On The Road Again

Arriving in sunny Dallas Thursday morning, on my way to California.
Santa Barbara, Calif. - And so it begins. The 2009 cycling season is underway, with training camps for teams all over the country. Only one pro team is holding its camp in the Santa Barbara/Solvang/Buellton, Calif., area and that's Team Type 1.

Save for a quick three-hour nap, I spent nearly the entire time before my trip packing, working and mentally preparing for a long grind. I thought this magazine cover (pictured below) was pretty funny. It reminds me of Travis Justice's old saying on the "Todd & Tyler" morning radio program.

Of course, it would figure that the first time I had been on an airplane in nearly two months, something would happen. Yes, the announcement of the final teams for the Amgen Tour of California was made, probably about the time I was flying over the southern tip of Nevada. So when I landed in Santa Barbara, I was greeted by host of text messages and e-mails congratulating me on making it back (and I'm not even racing in it). I might have actually been on the ground when the press release went out, but my American Airlines plane had problems with its nose gear (before taking off from Dallas) so we switched planes.

The weather in Santa Barbara was mild - low 60s - and the first rain in a month was falling when I walked from the lobby of the Fess Parker Doubletree Hotel to my room. The rain was on and off, but it wasn't enough to stop one guy from enjoying the hot tub that sits by the pool. The nice amenity upon arrival was the warm, chocolate chip cookie that they give each person when they check it. Of course, it was not a good start to my plan to lose 10 pounds over the next week.

I always joke that the Santa Barbara airport is the smallest
in the world. (It's not.)

Threatening skies kept people away from the pool.

My first-floor room features a walk-out patio.

I am rooming with Marco Colbert, a tradition started last year.

This view of the beach is where a stage of the Tour of California has started the past two years.

Our first item on the agenda: a Thursday night all-team meeting
with dozens of athletes and staff.
So, I'll do my best over the next couple of days to share some insight into training camp. You can keep up to speed hour-by-hour through the Team Type 1 twitter reports, as well as see photos and read stories on the Team Type 1 blog.

1.20.09

The presidential limousine attracted a lot of attention.
I can't recall where I was for the inaugurations of George W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton or George Bush. I do know that I was in eighth grade when Ronald Reagan gave the oath of office and the Iran hostage crisis ended at virtually the same time.

But I am certain that I will recall today's inaugural address - if only for the circumstances. A black president and the unprecedented media attention. Yahoo, for example, had a story posted during President Obama's address about his speech. Previously, something of that nature would have only been available on The Associated Press news wire.

Watching the TV this morning, I cringed as broadcaster after broadcaster, network after network gushed over President Obama. Certainly, today is a milestone moment in U.S. history. But as a journalist, it is your responsibility to remain impartial. Telling the story without bias or slant can be difficult, but it is something to strive for - particularly on an occasion as monumental as today.

Fun In The Snow

The girls had fun with these statues in the courtyard.

The 100th Post

Ronan and Declan remind me of my hijinks with my brother, Paul.
What better way to mark my 100th post on the YD Cafe than to share photos of my brother's beautiful twin boys? I hope to see them next month if I can coordinate my schedule.

I would be remiss if I did not mention here just how close my brother, Paul, and I were when we were growing up at 5550 Mason. We are the source of our mother's gray hair and I recall many a night when our dad came home and was NOT happy that we had been misbehaving. It wasn't always a welcome sight to see our dad pull his black Volkswagon into the driveway.

I'm guessing a little bit of that rambunctiousness has transcended into our own children. Certainly, with five girls in the mix - and only an eight-year age difference from oldest to youngest - that is going to be the case.

Hudson Miracle: The Front Pages

Here is how newspapers around the world broke the news of yesterday's splash landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River:











Click here to see dozens of newspaper front pages, courtesy of the Newseum.

How I Survived The Cold

This was on my MacBook dashboard Thursday.
I meant to post that temperature graphic yesterday, but things got away from me. It actually made it down to -15, with a -29 wind chill.

First, it was a call to the maintenance man (Dale) to find out why the bathtub in the girls' bedroom wasn't draining - and why the water was running! It turns out Roto Rooter had to come out. It didn't take long to find out that the pipe was frozen.

Next up was a flurry of activity related to training camps, foreign news reports, the Amgen Tour of California, etc. I'm sure on this front that things will be just as busy today.

Finally - and most important - was Olivia having to stay home from school. She just was not feeling well. So with the help of Aunt Jean and Aunt Dee-Dee, hopefully her day was at least bearable. I know that when the other girls picked her up, there were comments like, "Faker!" and "What did you do all day, poop?" UGH. I am going to have to spend a little more time on treating others like we would treat Christ.

