General thoughts on the Olympics and life

I have not posted since last week when I rode with two different groups on the weekend. It is not there has not been much going on. In fact it has been just the opposite.

I found out on Monday that I need to find a new job. I actually knew it was coming on Friday afternoon so I got the whole weekend to worry about it. Not having a job should free up some time for riding but just the opposite has happened. Looking for work is even more time consuming that actually having a job.

The original goal was to have a job lined up by the end of the week. In reality I probably set my expectations a little to high. The right expectation should have been to have at least one interview by the end of the week. I actually ended up with three. So if I had set the right goal I would have surpassed expectations. It will be interesting to see if they translate in to actual offers.

I watched Michael Phelps get his 8 gold medals. I think I watched every final as well as many of the heats. I also watched many of the other races as well. I only get into swimming during the Olympics but I always come away impressed. I think that I can see how hard it is. The preparation and luck required to win 8 golds in swimming made it an amazing feat.

NBC sandwiched swimming in with Beach Volleyball so I ended up watching a lot of that. I only watched one basketball game which was USA vs. China. I was hoping that China would keep the game close and in the 1st half they did. USA pulled away in the second half and it was not much of a game.

I found myself watching the gymnastics with the same sense of awe that I get from watching the X Games. I am amazed that they can do the routines without killing themselves. I was thinking about how they went about learning to do the exercises. There must be a lot of pain involved. Probably why they all start when when they are young. Kids just seem to bounce. I did get tired of the age controversy. It does not matter 13 or 16 or 18. They still won and to get a gold metal on technicality would be a disappointment. Once the decision was made to let them compete it was a moot point.

As expected the coverage of cycling and weight lifting was minimal. I saw no weight lifting and very little cycling. I was really hoping to see some of the track racing especially the sprints. I did not get to watch a single race. Since US Cycling was not expected to medal I guess that NBC decided not to spend much time on it.

NBC's Olympic coverage was interesting. Other than the early morning events that were broadcast live in US during the evening most of the events were on tape replay. Even if I did not know who won I knew that the US competitors had to have medaled since it was being broadcast. This was the case of the Men's Volleyball final. It looked like Brazil was going to tie things up but I figured that the USA would come back because the closing ceremony was scheduled for the next hour and there would not be enough time to play another match. Sure enough the US came from behind and won.

I can kind of understand the reasoning behind the coverage decisions. In the sports I know I can watch the competitors from other countries. However, in the sports I do not really know such as rowing, boxing or even volleyball I only watch the events that the US teams are competing in. I imagine that most feel the same way.

I was going to watch the closing ceremony to see Jimmy Page play in London. However, the events leading up to Mr. Page bored me and I ended up watching the last episode of Generation Kill. Maybe I can find the video on the Internet.