Details on Minnesota - Sponsored content by Splitwise "split expenses with friends!"

By this time next week, PCTI IX will be live from our nation's 32nd state, The Land of 10,000 Lakes, beautiful Minnesota.

[Eds note: I didn't realize that it was 10,000 lakes and not 1,000 lakes until I just googled it. That's a lot of lakes. Seems a bit excessive, honestly]

I figured now would be a good time to go over a few details about our upcoming trip that you may have not heard yet.

This is the first PCTI where we're playing at a host city that is site unseen. Granted, nobody lives in San Diego but Actor was able to organize from LA, which made it possible to scout out some things. Also, much overdue salute to Act for bringing last year together. As one of the guys who has helped put some things together this year, I'm reminded that it's not an easy job. Don't get me wrong, it's not that bad but it does take some planning.

So, what's the setup for this year? We're playing at a middle school in the suburbs of Minneapolis. As many of us have learned in the past, renting a basketball gym never seems to be as simple as you'd think. I blindly reached out to several AAU clubs in the area to explain our situation and inquire about gyms. One guy responded and he's proven to be (through email) a very helpful resource. His name is Willie Vang and although I've not met him in person - and might never - I may name my second child after him. But that's more because he has a cool name. Assuming everything next weekend comes together - and there's no reason besides general paranoia/nervousness to think that it won't - we all owe him dearly.

The one part of our usual PCTI setup that I've not been able to figure out is stat keeper/score keeper. Everyone I've talked to has told me there's no service available for stat keeping and one week out, I've yet to come up with a solution. I've talked with Willie about the idea of finding a few of his youth players to come do it for $15 a game but he's been non-committal. I'm hoping to get an answer from him on that by tomorrow. If it's a no from him I'm not above putting something on Facebook or Craigslist (CREEPY!) if need be. If any of you have friend/family connections in Minnesota and can reach out, please let me know. Obviously, the bare minimum is to have someone who can keep the clock and chart fouls. Next step up would be a second person willing to track basic stats. It would be a good job for a young kid, again if anyone has family or friends to tap in to. If worse comes to worse, we're going to have to tap in to the three man benches and have someone sitting out work the clock. Or, the first person that gets injured will have something to do!

We have high school referees booked and I have put Sabin in charge of giving them a good briefing about what we expect. I believe Sabin is also planning to give them a rule sheet. The hope is if we address some of the past issues (refs getting too comfortable as we all get comfortable) from the start we'll see an improvement.

The last detail on the on-court stuff is that we have to move back the first two games on Thursday. The new start time is 12:30, 1:30. There's summer school at Chippewa Middle before that. (Seriously, if your kid is going to summer school in middle school, that cannot be good, right?) Trust me, I know that there's few things more excruciating than waiting around for that first game but somehow 10 am got lost in translation when booking the gym. My tip: DO NOT take Dan up on his offer to go to breakfast at 6 am.

As for the off court stuff, here's what I can think of.

This is the first PCTI where we won't have anyone drive to the location, so we've had to rent a second van. Your boy The Beast has a MINIVAN in his name ready at the airport. Smo will continue to captain the 12 passenger.

Housing should be interesting. A group of us looked at several rental spots and settled on the one that we thought looked the most open/cool and had a good price. It gets great reviews and says it sleeps 16+ so we should be in good shape. With that said, I do expect it's going to be fairly tight for 17 dudes. There's nine beds and considering Smooth will have the big bed packed out with UofM co-eds, there's gonna have to be plenty of sharing everywhere else. Here's a link in case you want to review https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/8876337?bev_ref=&eal_exp=1533195228&eal_sig=ee55e1587e37f318b894b2e63d032e32bbc02541161adf946a5e6e55c05f91b7&eal_uid=0&euid=e2084bed-eaec-ce16-88e0-0919d364d873&photo=&s=&user_id=

The house itself is in "Dinktown" which is the community around the University of Minnesota. From all I've gathered, it's less than 10 minutes from downtown and should have some eating and drinking options nearby. To state the obvious, it's the middle of the summer, so it probably won't be as lively as usual...make of that what you will.

The only other unplanned variable right now is Wednesday night. By taking a quick look at the stick and tapping in to what I can remember from years past, I think everyone will be in town earlier this year than ever before. Due to that, your boy The Beast is gonna get to planning a dinner and drinks setup for Wednesday night. I haven't done it yet as I'm trying to give myself one PCTI-related task per day in order to have a reason to get out of bed each day (today's is this.) You can count on it being good and probably better than anything on Dan's current stick, sans Saturday on the lake which is gonna be lit.

Speaking of which, if you haven't already e-signed the waiver for the boat on Saturday, dig back through your email and get that done. Now's not the time to be prideful, if you deleted the email suck it up and ask Dan The Man to send it to you again.

Last couple things is to look ahead to next year, since it's the ANNIVERSARY EDITION of PCTI. Several of us are already working behind the scenes on a special project to roll out at PCTI 10. At some point, we'll need some help from each of you. We might ask a a favor or two while we're together this year. If we do, please help out and trust us. Also, if you have an idea for where we should go in 2019, be ready to pitch it this week. Personally, I think it's time we finally take Smo up on Chattanooga. Now that he's heading back to Tennessee I think it's destiny. But that's just me.

That's it for me. As always, pack your extra shoe laces and don't eat any cookies that Smo gives you.

Sincerely,

That dude they call The Beast