Just A Good Ol' Boy...

I spent 3 days last week out at California Speedway in Fontana supporting ESPN's coverage of the NASCAR Busch Race. Contrary to popular belief I did not lose any IQ points (they were already gone!). It was a fun remote and I worked with some folks that were in Miami last month and some from the ESPYs last summer. If this keeps up I'll get to know everyone in the whole world! Ok, not quite. But short remotes are fun and I have the NBA in Phoenix coming up this weekend. Here are some photos I snapped at the race with my new Motorola KRZR K1 phone.






Where the magic of live television happens.

Cool News

My cousin, Kevin, and his awesome girlfriend, Rachel, have started a new project called News in Haiku. They write a news article every weekday in the short and sweet Haiku form. It is brilliant in my humble opinion.

I will be linking it on my blog shortly. Visit and enjoy. You can also subscribe to the daily News in Haiku mailing list, or add the feed to your Google Homepage, My Yahoo page, or feed reader. Check it out at http://newsinhaiku.com

Going Up

In October of 2005, ground was broken on the LA Live project across the street from Staples Center in Downtown LA. Part of that development includes a new West Coast Studio for ESPN. Recently a webcam was installed so that ESPN employees can check the progress on our intranet. Since this will be my new work address by 2009, I check the progress on a daily basis. Here is the progress as of today:



Here is the caption from the site which is now a bit out of date:

You are looking roughly northeast at the site from a camera mounted on the Staples Center. The street running in the bottom righthand corner is Chick Hearn Way and the street in the upper right running between the site and the Holiday Inn is Figueroa. In the upper left hand part of the picture, you can see the ESPN billboard on the Hotel Figueroa. The ESPN building fronts on Chick Hearn Way and Figueroa and extends to about the large crane and left almost to the trailers. What you see at present is the main floor of the building. Under that concrete slab are two floors of a parking garage, rooms to house ESPN mechanical gear and a partial third floor for electrical equipment belonging to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Beyond the building to the top of the picture is a plaza and an office building. We expect to start erecting the steel for the five-story building in mid-January and to open the facility in early 2009. When completed, the LA Production Center will house two large studios, three control rooms, master control facilities, a combined screening-news room, eight edit rooms and associated support facilities. We hope you enjoy watching the progress with us.

Full LA Live details can be found at: AEG Worldwide

Soaked but not Shaken

Home now and and finally organized. As well as dried out. Enjoy the photos from my trip.

Entrance to the NEXT Block Party, put on by ESPN the Magazine.


The Cadillac Sixteen. 9 to 12 million dollars in development. Lots of precise pushing to get it into the building due to its length.


The RoboBar. More novelty than practicality. My rum and Coke needed more ice.


This car had an actual NASCAR engine in it. Can you say LOUD?


Russian Artwork in the Design District called Saw.


Party Night. The Moore Building, our headquarters for the week, all lit up for the festivities.


If I can't have the car, how about a flat screen TV, please?


I actuallly liked this Cadillac concept car better. The Moore atrium lit up on Party night.


My kind of party!


South Beach at night.


We attended the Miami Heat vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers game. That's Dwayne Wade shooting a free throw and Shaquille O'Neal at half court. LeBron James is down there somewhere.


Out of respect to Shaq's failing body and injuries, the Heat have age appropriate entertainment and cheerleaders.


How about some football? Tailgate party before the SuperBowl at the Orange Bowl, complete with BBQ and tossing the pigskin. Lots of fun.


Dolphin Stadium before the game and the downpour.


Rick, myself and Carl while we were still dry.


No complaints about the view from our seats. Here comes the Colts and the Bears.


Prince at halftime.


A great time in Miami, but glad to be back with my family.

Notes from the Terminal

Waiting at Miami International to fly home after a week and a half in South Florida. Murphy's Law sure did apply for the weather down here. For most of the week it was sunny and mild in the high 70's, with nominal humidity. Then Friday, the night of the 7 hour block party, it hits 85 with high humidity. Yuck. Too many people in too small a space and not enough AC when indoors.

And of course then there was the game. The game where it lightly sprinkled in the first quarter and then turned into a heavy downpour in the second. Our seats were in the upper deck above the Chicago end zone. The cool thing about Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphins/Dolphin Stadium is that there does not appear to be a bad seat in the place. Of course almost every seat is also exposed to the elements. To say that I got soaked would be an understatement. Put it this way, one of the shirts I wore to the game is still wet. Fish do not get as wet as I was. Water wishes it was as wet as I was. Thankfully my head and feet stayed dried and warm which is why I am not sick today and why I was able to hold out until the game was practically decided. We abandoned ship with about twelve minutes left in the fourth quarter. I had proclaimed that I was staying for the whole thing, and had it been my first SuperBowl I probably would have. Or if the Chargers were playing. Instead it was a cold and wet trek back to the bus where we watched the last five minutes on the TV system. Had we known that the TVs on the buses got broadcast reception we would have left sooner. There were lots of empty seats after Prince did the halftime entertainment.

The game and the experience in the rain were incredibly fun and being treated as a VIP by ESPN Special Events meant that we were well fed and taken care of. The tailgate party this year was on the field of the Orange Bowl where we had a BBQ and played catch with lots of footballs. I have pictures of it to post, but when I thought about the history of the place and the fact that I was running routes and making fingertip catches on the same field that Dan Marino threw to the Marks brothers, I was in heaven. And they pay me to work for them. Damn Cool!

Super Update

I have been lax in posting updates from Miami but either we have been "working" or recovering. In truth there has not been a lot to talk about of interest but I do have lots of photos to upload which will happen when I get home. The highlights:

LL Cool J midnight concert at the NEXT Block Party was incredible.
Have met Mike Golic, Mark Schlreth, Carl Banks, Otis Anderson, Jeremy Schapp, Matt Leinart and my big boss, George Bodenheimer.
Have seen up close Serena and Venus Williams. Damn!
Going to the big game today!

Lowlights...nada!

More later...maybe.