Well, Duh.

SUMMARY: Why did I think this was a good idea? Again?

This weekend's trial is a 3-day trial, starting with the 5-class Team event this morning. I did not enter Team--I don't need to take yet another day off work, I certainly don't need any Team Qs with either dog, blah blah. So I *was* going to enter only Saturday and Sunday, and that's how I sent in my entry.

But as a bonus, they also offered Snooker Friday evening. I thought and thought about it, and, well, you know, Tika still needs 3 Snooker Qs to complete her Gold PDCH, and Boost, as always, needs SuperQs. So, I thought, well, really, Monterey's not that far, and I'm planning on commuting anyway, so what if I just drive down Friday evening for the Snooker?

So I signed up at the last possible minute.

Soooooo there I was at 4:00 this afternoon, still having had to miss a couple of hours of billable work, sitting in Friday traffic, thinking, "Monterey is an hour and a frigging half *without* traffic. What was I thinking? What what what what WHAT? Three and a half hours of round trip driving, with one Snooker run for each dog in the middle! WHY did I think this was a good idea?"

And then saying out loud to myself, "Well, SOMEONE better get at least a Q this evening or this whole trip will have been completely wasted." (Along with $23 of gasoline, plus the entry fees, plus the time off work...)

Back in the days when Jake desperately needed Gambles to complete his USDAA championship and Remington needed gambles for his NATCH championship and Standards for his USDAA MAD, I started doing this stupid thing-- this thing like driving to santa barbara for a one-day competition because they offered gamblers or standard. Driving to nevada because they offered gamblers or standard. Like that.

Like it would help.

Because I always ignored the fallacy of this idea, which is, the REASON we need those Qs is because we aren't very good at GETTING them, so if I drive 6 or 8 hours to get to an event, wearing myself out, and then stressing myself into "We'd better get a Q or all this effort would have been wasted," that it would make it MORE LIKELY that we'd get a Q?!?!

So, of course, in Boost's run, we got through a four-red opening with some bobbles but no major mishaps, and 2 to 3 in the opening, and then I called her to go over jump #4, pointed at it and yelled "hup" as I ran pall mall forward, and then because it was right in front of her and very obvious, I turned my head away to check for my next position--and, yes, you guessed it, she ran right past the blessed jump. Not even a Q. Crap!

And then 5 minutes later with Tika, after the fourth red in the opening, I sent her into a straight tunnel--and tripped and fell flat on the ground, tried to get up and stumbled back down. Tika, getting to the other end of the tunnel and not seeing me, discovered that she could see me THROUGH the tunnel so of course came right back through it for an off course and crap!!!!!

So I'm home. Someone please remind me next time I think that something like this is a good idea.

Gah. Well, to bed, then 90 minutes driving back down to monterey in the morning. At least now my canopy and all are set up (except the crates, which I forgot) so I don't have to do THAT tomorrow. Yay, can sleep in an extra 30 minutes.

Sheesh.