World Kayak Event Coverage

OK,

With Chris Wing out due to his work schedule and such, looks like I’ve got a ball to pick up… covering the Reno Riuver Festival.  Many of you may not have remembered my first foree into event coverage.  I used to post as POLLO on Boatertalk and set up full coverage of the World’s (Ottawa, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Austria).  Funny that my Sort, Spain coverage web site still gets 10,000 visitors a month… weird… must be a log of retro boaters out there.  Well thanks to some well timed negotiations with the lovely wife and cheaptickets.com, I’m off to Reno. 

Just to guage my personality (and reputation, I guess), when Ruth Gordon heard that I was going to Reno this week her reaction was “James, JAMES IN RENO???!!!  That’s not gonna be good”.  Notice there weren’t any smilies after that statement.   All I can say Ruth is… I’ve changed… OK… maybe not…  I’m in Reno to ensure that our fabulous paddling population gets some fun coverage.  It’s my first trip to Reno so I promise to make sure that I reflect my full visit in my words, photos and video… oh yeah… video.

First steps, outline the scene!  Well, last year’s Reno Festival was huge.  Thousands of visitors, a comp series full of the top names and a ton of activities bringing paddlers to all points Reno.  It also saw one of the very few times that Old Man River got beat… Jay beat EJ.  This year pretty much everyone is gunnin’ for the fella.  Normally I’d have sympathy, but … this is entertainment value at it’s best.  But that’s just a small part of the Fest.  I’m hoping that we can glimpse a good many other events (boatercross, down river, raft races, vendor fair, and events like Run Amuck… er… an “obstacle filled run through downtown”… sounds like my Friday nights in Montreal…). 

Speaking of nights out, there’ll be parties and, well, there’ll be Reno.  Reeeenooo… let me see if I can give you the real scoop on this town.  Don’t worry, where I suck on a wave, I am at a very high comfort level in the rapid city life.  I come from a long line of party stock… Mom’s a Newfy and Dad’s married to a Newfy, they both know how to give’r.  My personal experience lies heavily on my professional years in Montreal… bringing plane-loads of American business folk into Montreal .  This has … er… brought my stamina for late nights to a decent level. 

My theme … ‘wincing’… yup.  Would like to capture as many people wincing as possible.  From boaters crossing a finsh line to me in the buffet line at a casino at 4am… wincing.   I’ll be sure to get scores and such… so stay tuned at www.worldkayakblogs.com/throwdown … our WK event coverage place.

Right so here I go… go to my car, scrape off the frost and off to the airport.  Wish me luck.