Middle seat. A VERY needy toddler in the row immediately behind me. But with a nod to the Glad Game, my flights have been on time, security at MLI was a non-event, and the Scottsdale Total Wine store is on the way to my hotel.
It's 2's Tax Birthday, so she gets the recognition as DAUGHTER OF THE DAY. Think this shot must be on the rode to/from Mt. Etna on Sicily.
I had dinner last night at Biaggi's with my pal Rob who is in town from California. (His dad just passed away. I've done work for the family for 20+ years.). Anyway, Rob was recently in Italia and couldn't quite contain himself when describing their difficult driving experiences on the Italian roads. Sounds like they relied too heavily on the GPS unit without doing any advance planning.
I look back on our 2013 trip and while we did have a few mis-steps, 2 did a great job with Google Maps to get us from place to place. This in much contrast to our experience in Verona and Torino in 2009 where we did the no-advance-planning thing...and no GPS service. Then when 4 and I were in Bilbao in 2011, again with no GPS device, it was a mid-major disaster just finding the hotel. Twice. Yeah. We won't be doing a European trip again without Maps or the equivalent.
In all, you could say that the third time (trip) was a charm. (No excuse for that Bilbao mess-up, Kiddo. I failed to deliver the goods.)
The NASCAR All-Star event is tonight. Somehow, I missed the fact that they did the race-in race for the otherwise non-qualifying drivers last night. The top two finishers of that race got in to tonight's main event, as did another driver who was voted in by the fans. Danica had been the fan-voted-in driver the last couple of years, and her loss to a much lesser-known driver by the name of Wise was not without controversy.
It seems like this kid Wise has developed an Internet following this year on Reddit. I don't even know what Reddit is, but apparently the system may have produced some automated voting. (I don't have Internet as I write this, so I can't even get a little more info to explain things. Maybe I'll do an update once I get to the hotel and have had a chance to look up Reddit and figure out the process.)
I actually thought it would have be good for another driver to get the voted-in spot anyway. The Danica-craze has gone far enough on just her presence at the track. She's at a point where needs to race her way into this event going forward.
The triple-A version of NASCAR, the Nationwide series, is at the Newton, Iowa track this weekend. NASCAR took over ownership of the facility last year and all the bigwigs were in Newton this week to promote their entertainment package. I think that attendance has been reasonable in the past, but it is the middle of Iowa, and the population density could be a problem. One of the gas stations and a hotel at the track's I-80 exit have been closed at various times in the last year. I might take the Under if the bet were Newton remaining open with NASCAR events 5 years from now.
Congratulations to 1.01 on her new bike. I'm looking forward to riding with her next weekend when I visit Harvest Path (with my bike) for Memorial Day.
The last doo-dad for my new bike was installed this week. A second water bottle cage. For $20. A very foo-foo design and material. But Really. $20?
All for now. Hope it has been a good day in your area code. Thanks for reading.
BCOT
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