Chris, Fay, Joey and the Olympics

We had a great time with Chris. It could have been longer but not sure how much more country living he could deal with. He did bring us up to speed on a couple New York terms that I thought you need to know. Around here you get a hair cut. There they get their wig busted. And if you get your hair fixed up, that’s getting your wig bumped. So if you go to NY and need an emergency hair job, you know how to ask for it.

I also confirmed again how great it is to be out of the work force. Or rather, to have been in the work force prior to cell phones, texting, blackberries, etc etc. This generation of worker bees are tethered to the office by these devices. When I was on the road, if I needed to know something I called in – if and when a phone was available. If they needed me, they would leave a message with my secretary so on one call, I had a complete dump. And I could always just leave somebody in charge who could deal with the day to day minutia. Now when Joey, Tommy, or Chris are traveling – no exaggeration, it’s rare that 5 minutes would go by without some kind of electronic communication. With Tom that’s 24/7; Joey is saner and in his case, that’s how he books business. With Chris, it’s more or less constant all day and until he craters at night. The only reason I know Tom is 24/7 is because we traveled together to Missouri so I experienced the chirps of incoming messages all night. That has to be so stressful and something I just didn’t have to deal with.
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We’re waiting now for the storm named Fay. I suspect the only casualty will be my corn and Joey’s Chemo treatment which has been postponed a day. This treatment should mark the halfway point.

I did my due diligence to make sure we don’t get anything serious by filling up all the gas cans – 20 gallons worth – and positioning the generator for easy access. If we do lose power it tends to be lengthy since the power company doesn’t service us jungle folk on any kind of priority. We’ve had a couple of inches of rain in the past few days and if we’re lucky we could another 4-6 before it’s passed. I do enjoy the news during these events. My favorite is watching the news folks trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. “Now to our reporter stationed at the National storm center” The cameras pan a room with folks laid back with their feet on the desk drinking coffee and telling jokes. The reporter meanwhile is describing the scene as a beehive of activity, high tension etc. “Now we switch to Skip Skipson, on the beach”. The camera goes to a guy fully decked out in Nor’easter kind of gear with people swimming in a calm surf or just laying on beach towels reading. The reporter describes the high level of preparedness, high tension etc. And there’s always the thinning of the gene pool when some dumb ass does something like decide to climb a power pole to get a better view. In this case it was a guy who went kite surfing down in SW Florida when the storm was making landfall. They actually caught this guy flying horizontally for quite a distance and crashing into a building. This will probably count as a storm casualty but no doubt this guy was destined to die of the dumb ass at some time.
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Watching the Olympics on and off. I was disappointed with the fencing. I was expecting some Three Musketeer stuff – swinging from chandeliers, jumping on tables, slashing ropes that brought the tent down on the bad guy – you know what I mean. This Olympic version lasts at the longest 1 second. I never once saw anything resembling an Errol Flynn or Burt Lancaster move. No blood, no broken blades. Boring. I don’t think there should be an Olympic event that lasts less that 10 seconds except for the 100 meter races.

Other Olympic highlights:
rowing. very impressed that they can put so much weight into such a skinny boat. Not sure how in the world they get in and out unless the boat is put into some locking gate. I have a 32” wide John boat which would be considered a narrow John boat. You really have to be careful getting in and out to keep it from tipping. Just ask Fred.

The other sport I like to watch because I have some personal experience with is Kayaking
I can tell you that I would not make it one foot or one second on the kayak course before I’d be dumped. Of course I’d have my fishing equipment with me and these guys are not trying to cast while heading downstream. I actually did some white water stuff in Oregon that was about one ten thousandth of the wimpiest part of the olympic course and dumped a couple of times.

And I sure have some doubts about team makeup’s in terms of nationalities. For example there’s a guy playing on the German team whose great grandparents were from Germany. Give me a break. I should think at the very minimum you should have to have citizenship in a country to play on the national team.

The other crackup was watching the parade of countries in the opening ceremony. I’m totally convinced that some of those countries don’t really exist or are rich guys who bought an island and somehow get it classified as a country for tax reasons.

Next to the USA, I root for the Dutch teams. That’s because they wear gator colors.

My pet peeve – allowing events in the Olympics where there is no clear winner but rather some averaging of scores from judges. The ancient Greeks must turn over in their graves at the thought of all that 9.7 stuff. Can you honestly remember any Olympics in which there was not a judging controversy on one of these judged competitions? And can they test for age when testing for drugs. They have special olympics for disabled folks so maybe they should have a special olympics for children. It just seems wrong, wrong, wrong to have an olympic sport dominated by kids under 16. Synchronized swimming? Pleeese.
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And last but not least, little Tommy is in Missouri and ready to start classes next week. Wow! How in the world did he go from a kid making his first cast to a college guy soooo fast?