They're Packin'm in At Spruce Meadows

Nations Cup day. What....are they giving away free beer? The place is packed.

Not one empty seat in this grandstand.

Nor in this one.
Also Holland day. Tulips and clogs.

The Americans won! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Holland: Close but no cigar.
Look at that fabulous video wall interface. Who is the ingenious programmer who came up with that? Oh yeah, that would be....me.
Big flags on the video wall for the Nations Cup. Big sponsor logo (BMO) too.

It's Raining..... It's Pouring..... And Q.E.D, The Old Man....

.....the old man must be in Calgary for The Masters at Spruce Meadows.


Soggy at Spruce.


Must be The Masters - says so right on top of the grandstand.

One good thing about rain: the gloomy skies make the video walls look like they're a few billion candlepower.
Foul weather gear.

There's Hot. And Then There's FUCKING Hot.

To call Puerto Rico in July Africa-hot is a fair claim.

The good news is that scoring & timing is in an air-conditioned tent. The bad news is that the judges claim they can't see properly through the clear plastic side of the tent, so they draw the tent side back during classes - thus letting all the A/C flow out.

Grrrrrrrr.

The clear plastic looks pretty clear to me. But hey, I'm not a judge.
The finish of the 3-Day Eventing Showjumping phase.

I couldn't find a Daktronics board or a video wall to rent locally, so I'm using 3 D-Lines boards.
3-Day Eventing participants walk the course.
Ooops. Forgot to put the ladder away.
Despite the fact that equestrian is the most expensive sport in the Central American Games to produce, not having it for a Pan Am or Central American Games is out of the question due to the importance of equestrian sports to the participating countries' military forces. Many Central and South American countries still train their officers on horseback.

There were 4 or 5 military officers in the 3-Day Eventing, including a General. A Sergeant finished 2nd.
A better view of the D-Lines (and the ladder).
Joe and Dustin, from Spruce Meadows., are my crew here. Notice the slight fuzziness of this photo. I had just walked out of one of the air-conditioned tents into the inferno, and the humidity in the air instantly fogged my camera lens.
This is Guillermo. He's San Juan's District Attorney. I'm told he's a major bad-ass in his professional life, and is known throughout the country. He's sort of the Elliot Spitzer of Puerto Rico, minus Spitzer's hooker scandal. He has taken a week off to help manage the equestrian venue. He has been very helpful to the scoring & timing crew.

Great guy. Until you break a law, evidently.

Rain Rain Rain Horses Horses Horses

The rain continues to fall here at the Central American and Carribean Games in Puerto Rico.

The main arena is pretty much under water. Today the cross-country course walk-through for the Eventing competitors was canceled, because much of the course is inaccessible due to flooding. If you can't ride an X-C course ON A HORSE, then it's really, REALLY flooded.

Tomorrow the dressage starts. Fortunately, the ROC didn't have enough money left to hire us to collect the dressage scores electronically, so keeping 5 laptops running out in a flooded arena isn't my problem.

I also was unable to locate a video wall to rent locally, so I'm using 3 ALGE D-Line displays. That also proved to be a blessing in disguise, as the archway built by the ROC is keeping the D-Lines way up above the muck, and a portable video wall would no doubt be slowly sinking into the sand, well past the axles on the trailer.

Although you can't see it from this angle, the whole structure is no longer quite level. One side is sinking into the muck a little faster than the other. Not too obvious, yet. All the trailers also are no longer level, as they are sinking at uneven rates, too.

Like the banners? My idea. I had them made by Speedy Graphics in Kahului. I thought they would be a nice touch. Lots of nice comments from the ROC about the banners.

Meadows On The Green

The old monochrome amber video wall from the Clock Tower has been moved to MOG, now that the Clock Tower has a really nice full-color wall. Actually, I shouldn't refer to this amber display as a "video wall", because it only displays about 4 shades of monochrome. It's really just a matrix scoreboard with 1980's technology.

This is what it looked like up on the Clock Tower, last year.

The Clock Tower now sports a full-color VW known as CHINA3, which has really enhanced the presentation in the International Arena. There are 3 other video walls in the International Arena, which is fairly humongous and has about 6 or 7 sides.