What I Did On My Vacation

I was on vacation last week. This is the view I had every morning for the last five days:

Is that any good?

Lake Tahoe, for those "flatlanders" (the California term for us East Coast dopes) who might be curious, is among the most gorgeous, serene, and inspiring locales in the world. At bare minimum, it's in my top five.

Backstory: the Watson clan flew to Oakland for a family wedding, and we decided to tack a few extra days in the Sierras on the back end. Good call. I cannot recommend the trip any more enthusiastically, although I would suggest a visit during peak ski season, or the high summer season, to get the full experience. As it stood, we were there during the "in-between" season, when all the ski resorts were cleaning up the last vestiges of snow (yes, Florida, there was plenty of white stuff still visible on the mountaintops), and the lake itself was still too brutally cold to actually take a dip. Still, you cannot lose in Tahoe, unless you visit the casinos on the Nevada side. Which I didn't. However, I did spend quite a bit of time at the BackCountry bike shop - slash - coffee house in Tahoe City, which offered excellent iced tea and free Wi-Fi, which allowed me to simultaneously plot the day's bike trip and check e-mail. Tell them I sent you.

While in the Golden State, I read with great interest the local newspaper coverage of the NBA's Warriors, who have become quite the media darling on the Left Coast. From the San Francisco Chronicle, to the Oakland Tribune, to the Sacramento Bee -- a paper that covers its own hometown NBA franchise, for the love of Vlade Divac -- everybody is claiming the Warriors as their own. Such is life when an 8-seed beats a 1-seed. As a wise man once wrote: winning solves everything.

Now, however, it's back to work.

Anyone stay on the couch long enough to watch ABC's halftime feature during the Suns-Spurs game on Saturday night? Rachel Nichols had an excellent piece on the international flavor of this particular playoff series, one that features no fewer than nine players who were born outside the United States -- an NBA record, according to those who produced the piece. Almost all of those foreign-born players were interviewed, including Tony Parker and Boris Diaw, who played with and against each other in their native France and admitted to dreaming of someday squaring off in the NBA. It was great television, honestly.

So immediately after the taped feature concluded, the ABC audience was treated to a highlight of a play from the first half as Dan Patrick segued from halftime into the commercials -- what we in the business call a "bump to break." And after hearing from nine international players during that halftime feature, which player did ABC choose to spotlight as they headed for a commercial?

Raja Bell, who was not interviewed for the feature, but who was, in fact, born outside of the United States. St. Croix, in case you're wondering. Moved to Miami when he was in 8th grade, and later played collegiately at FIU.

Someone in the production truck had to think of that, and have the foresight to plan for it. "Okay, we just spent four minutes of network air time on international players in this series. Gimme a highlight of somebody born outside the US. If I see Amare Stoudemire in this bump, I will fire everyone in this truck."

See? Someone had to think of that. That's why I love television production. That's also why my wife hates to watch TV with me. If you find this minute detail to be useless, you have much in common with Mrs. Watson.

Interesting to note, also, that a full week-plus after I wrote about Brian Hill's shaky future in Orlando, the Magic's head coach is still twisting in the wind, as Mike Bianchi wrote so eloquently in the Orlando Sentinel on Saturday morning. Frankly, I picked up the local papers in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and Reno each day expecting to read news of a change, but instead, I returned home to find things almost precisely as I left them -- with the exception of a few more shots fired in the ongoing venue war in Central Florida. On that note -- welcome to the party, George.

The new wrinkle in the Magic issue is Billy Donovan, a question that I plan to leave untouched until the team actually has a coaching vacancy, which may or may not happen this summer. Suffice it to say that like Donovan himself, I am intrigued.

One more note before I head back to the office on Monday: my high school rocks. The Trinity Prep baseball team will attempt to match the softball team's state championship early next week, with a state semifinal game against Miami Gulliver Prep on Monday afternoon. Winner plays the winner of the Jacksonville Bolles - Clearwater Central Catholic semifinal on Tuesday night for the entire enchilada. Hey, if Orlando Pine Castle Christian can double up in boys and girls basketball state titles in the same year, plus add a 1A softball title to their mantle -- why not us, why not now?

Go Saints. Glad to be home. See you on TV.