The Power of Dew

I had a nice conversation with Bobby G today. Based on what we talked about, I can provide you with his update. Here goes...things are good. The beer cooler remains stocked, the cars are reaching their destinations and he is still rubbing elbows with the heavy hitters....there is other stuff, but I will leave it to him to update all of you on when he gets a chance.

As for those of us in the Village, life has been good. Before I give any updates, just wanted to provide the answer to a couple of questions I recently received on email.

Best pasta dish and pizza I have had since being here...believe it or not, good old salami (i.e. pepperoni). There is a place near the Village that has awesome pizza. The strangest pizza I have had was ham, cheese and it had an egg cooked and put in the middle of it. Egg yolk and pizza - nice. Best pasta...all of it - serioulsy (even in the Village). The lasagna is different from what we think, but is awesome. Anything with pesto - great and today they even broke out some ravioli. It has all been good.

Athletes to watch who you have not heard of - probably I would go with Tanith Belbin an ice dancer. Mainly because she is a new US citizen (just happened before the Games) and she is from Michigan. Come on, it is all about the mitten.

Two days ago was horrible. That was the day that the snowboard athlete decided to finish with flair and instead wiped out and grabbed silver. Then the US women lost in hockey. What is hard for many to understand is the absolute "life and death" approach we take when watching these events. We huddle around our few tvs in the office in the Village and watch. During the snowboard race Eric was yelling at the tv and saying "just don't fall" and sure enough she did. Brutal. Then we had the Sweden versus US hockey game. When the Swedish player made that shootout goal, everyone went silent. No one really knew what to say.

The good news is that in the Olympics there are medal possibilities everyday...and the "day after" we had some success. Thank goodness - we needed it. The entire US delegation needed to have something positive happen and it did. Shani and Joey in the 1000 started it off. Two of our staffers (Eric and Keith) wandered over to see the event. The rest of us stayed in the office and watched it on TV. Talk about exciting, that event was amazing. We had probably 6 of us in this office and there were at least that many in the medical offices. The yelling and encouraging that was happening was awesome. The two medals those guys won lifted everyone's spirits. That night Apolo took bronze and we ended up with a three medal day...one of each color.

You have no idea what something like that does to the entire delegation. It changes the atmosphere - especially in the Torino Village where those sports are housed. We needed those medals.

To top it off, those three medal winners all traveled to Medals Plaza from this village - which meant that we went with them. Michelle was in Joey's car with him, Keith rode in with Apolo, and I was with Shani. What that means is we each had about 20 minutes or so of time to talk with each of these Olympic champions. I know that talking with Shani was tremendous. Hearing what he wants to do with his life was great - he talked about becoming a school teacher and coaching. That should make many of you who are teachers proud.

Once we got them all to Medals Plaza we hooked them up with their agents, or in Apolo's case with his dad, and we went on our way. The snow last night was awesome and made the ceremony look great. But, it was wet and heavy. Those of us who walked through a lot of it can attest to how wet it was. It has been very warm here, so that snow was doomed. The good news is that our favorite snow plow guy had three others helping him. So last night we got to see four snow plows, with the plows on backwards, dragging snow around. It could have been a new event - synchronized plowing. They would have scored a 2.3 had it been judged.

A quick thing about the men's hockey team. Do not give up on them. This is a long tournament.

I had one of those random village moments a couple of days ago. Two Croatian figure skating women were eating lunch. In walked two Japanese guys (no idea what sport). There was some english spoken (it was funny to listen to) and then a pin exchange. It was great. As I have said before, pins are like gold here.

Okay, so we have entered the stretch run of these Olympic Games. At times it seems like we just got here, there are other times when it seems like we have been forever. A lot has happened. This opportunity to be here - to work with these athletes, coaches, administrators and fellow USOC staff - is tremendous. I would not change a thing. There is a great amount of pride we all have just to be associated with the Games.

For those of you who have asked - the Dew supply is holding tight. I even sent two Dew's to the mountains for a couple of the fellas. They were very happy. Sometimes it is the little things that make a difference.

Talk with you soon. Keep cheering for the USA.