Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Early Emerald Thoughts...

Being locked up in Seattle for a few days has kept me away from my dear blog. The man has me chained to this desk and laptop and only lets me go to pee (once every four hours).

However, the payoff was to visit Whidbey Island for a visit with The Boss who owns a nice place with some acreage in an area I had no idea even existed.

The commute this morning was certainly deal-able, even though I had a 4:30 am wakeup call followed by a surprisingly enjoyable 1 hr. and 30 min. commute via car/ferry.

Anyway, getting more and more excited for the Breeders’ Cup Thoroughbred Championships (thanks to Tracy from Turf Luck for pointing out the “Official NTRA Branding” of the event).

The week before the BCTC (thank you very much) lovely and infamous (and when I say infamous I mean IN Famous-not “ill-famed: having an exceedingly bad reputation; "a notorious location"-although it is that as well) Portland Meadows makes its 2005-2006 debut.

I kid. I kid. How can one not eagerly anticipate the opening of their own “home” track- even if it is a step up from a glorified state fair. I am sure I’ll get in trouble as I start to do some interviews with local track officials, but hey, facts are facts.

It’s not even the racing that bothers me but the entire facility. I understand that Magna has no real vested interest in improvements, but I see such potential in a place like Portland Meadows that it pisses me off when the place is consistently a dump and inaccessible by casual fans and below.

I won’t continue this diatribe of negativity since I am still asleep and it is clearly unhealthy for this level of anger before 8 am (unless you are stuck in rush hour traffic-then by all means curse away).

Off topic note: The Warriors is out on DVD today…if you’ve never seen it- get it. If you don’t own a DVD player: 1) Get a job 2) Rent the VHS. Two words: Thorough Enjoyment

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah, the sorrows of a second class track. At least the Magna tracks generally have nice websites (try finding the racing stuff at mtrgaming.com).

FYI, if you can't afford a copy of THE WARRIORS, no need to work! Just visit the public library. Though Seattle Public Library doesn't seem to have it, the Multnomah County Library has nine copies of it on DVD (not the directors' cut, though) and 2 VHS copies. You can "check it out" (yes, that passes for library humor!) at: http://www.multcolib.org/