My time with the Thais

Much of the previous week's events centered around the visit by the Sport Authority of Thailand (SAT). A delegation of 18 of Thailand's sports leaders were touring various aspects of the American sports landscape. In bit of serendipity, they were in Los Angeles touring the athletic facilities of the University of Southern California (I know many of you think USC stands for something else, but I digress) the Monday after the featured football game against Ohio State and then where in Auburn, AL on the Monday following the featured game between Auburn and LSU. The tour had been scheduled months in advance. It appears as though ESPN's Game Day Live sponsored by Home Depot was copying the SAT travel itinerary. They also visited several sports facilities in Chula Vista, Mobile, Daphne, and Washington, DC. My participation was marked by giving a presentation on the status of youth sport in the USA and serving a van driver around Mobile Bay and then up and east to Auburn. We got a very cool tour of the facilities at Auburn. They are very nice. We even got a chance to go inside the football stadium that is on the TV as I type this. We didn't go on the field, but I was close enough to hover my foot over the turf. So now I have started my check off list of SEC campuses. Some of you might remember my visit to Univ. of South Carolina in 1988, but that USC did not join the SEC until 1991. So I am keeping my list at one, Auburn. This is to go along with my 9 of 11 Big Ten campuses (Iowa and Northwestern missing); and six Pac-10 schools (I seem to be adverse to institutions that have State in their name. the four I am missing are Washington St., Oregon St., Arizona St. and I am probably the only member of my family that has not been on campus at USC. So this part of the update has come full circle. After the tour at Auburn we drove to Atlanta so the group could get on a plane to DC. The gas lines you see on the TV news are for real. Getting gas for the vans was a bit of an adventure and it was definitely expensive. Fortunately for us here in Daphne the gas shortages start a couple of hours north of us (at least for now). I am doing my part in conserving gas with my own vehicle. I have been to the gas station twice in the last couple of weeks ... to put air in my tires (I have a slow leak in two tires). The weather here on the eastern shore has been absolutely a Chamber of Commerce special order. Beautiful blue skies, low humidity, high 60s in the morning topping out in the low 80s. I have been making the 1.2 mile round trip walk to the office twice a day (I come home for lunch). Gas lasts a long time that way. Work has been mostly reading and editing papers. Journal submissions, Dissertations, and other student assignments. Tomorrow's mission...laundry.