A Racers reunion in Beijing

For those of you that know me, you know that I used to work for the Omaha Racers as their radio voice. For those that don't know me, now you know that I used to work for the Omaha Racers as their radio voice.

During the time of the Racers, Mike Thibault was the coach. Coach T was a very well known and, as far as I know, well liked Omaha sports figure. He and his wife Nanci were kind enough to serve as the host couple at our wedding.

Well, today in Beijing of all places, we got the chance to catch up a little bit. Coach T is now the head coach of the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA, and is an assistant with the USA Women's Basketball team. I went to their practice earlier today and spent a little time with Coach T, who is doing quite well.

On the way back from women's basketball practice today, I also got the chance to learn how to say, "Sorry" to our cab driver. You see, there's not much English being spoken in Beijing, despite the campaign to teach English. The cab driver had no idea how to find the International Broadcast Center, despite our Chinese instructions. So, I figured with the signs, I could direct him to the IBC. Boy was I wrong. I told him the wrong way to go and all of a sudden we were going the wrong way in Opening Ceremonies traffic.

After a heated exchange with a policeman that resulted in our cabbie getting out of the cab to yell at the cop, we made our way in the right direction. Now, I've not picked up much Chinese in my first week, but I think I understand enough to know that he was cursing me out the entire way to the IBC. My response was, of course, to explain politely that a cabbie should know where the IBC was, but again, that whole language thing kept him from getting the point.

So, I called our Chinese speaking person, Allen, who told me that sorry was pronounced "doy-boo-chee." Yes, it was me who said I'm sorry, averting a likely international incident between the U.S. and China. When our country is safe tomorrow, you can thank me for being man enough to apologize.

Incidentally, he just laughed at me when I said "doy-boo-chee" and drove off, so we may not be out of the woods just yet.