On the podium at the Winter Olympics

I love the Winter Olympics, and they'll be starting in just a few weeks.  Woo Hoo!

I enjoy them more than the Summer Olympics because the events seem much more exotic, at least to this Texas boy.  I mean, I can swim, just not as fast as Michael Phelps.  And I can run, just not as fast as that gazelle from Jamaica.  I've thrown a shot put, and somehow avoided squashing my own feet.  Ride a bicycle....check.  And I've been on parallel bars, too....I even managed a non-lethal dismount.  Been there, done that.  *thank you....thank you very much*

But I've never been on a bobsled. (I've never even seen a boblsed.)   I think that would be a hoot!  I'd be happy just to be the #4 guy, sitting back there holding on for dear life. 

Or the luge.  I'd love to give that a try.  Even if I couldn't steer, I would think you'd just bounce off the sides of that chute a little and let gravity do the rest.  Right?

Skating....OK, I have done that. ( We have ice skating rinks inside malls here.)  But I didn't go very fast.  In fact, if I'd been going that slow on a bicycle I would have fallen over.

Oooo....downhill skiing!  I can't imagine what it would be like to be going 80mph on skis!

The one event that most appeals to me, though, is ski jumping.  It combines my fascination with flying and my love of mountains and (no offense Yankee friends) snow.

Imagine stepping out onto that incline thing and getting up a head of steam and at the end, giving it a supreme spring and....

....then you're flying.  :)  How cool would that be?  I wonder how those guys got started?  Think I could do it?

Sure, I doubt my form would be all that good at first.

I'm sure it's not easy.  Still, how hard could it really be?

 I mean, gravity will see to it that you get to the bottom, one way or another.

*gulp*  Or, I could just sit in my den and watch the Olympics on TV.  

 Just like I've been doing ever since 1960.  Yeah, let's go with that.  They can just mail me my medal later.  (Besides, I don't think I'd look very good in Spandex.)  

I can't wait!  :)

S

Yacht racing on the high plains, and I was there!

So last night K went to an "Arrivederci, love you / mean it" party for one of her co-workers who is going on to law school, leaving me home alone to fend for myself.  That didn't bother me at all as I actually enjoy my own company and had a plethora of books to read, a big-enough TV to watch, and more than one bottle of vino.

While channel surfing I stumbled across one of the Louis Vuitton Challenge Cup races from San Francisco.  This is the series of races that determines who the challenger will be versus the reigning champ Oracle boat in the America's Cup (yacht racing).  I was absolutely mesmerized by what these things can do!

This is Luna Rossa, the Italian entry.

What I didn't fully understand until they explained it last night, if the skipper is really on his toes and can balance his boat just right, these 72' catamarans can actually rise out of the water, riding on just a couple of curved foils (like underwater wings), the hulls never touching the water.  This reduces drag and enables them to go well over 40 mph. 

It seems to me they're as much airplane as boat.  It's like watching a ballet, the dancer precariously balanced on her tippy-toes.

I think things like this appeal to me so much because they are unlike anything I'll ever see here in Dallas, Tx, USA.  It's sort of like downhill skiing or the luge in the winter Olympics.

I wonder if people who live in the mountains ever just sit around and think, "Oh man, I'd love to see people walking on flat ground, just standing there....sweating.  I wonder if there's a cable channel that shows cool stuff like that?"

Have a great Saturday everyone.  I've gotta get going....I have a big day planned.  I'm gonna stand here on flat ground....and sweat.  :)

S

Things are looking up!

To me this time of the year is just a huge sports "black hole".  I'll say right up front I'm not a sports (plural) fan.  I'm a FOOTBALL fan.  (And I'd best clarify that and say American football.)  I start to perk up when spring training begins, am on top of the world from September through the January bowl games, kinda coast through the pro football playoffs, then go into hibernation after the Super Bowl.  I really enjoy the Winter Olympic Games because to a Texan winter sports is the epitome of "exotic", but they're still a full year away so there's no sense getting excited about them yet.

I'm definitely a product of my upbringing.  Here in Texas football is King.  Twenty thousand will turn out for a high school football game, maybe a few hundred for a high school basketball game, and less than that for a high school baseball game.  The same ratio probably holds for college sports, too.  Hockey is a northern sport imported here when all the Yanks began heading south 30 years ago, and soccer is here because....well, I have no idea why soccer is here.  Golf for me is a near-death experience.

K has taken the lead on solving our off-season sports dilemma by introducing a new one for us to latch on to:  Rugby.  She chose rugby because last weekend she was channel surfing and there they were...the Northampton Saints VS Gloucester Rugby.  She decided Northampton would be her team because she liked the color of their shorts and T-shirts, and one of their guys flashed his tooth during a post-game interview.  Apparently there's nothing sexier than a guy wearing short shorts and showing off his last remaining tooth.

I must admit I found it to be rather entertaining, too.  They get in a big huddle, throw a f__ked up looking football in the middle, and have at it.  It's like tackle football, only without pads.  Or helmets.  It's not a game for wusses, for sure!

She was all heartbroken when she found out her team wouldn't be on the "telly" today.  But being the avid Northhampton fan that she has become she's following them via streaming live internet (audio only).  Now I've listened to many a football game on the radio, but at least I understood the terminology.  When the announcer said "the quarterback took the snap and ran left on a naked bootleg", I could "see" that in my mind.  

The only thing that made (sorta) sense to me on the streaming live audio rugby game K is listening to was when the announcer said the game was "simmering nicely".  Ohhh....now they're talking about "attacking".  I can almost see the bloody slobber and protruding bones.  I think I might like rugby!  

It's halftime.  Gotta go make nachos.  ;)

S

They didn't think this through very well

We're days away from the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  I personally prefer the Winter Olympics because to this Texas boy, ski jumping and bobsledding and downhill skiing are pretty exotic sports.  The Summer Olympics with its running and swimming and spear chucking is something kids around here do from the age of 3 on.  Well, we don't start chucking spears until 6, but...it just doesn't seem that exotic.   With a couple of notable exceptions:

Gymnastics....I love watching the girls and guys jump 10 feet in the air flatfooted, then do 8 flips with 6 twists before they hit the ground standing up.  Dang....that's impressive!  And swinging around those uneven parallel bars, bending themselves into shapes that would put me in the hospital....again, impressive!

Women's Beach Volleyball....I love watching tall, svelte, tan girls wearing bikinis bouncing a ball over a net.  Actually I love watching tall, svelte, tan girls wearing bikinis just standing there!  


Unfortunately I don't think the International Olympic Committee thought things through very well when they awarded the 2012 Games to London.  Not because it isn't a great city.  It is!  It's a magnificent city I'd love to go back to again and again.   No, because it's too cold for the women's beach volleyball players to wear their traditional bikinis.  I've heard that instead of bikinis they'll be wearing the beachwear equivalent of long johns.  The athletes say with temps in the 60's they'll need to keep their muscles warm to prevent injury, hence the cover up.

I'm sorry, but this just ain't right!

S