The robotics

My oldest son is in the middle school robotics club. What that normally means for me is that once a week he stays late and tinkers with a robot with a couple other kids. What it means for him is that a month ago, he was at a local competition. Apparently I didn't write anything about it, it was so low on the radar. But his team qualified for the regionals, and that was yesterday. 

From 6am-4pm, he was at the Oncenter in Syracuse. I rejoined him at 9, when the competition began. Or rather, the sitting around.

Alright, I get it. It's pretty normal for these types of events. They have a match, their robot competes, they're scored, then they go back to their staging area and plan for the next match. There wasn't really a spectators area, so I joined them at their table, which had plenty of space for me. I was there for just over seven hours, and there was about an hour of actual event.

But don't get me started on the food.

I'll do it anyway.

There's a food vendor there that has a monopoly on the one spot in the building. No outside food or drink allowed - they check your bags. A previous convention at the same location informed me that you're not even allowed to park a food truck outside. Meanwhile the nearest alternative is a pub I'd rather not take a middle schooler into.

The food at this was pretty much what you'd expect. Extremely overpriced, dumpster grade slop masquerading as lunch. The actual counter was a joke. There were a handful of fresh faces up front happily taking your money, but in the back I could see what looked like a batch of drug addicted crackheads slowly torturing the food.

So yea, next time I'm in that building, movie theater rules apply. Whatever I can smuggle in using cargo pants and a fake beer gut pouch.