End-of-week update.

It's been a busy week for Yours Truly...

I spent the leading edge of the week in New York with DanO from Big Ice and the Usual Suspects from IDS... A couple of the Usual Suspects, anyway. Some of the players were not in attendance at the meetings in Man-Hat-Tan, but overall it was a productive and insightful set o' meetings.


Lower Manhattan skyline as seen from Jersey City. (click for the larger view)

Wednesday had me at the RoundBall HQ in Secaucus... Ran into some old friends there, notably Jeff Pozz from Denver who departed the Pepsi Center with a song in his heart to move to New Joisey to work among the Evil Minions of Dave Munoz...
(Trading Denver for Jersey? What the hell are you thinking, Jeff?)

The trip back to Jacksonville was uneventful, and it only took 38 minutes for my bag to be delivered to the baggage claim in Jax. Things are not improving at Baggage Claim in Jax.

Some sample times from the last few trips...
Newark....13 minutes
Detroit......25 Minutes (Including Customs and Immigration check)
Shanghai...31 Minutes (Ditto)

Can't wait to see how it all goes in Koln next week.

Speaking of Koln, here's a little slice of how events conspire to make my life interesing...
We're doing an NBA gig in Koln Germany starting next week-
("Koln" is "Cologne" for the Constant Readers unfamiliar with the fact that foreigners don't know how to spell the names of their own cities correctly.)
Anyway- I had lined up a statistician to work the games there in Germany...
The guy I contracted is a little outspoken and a tad abrasive, but he's a helluva statistician, and one of the very few that can stat a game virtually alone. Most stats crews are comprised of 4 to 7 guys that are needed to keep up with the action.
Anyway- my guy was all lined up, ready to go, plane tickets purchased, took time off work and everything... Then the word comes down- He isn't permitted to go.
Apparently his outspokenness has alienated someone in The League along the way and he's blacklisted.

Great.
This is exactly the kind of complication that I need in my life.

These occasions, just like during a 13 hour plane trip in Coach class, are the times when I wonder if there is a local gas station that might need need someone to work the register and dip the tanks and make decisions no more complicated than "Fill 'er up?"

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Spend most of the day Thursday futzing with Shanghai videowall stuff...
Ken "Redneck" Flanagan is working on some tasty new software that will improve the graphics. We had a nice long operational demo... Looking good.
(Sorry- no pics. Proprietary stuff, eh?)

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Friday.

The IDS Roundtable Group decided (weeks ago) that we were throwing a cookout... We usually do something after the end of the Summer Swing (post-US Open) once a majority of our event staff is back in the office. This year we were throwing it on Friday the 29th.
I volunteered to find a BBQ Grill... SpongeMark Squarehands was able to source a nice big tow-behind-the-car grill that would handle anything short of a full side of beef...
Manny "High Voltage" Lopez and I worked out a deal to split cooking duties-and at around 10:30 I put some fire to the hardwood charcoal and soon had enough heat to start drop-forging horseshoes...
We fed the 60 or so folks in the office from 11:30 to around 2:00...
I grilled up a shitload of dogs and burgers and even whipped up a few Death Dogs... Good ol' high-fat-content Ballpark franks wrapped in bacon and served with a healthy (heh) squirt of cheeze-in-a-can... There are enough nitrates, sodium and preservatives to kill a small horse.
(Actually, the effort eventaully involved the killing of a small horse's *ass*, but that's different blog entry. Stay tuned, film at 11...)

Marco shot some pics during the cookout and circulated this little artistically filtered gem in the company e-mail...

The Jolly Green Giant

You'll be hearing more about Marco- He will be my partner-in-crime in Shanghai this year. He's handling the overhead video wall content at the Tennis Masters Cup, so no doubt he will figure prominently in some blog entries in November.

And Manny's shift at being Grillmaster?
Right... Manny brought some steaks that he threw on one corner of the grill and seared to perfection... the sliced beef was a great addition to the party, as was Redneck's pork shoulder that was also given a little grill time...
All in all, a great Friday at IDS...

Now, if I can just get the grill back to it's rightful owner before they find out it's missing...

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Anyone catch the game last night?
Rutgers is now 5-0...

As P-Squared would say - "Jaegermeister for everybody!!"

What a great game... Even though Rutgers tried to give it away through penalties, they were still able to pull out the win after drawing first blood then trailing behind the USF Bulls at the half...
If they (Scarlet Knnnnnigggits) can keep Leonard and Rice healthy, it will be a great season. (And of course, I will be bombarded with RU rah-rah from the office next door.)

A side note- My drinking buddy from Sauze D'Oulx was one of the sideline reporters for ESPN2... The lovely and talented Tina Dixon.
Seems she's been doing a good bit of NCAA football this season for ESPN...
Nice to see she's getting into more mainstream sports gigs rather than being exiled to the X-games and Dew Tour sports reporting...

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Saturday had a disturbing start- my phone rang at 5:55AM.
My buddy Pete from Tampa says that when the phone rings that early it's never a good thing.
"Good news sleeps 'til noon." is his comment.

Well, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.
It was Mal (bad, in the latin) from Shanghai, throwing yet another Monkey Wrench in the Tennis Masters Cup works... Details another time, but it will suffice to say it was a situation worthy of a 5:55AM call...


Ok- Hunter's got a soccer game at 9:00 this morning, and I have lots to do before the game...

Famous, out-