The End Is Near For The Civic Auditorium

Demolition started Aug. 17 with the razing of the Music Hall.

My earliest memories of the Omaha Civic Auditorium came from Creighton University men's basketball games. Parking in the adjacent covered garage, walking up the wide ramps, seeing the sun shine in during Saturday afternoon games, the "Fanta" advertisements on the concession stands – all fond memories of my childhood.

The arena seated up to 9,300 people for sporting events and up to 10,960 for concerts. The arena was home to the Creighton men's basketball. women's basketball and volleyball. The University of Nebraska at Omaha hockey team sold out every game it played there and even the Kansas City-Omaha Kings NBA basketball team called it home for at least one season. The Omaha Beef indoor football team played its games there from 1999 to 2012. I even remember covering the Big Eight volleyball tournament there for the Lincoln Journal Star.

Now, the once venerable arena is coming down.

Construction of the Civic Auditorium began in 1953. (Photo courtesy of KETV.)

It has stood empty since June of 2014.

For the first eight seasons of the Omaha Beef, I was the team's lead statistician.

Creighton volleyball games were played there, along with Bluejay men's and women's basketball.

Most of the large Omaha high schools conducted graduations there.

What the auditorium looked like shortly before property was put up for auction.

Checking In With The Jays

This was fun. I tried to do it a couple times. I'm the one in Paris.

Any Guesses...

...as to where I am listening to this afternoon's Creighton men's basketball game?

March Madness Is Back!

Bridget helped Veronica fill out her bracket. Julia seems to think hers is all correct.

Emily looks frazzled. She really wasn't.

It's that time of year again. Our annual tradition of filling out brackets for the NCAA men's basketball tournament. It's an annual rite of spring that has brought about many surprises over the years.

It all started back in 2008. On March 20, 2008, to be precise. Veronica, as a two-year-old, took home top honors that year. Bracket time in 2009 was equally as fun, as I could barely get the defending champion's attention. 

And here's an entry from 2010. I don't seem to know who won that year, but judging by the Final Four picks, I had three teams still in the hunt.

So this time around, there was plenty of discussion and Olivia even filled out two brackets (the other one under the name "Zahn"). So we'll see how things work out in the end. So you can follow along, here are the summary picks for everyone. (Jon and Bridget also filled out brackets but I didn't know if they wanted their picks shared on here.)

Veronica
Elite Eight: Louisville, Cincinnati, Gonzaga, Harvard, Kansas, Oklahoma, Montana, Butler
Final Four: Cincinnati, Gonzaga, Kansas, Butler
Championship: Gonzaga vs. Kansas
Winner: Kansas

Olivia
Elite Eight: Louisville, Memphis, Ole Miss, New Mexico, Kansas, Florida, Indiana, Davidson
Final Four: Memphis, Ole Miss, Kansas, Indiana
Championship: Ole Miss vs. Kansas
Winner: Ole Miss

Julia
Elite Eight: Louisville, Duke, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Kansas, Georgetown, Indiana, Miami
Final Four: Louisville, Gonzaga, Kansas, Indiana
Championship: Louisville vs. Kansas
Winner: Louisville

Lauren
Elite Eight: Colorado St., Duke, Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Michigan, Minnesota, Syracuse, Butler
Final Four: Duke, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Syracuse
Championship: Duke vs. Minnesota
Winner: Minnesota

Emily
Elite Eight: Louisville, Duke, Gonzaga, New Mexico, Kansas, Georgetown, Syracuse, Miami
Final Four: Duke, Gonzaga, Georgetown, Miami
Championship: Duke vs. Georgetown
Winner: Duke

Dad
Elite Eight: Louisville, Duke, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Kansas, Georgetown, Indiana, Miami
Final Four: Louisville, Gonzaga, Kansas, Indiana
Championship: Louisville vs. Kansas
Winner: Louisville

"Zahn"
Elite Eight: Colorado St., St. Louis, Michigan St., Gonzaga, Ohio St., Kansas, Florida, Syracuse, Miami.
Final Four: St. Louis, Gonzaga, Kansas, Miami
Championship: St. Louis vs. Kansas
Winner: Kansas

Julia didn't like me peeking at her picks.

Olivia was doing some research of her own.

The Busiest Day

It was another wet drive to the start this morning.

Writing blog entries at 1:30 a.m. is becoming the norm at Paris-Nice. But there's only one more day to go and so far, I'm a perfect six-for-six on blogging the stages. So I will forge on and hack out one more entry.

For the record, this was one of the busiest days I have experienced in on-site work. Here's a quick glance at only my late afternoon agenda:

• Tweeted a race result and posted a photo.
• Rode 12 km back to the hotel (good decision since it took our bus 75 minutes).
• Wrote two reports.
• Organized a roundtable press event.
• Oversaw a behind-the-scenes photo shoot.
• Monitored two other rider interviews at the hotel.
• Produced three interviews for our Audio Line.

Click on this to enlarge and see if you can spot the mistake.

I'm sure I have forgetting something in there (besides the fact I missed dinner), but that's about the extent of things.

Back in the U.S., Creighton won to make the Missouri Valley Conference championship game, Omaha Central won its fourth straight state boys basketball title and there's a blizzard brewing over Denver. And Daylight Saving Time begins later today.

So now you're caught up. On to the photos:

Some of my breakfast. And there's the Blackberry phone case I've misplaced.

