Past the Halfway Mark and Feeling Fine

I received the unexpected gift of free wi-fi at the hotel, and the additional unexpected gift of some time to write today. I am at 26,792 words, and just might try to get a few hundred more in tonight, since tomorrow will be a travel day and busy, busy busy getting ready for school and work.
There is actually a fairly complex plot at play (who knew?) so I haven't even been able to get back to the surfers. And my characters are STILL in the Boo(!)-Bie Mansion as I went on an extended 2 day writing spree of a conversation that had taken place between Jake and Annie a year ago. It is important to the plot though, and was easy to write because I basically just made Jake go on an 8 page rant. Lots and lots and lots of inaccuracies in what I'm writing, but, really, who cares?
Here is Jake's part in the storyline:

Annie had met Jake about a year before they crossed paths again in Las Vegas. He had contacted her about being interviewed for a documentary he was making for ESPN’s series 30 for 30. The series (which was actually into its second volume) was a set of 30 sports documentaries that had been made for the purposes of chronicling stories from throughout ESPN’s 30 year history, and featured stories that had shaped the sporting landscape, but were little known, or had received a great deal of attention at one time, only to be forgotten. They had decided to make one about Tom. It was called ‘The Best That Never Was.’ All it took for Annie to say no was to hear the title. She said no immediately, and almost slammed the door in Jake’s face, but there was a kindness in his eyes and a softness in his voice when he said “Wait… hear me out.”

And here is an excerpt from his rant:

“Look at what has happened in Ontario, where the OMHA has removed hitting at the PeeWee level, and removed it altogether from House Leagues. People lost their everloving shit.” Annie nodded, as much as she had tried to avoid the backlash, for fear of flying into a rage she could never recover from, you would have had to have been a drunk baby to avoid the veritable flood of crazies who came out of the woodwork to loudly vent against the move on behalf of the OMHA to ‘pussify’ hockey. It had been profoundly, profoundly disturbing.
“That is removing hitting from rep stream hockey for 10 and 11 year old boys. Adult men and women everywhere, up in arms, because we are no longer allowing children to hit other children. Sick, sick people,” Jake continued, shaking his head in disgust. In fact, if Annie had been pressed to describe Jake’s facial expression, she would have said that he looked as though a chipmunk had just farted in his face. She didn’t know it, but she had a similar expression on her face. “Now we are talking about rep stream, at the Pee Wee level. And even in rep, even in the AAA stream, we are talking about an extremely small percentage that will ever play hockey beyond their junior careers, and NHL? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. We are talking about a minute, minute percentage of kids that even have a hope in Hell of playing in the NHL. Fewer than 0.001% of kids will ever make it to the NHL, but yeah, let’s just have 10 year old boys knock the piss out of each other in the meantime, almost certainly experiencing at least minor brain damage… yeah let’s go ahead and do that. Just. In. Case.”
None of this was news to Annie. She was a sport sociology teacher for Christ’s sweet sake (to quote the inimitable Jake Dempsey), she had gone on similar rants many, many times to students, colleagues, managers, people in line at the supermarket, and just generally anyone foolish enough to get within shouting range, but Jake was a compelling speaker, and she respected his passion for the topic, so she remained silent, and let him continue.