Three OKers made the trip to Georgia -- Mary, Dan, and I. PTOC had no entrants. SLOC had just two.

Our results looked decent. We left before the final results were posted. But, it looks like we all took second in our classes. Dan ran Blue (despite being USOF-40). Mary ran her a-class on Green. I ran my A-class on Red. Dan had two strong days -- he won the first day, but couldn't quite hold off Clem McGrath of DVOA.

The terrain was nice. The woods were quite open (especially on day one) and the maps were consistent. The courses were fine; not as interesting as they could have been, but not at all bad.

Any other reports?

Oh, I almost forgot...OK might want to consider boycotting Dollar Rental Car after their terrible customer service. We had to wait almost an hour to get a shuttle bus from the airport to the rental cars. After waiting almost 25 minutes, I went to the rental counter in the airport and said, "we've been waiting almost 25 minutes and no bus has arrived." The manager told me, "no that is impossible, the bus comes every 7 minutes." Yeah, right. I don't think he realized OK has brought down bigger commercial enterprises than Dollar!

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), January 16, 2000

Answers

I hear that Dollar is the official car rental for Albertson's executives.

-- Dan (daniel.meenehan@umb.com), January 16, 2000.

I had thought to warn the OK contingent going to Georgia ("jawja", as they like to say it) about the possibility of Killer Kudzu Attacks, but then I thought, "Why bother, they're from KC, why would they worry about vegetation?".

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), January 16, 2000.

Was the Georgia meet fun? You didn't mention this factor.

As Spike was saying in his review of last year's relays, these things are supposed to be fun, and that can't be taken for granted. Hopefully Georgia was fun, or at least "interesting".

Now I've done my daily part to help pad the OK Forum statistics.

Beak 'em Hawks! KU's gonna crush down on some Texas A & M bodies like a pile of logs!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), January 17, 2000.

Yes, Mook, the Georgia meet was fun.

The courses were fun, the terrain was fun, and (of course) travelling with OKers was fun.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), January 17, 2000.

It looks like Spike demolished the opposition and took no prisoners in his own version of a march through Georgia. Could it be his orienteering has moved up a level again, re-energized from the December viewing of "Spinal Tap"? Will young nubile teens be clamoring again for a glimpse of the legendary diagonal Lidingo stripe and an autographed osage orange fruit?

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), January 18, 2000.

Here is how I would grade the GAOC A-meet:

Terrain A- Most of the terrain was very open. The areas were mixed oak-hickory and pine forest. There was little underbrush and thorns. There was some deadfall -- but that just makes it a bit more interesting. In places there were some big hills. The topography was mostly spurs and reentrants. My only other O' in Georgia was at FDR Park. This year's areas were definitely better than FDR. The terrain on the first day (Red Top Mountain State Park) was especially pleasant.

Maps B- The maps were consistent, which is one of the most important things. But, the countours were a bit general.

Courses B- No problems with the courses. But, at the same time, the courses didn't pose any unusually interesting problems. More direction changes and more tempo changes (a mix of short and long legs) would have improved the courses.

Organization A Everything seemed to go smoothly. The starts were on time. The results were posted quickly. GAOC did a good job handling a large (larger than expected?) crowd. Apparently there were around 700 entrants.

Overall A- GAOC put on a really good event. There might be a little room for improvement. But, overall you can't really ask for anything more.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), January 18, 2000.