Chasing typos around the Intertubes instead of wheels along the trail. Feh. Sunday is no-fun day if you happen to be an editor for a cycling website, even a part-time one.
They’re racing everywhere this weekend, on roads and trails, from Belgium to California — Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Little 500, the Athens Twilight Criterium, the Historic Roswell Criterium, the Santa Ynez Valley Classic and the Dana Point Grand Prix.
Each writer presents a different editorial challenge (some understand deadlines and English, others not so much); each promoter supplies results in a different fashion (HTML, Excel, PDF or not at all); each photographer has his own little quirks (giant jpgs with incomprehensible filenames, teensy jpgs with no captions). I, of course, bring my own peculiar habits (surly bibulousness) to the project.
Back in the day, when I was still a newspaperman instead of whatever it is that I am now, all these disparate personalities congregated under one roof, where we could all shout at each other over not much and then go get convivially shitfaced once the presses started rumbling.
Now we’re in Spain, Belgium, Wyoming, Boulder, Georgia, California and Bibleburg, and shouting over IM or via e-mail just isn’t the same. Plus a guy in León can hardly buy a round for another guy in Bibleburg, and vice versa.
We had more hands back in the day, too. We’re always undermanned at VeloNews.com, but this weekend the herd is especially thin for a number of perfectly defensible reasons. So instead of doing a little leisurely swashbuckling through a couple of short stories, I found myself pretty much glued to the office chair from 6:30 a.m. to late afternoon, hacking at this and that, frantically twisting my Strunk & White Secret Decoder Ring and muttering dire imprecations that would land you a chat with Human Resources in one of today’s newsrooms. And it ain’t over yet. California and Georgia have yet to check in. And they wonder why I drink.
I did get out to snap a couple pix of Chairman Meow’s tomb, though. She has a colorful honor guard again this spring, and if it ever rains, they should get plenty of reinforcements.
Mad Blog Media 
It was my daughter’s birthday party today. She turned seven on Friday. I was either prepping for the party or partying all day, so I only got to check the VN live coverage of LBL once. I saw Pelkey was the master of ceremonies. I like the new format.
Y’all do good work, Patrick. I don’t know if the venture capitalists that bought VN can find Liege on a map or spell bicycle without hiring a consultant, but I hope they know we, the consumers, like what we see. And I’ve got a subscription to the old fashioned VN, too.
Just wanted to say thanks for giving up your Sunday for my entertainment!
O’G, you forgot one of the most important races that happened this weekend. MTB World Cup #2, in Offenburg, Germany! That’s why I’ve been on the VeloNews case for a couple years now… you guys need better mountain coverage. Or am I just a damn dirtbag mountain biker, while most the VN readership is full of crazy roadies?
Don’t worry, I really enjoy VN’s website, even when you’re running it. Sure, you can’t get someone at every race, but it’s still informative and far more interesting than wasting too much time yelling at the general world/national news.
Overall- very good work. Take Monday off for your trouble.
We took our little rug rat out for his first Little Cricket Burger at the Cherry Cricket this weekend, and while we were waiting for a table, noticed they had a menu from 1990 on the wall. Original paste-up sort, with exacto-knife cut-outs where a price had changed. How many folks remember that form of editing? Only had one font back then: whatever came on the IMB Selectric.
Jeff, congrats to your daughter. When I was 7, I was a Canadian of sorts; dad was stationed in Ottawa, and I was busy learning French. ‘Splains a lot, n’est-ce pas? Glad you’re enjoying our little velo-circus, even if the wheels come off.
Joey, we screwed the pooch on the World Cup. AFP didn’t move anything in English, and we were swamped from other quarters. But we caught up today. Casey Gibson has a colleague across the pond who shot the hell out of the race.
Tony, I wish I’d gotten your reprieve earlier. Instead, I spent another day in the velo-barrel, editing. O, the pain. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, etc., etc., and so on.
Steve, I can’t remember the last time I was at the Cherry Cricket. But I do remember doing paste-up with an X-acto knife. I have a nifty white scar on my left bird finger where I put one right through the digit and into a drawing board (don’t ask).
Speaking of ancient technology, anyone besides me remember Linotypes, Royal manual typewriters, rotary-dial phones, Xerox Telecopiers, paste pots, blue pencils and city editors who would alternately scream at you and buy you long-neck Buds?
We used one of those pre-computer optical typesetters. I think, this was a long time ago, it had to be loaded with a film cartridge for each type face. Very cool for 1974 so much so that that it was slow and cumbersome and trouble prone and only produced a strip of copy about a column wide didn’t seem to matter. The keyboard was terrible. Not that my college student press friends or I were really in any shape to care.
Oh yeah and wax rollers!
The editor wouldn’t buy me beers, but he did rent the triple beam balance from me for a more than fair rate.
I used to have a Royal manual typewriter. No kidding. I believe my parents still have it back home somewhere…
That brings back some distant memories, Joey.
My mom was a legal secretary by day and jazz singer by night. Back in her heyday, she could type faster on her old manual Royal than I can type on this keyboard by a long shot, and she made fewer mistakes. Wonder what happened to that old Royal.