I thought I would take the opportunity to just rub it in a bit, while I can, before i have to head back to the NZ winter.

Today was my first real day of work here, setting up the venue. It is quite different to Karapiro. (Thank god they don't have any stairs, climbing them in the heat would have killed me)

Basically the whole venue revolves around this big tent that looks like a circus tent. Checkin, timing, results, admin, course judges, area coordinators, and announcing are all jammed in under the one tent. We won't need any radio's because you will be able to see the person you want to talk too.

This is Anthony, he is the tech guru over here. He came down and helped to install all the computers and the networks for us today.

He paddles for "Kamalii o ke kai" outrigger canoe club, which is in San Jose. San Jose is about 2 hours to the west of Sacramento, close to the sea.

He couldn't believe that we don't have "root beer" back home, so he is going to bring some of his favourite "root beer" for me to try, when he comes back next week.

Monday is the next big day here. The blessing of the canoes is now at 6am Monday, and the opening ceremony at 4pm Monday.

Now, some of the womens teams, headed down to San Francisco yesterday, and competed in the Round the Rock, race around Alcatraz. I have heard that they placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the short course (about 7km race). Way to go girls.

Now I was supposed to have some photos of the Alcatraz race for you guys to check out, but Ralph has let me down, he said he was going to email them though tonight. Hopefully I get them tomorrow.... So in the meantime i pinched this photo from the Round the Rock website.

I didn't get much time for photos today, and I probably won't get much of a chance tomorrow either.. so here are a couple of shots i took earlier in the week.

Junior Boys Squad	Junior Boys Management
Womens Squad	Womens Squad