Conversations With Emily #7132897

While watching the finalists line-up for the 110 meter men's high hurdles.

Me Oliver looks like he's dirty, but I have to cheer for him. He is an American afterall. (Editor's Note: Dirty = performance enhancing drugs. Click here to judge for yourself.)

Emily What about Urkel? Aren't you going to cheer for him?

By Urkel she, of course meant Dayron Robles, who won the event.

Click here to judge for yourself.



Urkel indeed. She called the winner of the race. She made an Urkel reference.

Well played.

Hurricane vs. Blizzard

What happens when the Olympics meets the Minnesota State Fair head on? We'll find out this weekend, when they co-occur. Maybe Emily and I will just deep fry all our meals this weekend and watch the Olympics in our backyard and encourage people to walk all over our backyard. Then we can experience the Olympics as if we were at the State Fair.

Actually, we are doing the Milk Run again this year. Click here for Emily's full preview.

Random Question #425

Trampoline is an Olympic event. What the shit?

Class Acts

a quick Olympic post. Michael Phelps has amazed not only for what he has accomplished, but with how he has handled himself througout. Cool and classy in victory.

And Tyson Gay impressed me even more in defeat. No Handle Chad has blogged in the past about alibis and running. Gay had a built in alibi. The trackside reporter, Bob Neumeyer (sp?) even tried to hand it to him after Gay didn't make it out of the semi-finals. But Gay refused to accept it. No excuses. He tried his hardest and it wasn't good enough.

I find as much inspiration in that as I do in what Phelps accomplished.

"He's Doing Another Feet-First Dive!"

All of us normal folks know we would look ridiculous in the Olympics. The question is, which event would I look the most ridiculous participating in? Remember: I'd be wearing the same garb as the other athletes and competing without irony. Imagine me on TV...

5. Diving
Weaknesses: I have never taken swimming lessons and I don't know how to dive in the water head first. Emily impersonated an announcer when I asked her how I'd look in the Olympic diving competition. "Unbelievable! He's doing another feet-first dive!"

Strengths: I can also do a cannonball.

4. Weightlifting
Weaknesses: Good God, have you seen my physique? Even in my weightlifting heyday (college, when I was forced to lift three times a week), the most I benched in reps was 125 pounds.

Strengths: If "Jogging In Place With Heavy Hands" ever becomes a medal event, I'd be awesome.


3. Gymnastics
Weaknesses: I can't touch my toes. I can't do five dips or pull-ups unassisted. All limitations I have for diving and weightlifting would apply here.

Strengths: My dad was an All-American gymnast at Indiana University in the floor exercises. I'm shitting you negative. However, I'm not sure how these genes (that I somehow missed out on) would help me with my floor exercise routine, which would feature doing push-ups, jumping jacks, a few somersaults, and holding some plank positions for 30 seconds. But the scary part is this would be my best gymnastic event (what the hex would I do on the rings, just try to hang on for two minutes?), unless the judges would allow me to treat the vault as if it were a wet jump in the steeplechase.

2. Swimming
Weaknesses: Did I mention I have never taken swimming lessons? I know zero strokes outside of the doggie paddle and I could wing freestyle. Also, I sink like a rock. My natural buoyancy finds me underwater just below my eyes. In college I had a knee injury during one of the cross country seasons, so I worked out in the pool a lot, running in place. Only I had to wear an aquajogger to avoid drowning.



Kind of like floaties for a grown-up.

Strengths: I could at least finish the damn race, assuming it's freestyle... as long as I'm allowed to rest on the lane lines every thirty seconds and hang out on the edge of the pool for a few minutes when I reach the turns.

1. Figure Skating
Weaknesses: I've never been ice skating in my life. So it's like my inability to swim but worse. Figure skating is like floor exercises on ice. I'm screwed.

Strengths: I can't do my somersault and jumping jack routine on the ice, but if the judges let me do some plank on the ice with my skates on, maybe I can pick up half a point that way.

