Track, Time Trials and Taxes

6:33 am, Saturday:  "What about this weather? Is race going to be rained out?" I checked the radar and was rather surprised to see a line of thunderstorms between me and the Team Time Trial Championship course up in Vacherie.  The start wasn't until 9 am, so there was still hope.  Donald Davis, who would be riding with three Midsouth Masters riders, had spent the night at the house on his way in from Pensacola.  We headed out at 7 am to make what would normally be an easy one-hour drive, but by the time we were crossing the spillway we were in the middle of a pretty severe storm. Soon I was down to 50 mph and straining to see where I was going.  Up on the roof both of my track bikes were getting a thorough cleaning.  The Team Time Trial was just the first part of my weekend plans.

I was scheduled to ride the 29 mile TTT with teammates Keith Andrews, Mark McMurry and Chuck Bell. We had a second team lined up as well, but soon after we arrived a couple of members of that one had to cancel.  Also, soon after we arrived, the rain started again.  We ended up pushing the start back by a full hour, but by then it was down to a light drizzle.  The course was on a freshly asphalted road that felt pretty fast.  It looked like we'd be starting out with a significant headwind, but in fact it was barely noticeable.  We started out nice and easy, keeping it at 25-26 mph most of the way to the turnaround.  It was really smooth, which should have been a clue that we weren't going quite fast enough.  I found myself taking pulls of 50-60 pedal strokes before my legs would start to load up and I'd drop back. Since I was by far the smallest on the team, however, I felt fully recovered by the time my next pull came up.  We tiptoed around the turnaround on the still-wet street and settled into a pace of around 27 mph for most of the return trip.  A mile or so before the finish Mark took a really long pull, ramping it up to about 30 mph, at which point Keith dropped off the back.  Then, when Mark pulled off Chuck maintained the pace.  Unfortunately Mark didn't realize that Keith was gone and a big gap opened.  I yelled to Chuck to ease up and backed off myself.  We were still going pretty fast, and were probably only 300 meters from the finish, so I doubt it cost us much.  Unfortunately, just as we got to the finish line a big semi stopped in the right lane ahead of us.  I was on the front at the time and started to go around on the right but spotted someone with a dog standing there and thought better of it, switching over and going around in the left lane that was fortunately clear.  We ended up with an OK time of 1:05:09 which turned out to be only 3rd in the masters and 8th overall.  On the plus side, I wasn't particularly tired or sore afterward!  It was one of the smoothest team time trials I've ever done.

So after the TTT, I jumped in the car and continued up the river to Baton Rouge where I was scheduled to officiate the LSU collegiate track meet that afternoon and the next morning.  They had an OK turnout for a track race, but of course it all took longer than planned (doesn't it always?) and by 10 pm everyone was more than ready to call it a day.  My Blue track bike got a lot of use, as did the vintage front wheel from my Viner.  Despite the fact that a number of riders were riding the track for the very first time, the races all went pretty smoothly and there were no crashes, much to my relief. Things wrapped up on Sunday around 1 pm so I was back home in New Orleans by mid-afternoon with lots of time to get ready for my next adventure, getting my property tax assessment reduced to something more reasonable.

So Monday morning after gathering up the necessary dated photos, insurance papers, comparables, etc., I headed over to City Hall where I expected to wait in line for a couple of hours in order to meet with an assessor about the 300% increase in my assessment.  What I found was beyond belief.  There were a couple hundred people lining the entire block-long length of the ground floor hallway.  I took my place and the end of the line, writing my name on a paper tablet next to the number 460.  Six hours later I was still in line in the hallway.  Someone came down from the 4th floor office and started handing out tickets to people who wanted to come back first thing in the morning rather than take a chance on being able to see an assessor that day.  I took a ticket.  it was after 4 pm and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 8 am, so I figured that any negotiating skills I might have had already been severely compromised.  So this morning I was back at City Hall bright and early and was ushered practically immediately up to the 4th floor ahead of the two hundred or so people already waiting in line in the hallway.  My optimism started to sag a couple of hours later when I was still waiting in the 4th floor hallway outside the assessor's office.  Finally we were called into the office where we were given new tickets and told to wait once again.  I guess another hour went by before my number came up and I got to sit down with a Service Representative who was basically doing triage for the actual appraisers.  She looked up my house on the computer and it was immediately obvious that they had estimated the house's living space by about 100%.  Fortunately I had brought an old appraisal with the correct number.  So I got a new ticket and moved to a new line where I waited another hour or so to finally see an actual appraiser who immediately corrected the square footage number, pulled up similar properties in the neighborhood, and said "Looks like most houses are at around $280k.  How's that for you?"  After agreeing to this highly scientific assessment, which reduced my appraised value by over $185,000, I was finally out of there,wondering if I should have held out for an even lower number.  Now I'm basically a couple of days behind with work, and in particular a $3.4M grant proposal that is due on Friday.  It may be a couple more days before those race results get uploaded to USAC and I get the LCCS points updated!