The Circus is in Town, Y'all

One of the bennies of working as a sports reporter is that you get to go to the pre-whatever news conferences. This week I went to the Oscar de la Hoya - Floyd Mayweather, Junior fiasco at Union Station in Washington.

My editor wanted me to shoot still photos while he did video and I also recorded the audio. It was a hoot. People taking time out of the middle of their day to watch these two guys jaw at one another. Of course it's all crap until May 5th, when they actually fight.

My wife thinks boxing is stupid. She says she cannot understand why two men would want to get into a ring and smack the snot out of one another.

I could have gotten philosophical about it - and I did a little. It's controlled violence. There are rules, and there is a referee who makes sure you follow the rules.

Real violence is not like that.

Real violence is unpredictable, like an IED in Baghdad or a drive-by shooting in Southeast DC. Real violence leaves you feeling helpless or vengeful or angry. Boxing always has the possiblity of a rematch. Maybe you can get another shot at this guy. Real violence seldom allows that.

It's like the widowed Army wife I heard on the radio yesterday. She and her husband met at West Point and were married after graduation. He was killed in Iraq last year by some unseen explosive device. She said she never needs to know when it's the 18th of the month (the day he was killed) because she can feel it. And she has a child to raise.

One could say "they both knew death was a part of their business," or something like that. True. But that doesn't make it any easier.

At this "The World Awaits" tour people lined up and stayed in line for hours to get an autograph from one of the fighters. A colleague of mine even got Floyd Mayweather to sign one of the flags they were handing out.

Mayweather and Oscar de la Hoya will both make tens of millions of dollars for their efforts. According to the Army website an officer with about five years of experience will make around 62 thousand dollars a year. Or he could get shot and never come home.

But nobody pays to watch the Army (or Navy or Air Force or Marines) do their job. Maybe we should.

Time in Paradise - then back to reality

Cornelia and I just returned from a week in the Bahamas, on Paradise Island at the Paradise Island Harbour Resort, the same place we went last January. It was beautiful, to say the least, with temperatures in the 70s and 80s - even though it did rain one day. The best part about the rain - at sunset there was a rainbow - and I got to the water's edge in time to capture it.

We spent as much time as we could on Cabbage Beach, though being the white boy, pale face, cracker that I am, I had to limit my time because I would look like a lobster if I didn't. But we did enjoy the warm weather.

Granted, the hotel in which we stayed was not Atlantis, but of course we didn't pay $500 a day either. And in case you want to buy a day pass to Atlantis, they're $88 a person to use the pool and go to the restaurants and casino. And don't think of trying to get into the pool without paying. They have very efficient security people there - courteous, but firm. Basically no pay, no play. You can romp in the ocean for free.

Speaking of the ocean, it was not quite warm enough for swimming , though Cornelia did take a couple of dips in the crystal waters. That was after we told every Bahamian slick talker that we didn't want to (a) jet ski; (b) para sail; (c) buy a drink; (d) rent a chair; and Cornelia did not want her hair braided. Not to speak ill of the folks there, but some of them can be pushy.

The Bahamas doesn't have any personal income or sales tax because it makes so much money off tourism. Something tells me these guys were looking for some undeclared income, but a jet ski ride costs $120 an hour, so you had better love to jet ski.

But who can argue with walking down a beach like this one? It was gorgeous and the sands were warm and the water was a breathtaking color of aqua. Like the Bahamian flag only real.

Coming home was easier than I thought it would be. Nassau Airport is notorious for long lines and you do have to go through three levels of security before reaching your gate. And because our plane was headed to DC we had to go through another check-in. Carrying your passport and checking in was no big deal.

One funny incident did happen at the snack bar in the airport. I had noticed that some of the Bahamians had a little attitude when it came to tourists. Nothing blatant, no open hostility, just a kind of "what the hell do you want?" attitude. In this snack bar they had one of the popcorn machines that uses hot oil to make the popcorn. The thing about the old-time poppers is that they can spit out old maids that don't pop as well as the popcorn and if you get one on you it is like a burning b-b made of corn.

So one of my fellow travelers was apparently looking for the girl behind the counter, because he wanted some popcorn. I heard her answer him "I a'int gonna ta get barned for you!" Then he started in on her about how she was supposed to be behind the counter and he wanted to buy some popcorn. The people in line with me (Americans) were kind of taken aback at her response, but what happened later was hilarious because these two started into it with one another.

Counter girl: "I'll tell you what, maybe you could stay back here and I'll get on the plane and leave."

Tourist: "Yeah right, maybe you could come and take my job, too. You want my car keys? How about my house? You want my girlfriend?"

Counter girl: "Ok! I'll take your job. You can stay here and work where I do and I'll go where you go."

Needless to say it was not a poster for hospitality. But both of them were probably pretty stressed out - him because he was hungry and had a plane to catch and her because he was probably the 11,000th tourist to come through that shop in the past three hours.

And when we did come back to Virginia, it was snowing. The contrast was stunning: Sunday morning I'm stroking bougainvillea flowers in the Bahamas; Sunday evening, I am shovelling snow in DC. And not just snow; ice. Bricks of it hard as cement and sharp as a sword. But the weather is supposed to warm this week in NoVa.

So if you decide to go to the Bahamas, enjoy yourself. It is truly breathtaking. I would stay away from Atlantis, though. It's a rip off. Everything is expensive and water is water and food is food. Save your money. Stay somewhere else and spend your cash on jewelry or clothing or a massage or something. Atlantis is like Las Vegas in the Caribbean - the only man making any money off it is the one who owns it. If you don't mind that, fine. Personally, I thought it was too much for too little.

The Ball has turned . . . thank God

I took this shot of the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, February 10th at sunset. The sun was dropping directly down Maryland Avenue from the building. I know, it's kind of cheesy, a shot that every tourist for generations might have taken. But with the bad guys hoping to have blown it up on 9-11, I wanted to take a picture of my own. And it was hard evidence that Spring will come. Last month at this time, the building would have been in total darkness. But now it is bathed in peach-colored sunlight.

And the weather forecasters are called for snow beginning Monday. Lots of snow. They say that it might be flurries or it could be a major snow storm depending on where the storm from the South moves. And with temperatures in single digits overnight tonight and in recent days, it is cold enough for a pile of snow to fall.

But the ball has turned. Spring will be here soon. But just to remind me that it's still Winter, these folks were literally walking on the Capitol reflecting pool. It was frozen solid. But soon it will be thawed and the birds will be dipping into it. And the cherry blossums will be in bloom, and the days will be long and warm and people will be playing softball on the mall and we will forget the long nights of winter.

Mo Prince Pix

I loaded some more photos of Prince in the flickr badge in the right sidebar. You might also have noticed I have been playing with Blogger's template madness. I decided to keep the masthead the same.