Did anyone else see this photo?


I was amazed to learn it was a "Twitpic." When I first saw it, my first thought was that it had been Photoshopped. It was too "composed" and even had a nice glow from the sunset. But it's legit - taken by a guy on one of the rescue ferries responding to splash landing of US Airways Flight 1549. Wow.

A Bird Strike?

The crash was witnessed by ABC's Robin Roberts.
Conspiracy theorists are ripping their keyboards, feverishly refuting that it was indeed a bird that struck a US Airways jet this afternoon and caused it to plunge into the Hudson River.

Is Al Qaeda training birds? Birds large enough, according to the FAA, to show up on radar?

Was this in fact an act of terrorism that brought down US Airways Flight 1549 as it was on its way to Charlotte?

Either way, this pilot - if he has survived - will be hailed as a hero.

I Cringe When I Hear These Phrases...

My days of writing for TV newscasts are way behind me (going on six years in May), but I still take interest in what's being delivered when I watch local news.

This morning, I was cringing during one station's report on a double homicide.

It began with the classic "shots rang out," phrase. Have you ever heard the sound of a gun firing? It doesn't sound like a bell or doorbell ringing. Or any ringing whatsoever. It's more of a popping sound.

When the anchor tossed to the reporter at the scene, her first words were "details are sketchy." UGH. Another cliché. How about, "We don't know a lot right now about what happened" or "We are still waiting to learn what happened here last night. Here is what we do know..."?

Here's another classic from the same live report: "Three gentlemen walked into a store and held a gun to the owner's head."

Three gentlemen? Wow, that's certainly being kind - considering what they were doing.

The Most Startling Thing In Cycling

You could have paid me $1,000 and I still wouldn't have said I would ever see Lance Armstrong wearing an Astana kit.

Only In Nebraska

It was warm enough Monday morning to snowblow without gloves.
Typical of Nebraska weather, Monday went from warm to wicked - in a span of about five hours.

I did the usual amount of snowblowing in the morning to clean up about an inch-and-a-half of snow. It was so warm (mid-30s) that I didn't wear gloves and even thought about not wearing my parka.

But that would soon change. By 2:30 p.m., snow was swirling, the temperature had dropped considerably and the wind was gusting to more than 30 mph. Here are two pictures I took from my deck about a half-hour apart:


So this morning, I will be headed over to the old neighborhood to get the sidewalks and driveways cleared of snow again.

Here are a couple things I meant to post over the weekend:

Did you hear about the 38-year-old "wealthy guy" who tried to fake his own death, "D.B. Cooper-style" over Alabama? If you missed it, check out the details here - and then watch the final minute of this YouTube video.


Did you watch the Golden Globes? I haven't seen the move "Slumdog Millionaire," but I when I was looking up its plot line, I stumbled across a cheating scandal in the British version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire?" that I had not heard about until now. Apparently, it happened a few days before 9/11, so that might explain why I wasn't tuned into it at the time.

It is worth watching this special about how it was initially pulled off and how it played out. Check out the videos titled, "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire - Charles Ingram." on YouTube.

A friend also shared this piece of incredible video. I can't wait to show the girls. It is "quite extraordinary" as my friends in Great Britain are fond of saying.


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Not A Big Fan, But He's Growing On Me

Lance Armstrong (in the rainbow-striped jersey) and Greg LeMond's
careers briefly overlapped in the mid 1990s.
I don't know what it was that first turned me off to Lance Armstrong. Maybe it was that so much was written about a young kid who wasn't even a cyclist and how he was going to be "the next Greg LeMond."

It might have been his brash attitude. Or that young lady who was always hanging all over him in podium shots who was never identified (I eventually learned it to be his mother, Linda, who had Lance when she was a teenager).

When he started winning - world titles, the Tour duPont, the million dollars bonus for the "Triple Crown" series win, etc. - I started looking the other way. After all, this was a triathlete who was parlaying his way into the sport of cycling. He had no regard for the tradition or how the "patron" of the peloton called the shots (at that time, LeMond was the patron, but not a strong one).

It wasn't until Lance was stricken with cancer that I started following his career. Tragic story. Tragic ending to a career. Much like people did when LeMond was shot in a hunting accident, I wrote off Lance.

In 1998, I started taking notice - and becoming a fan. Lance raced the Cascade Classic a year after I officiated it with my friend, the late Sue Hefle. Not only did he compete (a feat in itself), he won. Wow. Then he finished fourth at the Tour of Spain. Crazy! Americans weren't even racing "The Vuelta" back then.

