My body and my brain is confused. Sunday started with a very early wake up alarm. On Saturday night I was sitting with EN John and some of the wonderful Canadian riders at the Red Hills riders party.
We all adjusted our phones forward an hour for Daylight Savings Time and set alarms to ensure we were not late for the jog. I set mine for 5.24am, as I had to pack and it is never a good look for the TD to be late.
Needless to say when I awoke I started packing and finished at what I thought was 6am, sent a text to Samantha Clark to see if she was at her Tallahassee hang-out, Starbucks. She wasn’t, because they were not open yet. Sometime in the minutes following I picked up my watch to adjust the time and realised it read a few minutes after 5am, crap, I had got up at 4.24am, not good.
Strangely Samantha was awake too at that awful hour, despite the fact that her and ECOGOLD’s Patricia had dropped me back at my Plantation accommodation just north of the Georgia State Line around midnight the night before.
I am not going to write another Red Hills story or wrap up, I think we have covered the event more than thoroughly over the last few weeks. But instead I will reflect on my time here. It has been fun, interesting and at times strange, some of the stories I can’t even share.
After leaving Tallahassee Sunday afternoon, I got back to LA and in my hotel by midnight, which was 3am Tally time, which explains why I am a little messed up.
Thanks to all the EN Readers who said hello over the weekend. The funniest moment I had on that front was with a young lady who had a fall after the fourth from last fence in the prelim. I met her after her fall to check her condition and offered to take back her deployed Point Two air jacket.
I later caught her and her mom after the finish. She said to me “are you EventingSafety John?” “Yes”, I said. “it was worth falling off, because I got to meet ESJ” was the response. It is great to know that people read and enjoy my stuff, I will try to keep it up.
EN Readers, are everywhere, young and old, hardcore eventers and relative newcomers to the sport. Many, like me, check EN several times a day to ensure they don’t miss any news. Did you see John’s post the other day, we are getting over 10,000 hits a day on EN, that is HUGE!
EN John is able to apparate instantly to strange locations, never missing a story. I was blown away by the high tech equipment the Chinchilla’s use to keep the ENMCCC running, getting up to eight updates out a day during the event. All this on a diet of caffeine loaded coffee, fried pickles and gator nuggets.
The Tim Tams are all gone. I had one pack left and caught up with Alison Springer, gold cup and keys to a shiny new black Mercedes SUV in her hands. She walked away excited at the prospect of eating the chocolate cookies on her long drive home in the new Mercedes, we aim to please here.
Personally, I think we could end wars and bridge gaps between religions with more Tim Tam love.
We all know I am a bit of a safety nut and have never been shy in proclaiming my preference for using the appropriate safety gear in our sport.
I was very surprised when I tried out the Point Two the other day (see the earlier post from Samantha to see the video), the experience wasn’t as shocking as I was expecting. That said, I think if you buy one, you need to test it out, on the ground to ensure to know what it feels like. If the first time you have it go off is when you are sailing through the air, it can be a little scary. Blow the extra $25 and test it out.
Meeting Lee, the man behind the Point Two was interesting. He told me some of the development work that is going on, a standard is being developed and the vests are about to be used in horse racing, with a foam insert. He was careful not to be critical of his competitors but also pointed out the clear differences and why his costs more. I know that a couple of different brands of vests were traded-in on the weekend.
Travelling Home
I started writing this post in a little Mexican cafe, in Olvera St, chilling out and waiting to meet up with a Tweep (Twitter friend), Susan who is an Aussie who lives in LA. Susan showed me some real LA and I had an amazing day. I saw many of the normal tourist spots like Hollywood Boulevard and Rodeo Drive. But I also got to see some really cool things that most tourists don’t discover.
For starters we checked out the The Bradbury Building, home to scenes from Bladerunner and many other movies. It is a really beautiful building on the inside.
OK, so I am a big boy and all big boys like their toys. I saw a Bugatti Veyron first hand. This is not only the most expensive production car in the world but the fastest too. It was black and yellow, was being driven by an old guy with a 20 year old model on his arm, I guess if you can afford a car just is a little shy of two million bucks, getting the hot girl isn’t too hard.
Speaking of toys, my mission to find an iPad2 was unsuccessful, that is despite going to an Apple Store in a mall in LA.
In that same mall they also had an Audi and Lamborghini car dealership with shopfronts in the middle of the mall. As they say LA is a bit different.
I am now sitting in my lounge room at home, not sure what day, what timezone, what time or even what Country I am in.
I will be back again soon and perhaps the Red Hills crew will invite me back in 2012. In the meantime I made some great connections and even had an interesting discussion about an event in 2012 so you never know.
Enjoy the ride,
ESJ
