Hip at last, hip at last.....

I finally did it!  Here I sit at one of my favorite coffee places, Fair Bean Coffee on South 1st.  I just finished a delicious salt and rosemary bagel devoid of any nutritional value, am just about to start on my second cup of very strong coffee, COLD outside....life is good.  It was .9 miles here, then of course .9 back, then my plan is to walk with Banks to my car at 11th and IH 35.  That might leave me a mile or so short -- Google Directions seems to be having trouble understanding my destination, insisting it's 15+ miles from my house, when I know it's more like 2.5 -- but I'll clock it on the way back and make up whatever I need to make up.

I'm torn between spending the evening with Brian, Mark and Janette, eating seafood and watching a Halloween themed movie (Janette is very big on themes) and staying in and watching the CNN documentary on Lance tonight at 8:00, "The World According to Lance Armstrong."  Of course they'll run it again, but I continue to be obsessed with this story.  Now they're talking about making him return not only his Tour de France money, but the endorsement money from at least one of his sponsors.  What's next?  Will he be sued by everyone he defamed for calling him a doper?  By every company he ever endorsed for?  Is he going to go bankrupt? Mark thinks he's probably on 24-hour suicide watch, but I tell him that with five kids, no, that is not going to happen.

Everyone keeps saying there is no way to clean up a sport as dirty as cycling, but I think this sad tale could ultimately be what makes that happen.  What if the rules changed to the effect that every cyclist from here on out would have to refund any earings -- prize money and endorsements -- if they test positive, even 2, 3, 5 years after the fact?  I think what has kept the doping going is the knowledge that the dopers are always one step ahead of the testers -- I think Lance had said he was two years ahead of them -- and the lure of money and fame is so tempting that they figure they'll deal with the fallout when and if it comes.  Well, if they know going in that there will be a day of reckoning, and it's going to cost them hugely, that just might be what turns it all around.  I would love to see next summer's race if there were a reasonable chance that at least most of the riders were clean.  Wouldn't it be obvious from their times?

My house needs a severe cleaning, laundry is piling up, I need to make an IKEA run and do my grocery shopping.  See you tomorrow.