USPS

As I mentioned below, GF and I finally moved last week. But our unpacking and settling in progress has been seriously stunted by the United States Postal Service. The USPS, and one “letter carrier” in particular, have totally monopolized our attention. GF has become completely involved as well – perhaps even more than I - as she even comes home at lunch in time to watch “the post man” and his daily progress. Thankfully, this weekend he brought home the mail. (If you haven’t figured it out yet – I’m talking about Lance and the Tour de France).

Happily, the postman is firmly in control now. He was 9:35 down Thursday, but in both the mountain stages Friday and Saturday he managed to make up all but 22 seconds of that deficit. And yesterday he took the lead. All the other contenders (except for perhaps one - Ivan Basso) have fallen far enough behind to no longer seriously pose a threat.

The most amazing thing about the tour this year has been the *gasp* french hero that emerged to wear the yellow for 10 days. Who would have ever thought that *I* would be sitting on the edge of my couch Saturday morning cheering on a french guy? Thomas Voeckler got involved in a break-away in Stage 5 and found himself in the yellow jersey leading the tour. He admitted after the race the he knew Lance wasn’t worried about him – he was simply overjoyed to be in yellow. On Saturday’s stage with a scant 5:04 advantage over Lance it seemed that he was destined to be wearing yellow for the last time. And on each of the serious climbs, he was dropped and seemed to lose a lot of time. But incredibly he was able to make up time and on the last climb of the day he worked his heart out and crossed the line 4:43 after Lance and 22 seconds still in yellow. (Lance, and 6 other riders put an end to his streak yesterday.)

Today is the L'Alpe d'Huez, a 9.3 mile mountain time-trial, and Lance is expected to put an exclamation point on the tour this year - Barring any accidents or catastrophes tomorrow (the last real mountain stage), Lance will be wearing yellow in Paris on Sunday.

Unfortunately for my employer, I just discovered this site: http://ww2.olntv.com/tdf04/listenlive.html Maybe I'll get something done AFTER lunch…

UPDATE: The smackdown has been laid. 39:41. Faster than Jan Ullrich's 2nd place finish by 1:01.