Mile High Morning

"And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high Colorado..."
-Rocky Mountain High, John Denver

I find myself awake a little earlier than I need to be, and with room service breakfast on its way up in about 20 minutes, I've had a little time to peruse the internet (reading up on a tremendous night of NBA playoff games, wow) and even blog a little. Some thoughts at 8 a.m., Mountain Standard Time:
- Is there anything more cliche from a tourist couple than matching shirts? I honestly don't know where these people come from, that the husband wearing a big floral print hawaiian shirt and his wife wearing a sleeveless version of the same thing is by any means acceptable. I didn't take the time to ask them (at LAX yesterday), but they seemed very content with that morning's apparel decision (and my guess is that they've got four or five matching outfits, so they can coordinate every day of their vacation). Of course, they could be L.A. natives and not even on vacation, which would be even worse.
- Crazy weekend for the folks at Pepsi Center, where I'm headed in about an hour. They had the Avalanche-Stars game last night (Dallas won to stay alive in the series), the National Lacrosse League playoff game between the Colorado Mammoth and Arizona Sting today at noon (did you know that the NLL has been around for 20 years?!?), and then the big one--the Clips and Nugs at 8:30. Lots of work for those game operations folks, changing three different playing surfaces in less than 24 hours.
- Are the Texans serious? Mario Williams is not going to be Julius Peppers, I'm sorry to break it to you. More like Courtney Brown (Browns took him No. 1 overall in '00), I'm thinking, but even if he's close to Peppers, how on earth do you pass on Reggie Bush? The rationalization I heard on SportsCenter this morning was that they feel a need for defensive help to compete with the Colts ("We can't outscore the Colts, so let's try to stop them instead"). Right. 'Cause a rookie defensive end makes the worst defense in the league able to keep up with the Colts. Good call. Meanwhile, the team that gets Reggie makes their entire offense tons better, special teams too. How pissed are you if you're David Carr right now? I suppose the only happy party in this whole scenario (besides Mr. Williams) has gotta be Domanick Davis. I will say this for Williams: If he doesn't have a Freeney-esque rookie year (at least), Texans fans will have a hard time accepting him.
- As stoked as I am to be here this weekend, today is one of the worst possible Saturdays to be working, isn't it? I'll be checking my cell phone pretty much every 15 minutes until the Chargers pick (likely a corner, Jason Allen or Jonathan Joseph, from what I hear), and then I'll be excited to see where Marcedes and Drew Olson (and Mo Drew) go later in day one.
- I'll repeat what I said the other day about Kobe finally "getting it" and trusting his teammates--didn't get to see any of the game, but the numbers don't lie. Phil Jackson is the greatest coach of all time, without question. Red Auerbach never had a team like this, I promise you.
- What is this, 1998? Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez are the first two pitchers in baseball to 5-0? Those two are amazing, (and to paraphrase Paul Simon) still dealing after all these years.

Breakfast is here (a couple eggs, some sausage, potatoes, toast and OJ--nice to have a $45 per diem on the road)...go Clips