A-League scheduling still relatively calm, most people still are seated Timbers GM Jim Taylor confers with Tim Holt Rochester's Chris Economides working with Minnesota's Buzz Lagos and Jim Froslid The last two A-League Champions, Montreal and Charleston, working out details Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, and Virginia Beach all working together The meeting becomes more frenzied, on their feet and down to the east end of the room Down the hall, PDL and W-League teams also hard at work on their 2005 fixture lists Various vendors have booths set up around the perimeter of the main room

I stopped in about an hour after the meeting had begun, and it was already in full swing. By this time, the group was separated onto two tables, with a few stragglers off in the corners of the room. I sat with Amanda Miller and David Vaudreuil for awhile as we watched the fray, which eventually seemed to migrate down to one end of the room for reasons that I can't quite explain, but just about every team's representatives (each team was allowed two) were identified by their shirts, so it was easy to tell who was who. Each had their calendar with them as they negotiated for open dates, usually trying to work back and forth within a "travel group" as one team's representative might talk to a Richmond representative, then over to someone from Virginia Beach, then back to Richmond and so on as they tried to work out a two-game swing. Some teams always had their representatives working in pairs, while other split up to negotiate two different games at the same time.

From an observer's point of view, it was also interesting to see the trickle down effect when apparently one conflict would cause a need for another game to be moved, which would cause another game to need to be moved and so on, moving down through 3 or 4 groups before some type of resolution could be achieved (or not). Before too long almost everybody was on their feet and had moved to the east end of the room, with Tim Holt being available to make a decision when some type of conflict needed a resolution, and this seemed to become more and more necessary even during the 45 minutes I was able to observe, until at one point Tim had to interrupt to "lay down the law", so to speak, and then the fray quickly resumed.

It's a very intense process to observe, and I'm sure that's nothing compared to actually having to be in the middle of it. I can only speculate from what I observed that it takes an awful lot of work just to get a game scheduled, or more accurately, a series of two or three games as the teams are usually working with travel partners, but it appeared that actually keeping those games on the schedule once agreed to was just as difficult as the trickle-down effect often required re-negotiation.

Eventually I wandered just down the hall and around the corner to see the PDL and W-League scheduling, which seemed a little more calm at least to my eyes, but was a much larger group of teams so they used the large room where the Opening General Session and Hall of Fame Presentation had taken place the day before.

I slipped away from the hotel for a few hours and grabbed a late breakfast, and when I returned about two hours later, the A-League room was still in full swing, with the PSL still working out their schedule just across the hall. Around the corner in the large room, where the PDL and W-League scheduling seemed to be winding down, several vendors still had their booths set up around the perimeter of the room, and a few people were were enjoying getting away from the scheduling madness, either playing FIFA 2005 on an Xbox at one display, or watching a DC United/Columbus MLS replay at another, while others browsed the other displays. Box lunches had arrived by this point and everybody seemed happy just to have made it to lunch, as the scheduling madness is the most hectic part of the entire AOM, according to just about everyone I had a chance to talk to.

The afternoon was filled with meetings concerning mostly player issues that I had no interest in, but later in the evening there was another gathering, a reception on the deck that sits right up against the beach, and another chance to talk to some of the people I have met in the last two days, and to meet a few more. Yesterday's article was read by a few people who are attending the meetings here in Clearwater Beach, and I was glad to hear that many of the other people at the meeting had reacted exactly how I did to Marcie Laumann's emotional speech the previous evening. One thing I always have to keep in mind is that the people who make this league and its teams work aren't just GM's, coaches, and other front office staff, they are also fans. So in one respect I can say I'm the only "fan" in attendance down here, but that's hardly true. I guess I'll have to resort to probably being the only Unix Administrator in attendance (though one never knows).

Tomorrow is the last day of the AOM, with league meetings in the morning and soccer on the beach and a barbecue in the afternoon. Maybe I'll finally get that elusive sunset shot tomorrow, as I dozed through sunset this evening.

Signing off from room 452..