You may have heard… I was a little upset with the accommodations at the Red Lion motel (don’t you dare call it a hotel). It was convenient to the venue, but that’s about it. The rooms are small. The bathrooms are tiny. The layout of the closet was terrible (it’s practically blocked by one of the beds). The street noise was overwhelming. The view was lousy. The heater was way too loud. I had to turn it off to sleep, and there wasn’t a single other room available to consider as an option, and I checked in at 4:00 in the afternoon on Thursday. What – the – Hell?!

The event went well (sort of). The numbers weren’t very high. I never felt overworked. And the Nike lounge (I dubbed it the Robby Room), made downtime much more relaxing and comfortable. It would be nice if they attended every event. The replay system was not without the usual glitches. It would be really nice if we had a system that was consistently reliable.

Too bad about the catastrophe that was served up as the Gold Medal Sabre bout. I can’t remember the last time I heard “boos” at the conclusion of a final. It was ugly. I was waiting to referee a final bout in foil afterward, but had to delay that for the sabre match that ended three times, before they finally let Tim Morehouse claim the victory, and it’s debatable who actually won.

Portland is one of those towns that I look forward to going to whenever there’s an event there. The light-rail system makes it easy to get around. There are plenty of good restaurants and bars to frequent, and lots of hotels that are far better than that thing called The Red Lion.

With the exception of the accommodations, I had a good time there. Let’s hope things go better in Reno.