So it set the stage for his heroics in 1999. That first Tour de France win. I'll admit it - I don't cry much (at least I didn't back in those days) but I did when Lance donned his first yellow jersey. Here I was, thinking no American would ever wear "the golden fleece" and here was a guy from Texas who survived cancer winning cycling's greatest prize.

But as time wore on and the evidence mounted that Lance wasn't just drinking Gatorade and eating energy bars to collect those yellow jerseys, I started looking the other way. It just seemed too good to be true. (And it still does, frankly.) So when Lance hung it up in 2006, I hardly batted an eyelash.

Fast-forward to last September. Lance announces he is coming back. No surprise, really. He was burning bridges with companies he still endorsed through his antics with Hollywood-types. The "Lance Brand" was getting a bad name. If he could run a sub-three-hour marathon, perhaps he could get in shape to ride his bike again, many agency types (and anyone who was making money off of Lance) probably wondered aloud.

So he's back. And he wants to win. And one thing stands out above all the rest - his work ethic. Perhaps it was epitomized in this commercial:



Accurate or not, Lance is training like a mad-man. And thanks to his Twitter feed, I've become somewhat of a fan. What other pro athlete is providing their daily training regiment to me - in virtual real-time? I work with professional cyclists every day. But only one is telling me every day what he is doing to get ready for the season (and he doesn't even know me).

Here's a sample of a typical Lance day - as tapped out on his Blackberry:

5 a.m. - wake up
6 a.m. - breakfast
7 a.m. - begin training
12:30 p.m. - lunch
3 p.m. - massage
4 p.m. - golf (usually six holes)
6 p.m. - drink a beer
7 p.m. - dinner
9 p.m. - bedtime

Pretty impressive.

Sneak Preview: Gran Torino

So the "three musketeers" (sorry, capital letters are only for the real deal) attended Tuesday night's sneak preview of "Gran Torino."

I had not read much of anything about it - and lately, that's the way I like it to be. Why spoil the plot or get a pre-conceived notion about something? The only thing I knew was that it was receiving strong consideration for an Oscar nomination.

After seeing it, I will vouch for its goodness. Though a little raw at times (and reminiscent of some of my relatives, who can be brutally honest when it comes to the way they were brought up), this movie delivers quite a punch.

The interesting thing will be whether it sweeps the major categories (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Picture, Best Director, etc.). I'll venture to guess it grabs two or three Oscars.

On an unrelated subject, if you are looking for a house in the St. Thomas More neighborhood, I know of one that will be going on the market soon. Stay tuned for details.

What An Adventure

My van - and the flag pole it struck - at an Iowa rest stop.
So we're already four days into the new year and I have yet to post. But there has been a lot to do and plenty to talk about - so here's a quick recap:

New Year's Eve fireworks: The girls and I watched Omaha's fireworks celebration (at 7 p.m.) and had two memorable moments. The first was when a van went flying by the parking lot where we were parked, nearly hitting a telephone poll. The second was when the fireworks started and we realized our viewing spot prevented us from seeing the show. So we missed the first 30 seconds or so while I moved the van to a better vantage point.

Gator Bowl: Nebraska's football team pulled out another win in a game that it could have easily lost. The girls and I particularly enjoyed two plays: the second-half touchdwon catch that was "coming right into your living room" and the time the guy ran out of his shoe, leading the announcer to say, "he blew a tire!"

Trip To Mankato, Minn. - We decided to drive up to UNO's hockey game in Mankato, Minn., Saturday morning but only made it 90 miles north of Omaha before slick roads ended the trip. As we were getting off the interstate at a rest stop, I lost control on the untreated pavement of the exit ramp. I managed to avoid two other vehicles but hit a couple curbs and ultimately crashed (sideways) into a flag pole in front of the rest stop building. Fortunately, the girls were not hurt. I badly bruised my shoulder (X-rays at the hospital revealed no broken bones) and might have suffered a mild concussion as well.

As for the girls, they took it all in stride. We still got to stay in a hotel, they still got to swim in a pool and we listened to the hockey game on the Internet. Most of that "normalcy" to our "adventure" came thanks to the on-the-spot assistance of my sister, Bridget, and her husband, Jon. We also were made to feel right at home by friends Pete and Sheryl and their two children, Emma and Marshall. Having them there to help (they were traveling about 45 minutes behind us) also made great play partners for their girls.

So now I await word on the fate of my van, which was working out very well. Ahead this week is a trip up to the Shrine Hospital for Lauren's semi-annual checkup.