Chicago

August 28th – 30th
Syracuse vs Northwestern - ESPN2 12ET – CFB Week 1

Woke up Thursday morning in a cloud. Slept pretty good, but everything is still very surreal. My cough is getting worse & worse.

The hardest part about this weekend is wearing shoes again!
As most of you know, I am a flip flop freak! While in China, I wore them everyday - even have flip flop tan lines on my feet :)

However, I am not allowed to wear open-toed shoes while in an ESPN compound. So it's back to actual shoes again. Yuk!

Had a half set day on Thursday – basically got our area set up in the “B” Unit and got our Viz’s up and running.

“B” Unit – this means that myself, Jason (my AP), Amy (the other Viz op) and Tom (her AP) are not in the main production truck this football season. We are in a second truck which carries the cameras and various other gear.

Also in our truck are the Sportsvision people – they are the ones who put the yellow down and distance line on the screen during the game.

The Viz’s are the graphic systems that Amy and I operate during the game.

On Thursday evening, there was a crew party at the hotel. They had drinks and appetizers for us. It was really nice – I went for about an hour – but was so insanely tired, I had to leave and go to bed.

Our set day on Friday went well. Am still trying to adjust to the quirks of the Viz. I feel fine, but my cough is getting pretty severe.

Saturday – complete blur! Half way thru the game I accepted the fact that I must be getting sick. Thankfully, in my backpack, I had the antibiotics my doctor sent to China with me – so I took one.

Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Paid $50 and jumped on an earlier flight back to Columbus. Landed around the time I should have been taking off from Chicago.

Oh my, the house is still a disaster! Ugh! The China suitcases still haven’t unpacked themselves.

I really think I might be sick.