Olympics

Torino, Italy - Im at the olympics now, been here since Friday. On Friday night we went to the opening ceremonies. Cheapest ticket was $250 but we were able to scalp for $150 each. Ceremonies were pretty cool, alot going on at once and at time visually overwhelming. Cool to be there as it really made us feel apart of the games. Afterwards I went to a few bars in torino but was real beat and headed back to our hotel kind of early (weak lhoops, weak).

Saturday, Jamie, our friend we met in israel and lives in milan, met us. Good to see her and a welcome addition as me and jen have run out of things to say to each other and kind of just communicate by staring at each other, mumbling, and her throwing shit at me when i snore in my sleep.

Yesterday, we decided to go to speedskating, mens 5k, at the last minute. Amazing move as we saw Texas Chad Hendrick win America's first gold medal. The event was neat. Almost all the fans their were Dutch, as speedskating is the only winter sport they are good at. The place was roaring when the dutch guys took the first and second spots but then Hendrick raced and blew everybody away. He won by over two seconds and just missed an olympic record. As he was taking his cool down lap he skated passed our section and us three being the only americans were cheering like crazy. As he skated by he saw us and screamed out to us in celebration. Cool moment.

Speedskating is kind of funny to watch. Part intuition to try and figure out who is going the fastest, but its mostly waiting to see the guys time for each lap and measure their splits against the other racers. After a while you get the hang of it.
1)Watch skaters skates past you
2)cheer
3)wait till they finish their lap
4)look at the scorboard
5)do a little math in your head to figure out if they are fast
6)cheer

Then last night we went to the Holland Heineken House which was basically a big party that anybody could get into. Had about 6 or 7 Heine's and then went ice skating on a small skating ring inside of the tent. Let me tell you, Hendrick need not worry about me on the ice.

So far my pull between CSTV, lisa at the NHL, and other random contacts hasnt got me much good stuff. I just emailed Jonny Mosley via my old boss at CSTV, and we will see if he writes back. Judging from our lunch with big air this summer it would be miraculous if he knows how to use email.

Today we are going to halfpipe to see the Flying Tomato Shaun White and then to short track to see Ohno. Psyched for both events. Missing out on the downhill which should be huge with bode and darren rahlves but heard you can see only very little in person and the halfpipe should be festive.