Day 4 of the series and Leg 3 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 558 miles from El Paso to San Antonio, part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville, Fla. From February 2, 2005 SAN ANTONIO — Texas is ridiculous. Almost any way you want to […]

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Day 3 of the series and Leg 2 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 434 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, Texas, Jacksonville — part of the 2,431 miles across Interstate 10 from Ontario, Calif., to Jacksonville. (The following report came before Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, became globally notorious for drug gangs — […]

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Day 2 of the series and Leg 1 of the road trip to the 2005 Super Bowl, 350 miles from Ontario, Calif., to Phoenix, part of the 2,431 miles from Ontario to Jacksonville, Fla. From January 31, 2005 PHOENIX — The grizzled little man named “Mac” handles bets while sitting on a stool in an […]

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It has been suggested that the core of most successful prose is the road trip. Someone gets up, goes somewhere new, has adventures, sometimes returns home. And we find ourselves entertained by the process. Or so I believed when I pitched to editors the idea of a Super Bowl road trip, back in 2005. It […]

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Serena Williams won the Australian Open today, defeating her sister, Venus, 6-4, 6-4. Serena has won more women’s grand slam singles titles in the open era (23) than anyone. And her victory, at age 35, makes her the oldest woman to win a major championship. A strong case can be made that she is the […]

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Within days of the San Diego Chargers announcing they will move to Los Angeles and play their games there next fall … someone has put forward the sort of free-thinking, out-of-the-box idea that might have saved the club for San Diego. Granted, this $1 billion plan is built around a hypothetical Major League Soccer team, […]

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We are spending some time in Southern California, slipping in and out of the Inland Empire — that oft-maligned territory between the mountains and the sea. Often hot and smoggy, is the IE. Crisscrossed by clotted freeways burdened by folks who insist on owning a home where they can afford it and commuting to work. […]

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When we last lived full-time in the U.S., the Lakers were good and the Clippers were awful. Same-ol’ same-ol’, that is. Now, the Lakers are awful and the Clippers are … pretty good. Not as good as some thought they would be, certainly not champion contenders, but the best team in Los Angeles and a […]

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The NBA’s election for All-Star Game starters is silly. Any system that can overlook Russell Westbrook, he of “averaging a triple-double” fame, clearly is screwed up. That’s what happens when the league allows fans to account for 50 percent of the vote, players 25 percent and media “only” 25 percent. Let the media pick the […]

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Today, for the first time in at least a decade, I watched the whole of both NFL conference-championship games. If you follow this blog you will know we were out of the country for about eight years in succession when the National and American conferences got around to deciding their Super Bowl representative. I have […]

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