Tennis Masters Cup - 2007

Another Tennis Masters Cup Tournament is in the books-

If you weren't following it, Federer schooled James Blake big time...
6-0, 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and 43 minutes.
A far cry from last year's 4+ hour match between Nalbandian and Federer.

Tennis Masters Cup - Main Page

Final scores


Official Photo Gallery

Some photos from the Tournament...

The Product


Videowall Cubes...ready to be assembled.

Why wideo wall cubes? Because we can rotate a larger number of sponsors for more exposure...


See that China Union Pay logo on the wall?
Great exposure for sponsors...they love it.


Even from a distance...


The view from the cheap seats is good...

We did content for the scoreboard videowalls...


Match Statistics


And schedules...

The Stadium (QiZhong at Minhang)

The stadium is pretty impressive:


Main Gates


Food and Exhibition Tents

The People


The $3-a-day guys...

Videowall Guys

Fixing a blownout cube on the Lighthouse side.

Yours Truly


An aerial view of YT at work...


Breakdown

After the last match we made record time breaking down and packing our equipment.


All I need are these flowers and this beer...

Getting out - Getting home

We had a 5:30am car to the airport...
After we arrived at the airport, cleared the ATA Customs check with our equipment, got checked in and cleared security, we had a good 20 minutes before boarding time.

K-Flan hadn't had coffee yet... A necessity for him to function properly.
In leiu of breakfast, he ordered a coffee (which took forever to arrive) and a large orange juice. The OJ arrived- and provided much entertainment until the coffee showed up.


The festive OJ...

The return flight was almost non-eventful.

The 5-page complaint letter I sent to Northwest airlines didn't do much good...
No complimentary upgrade was waiting for me, so no love there...

Months ago I reserved an emergency row seat... That held out, so at least I had someplace to put my legs on this trip. Thank Ghod for small favors...
Only a small delay on the Shanghai-Tokyo leg, and a short delay (one hour) on the Tokyo-Detroit flight...
I got my bags and made it through customs without the rubber-glove treatment, but just barely...
Why "just barely"...
Throughout the day on Monday, a constant tirade to all and sundry was going on...
Redneck, who hates airtravel, and US-based airlines specifically, kept a constant bitching to anyone with an ear...
He was mostly silent from the hotel to the airport, although I know he wanted to bitch, he really didn't have any foundation for it...
But once we got to the airport the lack of coffee started to get the best of him and the memory of our inbound issues began to wear on him and he decided to see if he could get some satisfaction out of NWA in the form of an upgrade to Business Class, in order to compensate for his discomfort on the inbound flight...

Do you remember the old saying- "You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
This is K-Flan's modus operandi...except in this case, the "gun" is his profanity-laced baritone voice, which carries across the check-in area like an angry wave. Alas, he is carrying on, loud and long, in a East Arkansas dialect, which the diminutive Chinese NWA ticket agent doesn't understand...
Colloquilisms such as "...beatdown like a red-headed stepchild" and "he's gonna get hit so hard he's gonna hum like a ten-penny finishing nail struck with a greasy ball-peen hammer" make absolutely no impression on people who speak English as a second language. All they do is look at you funny and say "one minute prease" and go find someone else who might speak a little more Engrish to pass the buck onto...
Meanwhile, K-Flan just has another opprtunity to voice (long and loud) his displeasure with NWA, and how this kind of run-around is EXACTLY the kind of problem he's talking about...
Problem two: He does this everywhere. To everyone.
Even people that don't have any connection to NWA or any reason to listen to him.
Like the people in the coffee shop in the Shanghai airport.
Yo! K-Flan... Learn which windmills to tilt at, dude. The waitress (who only understands basic Engrish works like "coffee" "coke" "sandwich") doesn't understand when your coffee order goes something like "Coffee, and it better be better'n the black sludge that North-F$@#ing-West bankrupcy-operatin' Airlines drains from their broken down septic treatment systems and the mo-ron flight-incompetent-attendants serves up to their paying customers..."
It only scares the waitress...thinking your are ordering something she doesn't understand and that she'll get yelled at because she didn't understand...

Also... (Because it could possible affect me)
I don't care if you verbally harass the filght attendants or whomever, especially since we sit far away from each other...nothing to connect him to Yours Truly...
(Because a Flight Attendant with a hot pot of coffee standing near him might be tempted to "accidentally" spill some on him during a bout of "turbulence" nudge-nudge-wink-wink)
But- once you are off the plane and you are in the netherworld of Customs and Immigration, it highly recommended to Shut The F#$@ Up until your have passed through all the inspection areas... Uncle Jay's Rule of Airport Survival # 3- Do Not Draw Attention to Yourself....

So, while we are waiting in line and the Customs Inspector is reviewing paperwork, when the inspector asks him for his declaration form, he starts in on NWA's uselessness in providing forms and how they are incompetent in serving their customers...
Hint: If you talk too much, you look suspicious. Shut The F$#@% Up.

But- even with all the bitching whining and moaning, he was still stuck back in steerage with trhe rest of us cattle.

But we made it back...

And, once again... just to add insult to injury... we run into Jacksonville International Airport's inability to get bags from the plane to the baggage claim in a timely manner...

It was a record-breaker last night...
57 minutes before the bag claim started running.
The bags came out about 1 bag every 15 seconds... That's right. 4 bags per minute...
I got 2 of my bags in 20 minutes... the third bag never showed up.
(Not JIA's fault. It didn't make the plane from Detroit, although I can't figure why the 2 heavy equipment cases made it but the bag with my clothes in it didn't.

I waited until conveyor belt stopped moving then headed to the complaint office...
The nice lady in there took my claim check numbers and tracked the bag- it was still in Detroit.
She took the info and said they'd deliver them when they came in...

And I finally got to leave...

So, just to put the final numbers to bed...
Expected ETA in Jax - 5:30.
Actual arrival time - 5:45
Ground wait in Jax because another plane was still at our gate: 21 minutes.
Depart plane: 6:12
Arrive Baggage claim: 6:17.
Baggage claim starts running: 7:14
Bag one arrives 7:30
Bag two arrives 7:33.
Bag claim finishes 7:45.
Lost bag claim filed at 8:04 (4 other people in line before me.)
Depart JIA : 8:15.

Why does it take 2 hours to get (or not get) bags at this airport?

And now this...
Jacksonville Registered Traveler Program

Hey, JIA-
You'd be better off taking some of that money and instead of building a lounge for frequent flyers, hire a few more baggage guys...

Amazing- Out.