September 13, 2020

 

I’m starting to enjoy the weather much more lately. The humidity is still there but the temperatures have dropped significantly since my arrival. I guess this is what the onset of autumn is like in this part of the world. It’s football season as well.  With the games not starting until 1:00pm I had plenty of time to make my picks for the various betting pools that I am a part of then I hung around in my room with my door propped open until it was time to meet the gang in the dining center to grab lunch and watch the Clippers take on Denver in what turned out to be an enormous let down for me.  If the Clippers had won, the Western Conference finals would have started on Wednesday.  But no, Los Angeles came out uninspired and laid an egg against the Nuggets forcing a game seven on Tuesday.  As a result of their loss the conference finals for whoever will face the Lakers won’t start until Friday.  So basically, with the three day shutdown and the forced game seven my residence in the bubble is going to be five days longer than expected.  I will be praying for a sweep but please, no longer than five games.  The reason I am such a whiner about this is because today I was also notified that if the Western Conference Finals went seven games I would have to fly directly to San Diego to begin the baseball playoffs.  From one bubble to another.  That is not a good scenario for me, or anyone, for that matter.

 

While watching the Clippers game a huge storm hit the area.  Indoors we could hear the thunder between flashes of lightning that streaked through the windows.  Water poured from the roof overflowing the drain pipes that looked like they served no purpose.  After one huge bolt of lightning television screens when blank and we had lost our signal.  We glanced over towards Rix Restaurant and their screens were still working.  The restaurant was supposedly off limits to us but it wasn’t open for business at that time because it was too early in the day.  The multitude of screens were showing the NFL games currently underway along with the Clippers Nuggets game so we meandered into there to finish out the game.  While inside Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown came in to join us after they had completed their workout.  No one paid attention to them as instructed and they didn’t seem that interested in the game while they stared at their phones most of the time. 

Later in the day I was able to participate in two more interviews.  The first was with another local television station in Tucson, KGUN 9.  The reporter, Jason Barr, conducted a professional and thorough interview via Zoom and put together a nice piece.  It can be viewed here:  

After that interview I was honored to participate in another Zoom interview for the Fort Mill High School television program.  Fort Mill is located in North Carolina and is a suburb of Charlotte.  The daughter of one of our tape guys in the yellow zone reached out to me to participate in her piece about the NBA bubble and provide a perspective from the green zone. 

I was more than happy to help out and the clip can be found here.  The portion that includes my part starts about the 1:58 mark:

Needless to say I was extremely disappointed after that game and crawled back to my room to just veg and watch more depressing episodes of Shameless.  Not a whole lot more went on the rest of the day as the tropical depression that was lingering of the gulf coast of Florida continued to bring a steady, cooling rain to Orlando.  With my door propped open once again I watched until my eyes grew heavy.  The day was nearly completed with nothing out of the ordinary taking place, just my extended stay extending longer.