Tomorrow, it gets a little more serious

For the main contenders of the Tour de France, the race in effect begins tomorrow with a trip into the Vosges Mountains. Today though was for the sprinters as the race took the riders from Luneville, then across the German border, finishing in Karlsruhe. Coming into today, a German rider had never won a Tour stage when the race finished on German soil. Fabian Wegmann tried his best to end that string, but he was gobbled up by the field with around 15 miles to go. The sprinters took it from there, with Robbie McEwen getting his 2nd stage win. Of course, what would a day in the Tour be without 2 more crashes. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.

At around 7pm, it looked like history was going to be made in the Quad Cities. Michelle Wie was ahead of the cut line by one stroke with four holes to play. But she proceeded to play the next two holes double bogey-bogey to finish 2 behind the cut line and shoot an even-par 71 for the day. Wie's undoing came on one of the easier holes on the course, a short 350-yard Par 4, which she bogeyed yesterday. Instead of playing safe off the tee with an iron, she hit 3-wood, which ran through the fairway and into a fairway bunker. This was a big mental mistake by her and her caddy. She could've hit 3-iron and still had only 120 yards into the green. She drew a bad lie in the fairway bunker, causing her to hit into the greenside bunker, which led to the double. Visibly shaken by what took place, she hit a really poor 4-iron on the par3 7th, missing the green badly. Credit to Wie for finishing with 2 strong pars, but again, you could see the pressure get to her down the stretch. Yes, she's only 15, but she's going to have to get used to dealing with pressure like this. I still think she should play more events against girls her own age, learn how to win, and learn how to deal with the pressure. If she never learns how to deal with the pressure, she could be setting herself up for disaster later on.

I went and saw "War of the Worlds" today, and it was very good, but the ending was very abrupt. Suddenly, the movie ended. I'm going to have to read the book to see how it ended, but I was looking for more in the ending. Dakota Fanning, the little girl, is outstanding.