staying focused among other memory, concentration, and comprehension difficulties. Anyway, so I told my dart league in September of 2017 that I had to be done with the administration as well as playing.

About Christmas, I got a frantic message asking me to make tournament flyers for the association’s February tournament. Now, the tournament had been scheduled for over a year at this point, but I agreed to do it. The tournament took place February 15 – 17. We had friends stay with us, there was a lot of snow and some slick roads, but there was still a good turn-out.

The morning of the 16th, I wake up, wander into the dining room to be greeted with “I don’t know what you did, but the payouts for one of the evens is a mess.” Okay, how so, exactly? Apparently, it was a moved event and the payouts were left from the even that was there previously. So yes, the payouts are wrong. This is a huge issue.

But I told people to look it over multiple times. I pay editors and use 10 beta readers per book to catch errors. And I’m not particularly good at catching my own mistakes. They were given plenty of notice that I couldn’t/wouldn’t be doing it. They had more than a year to get the flyer made and there was a template available. And one person surely could have taken ten minutes to review the flyer and say “Hey, there’s an error here” instead of waiting until the tournament started to look at it.

Especially since they knew I was having tons of problems with my brain on Lyrica. I had explained the side effects of my disease as well as the medications I was on when I told them I couldn’t do it anymore.

When I was told of it, I had just woken up and this shit has spread to my other hip. Mornings and sleeping have gotten worse for me as a result. My response was “Well they were told it needed to be proofed, why didn’t they notice it when they made up the payout envelopes?” “Why didn’t someone look it over in the 2 months it was available before the tournament? Why didn’t they have someone with a brain do it?”

The Annual Governor’s Cup Dart Tournament

Every year, around my birthday there is a large dart tournament held by the Jefferson City Dart Association called the Governor’s Cup.  It’s a team event 8 men, 4 women, play for two days wracking up points for their team with each game they win.  On Sunday afternoon, after the singles event, they total the points and the team with the most points wins.

It’s a great tournament.  A couple of years ago the hotel that the Jefferson City Dart Association booked for the event closed down and there was a struggle to find a new one in Jeff City that would give us a deal on rooms, because this is a huge tournament even though it’s only Missouri dart players.

So it was moved to the Lake of the Ozarks to the Inn at Grand Glaize.  In the 1970s and 1980s the Inn at Grand Glaize was one of the premier resort hotels at the Lake of the Ozarks.  It has an interesting history.  It was owned by Stan Musial a famous baseball player who played for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Stan managed to transition from baseball player to hotel owner quite well.  And the Inn at Grand Glaize is proof that with a little will power and a willingness to learn things outside your comfort zone, you can succeed.

Unfortunately, after Stan Musial died, the property passed into the hands of a younger Musial generation, which is why it isn’t still one of the premier resorts at the Lake of the Ozarks.  It needs some renovations and updating.  A process that seems to have been started, but not finished because the younger generation can’t get along.  Their infighting has lead to lawsuits and a general decline of the resort.

However, the rooms are clean and even though some of the rooms need to be modernized, it’s still a nice place to stay.  It sits on a lovely cove at the Lake of the Ozarks.  It has boat rentals, jet ski rentals, a nice outdoor pool, and other amenities.  It is much nicer than the hotel we had in Jeff City.

I have two complaints about the Inn at Grand Glaize.  While the majority of the staff are amazing, there are a handful of front desk workers that act like every person that walks up to the desk is an inconvenience and when things break it may or may not get fixed, because they don’t actually have maintenance staff – they have Chris.

Chris is one of my favorite features at the hotel.  He has a lovely Jamaican accent, but it isn’t so thick he can’t be understood and he likes to talk to people.  I found out most of the history of the resort from Chris.  He is doorman, assistant, handyman, plumber, basically the hotel’s Jack of All Trades and every hotel needs a Chris, he’s just great to be around.

This weekend with my husband in a sling and throwing left handed because he still can’t throw with his right the one that had surgery, Chris has been a godsend.  We decided to go to the pool last night because there were blind draws but my husband didn’t want to play and I can’t.  The pool is at the end of a long walk down a lot of steps at the rear of the hotel.  Chris was lovely enough to give us a ride down on the hotel’s Mule so I didn’t have to walk down all those stairs…. because even though we only stay here 3 times a year, Chris remembers us and he knows I have a bum hip that causes me intense pain.

And this year, with J in a sling, Chris wouldn’t let either of us unpack our stuff from the cart that he filled with our stuff and pushed down to our room for us.  A service I appreciate more than words or money can say.  He also gave me his number so I could call him for a ride back from the pool.  And when Chris realized our room was more than half way down the hall from the elevators (I request a room as close to the elevators as I can get to cut down on the amount of unnecessary walking during dart tournaments), Chris tried to get our room changed.  But the hotel was booked solid.  I didn’t complain.  I didn’t ask Chris to check this. Chris volunteered to check it for a closer room because Chris is just an all around great guy.

I don’t know how much the Inn at Grand Glaize pays Chris, but it isn’t enough.  While most of the staff are friendly, Chris is the one that always goes above and beyond for guests staying at the hotel.

Tomorrow I will have a picture post.  I managed to get pictures of the resident ground hog eating a hamburger, little paws holding it as if he were human, but my phone died before I thought to upload the pictures to the Cloud so I could access them on my laptop. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to see pictures of a ground hog holding a hamburger.