Hello from tomorrow. And what a great day it is.

Sunday morning, I arrived in Sydney—because of the time difference, I missed Saturday altogether—and began part two of my tour of the most beautiful beaches in the world. For this leg, I am staying on Bondi Beach, which has become something of a cosmopolitan celebrity haven. After catching up on work and touring the beach, I met our photographer, Scott Needham, and had a terrific dinner at Long Grain in downtown Sydney. (Another suggestion, if you're ever in the area, North Bondi Italian and Icebergs. Great food; amazing views.)

I'm here to write a story about the Bra Boys, a local surf gang from Maroubra Beach that I suspect you will hear a lot about in the next year or so. Their documentary, Bra Boys, was released in Australia last year and is the second-highest-grossing Australian feature film ever, after Happy Feet. Proving my theory: People love penguins. Just think what Bra Boys could have grossed had they thrown in a penguin or two. (Take note, Russel Crowe!)

The documentary debuts in the U.S. at the X-Dance film festival in Park City, Utah, in January and will be released in theaters/video stores in March. Russell Crowe/Brian Granger/Imagine bought the documentary, as well as the life rights to the three Abberton brothers, who the film centers around. The Hollywood film will be Crowe's directorial debut. He told the guys he believes Bra Boys will be his Braveheart.

Yesterday, I was in Maroubra, Australia, sitting on Koby Abberton's balcony and staring out at the most beautiful beach in Sydney. (I had a plane to catch, so I stayed out of the water, but I had the opportunity to surf Dunny Bowl with the Boys the day before.) It was about 85 degrees out when I headed to the airport. It was also much, much too soon.

Today, I am in Breckenridge, Colorado, where I am reporting a story on snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler. I landed in Denver last night and was met by a snow storm that ended about two hours ago. It was 9 degrees out when I came back from dinner this evening.

Gotta love the miracle of travel.

Tomorrow, work begins. (If you consider a 7am wakeup call to ride Vail with Gretchen and the Oakley crew work.) But today I took such a fun break.

The strangest thing about my job is that although I get to meet and spend time with some of the most interesting, ambitious, inspiring people in the sports world, and often find true friends in the process, the majority of folks I write about are essentially spending time with me because someone told them they have to. Today, because of some fortunate coincidences, I got to spend the day snowboarding with four of my friends who happened to be in Denver on my day off.

It was nice to spend my Saturday with people who weren't hanging out with me because their PR agent told them it was a good idea. Because of the storm, it took us three hours to drive what should have been an hour-and-a-half distance, and because my friends Kim, Timm, Bernie and Tom, had to be back in Denver this evening, we only got about three hours to ride together. But damn, they were three fun hours.

YESTERDAY (surfing in Maroubra) ...

TODAY (riding at Breck) ...

Yesterday, after arriving home on a flight from Milan, my friend Lindsay sent me an e-mail. "If you want to make yourself feel like a total moron," she said, "sit next to an Oxford-educated combustion scientist for nine hours."

Well, if you want to make yourself feel like a slow Florida girl trying to pass herself off as a decent snowboarder, spend the day riding powder with Gretchen Bleiler.

Just when I think my travels are taking me to interesting, far-away places, my friend Lindsay Berra is assigned a tennis story. This past week, she took her second trip in four months to Serbia, this time to report a story on Novak Djokovic. Since it may be a long time before any of us visit Serbia's capital city, Lindsay shares her experiences ...

WEIRD, SERBIAN POLKA DANCERS ... (Are there any other kind?)

JANKOVIC, IVANOVIC, DJOKOVIC AND TIPSAREVIC ...

I'm back in New York, and already dreaming of beaches and mountain tops. But, when I landed at LGA on Wednesday night, I remembered NYC at Christmas time is one of my favorite things. (If Oprah visited this month, I'm sure it would be one of hers, too.)

Today was just another ho-hum (or, ho ho ho-hum) day at the office. You know, just like in the SportsCenter commercials, world champions drop by 19 East 34th Street on the regular. Today, fresh off his win over Brit Ricky Hatton, Floyd Mayweather came by to talk shop. I'd tell ya what he dished about, but it was all off the record. I can tell you he was entertaining as hell.

FLOYD SIGNED MY GLOVES, THEN POSED WITH LINDSAY AND ME ...

HE DRESSED FOR THE OCCASION (GUESS PRETTY BOY'S DOING OKAY) ...

File this under: Lessons I learned over Christmas break.

A couple hours after brunch on Christmas day, my mom and I went for a long walk around the neighborhood. (Which is something you can do when you spend Christmas in southwest Florida, and the temp is a bone-chilling 85 degrees. Brrr.)

About mid-way through the walk, I started thinking about Christmas day when I was 12 or 13, the age of my niece Karlee. Back then, I could barely wait for everyone to clear out so I could grab whatever new bike/scooter/glove/bat Santa brought and head outside to test it. You couldn't walk 10 feet in my neighborhood without running into a group of kids playing in the street.

But this year, I noticed something very different: absolute quiet. Twenty minutes into our walk, I hadn't seen a single kid. "Where is everyone?" I asked my mom. "Did all the families with young kids move out of the neighborhood?"

"There are tons of kids in the neighborhood," she said. "But they're all inside playing Wii and downloading music onto their new laptops." (These were the two big gifts Santa had brought my niece.)

Wow. There you go.

My friends and colleagues and I talk a lot about the childhood obesity epidemic and how kids aren't getting outside enough anymore. About the depressing fact that schools are cutting gym classes and after-school sports activities, but continue filling cafeterias with candy and soda machines. But until Christmas day, I always thought this was something that happened in other cities, where it is too cold to play outside, or the city is too dangerous for playing in the street. I never thought this was happening where I grew up. In a city with perfect weather nearly 300 days a year.

Talk about a Christmas buzzkill.