SLC: Why didn't I bring more long sleeves?

Salt Lake City this week, bringing to a close our stretch of four games in 13 days and giving me 16 days or so between road trips. One of the great things about the SLC trip is that we almost always train here, to help adjust to the altitude, so we get to leave a bit earlier and see more of the city.

We've stayed in three different hotels on my three trips here, and each has had its own brand of memories. This year's dominant memory is ... cold! My other two trips were in July and August, but it's still cool here - temperatures in the 50s and lower, with a pretty good wind to boot.

Somehow, I figured I'd be fine with one jacket and one long-sleeved shirt. Technically speaking, that's been OK, but let's just say that the long-sleeved shirt has gotten a lot of wear. And I'm layering for tonight's game - only one T-shirt and two polo shirts remained back in the hotel.

Training on Wednesday was fun - the new stadium here is gorgeous (as you can see), and it even felt pretty comfortable if you stayed in the sunlit portion of the field. Naturally, our bench was in the shade. We also had to investigate and/or chase away anybody who might be considered a threat to watch practice. That involved LG going up into the suites to question sales reps for the other team who were just doing their job. Good times.

After dealing with some interviews (both arranging and conducting) back at the hotel, it was time for Jon time. I had arranged for tickets to the AAA baseball game that night and figured I would take a cab over. Once I investigated on Google Maps, however, I found it was a straight shot up West Temple Street and a 30-minute walk. I figured, "I can handle that," and set out in plenty of time. It was a pretty good walk, and the last 3-4 blocks were definitely not the greatest neighborhood in the world, but it wasn't too bad.

What I found at the stadium, however ... wow. There were maybe 500 people there at first pitch, spread out in a stadium that seats 15,500 (supposedly - that's surely SRO with berm seating). Needless to say, the atmosphere was a little dead. It was dollar hot dog night, my second such outing in the last year, so that was a nice break for the old expense account.

The game included the Astros' AAA affiliate and even Brian Bogusevic, whose girlfriend I had met on a train in France/Spain way back on the early days of this blog.

Despite the atmosphere - which did pick up slightly as a few more fans arrived - the 6:35 p.m. first pitch was pretty early - the setting and the ballpark were great. Supposedly it gets great crowds once school is out, and it's set to host the 2011 AAA All-Star Game, so I think I just caught it on a bad night.

I moved back under the overhang to avoid any chance of rain, and a guy eventually sat next to me and we started talking baseball. Turns out he knows a guy in Houston who's a big Rice fan and whose kids I saw in a high school game this year when watching some Dynamo Academy players. Small world. We talked throughout the game, and he gave me a ride home, so I didn't have to make the long walk twice.

I'll skip ahead to the setup for tonight's game, which is really the next interesting part of the trip. As usual, I took the early bus and got to the stadium almost four hours before game time so I could properly set up my equipment. Salt Lake's radio booths are set back about 10 feet from the main press box, so I have a very obstructed view when seated and have a tough time running my crowd mic to pick up noise from the whole stadium and not just the suites below.

So I was very carefully running my mic cord along the railing of the press box to set up my microphone, when I must have pulled too hard, in the process pulling the mixer I use for the crowd mic off the ledge and dropping it down into the suites a full story below. Needless to say, I was not happy. I had also managed to get some crap from the stone wall all over the front of my pants.

Luckily the story has a happy ending. I went downstairs, picked up the little mixer, brought it back up, and set things up again, much more carefully this time. Secured the mic to the press box railing and felt like I was good to go. When I came back and turned everything on, I had an extra hum in my ear, even when the mixer was off! But I just rattled a few cords around - the gentle version of slapping a TV on its side - and eventually it disappeared. Here's hoping it stays off for this nationally televised game!

OK, time for work. Pregame show in 40.

Not exactly Friday Night Lights

Los Angeles. Friday, May 7. After half a day at work, I fly out to join the team in LA, where they trained this morning. I watched several episodes of Season 3 of Friday Night Lights on the plane, so I missed part of my semi-annual study of greater Los Angeles from the air. It never ceases to amaze me, though. Dense sprawl. Seemingly contradictory yet present in LA. Crowded neighborhoods, but neighborhoods nonetheless – not apartments or high-rises – surrounding beat-up, worn-down athletic fields. It's somehow different from the other major cities - its own brand of city, perhaps. I love spotting fields from the air. Baseball, football, soccer, and everything in between. Wherever I fly, they always catch my eye.

When we arrive, I get my bag and hit the Super Shuttle waiting area – I’ve saved the team money by booking a spot on a shuttle instead of getting a taxi. So I start waiting for my shuttle, watching all the different shuttles and buses and cars go by. The Parking Spot has buses for UCLA, USC, the LA Kings, and presumably the other sports teams in town, too, but I didn’t see them. Every few minutes, a navy Super Shuttle bus pulls up with a placard in the window showing the list of its destinations: an unbelievably endless supply of LA neighborhoods whose geography is a mystery to me. Palos Verdes, Hollywood, Westwood, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, Chino Hills, Ontario. I don’t know these places, although I’m pretty sure my brother has lived in half of them. Finally, after a good 45 minutes, South Bay shows up, and I’m on my way.

The Marriott is a familiar place by now, this at least my seventh stay here in the last two and a half years. I immediately run into my counterpart from our opponent, who hands me packets of notes, and then our TV broadcaster, one of those receiving the notes. I’m also on my blackberry texting a friend from New Jersey – I must look very busy, very disorganized, or perhaps both to the woman checking me in. I go upstairs – I swear I’ve stayed in this room several times before – crash, watch TV, and head out to find dinner.

I cross a street where I’ve crossed in years past but notice much more anti-pedestrian signage than in the past. Maybe it was darker the other times I was here. At any rate, I cross half of the lanes and stand awkwardly on a median waiting for the light to turn red in the other direction. I have a sneaking suspicion some teenagers are laughing at me from a van waiting to turn – what would I have thought of me 10 years ago? The restaurant I was aiming for appears to be mobbed on this Friday night, and I awkwardly walk past an outdoor table of our guys – they don’t see me because of some plants and stuff. For some reason, this further intimidates me from taking on the possibility of a wait – I don’t want to make it awkward for them or me if they see me eating alone – so I wander on, unsure of my destination.

After crossing another pretty big street – legally this time – I go into a grocery store, make a complete circuit of the store, almost run into a cart or two, and leave. I still don’t know where I’m going. I walk back past the restaurant – it’s still crowded – and back toward the mall near the hotel, greeting and passing another one of the guys on my way. I eventually wind up at a barbecue restaurant. That’s right, I flew from Texas to California and wound up eating barbecue. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? I sit at the bar and ask the waitress if she can change the NBA game to an NHL game. She says some of the other people asked for the NBA game, but even after they leave, she keeps it on. Does she not remember? Does she secretly love basketball? Or does she just figure I don’t care? Let’s be honest, it doesn’t really matter.

I talk on the phone with CPL, back from halfway across the world, sit and talk with one of our staffers, hanging out in the lobby, and head back upstairs for some more TV time, trying to stay awake long enough to be on a semi-normal schedule tomorrow night, when I’m scheduled to be on the air almost until midnight in my natural time zone. Just another glamorous Friday night on the road.