The Olympics

I love the Olympics. I especially love the Summer Olympics. I don't know why. I guess I always have. I actually remember when Mary Lou Retton got that perfect 10 on the vault in the '84 Olympics. My mom was folding laundry. I remember cheering for the gymnast Shannon Miller in the '92 Olympics because she was born the day after I was. If you give me a story about an athlete that involves "trials" and "hurdles" and "peaks and valleys", I will be a crying mess. I saw a story before the Olympics even started about a female weight lifter who had an autistic son and I needed half a box of Kleenix.

We are four days into the Olympics and so far I have watched swimming (how could you not, there are 234,718,927,649,812,376 heats and events), gymnastics, volleyball - beach and indoor, sculling (that's rowing), badmiton (the Chinese are ridiculous), weightlifting, archery, synchronized diving (which appears to be popular in Key West, San Francisco and most male owned hair salons), cycling and swimming. I have seen so much swimming that it had to be mentioned twice.

I think because the Summer Olympics only happen every four years, I try and watch and savor as much of it as I can. I have ZERO interest in almost every sport (except volleyball which has a warm place in my heart) played during the 3 11/12 of the year leading up to the Olympics but as soon as it is on, I am suddenly an avid fan of sports like archery. Which Korea won today. Over Italy. No, I'm serious.

The other thing I like are the amazing camera angles that come out during the Olympics. It is as if NBC thinks the same thing I do. "This only happens every four years, lets get as many camera angles as we can!" My favorite is the camera that follows the divers from the platform, through the air and under the water. During diving, they showed each dive from 15 different angles.

So far in this Olympics, other than the Opening Ceremonies, my favorite moment has come watching George Bush. He is the leader of the most powerful country on the planet and he looks like a kid on Christmas. He had his binoculors on during the Opening Ceremonies. He tried bumping the volleyball with beach volleyball players Misty May and Kerry Walsh. Then he was in the team huddle with the USA basketball team. Actually, if I was in his position, I would do the same thing. No one is going to say no to him. And what is the worst thing that could happen, he creates a polictical firestorm and isn't elected this fall? I think I would try a cannonball off the top platform just because I could.

Oh, time to go, Michael Phelps is about to break another world record......