One of the many "Welcome to Dayton" signs spotted in area establishments.

Smokin Bar-B-Que welcomes us, too!

Rhine McLin, the mayor of Dayton, presented Chris Cree wtih this formal "GREETINGS" during a city commission meeting on Wednesday evening.

Official folder containing the former Greetings.

Kate Watson does an "ole" maneuveur with an official event T-shirt.

Cheery, early morning registrars Barbara Drinkwine (div 1) and Janet Griesel (div 2), attaching player nametags to giveaway bags.

On the other side of the foyer's escalators, Susan Siedschlag, Arline Silverman, and Ginger White handle div 3-5 registration (note that sneaky Barbara Drinkwine, holding black bag, ran through the connecting room and managed to get into both shots!

Everyone's favorite div 1 player, Rose Kreiswirth (in stripes), visits with the registration crew while her husband, Don Kreiswirth, chats up Susi Tiekert, who is now a stunning redhead!

Pakorn Nemitrmansuk "fresh" from his 15-hour bus ride from New York City.

A lovely public green space just outside and across the street from the Dayton Convention Center.

The Dayton Convention Center outdoor electronic marquee displaying a multi-side welcome to the Players Championship.

Another image from the Dayton Convention Center outdoor electronic marquee.

Surprise! Another image of that marquee!

Stop! Not more marquee images!?

A beautiful bouqet arrives and is placed in front of beautiful Ginger White at the registration area.

Sue Hoehn, event committee member, takes on the glamous job of attaching table numbers to the back side of the until now one-sided table numbers.

Ricky Sirois and the newly blonded and still tall as ever Jeffrey Nelson start playing moments after registering.

Winter Zxqkj and Marlon Hill team up to try to make a dent in the game of the terrific Thai, Pakorn Nemitrmansuk.

Marlon Hill (note the new no-dreads look, smashing!) drives home a point of strategy to Winter Zxqkj while Pakorn Nemitrmansuk pretends to not hear them as he peeks into the word list.

Flat screen displays behind both registration areas featured several screens of graphical welcome messages to the players.

Oh no! She isn't going to photograph every screen is she?

Oh yes, she is.... but hey, Frank Tangredi forgot his flyers at home, so at least the venue is altering players to his reading.

Denise Mahnken and Linda Wancel arrive in high spirits.

Rose Kreiswirth (who I will get a frontal shot of before this event is over), Don Kreiswirth, Brian Cappelletto, and Joe Edley in the sunny atrium area of the convention center foyer.

Oh, handsome, young anagrammers: from the red shirt clockwise, Alex Fiszbein, Robert Quigley, Orry Swift, Dean Saldanha, Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, and the group's elder statesman Frank Tangredi, hot into a game of anagrams.

Words in front of Frank Tangredi and Alex Fiszbein in the anagrams game. Now, were it me, the umbrella pole would be a hinderance, but not for them!

Carla Cree greets Varney Senii. Tijan Jeng plays Jeffrey Nelson in the background. (has the latter left that chair all day?)

Ian Weinstein plays Ron Tiekert.

Joe Edley (back) versus Jerry Lerman with Andy Saunders onlooking.

Diana Grosman registers with Verna Berg Richards while Chris Cree regales Ricky Sirois with a golf anecdote (I made that last part up, but it is quite likely what transpired).

Susi Tiekert on div 1 and 2 registration with Andrew Gaertner and Greg Edwards.

Michael Zoller's registration T-shirt poster rules.

Andrew Gaertner receives an event T-shirt from Michael Zoller.

Event committee meeting.

Bryan Pepper, Su Edwards, Judy Newhouse, Matt Hopkins, and John Robertson.

Carol Ravichandran, Sue Hoehn, and Amy Krafchick.

John J. Chew (on neck rotations), Larry Rosin, Al Rosin (Larry's dad, grandfather to Sam Rosin, Mary Rhoades, and Chris Cree.

Karen Lee, Kate Watson, and Dee Segrest.

Breaking out the referee shirts for division leaders. Thanks to Carol Ravichandran for holding one up!

Jim Kramer watches the anagrams game (a better photo of him will be forthcoming).

Players and staff members riding the escalators up to the third floor to catch the catwalk back to the Crowne Plaza.

Foyer with a flat-screened TV broadcasting the to-be streaming images of div 1's game 1.

Verna Berg Richards and Ricky Sirois enjoying a bit of atrium sunshine at their registration area.

Two exhausted and pivotal pc07 movers and shakers: Chris Cree and Lois Greene, share a "thank god we've made it this far" hug.

Event pens handed out to each registrants at the T-shirt table.

A 2007 hard-backed edition of Bob's British Bible sits beside an in-progress game between Bob Lipton and Sam Kantimathi.

Bob Lipton, who loves this book, shows me a sample page and points out the amazing attention to detail with highlighted recent additions to the source dictionaries that compromise what we know as the SOWPODS dictionary.

Our annotators, Dee Seegrest and Kate Watson, get a head start on annotation duties by running through a game on their laptops. Note the not-at-all-subtle webcam atop an attached smaller table, poised to record all the head table's glorious playing.

A director extroidnaire, Mary Rhoades, acclimates Nadine Jacobson to her special table (all Nadine's games will be played here to lessen her need to tap all around the division's tables to find her assigned board).

Barbara Major and who she introduced as her "daughter," Peter Schwartzman. Good thing he is a forgiving son! They were volunteering for the last shift of div 1 and 2 registration.

Through tinted glass, this loses its punch, but a gorgeous red sun descended and lit up the sky, one of the beautiful scenes spotted from a private dining room on the 12th floor of the Crowne Plaza (the event committee met here for dinner).

Committee dinner: Carol Ravichandran, Stephen Knapp, Sue Hoehn, John Robertson, Judy Newhouse, Karen Lee, Webster Phillips, Chris Cree, Carla Cree, and Bryan Pepper.

Committee dinner: Chris Cree, Carla Cree, Bryan Pepper, Su Edwards (hidden), Kate Watson, Amy Krafchick, John Chew, Amanda Hubble, and Mary Rhoades (on cell phone, her duties just never ended today!).