The restaurant where we ate breakfast this morning was just a door down from the hotel.

I worked in the hotel lobby this morning. Check out the "point internet."

Here is what was on the menu.

I caught up to these folks on the bike path on the way back to the hotel.

Small desk but big bed. And all well-lit.

And a little bed beneath the mirror and TV.

There's a footwasher! First one this trip.

Lots of little amenities around the sink.

The Creighton Game

I tuned in from Spain just in time to see the final score.

Looks like they lost.

Back At The Civic Auditorium

Omaha Central beat Omaha South for the Metro Conference title.

Emily took in a rare basketball game tonight at the Metro Conference Holiday Tournament, as Omaha Central played Omaha South for the championship. I can recall watching countless Creighton University basketball games there. I also covered the Big 8 volleyball tournament there in the early 1990s. And I did the stats for the Omaha Beef during six or seven seasons of play there.

Creighton Game With Julia

Julia and me after the game. She was easy to spot in her Maverick gear.

Julia called me a bit after six o'clock tonight to invite me to the Creighton University men's basketball game. What I didn't immediately realize was that it started at 7:05. And I had just returned from taking Emily home from play practice – and before that, from a bike ride. So after a quick shower and suiting up in some BMC Racing Team lululemon gear, I was off to pick her up.

We zoomed down to the Century Link Center in my van where Julia showed me a great little – and free – parking space close to the arena. As we hustled our way to the box office, we were asked by quite a few people (scalpers) if we needed tickets. This continued right up until we were nearly at the ticket windows. But strangely, not a single person was in line in front of the six ticket windows. Since we had a voucher that gave us four free tickets, we were only concerned that the game might be a sell out. And it was close – 15,755. But the strangest part of the night occurred a split-second before I reached the ticket window. A couple asked us if we needed tickets. "Free tickets?" I asked. "Yes, you can have these," the woman offered, opening an envelope and handing over a pair of $30 apiece seats in the lower bowl. Wow. After a big thank you, we were off to find our seats.

Our view of the court.

It turned out they were on the end of a row with a tremendous view of the court (and the promotions area). The game itself was a good one, televised by NET and against a formidable UAB squad. Creighton's star, Doug McDermott, struggled to overcome double and triple teaming to finish with only five points.

Our experience was not without a run-in with a CenturyLink (formerly "Qwestapo") usher, who wouldn't let us stand behind the wheelchair accessible session for more than 30 seconds while we waited for my buddy, official scorer Tom Jelinek, to return to his seat at halftime. I'll say it again – if Omaha wants to have a reputation for being a friendly city, it's not happening with staffers who work at the CenturyLink Center.

A Day Of Exploring

With no team directors yet on-site, the BMC Racing Team
mechanics called the shots for Sunday morning's training ride.
Calella, Spain – Another sunny day Sunday in Spain on the eve of the Volta a Catalunya. Sometimes I forget what country I'm in – and particularly at this hotel, everyone speaks good English.

A few highlights:

- I could not watch the Creighton University NCAA Tournament men's basketball game (nor the women's, for that matter.). It was geo-restricted. So I was left to watch the CBS "Game Tracker" feature, which was actually pretty nice. Creighton trailed pretty much the whole game, got a lot of shots blocked, shot poorly and ended up losing to North Carolina.

- Dr. Scott Major and I went on a nice evening walk after the team meeting. It was one of the few times I've had time to really get out and explore a place. The weather was nice and we saw a hospital, a church and the street vendor area by the beach.

- Dr. Major was kind enough to take my photo on the beach today. Nice for a new Facebook profile photo.

- I picked up a surprise for Veronica when Dr. Major and I were out. It turns out if you walk farther away from the beach, the lower the prices get on all the same items that all the stores carry.

- Sadly, the McDonalds restaurant by the beach was closed. A lot of places are closed until April 1, the merchants who were open told us.

- The food has been good and the hotel wifi is great when the riders aren't around. Sadly, my Tether.com is not working. I need to work on fixing that Monday.

I'll let the photos tell the story of the rest of my day.

I did a double take when I saw this ("First National Bank") shirt.

It's warm here (60s) but apparently not beach weather.

Check out the mini flat fix-it kit, featuring an Elite bottle,
Continental tire and Park tool mini-pump. Nice.

There's a nice walkway and bike path along the beach.

View of the beach-side shops. Pretty bare this time of year.

Dr. Scott Major is hurdling a temporary pop-up street
blocker. It allows the street to be automatically opened
or closed. When it's closed, the pop-up device lights up red.

How often do you see a pay phone these days – much
less two of them next to each other?

This is brilliant. Curbside recycling bins. I see them
a lot here in Europe. Like motion-activated lights in
hotel hallways, the Euros are sometimes way ahead of us.

Can you tell which hotels are open and which are not?

Bluejay Basketball Game

The girls enjoyed their first Creighton men's basketball game.
Thanks to some incredible generosity of our friends, the Lightharts, the girls and I enjoyed our first Creighton men's basketball game together. The Qwest Center was about 2,000 short of capacity, which means there were still 15,000 people on hand. The seats were terrific – fifth row just behind the Bluejays' basket (in the second half) and there were plenty of nice people seated around us. In fact, one of the girls sitting behind us distributes communion and takes up the collection at our church.

Creighton won – and we found out later that viewers at home on KMTV even got a glimpse of us. Here's my attempt to get a photo of the night: