Christmas Came Early

for Joe anyway!

There was a USO tour this week and Lance Armstrong was among the group who went. The others were Robin Williams, Kid Rock, Miss USA, and Lewis Black (another comedian).

Joe is a huge Lance Armstrong fan...road biking is one of his hobbies (and I know he's missing not being able to ride!). When he first wanted to buy a road bike and told me how much it cost I was stunned - for a bike?! Seriously? I had no idea they were so expensive...and then all the accessories to go along with it. Special wheels and frames and what not. So I used to tease him about thinking he was going to race the Tour de France one day.

So to hear that Lance was going to be at his location was very exciting news indeed! He was able to shake his hand and get a autograph, at the expense of snubbing Robin Williams no less!

I won't be able to tell the story as well as Joe did, but it was too funny not to share, and I'm sure he knew this would make it to my blog :)

They were told there actually wasn't going to be any time for autographs, but you're not really going to be able to stop people from trying; and most people were getting autographs - albeit very quickly! They took the troops up on the stage in groups of 20 for a group picture with them standing behind the celebrities. Then they would herd you off the stage telling you to hurry and move on. Joe had his hat off to hand over for an autograph and started to say "Mr." but before he could finish Robin Williams grabbed his hat from him and Joe said something like, "oh I was going to ask Mr. Armstrong for his autograph." and Robin said "ok" and passed the hat to Lance. Joe realized what he just said and how it came out and felt so embarrassed! He told Robin, "but I want your autograph too" and was stuttering out an apology when Robin just laughed and told him it was ok and not a problem and he understood.

I told Joe I couldn't believe he pretty much told Robin Williams he didn't want his autograph! I asked if he got his autograph after getting his hat back and he said he couldn't, there just wasn't time. After he got off the stage he stood there thinking, "I can't believe I just dissed Robin Williams like that!" Hahaha...it all happened so quickly though and I know given a choice of getting just one autograph Joe would really want Lance's. I couldn't stop laughing at the image of him telling Robin it was Lance's autograph he wanted, although he would have got both if he had the time.

Here is the group picture: It's actually a pretty big size picture where you can see everyone up close, if you click on it maybe it'll be bigger. Joe is last guy on the left standing up behind the guy kneeling down.


So I guess this has made the whole deployment worthwhile now!