Day One Competition

Had the opportunity to sit (I have to tell you about this) and watch a lot of the competitions today. Saw the American women's VB team beat Japan, attempted to watch fencing - that is not exciting at all except that the American women swept - gold, silver, and bronze.

Swimming heats came up next - but they are heats and not terribly exciting either. Watched an American men's beach VB team get smoked by Latvia - that wasn't supposed to happen - hope they recover in pool play to get back in the game.

Here's what happened to me yesterday - I lost in a battle with a rose bush. I really hate my rose bushes and made the decision to get rid of them. Cut them back and then needed to dig them out - luckily there are only two of them. So I tried to dig one out and the ground was a little too hard. Jumped on the top of the shovel in an attempt to dig it deeper into the ground and my foot slipped and I fell backwards hitting my right butt cheek on the landscaping wall - today I have a beauty of a bruise and it's painful for me to sit down.

Right now the countdown has begun to the first gold medal attempt by Michael Phelps - the TV just flashed up 13 minutes.

Talk about pressure!

Opening Ceremonies

I am so naive - I did question in my mind, what the time difference would be between the US and China. But my husband was the one that said, "you know this is going to be a recording, don't you?" Well, no, I was thinking it would be live - but of course, it wasn't.

That does not diminish all the cool stuff they had - but, for $300 million dollars, it should be pretty freakin outstanding.

I really couldn't see any of the athletes from the American team that I wanted to see in the parade of athletes - they mostly focused on the basketball players and the women's beach volleyball - gee, now why would they do that?

I have to say that GB was looking pretty bored throughout the whole thing, but at least he stood and cheered on the US team when they marched in.

It's amazing how many countries I've never heard of and have no idea where they are - geography changes daily it seems.

They talked about the 2000 Sydney Olympics and some guy from some small country that barely could swim the 100 free. I was wondering how that happened since I know there are time standards that you have to meet in order to go to the trials. I ended up googling this and found out that there were some invitations to very small countries that allowed them to come to the Olympics since they likely never would be able to do so. I saw a film clip of this guy from Equatorial Guinea swimming his heat by himself since the other competitors in his heat were disqualified due to false starts. He was awful and just barely finished the swim. I think the article stated there was a female swimmer from the same country who was even worse.

I fell asleep during the parade of athletes but woke up in time to see them light the torch. The whole production was technologically phenomenal - but now - on with the Games!!

Let me also add that NBC does get the gold medal for number of commercial breaks - I'm pretty sure there was a break at least every 5 minutes.

Random Observations

Penguins move through the water by spinning their tails - have you seen their tails, they're very small but look like a rotary engine.

I can't flip turn if I hit the wall with my left hand.

My granddaughter said she won't get lost in the tunnel because she has "light-tricity".

Dara Torres spends over $100,000 a year on physical and massage therapists. She gets stretched about 8 hours a day - who has that kind of money and/or time???

No couple is ever happy for long on a soap opera - someone or something always messes it up.

Day One - 8/8/08

Opening Ceremonies are tonight. I'm currently watching the morning hype on the Today Show. They are promising an uber-something or other experience - whatever that means. But for me, it means I'm already very excited and ready to watch. Can't wait to see the USA team marching into the stadium.

OK - on another note regarding the Today Show, what are these dresses that Meredith Viera and Ann Curry are wearing - they are awful. I'm not a fashion maven, but Meredith is wearing a sack for a dress today. It's awful.

My Olympic Adventure

OK - so I won't be in Beijing or won't be competing - but in my very own way, I will be a participant in the Olympics. All of the ahtletes seem to be keeping a journal or blog, so I will do the same.

Every day of the Olympics, I will try to post my feelings about the races that I will be watching. As I stated - I can't wait - I LUV the summer Olympics!

My Latest Triathlon Challenge

This is a triathlon challenge because it deals with triathlon - however, it has nothing to do with me racing a triathlon. What does that mean, you ask? I participated in the Hyvee Triathlon, but my main reason for going there was to watch the pros as they tried to qualify for the final Olympic slots for the USA. Particularly since one of the athletes is a local girl from St. Louis - Sarah Haskins.

She got that slot - thank goodness! But the highlight is that the event was to be on national TV! I had set up my DVR to record the event. Spent the entire week waiting to sit down and watch the event. Got home in time to fix my lunch and sit down to watch the event and then when changing the station to NBC at the assigned time, I realized that the EVENT was not on but the Cards baseball game was on instead. OK - I love baseball and the Cards. In fact, I was incredibly lucky to be at the World Series winner in 2006 - BUTTTTTT, I really wanted to watch that triathlon.

I tried calling Dish Network - as it showed up in their guide for a station labelled WXIA - which did not exist on my program guide - but sometimes that happens and they can add it. The girl I got on the phone was pretty much an idiot and insisted that she couldn't find the program. HOWEVER, I'm on the dish network website looking at the Dish Network program guide - I had to argue with this girl for 10 minutes before she indicated that the station was regional and not available in my area - ughhhhh.

So, for the moment I had to give up. But, perhaps I could purchase a DVD of the broadcase from somewhere. Sent an email to our local NBC affiliate - the answer was that there was no plan to broadcase the event at a later date or time and that it was only a backup in case of a rainout for the baseball game. Also, no DVD available from them.

Next shot was looking for something on the Hyvee Triathlon website. Nothing. But, found the race director's email and thought he might know. I got an email back from him that indicated that I should give him a call. Tried to do that a couple of times with no success - got his secretary, left a message - but he never called back.

Today, I thought about contacting the local NBC affiliate in Des Moines - which happens to be WHO-TV (not WXIA which seems to be a station in Atlanta as best as I can tell). So I sent them an email asking about a possibility of getting a recording of that broadcast. So for now, I'm still waiting.

If anybody reads this and knows of a way to get that recording, PLEASE let me know. I really want it. I'm throwing everything I've got into this effort. Will it turn out as a DNF????