Conversation With Emily #672392

This one was an incredibly short conversation, as Emily had a question I couldn't answer. We were watching the Olympics and they showed footage of the Great Wall of China, high atop the Himalayas.

Emily What's the point of that wall? Did it do any good? I mean if someone could climb that mountain, wouldn't they have no problem climbing over a wall?

Me Silence (Editor's Note: She does have a valid point. I just had no answer).

Oh Mylanta

Yesterday I had an e-mail exchange The Anginator, a fellow Olympic enthusiast about our favorite Olympic moments. This list is not to be confused with The Greatest Olympic Moments. Instead, it is more personal. Simply, which ones mean the most to you. In other words, which ones would you go to YouTube to watch? And seeing as how three of my moments predate me, YouTube is the only way I can go.

5. Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists on the medal stand. Mexico City, 1968. Whether or not you agree with what they did, you have to agree it is one of the most poweful and provocative moments in Olympic history. Carlos and Smith now sound like a couple of grumpy old men sniping at one another. Carlos now says he let Smith win and both bicker over whose idea it was to don the gloves and raise their fists.

Interesting side note: Peter Norman, the Australian silver medalist in the same race (200 m) wore a badge in support of the Project for Human Rights and to support Smith and Carlos. Norman's nephew has made a documentary about the medal ceremony called Salute.

4. Jessie Owens wins four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Sometimes the significance of an event is bigger than the man himself that created it. Owens life post-Olympics matches any fall from grace movie. A pack-a-day smoking habit. Racing horses for money. Bankruptcy. Tax evasion. But that's not how I'll remember him.

Gold medals in the 100 m, 200m, long jump, and 4x100 in front of Hitler. Calling out FDR for not even sending a letter or giving him a phone call after the Olympics. That's how I'll remember him.

3. Billy Mills, 10,000 m, Tokyo, 1964. "LOOK AT MILLS!! LOOK AT MILLS!!" One of the biggest track upsets of all time. You could watch Running Brave or watch the footage below.



But what I would do is rent Tokyo Olympiad. A hidden gem is during the marathon footage you will see Billy Mills is running in the middle of the pack. I had no idea he had doubled in the 10k and the marathon until I saw this documentary. There are some visually stunning moments to this movie. Well worth renting.

2. US men's 4x100 freestyle relay team beat the Frenchies, Bejing, 2008. I don't normally get fired about swimming, but that come from behind victory on Sunday night was special.

1. Miracle On Ice, Lake Placid, 1980 We beat the freaking Russians! I watched five hockey games my entire childhood, growing up in Texas. All five of them were in 1980. Who didn't watch those games? During those games, my mom took me and my sister to the flea market where we bought some of those newfangled tennis shoe rollerskates.

My friends and I tore up the lenoleum in my family's knotty pine rec room acting like we were either a bunch of Eric Heidens or the US Olympic hockey team. I had these giant tinker toys. The green pieces were long enough to be a hockey stick (er, pole) and there was even a piece (a black plastic disk) that could pass as a puck. And that was how we did winter sports in South Texas.

Bejing Magic

That title is a reference only Emily and her sister will get.

Anyway, the Olympics officially open tonight. I am one of 17 people left in this country who is completely freaking stoked! In fact, I'm so excited I had to see my take on the Athens olympics four years ago.

Only two posts came up...
The first post is a lament about the lack of love NBC gave el Guerrouj got for winning gold the 1500 m and 5k in Athens. But as I re-read this post and recall a conversation I had with Fancy Kirk last week (about Morroccans and doping/performance enhancing drugs), I can't help but wonder if el Guerrouj was clean or not in 2004. I have no way of proving anything. But I will say this: they're all probably cheating.

And the second 2004 Olympic-related post is pretty amusing in my opinion. Sure the opening ceremonies were as weird as ever, but not nearly as weird as a camel racing five midgets. And if memory serves correct, I think I still owe Angie a special treat from four years ago. She answered my trivia question at the end of the post. But else would you expect from one of the other 17 people left in America who still loves the Olympics?