Dateline Australia - Day One

I had an elaborate plan to jot down every step of misfortune that I encountered during the past three days, but it came across as petty considering I'm complaining about how I arrived in the midst of a beautiful Australian summer while it's -1 degrees with torrential snow back home. So let's skip to the bottom of the page on that one, although I first have to quote myself considering we had nearly identical circumstances as a year ago:

my assignment with ESPN's Event Production department has brought me to Melbourne as part of the team covering the 2010 Australian Open tennis tournament. Now that we're here, everybody is taking a moment to relax and re-charge before the real work begins over the next 17 days. Good thing too, because if I were asked to sum up the experience so far in a single sentence, here goes: "Anybody who ever said 'getting there is half the fun' has obviously never flown to Australia."

Last year it was at LAX, this year it was at SFO, both years it was United Airlines and the extremely shady "aircraft servicing" delay. Despite the four-hour plus delay, it's hard to get too cranky when it's a crisp 80 degrees here in our work environment. If it's going to be a royal pain to get somewhere, it might as well be somewhere nice and warm.

A year ago I opened the journal of Australian Open travel with a blow-by-blow of said difficult trip, but with exception of departing thru San Francisco instead of Los Angeles, the song remained the same so I'll skip ahead to more pleasant topics. Like the upcoming Green Bay Packers playoff game, which begins in a little over 12 hours - the time difference is so striking that what is a primetime Saturday night game will for us Down Under be like a regular NFL Sunday back home in the Central Time Zone, kicking off promptly at 12 noon. Gonna be a good one and hopefully Aaron Rodgers can get the Pack over the hump after narrowly missing out in their first trip to Atlanta.

About the only thing I can say to top this all off is, time shifting aside, make a little room on that viewing calendar for the Australian Open if your a tennis fan. There's a lot about this event which is super cool and unique, and almost oddly liberating since it takes place what the other half of the world calls the dead of winter and most of the rest of the world calls the middle of the night. Tune in starting at 6:30 PM ET on Sunday night in the States. Until tomorrrow...