Crumbling Infrastructure

When I turned the corner in front of my house this morning, I knew something was amiss. There was water flowing into the storm drain across the street -- lots of it. A couple of houses away I could see a six-inch plume of water erupting from the crumbling asphalt that we euphemistically call a street around here. Exactly the same place and the same scene that I saw the morning we evaculated for Katrina. This particular section of street has had broken and leaking water lines under it for as long as I can remember. Every now and then one of them lets go big-time and the street becomes a water park. Eventually the city comes out with a big backhoe, six people, one shovel, a yellow truck, and a big roll of duct tape or something. The new guy digs while the others sit in the shade under the oak tree on the corner eating and drinking whatever they sent the other new guy to the store to pick up. Then the leak stops and we lurch over the pile of dirt and rocks that they left in the hole for another two or three months before someone else comes along and dumps a few shovelfulls of hot asphalt over it, rolls over it a couple of times with the truck, and disappears until the next time. Infinite loop -- "Wash, rinse, repeat." So I just shook my head and continued riding out to the levee, making a mental note to call the Sewerage and Water Board in case none of the renters who live there do.

It was breezy today and I was wasn't feeling very motivated, so when Matt started pushing the pace early in the ride, I dropped back a bit to seek shelter. At one point we had to slow down as we came up on pedestrians on both sides of the bike path. Naturally the three or four riders in front didn't. Nobody seemed too interested in closing the gap, which was fine with me, and we did the rest of the ride out to the turnaround with a nice little paceline as another three or four guys sat at the back. The return trip was similar. Matt surges, a few people jump to catch up, and the rest of us just keep plugging into the headwind at the same pace as if nothing had happened. Another small group eventually split off the back of ours. We were holding a steady 23 mph most of the time, and the group in front of us never got more than a minute or so. By the end they eased up and we caught some of them.

So when I got home I picked up the phone and called the Sewerage & Water Board's "Emergency Hot Line" to report the leak. When I got the "your call is important to us" recording crap, I put the phone in speaker mode. It was about half an hour later that an unenthusiastic voice on the other end finally mumbled something unintelligible, so I told the person the location of the leak and was told it had already been reported. Needless to say, my morning shower was less than ideal, since the water pressure was about as enthusiastic as the S&WB emergency response team.

Life in the big city.

Had to fix more problems with the LCCS results last night because I used an early and incorrect version of the 3-man TT results for some of the rankings. This happens sometimes because I'm shuttling the work between the office and home, using different computers, and doing the work in bits and pieces. I suspect there are a few people in there who were listed as riding on one-day licenses who actually purchased annual licenses at the race, but who knows? The CR told me that there were four people who raced on expired licenses and didn't buy renewal annual licenses that day. Great. Anyway, I ended up re-doing practically everything, which took a couple of hours. The big problems always seem to revolve around the damned one-day and race-day renewal or new licenses. At least this year we aren't scoring the Cat. 5s, but the masters and women provide more than enough problems all by themselves. Plus, I always get a few USAC license numbers that are wrong, so when I crossmatch with the official rider database I end up with some rider from Kansas showing up in the results and then I have to search the huge USAC database for somebody named "John Smith" and find the one who lives in Louisiana. It's all very frustrating, and I wish we would just do what the USAC does for their ranking system: If you're not listed in the official rider database as having a license on the day the results are compiled, then you do not get points -- period. Race-day paper renewals and new licenses do not count. "I have a dream...."