Crib Action

My travels that took me from Shanghai to Atlanta, Atlanta to Orlando was not bad at all. I was dreading the 14 hours on the first leg, but I was in the A in no time. It felt good to place my feet on U.S. soil and switch my phone on and make a call to Bren, letting her know I was in the States.

It was pretty crazy in the airport, people kept coming up to me asking for pictures and autographs, two girls came sprinting over before I hoped on the train to get to the A gate. I sarcastically asked them why did they want to take a picture with me? They replied "You're famous now!", I said "No, not really." Tiffany got a kick out of that. I definitely wasn't expecting that, not in the United States.

On the flight to Orlando, a woman sitting next to me engaged me in conversation once we landed. She wanted to know about this watch I had on. I had on the Nike watch that we received when you made the Olympic Team. So I took it off so she could look at it, she saw the USA logo on the back of the watch and asked me about it. I told her how I got it and we started to talk about the Olympics. She is from Orlando, her husband is really in to track and he competes in marathons often and if she would have known earlier, she would have let him sit next to me so we could talk about running. She was telling me how there was this guy that ran the hurdles who she was reading about in the Orlando Sentinel and kept hearing about on the news. I told her "really" and just left it at that. She never asked me my name or what I did, she just knew I went to the Olympics, then after we de-boarded the plane, she came up to me again with her husband and asked me to sign the back of her plane ticket. She wanted to know why I didn't say anything and that her husband knew who I was. I just told her that I like to lay low.

It felt good to be back at home though. When I entered my room, I had tons of mail and boxes all over the place. I proceeded to open it all up. I had letters of congratulations from representatives in the White House such as Mark E. Udall, 2nd District, Colorado and Mel Martinez from the U.S. Senate representing Florida. I also received a letter from my sprint/hurdle coach from Howard, Carmelia Shivers. I was so excited when I saw I had a letter from her. She was at Howard my freshman and sophomore years, I hadn't talked to her since 2003. I always knew she was keeping close tabs on me from afar, I am happy that I have an address for her now. She had a great relationship with my mom and my uncle Randy. I will write her back as soon as I get a chance.

Not all things have been good though. Something is terribly wrong with my Jag, I had a trunk full of water. The trunk is where the battery and electrical stuff is, so needless to say, it wouldn't start or anything. I just had a tow truck take it over to my guy so he can look at it and fix whatever is the problem, hopefully I will just need a new battery. I don't have a garage here, so before I left I bought a car cover and Aub put it on for me, but due to those strong storms that were blowing through Florida this summer, it stood no chance of staying on.

One bad thing can't possibly blow the high I am still on. It is going to be a very arduous process of unpacking, as I type right now I am looking at a living room full of suitcases and things to be unpacked.

I am doing the Fox Morning Show here in Orlando tomorrow morning, my first engagement in a long list of them, then I will be hoping on a plane to go to my favorite city in America, Washington D.C. where I will be honored by Howard University at Opening Convocation this weekend.