A road trip of variable length - LA edition

There's something very soothing about sitting in a hotel room working on your laptop and being able to look out the window and see gorgeous 85-degree weather and a nearby skyline, surrounded by mountains in every direction. Of course, if I look closely, I notice the haze and the refineries and the backed-up traffic, but still, it's pretty. Especially when you consider that we're headed to 40-degree weather in Seattle tomorrow.

That's where I am Monday afternoon in Southern California, now on the third day of what began as a two-day jaunt and has morphed into a seven-day journey. We knew it was a possibility when we left and were instructed to pack accordingly, but I don't think I really expected it to happen.

We left Houston Saturday afternoon. I read my two Sports Illustrateds almost before takeoff, then tried but quickly gave up on the awful movie Easy Virtue, leaving me with little option but to sleep and stare out the window. Fortunately, despite the presence of the wing, the view out the window was pretty darn interesting.

I love the flight into LAX. You're coasting along over the desert, wondering how the heck anybody lives out there and exactly what substance the ground is made of in this particular location, when you fly over a ridge and are suddenly inundated with the populace. Lots of it. As far as the eye can see. The population density in what I assume to be the San Gabriel Valley - or just the Los Angeles metropolitan area - is intense.

Even from the air, though, it seems to have a different personality and attitude than New York and northern New Jersey and the Northeast. The northeastern population hubs are furious, stacked, and vertical. Los Angeles is so much more horizontal. Like any population center, it feels like there are people everywhere, but in LA, it feels like that everywhere is spread over a large surface area. Because it is.

Anyway, I always marvel at how quickly the view morphs from nature to civilization, and it always reminds me of SimCity when I see houses and neighborhoods up against and running into the hills.

I also enjoy trying to spot landmarks on the final approach, like the Los Angeles River (which seems more like a sewer in places) and the building formerly known as the Great Western Forum, which I have tried to capture with a grainy cell-phone photo taken from the plane.

We got in and had a bit of time to kill at the hotel, but I soon joined some of our staff to see the Galaxy-Earthquakes game at the HDC, where we were to play the next afternoon. It was a bit weird being at a game as a fan, since most of us sat in regular seats. Kind of fun to be able to look around and not think at times. I tried to be a regular Joe and get food at halftime from the concession stands. Although there were no televisions nearby to keep track of the game, the lines didn't seem that terrible. But I still waited the entire 14-minute intermission, and when I finally got to the front, they were out of hot dogs! So I had popcorn for dinner. Awesome.

Sunday was the game, which kicked off at noon pacific time. That meant the early bus left at 8 a.m. Y'all know how early that is for me. Even better was that the Earthquakes, staying at the same hotel, were leaving for the airport at the same time, so the hotel staff almost put bags in the wrong bus.

At the stadium, set-up and pre-game all went fine. As we neared kickoff, my dad emailed that he was having trouble listening online. I exchanged a number of frantic emails with my father and the board op, then decided to let them figure it out and concentrate on the game. So to the best of my knowledge, all was going well. About 20 minutes in, however, my boss came down and showed me a text message that I wasn't on the air even on the real radio back in Houston. Then I started to get texts about it. The board op got it fixed right away once he knew there was a problem, and we got on in time for our two first-half goals and stayed on the rest of the way. We held on for an exciting 3-2 win.

That result meant we tied for first place in the West and are paired with Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. As we had planned in advance, we therefore are staying in LA until Tuesday, then flying to Seattle for our game Thursday night.

So, with all our bags packed in preparation for the airport, we returned to the hotel and re-checked into our rooms. Got some Quizno's, watched the Yankees game, and worked on some game notes - a very relaxing evening.

That brings me to this morning, when I had 15-20 emails waiting for me when I woke up at 8:30 (10:30 CT), and things just continued. Mostly good, but it was just a hectic day of trying to prepare for everything playoffs-related and deal with normal stuff like training and a conference call about the league's digital strategy. I finished with about 85 emails in my inbox by the end of business hours (Central Time) on Monday, and that's after deleting another 40 or so.

All of this means I haven't seen my brother while I've been here - he was too cool for me on Saturday and Sunday, and I'm too cool for him tonight, Monday. Team trip to our part owner's house and all.

Good times. At any rate, it's off to Seattle tomorrow for more adventures. And I think that makes seven straight weeks without a Brian O'Neill's appearance for me. Absolutely shocking.