This weekend, Jennifer and I will head to Charlottesville, Virginia, to host a 2-day Scrabble tournament. It will be the third live CoCo tournament to take place in the post-COVID vaccination era, and the fourth event overall. I'm super excited for it - on a couple of different levels.

First off, I'm excited for the CoCo's growth. This is our first time holding a tournament on the East Coast, which is an important milestone for us. All of our events thus far have been in the Pacific Northwest, which is fine - this is where we were founded and where we have a strong base of local players, so it makes sense that we'd have a strong PNW presence. But branching out from that is crucial, and this weekend gives us a chance to move into a new swath of North America and connect with a new community of players. There are a lot of passionate Scrabblers in the Mid-Atlantic region, many of whom have never experienced a CoCo tournament. So this event will be a big breakthrough.

The other level is more personal than that. As a Charlottesville native myself, I can't wait to host a group of Scrabblers in my old hometown.

I spent most of my childhood in Central Virginia. My parents moved us south from Boston in the summer of 1989, when I was a wee toddler; I lived in Charlottesville and the surrounding area from then until I graduated high school 16 years later. I'm a proud alum of Charlottesville High School. I left the city after that, first for college and then for various job opportunities, but I've always come back and visited every chance I've gotten. In fact, COVID is to blame for the longest stretch I've ever gone without visiting Charlottesville - almost two years now. Our flight takes off tomorrow, and I'm itching to go back!

I hope people like Charlottesville. It's a cool city, and one that's evolved quite a bit over the years. I remember what it was like three decades ago - it felt very small, simple, almost provincial. It was the quintessential college town. Everything was built around the University of Virginia - you had UVA students, UVA faculty and staff, and all the infrastructure needed to support those students and faculty and staff... and that was about it. There wasn't much else going on. In the summer, it was a ghost town.

Fast forward to today, and the city is still very much centered around UVA, but there's also more to it. The city has become something of a tourist attraction. There are exciting new venues, like the Ting Pavilion on the Downtown Mall and John Paul Jones Arena, that host big concerts and other events. (JPJ also hosts the UVA basketball team - your 2019 men's NCAA national champions, thank you very much.) There's music and culture. There's incredible food (including but not limited to legendary bagels) and local craft beer (I highly recommend the Santa's Cookies imperial stout at Champion Brewing). There's a lot! Charlottesville has become pretty cool.

As for the tournament, that's shaping up to be pretty cool, too. We've got a nice field coming together - we're fixing to have a total of 18 players, including a broad spectrum of Scrabblers. The group ranges from several of the top competitors in North America to some intermediates, plus one entirely new tournament player. I'm optimistic that everyone, from top to bottom, will have a great time. We've got a beautiful venue (with an owner who's psyched about Scrabble and can't wait to host us!), a charming neighborhood, and what should be great Virginia fall weather.

So it should be great! I'm looking forward to it. If you're one of the 18 players, I'll see you soon. If you're instead following along at home, that's great too - we've got you covered. As always, we'll have plenty of live coverage on social media as well as, y'know, this here website. Stay tuned.