Thursday, June 28, 2007

Wimbledon 2007 - Day 5, June 27

Today was laundry day.  I had to get up early and get my almost week's worth of dirty clothes to the laundrette across the street from the hotel.  I probably could have used the Marriott service, but I honestly think that being able to get all my laundry done for the price of one pair of pants at the hotel seems to offset the mild hassle.  I can only hope things come back actually clean.  They seem to be somewhat suspect on whites.

We wanted to get to the venue early today to allow for some work we wanted to roll out before play.  Of course, the items I depended on to complete the work weren't cooperating, and in the end all I did was get to work an hour and a half earlier than I needed.  It was a good walk in, and while cloudy, I thought there'd be promise for a solid day of tennis.

I got lucky.  There was an extra Court 1 ticket that IBM wasn't using and they asked if someone in our room wanted to go watch tennis.  The match in progress was Serena Williams and Alicia Molik and I was very interested to see how the match went.  Both players are coming back after fairly disappointing 2006 campaigns and I felt it could have been a good match.  Serena ended up winning in 2 sets, and the second really wasn't very close at all.  Still, it is always a real treat for me to get to watch some tennis live while at the venue and I never am disappointed.

Rains came.  And came.  And came.  It was basically a disaster the remainder of the day and by 8:15 PM local time they had called the rest of the play for the day.  They plan to start play at 11 tomorrow, and likely the rest of the week to try to get caught up.  Middle Sunday isn't something the All England Lawn Tennis Club takes lightly (mostly because they don't have any way to sell tickets on that day and it costs them a ton of money) and while the prospects of middle Sunday aren't certain, they are actually discussing the possibility.

Wound up working horribly late after coming in incredibly early.  That was a lousy mix, but it is what venue life is about.  To commiserate, we chose to follow the Atlanta team to their house to store our bags and then head to the Pub for a couple of pints.  Bitter from Young's isn't bad (it is English Beer so only somewhat fizzy and somewhat cold) but at least it is only 2.50 GBP so it isn't as expensive as some alternatives.  That meant we got back to the hotel very late as we didn't leave the pub until midnight.

Steve knows his way around, thankfully and we walked to Wimbledon station instead of all the way back to Southfield station.  The last train left there at 12:40 and we caught the one just before the last.  I like that Steve is willing to take the train and willing to walk a bit to get to a stop.  I definitely enjoy the exercise.

Got to the room and called Colleen.  Always good to talk to her.  She's willing to listen to me gripe and I dumped all the stress of the day onto her.  Since I have to pick up laundry in the morning, I probably won't be working out once again. :-(

Cheers!

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