![\"Some](\"http:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/gallery\/v\/boomerangs\/boomexpo2006\/boomexpo2006_2\/Some_competitors_carbing_up_for_the_next_day_s_events.jpg.html\")
<\/a>Finally, our dinner was ready, and though it might not have been as hot and fresh as it should have been, it was quite good and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The next banquet room over had another event going on, and it was quite loud. It was some sort of religious gathering, but why they chose a Holiday Inn, I can’t imagine. They had a live drummer, and other loud music makers, but if we talked loud enough, we were still able hear each other enough to actually carry on conversations.<\/p>\nThe loud music was still going strong in the next room, so our auctioneers had to really “project” in order to be heard. One of the coolest things about the auction was that it was so fun, it actually attracted non-boomerangers. There was a high school soccer team staying at the hotel, and at first I noticed one of them, then a couple more, then pretty soon, a whole gaggle of soccer players. They only had a few dollars between them, and they kept bidding on items, only to have someone else bid over their limit almost immediately. At one point when a Boomerang Association of Dallas (B.A.D.) shirt was up for bid, I tossed the kids some money, so they could finally “win” something. Teenage kids are very good indicators of whether something is cool or “lame”, and it is a testament to Matt and Gregg’s fun factor that these kids stuck around as long as they did. They genuinely enjoyed the show.<\/p>\n Saturday evening was reserved for an Olive Garden catered dinner, the Aesthetics Competition awards, and the USBA benefit auction. After a nice relaxing swim, Ace and I got cleaned up and headed over to the lobby to meet up with the group. We had already been told that the previous banquet room guests’ event had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrew","category-boomerangs","category-bruce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucearmstrong.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>We were well behind schedule when the Aesthetics judges got up to present the awards. Since the display had been set up for a while, we had already seen who the winners were, and I’m happy to report that Ace and I were among them. Our “Flying V Guitar<\/a>” got first place in the Decoration category, and my hardwood Lap-jointed Red Oak V<\/a>, got first in the Craftsmanship category. The other well-deserved awards were also handed out, and it was finally time for the auction.<\/p>\n<\/a>The USBA Benefit Auction was one of the highlights from the Houston Expo in 2003, and I’m convinced it was no fluke, because this auction was super-fun too. Matt and Gregg shared auctioneer duties in a sort of tag-team format. Lots of boomerang-related items were sold, raising hundreds of dollars for the USBA. Ace ended up with several T-shirts, both ones he bid on for himself, and ones that friendly folks purchased and gave to him.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"