You know, those skating commentators can be real downers.  There
am I, enjoying one of the last competitor's - the silver medalist -
nice bit of footwork (I'm a fan of good footwork) when Peggy Fleming
says dismissively, "It's just too little, too late."

Gee, Peggy, you sure brighten up an event.  A regular Little Miss Sunshine, that's you.

Would it cause their teeth to fall out were they to lay off the
negative unless it's in-your-face-obvious, and help the folks at home
appreciate and enjoy what they're watching?

And I was rather sorry to see Plushenko not puddle up when the Russian
anthem was played, though the Swiss dude who took the silver was darn
near bawling.

I like a good puddle. 

Well, here's a cool event, and one I've never heard of before!  Snowboard cross, which is a group of four snowboarders simultaneously racing down a course.  No timer-clock in the right hand corner measuring the competitors' speed, because it's simply whoever crosses the finish line first wins.  Lots of fun, though it gets a bit rambunctious!

Only thing objectionable is how the finals have four competitors, meaning one poor schnook gets nothing, while the other three receive medals.  Talk about making someone feel like a L.O.S.E.R. 

And I'm excited to hear the 2010 Winter games will be held in Vancouver.  By jingo, I'm hoping to be there, so I am.  I'd love to just once be in the stands for the opening ceremonies, and see the figure skating and the luge and the ski jump.

Probably skip the curling, however.  Too much excitement, and I'll be 58 years old then. 

There might be a winter storm watch in place starting tomorrow night due to the cold front barrelling down on us, but lemme tell you, I've seen one inarguable sign of the coming Spring:

By jingo, I guess the Iranians settled Denmark's hash and no mistake. 

The Iranian confectioner's union has ordered the name of the comestible known as a "Danish pastry" be henceforth changed to  -  prepare yourself  -  "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad".

Can't you just imagine?

"Well, I guess let me have three cherry Roses of the Prophet Muhammad, and three apricot Roses of the Prophet Muhammad, and a couple of cheese Roses of the Prophet Muhammad, too." 

I dunno, maybe Italians aren't interested in figure skating, and that's why the Olympic competitors have been skating before a depressing number of empty seats?

Last night when watching the men's short program it was difficult to overlook the sea of shiny chair backs, indicative of empty seats.  Right up front, too!

Isn't that a trifle dispiriting for the skaters?  Such visible evidence of "Actually, we don't care who wins"?

OTOH, it might be the price of the tickets put them out of the reach of the ordinary Joe (or Guiseppe).  From what the commentators have said, Torino is a town that's akin to our Detroit in its reliance upon the auto industry, and times have been hard in recent years.  The city is anxious to put its best foot forward, hoping to spur new industries to move there.

Wouldn't be surprised to discover the women's skating draws larger crowds, though I'd be hardpressed to figure out why.  Personally, I like men's figure skating even more than I like women's, seeing as how their jumps are higher, etc. 

Next time I'm at the store, I'm picking up children's Tylenol, children's antihistimine, and maybe some ear drops.

This afternoon I fetched Brianna from school and brought her home, and everything was fine.  We made Valentines for her parents and Bethie, played Candyland (she won), Disney Yahtzee (she won), and were working on a game of Junior Scrabble (which she was in the process of winning) when she started occasionally wincing and holding a hand to her left ear.  She'd been snuffly and blowing her nose prior to that, but otherwise fine and in a perky mood, upbeat from the delights of Valentine's Day in kindergarten.

After several minutes, the occasional winces turned into soft yelps and moans.  "My ear HURTS!"  Turned out to be running a slight temperature (99° by mouth, 100.4° in the hurtful ear, 97.6° in the other ear).

No pain medication.  No antihistimine.  Certainly not an ear drop in the house.  Managed to locate a microwaveable heating pad thing, hoping it'd help, but it didn't so far's I could tell.  By the time her father came to collect her an hour later she'd worked herself up into a full-blown squalling fit. 

It was odd how fast that earache came on, and how bad it got so quickly. 

Tell you what, for displays of sheer determination and gutsiness, nothing beats the Olympics.  And for all they tend to be the butt of jokes, figure skaters are among some of the gutsiest, based upon a pair from China and a pair from Russia.  Last night the female half of a duo, Zhang Dan, while attempting a quadruple-rotation jump, missed the landing and went crashing down hard on her knees:

In obvious, severe pain she was helped off the ice by her partner, Zhang Hao:

Surely all of us thought there was no way in the world she could possibly continue, but by jingo, she wiped away her tears, grimaced, and skated back out to pick up where they'd left off.   

Did a bang-up job!  How she possibly managed to land jumps, etc. on that damaged knee I cannot imagine, but she sure did it.  They managed to snag the silver medal, in fact, having come into the free program in second place. 

This was a great moment, when he picked her up after receiving their scores, and realizing they'd won the silver medal:

The second story of grit and determination had its seed back at the 2004 Skate America competition, when Tatiana Totmianina suffered a concussion when her partner, Maxim Marinin, fell while they were performing a lift.  She lay unconscious on the ice until taken away to the hospital, where she was treated for severe concussion:

It was shown on video and was horrifying.  Dmitry recoiled, begging not to have it shown again (I was watching it on TiVo, having fallen behind while fixing dinner) as it'd surely give him nightmares.

Maxim's confidance was understandably shaken, with Tatiana saying they were set back about ten years due to his hesitancy and caution.  But last night they pulled it off, holding their lead and winning the gold. 

You know, it's not just him being terrified of falling and injuring Tatiana, but don't you know it took nerve for her to trust him again?  But she did, which doubtless explains the emotion behind one of my favorite moments thus far, i.e. Maxim kneeling and kissing Tatiana's hand:

It was a heck of a night on the ice, that's for sure. 

OTOH, one thing I love about close-ups is being able to see big, strong, tough guys such as Houston's Chad Hedrick obviously puddling up as they hear the Star Spangled Banner played in their honor when they receive their gold medals. 

Go, TEXAS!!!

In my search to see exactly what a section leader does (Supervise and assisting the recruits in respective sections; Monitoring personal cleanliness, military appearance, clothing care
and watch standing for recruits assigned to respective sections), I found an article giving a fairly detailed description of what happens during Navy basic training on a week by week basis.  It included a small photo of the interior of one of the "ships", with the bunks and the cubicles for personal effects:

It's nice to be able to mentally visualize where Charles is staying (and where Alex was).

The 2007 Chevy Suburban? 

It's just eleven days into February 2006, forpetessake!  What happened to new models not showing up until September?