DO THE MATH!

Greetings from Santa Clarita California.

We're back in a nice hotel, a Hyatt. A Stephen Colbert Wag of the Finger, however, to the management here at the hotel. They must have known there would be 300 tired, pissed-off people checking in tonight within a two-hour period, yet there were only two people on duty at the front desk, and both their electronic check-in machines were on the fritz.

Stuff like that drives me bat-shit. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math. If you're so damn concerned with customer satisfaction, GET ME MY FUCKING ROOM KEY SO I CAN GO UPSTAIRS AND TAKE A MOTHERFUCKING SHOWER. I REALLY DON"T GIVE A SHIT IF THERE ARE FLOWERS ON THE NIGHT TABLE, I JUST DON"T WANT TO STAND ON MY FEET ANOTHER MOMENT.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!


Time Trial went well for us today. We got plenty of good information on the air, and our EvDO wireless stuff out in the middle of the countryside at Int 1 worked just fine. Kudos to Fred Patton for buying the EvDO stuff and arranging for us to give it a try. Fred's a swashbuckler, he dreams up bold ideas, then straps on a set of brass balls and tries them on live TV when a lot is on the line.

I can do a better TT than we did today, but the Phoenix team worked well together, I would give ourselves a solid "B+". Once again, the truck had massive RF problems, and the promised aircraft didn't show up until only 3 riders remained on course, so if we had dropped the ball too, TV would have had precisely nothing. I just watched the show on VS and it looked pretty decent.

We're on live tomorrow for two hours. Leipheimer pretty much has the race locked up unless something outrageous happens. But if there's one thing I've learned this week, it's this: In a road race, anything can happen - both on the course and off.