Catching up!

Ok missed another day of blogging but I hope this will put me back on track. After the night out at the sushi place we were invited back to Dr. Ruth's place for some drinks. She forced me to drink wine! She's very persuasive. It was quite a nice night and she has a very nice condo near the river in town.

After I finally slept in for a day I decided I better go out and have a look at Whistler proper in the day time. It has a nice village atmosphere although right now its crazy busy. They have stages set up throughout the town and CTV has a broadcast pavilion that they do live news from. Even the RCMP were out in full dress. Us Canadians are really putting on a show for the world.

Back on hill I was looking more at my surroundings. I managed to find the doping test facility at Creekside. I took a quick picture of the signage as I thought it was pretty neat to see the actual area where the staff would test the athletes for all kinds of performance enhancements. According to the paper, there were quite a few people who didn't get to show up at the Olympics because of positive tests. Also the geeky engineer in me saw the tents they set up but more interestingly the mobile heating units they are using to keep everything warm. The heaters exhaust inside in the buildings and actually inflate ducts with holes in the sides to disperse the forced air, kind of like a  garden soaker hose only far larger. The only question I had was why they decided to put the hot air into the upper portion of the buildings. Doesn't hot air rise? I must have slept through that section of HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning, for the non acronym enhanced readers).

One night I went out and enjoyed the nightlife a bit which was pretty fun. It was also the night we won the mens skeleton so the pubs were extra busy. I also got to take in some of the local wildlife, they are pretty around here lol. We took in the medals plaza that night as well. The stage actually rotates and the featured bands play after the medal ceremonies are finished. Dave your not going to believe this but......I missed seeing Kid Koala on Feb 13th. I found out on the 14th. DAMN! They also have a mini cauldron burning in the plaza as well.

Last night I took in my first event that I wasn't working at. It was the mens 2 man bobsled. Wow was that ever cool! They got up to 150km/h at the bottom! Craig, one of the guys on my crew even got himself on national TV. We saw 2 sleds roll over that night. One I believe was the Spanish team but the other unfortunately was Canada-1 on their 2nd run. It was such a good run too. So glad they were ok. Its very disconcerting to see a sled speed by upside down with 2 helmets bumping along the ice inside. Above is a shot of Canada-1 coming into the finish. These shots are really tough to get since they are flying by at such high speeds. Its all skill people! Also here we have a shot of the 4 of us that went. Left to right we have Craig the crazy American (with the made in Canada foam hat). Next is Ryan, also from my med crew; Cassie who is a course worker for the downhill. She rides the bus in the morning with Ryan which is how I came to meet her and she is also an Engineer graduated from the U of A, ERTW! Finally, the smokin hot guy on the right is Carlos Spicyweiner.

We actually have quite a tight knit spectator medical crew. We all get along and work very well together. Some of the other crews have some issues and personalities that clash. Annie our crew chief just loves having us. Plus we know how to have a lot of fun. For instance we had a dance off at the end of the day today since we can usually be found patrolling and dancing in place as we move amongst our venue. The police and paramedics watching our competition were cheering us on. Its all on video somewhere. It might be better it gets lost somewhere, but who am I kidding. It will surface at some point!

Tomorrow I get my one and only day off. I will be skiing my butt off on Whistler Blackcomb. I will also be riding the peak to peak gondola because its the largest of its kind in the world and I like that sort of engineering feat stuff. The highest point is 436m/1427 feet off of the ground. Oh its going to be a sight!

Afterwards I will be meeting Dr. Ruth and heading to the Weasel house again, since she hasn't been there yet. It is a sponsored venue for all the weasel workers (course crew) with free beer! Oh and one of the times I was there I happened to get a picture of myself holding the Olympic torch. Yup the torch itself, which was awesome! Its very light and honestly I really wanted to tear one apart to see how it was constructed to make it weather proof. Good job Bombardier, even though the music from that commercial gets stuck in my head and all I want to do it purge it out!

Ok I'm off to bed. I have sleep to catch up on and a whole day of skiing, free beer and hot tubing to take in. Life sure is rough out here!