10tonfunk

the 08 olympics, i’ve just run in with the with olympic torch (gripped in my right hand) and as you can see from my pit stains, i brought it all the way from greece. steph got us tickets to see the jamaicans absolutely dominate track and field. it was awesome.

2008 in china was all about the olympics (as was 07, 06, and maybe all the way back to 2000 when the bid was launched). to my surprise the world didn’t end after august 08. probably some of the government types were hoping it would end too because they (the people not the government officials) have a serious debt to pay off. the nest, cube, new subway lines, and flowers on every median on every inch of the giant ring roads don’t come cheap. except for the labor which is cheap as hell. it took montreal 30 years to pay off their olympics and they didn’t redo their whole city. read more about the chinese perspective: ‘what international event impacted you most this year’ and more.

and stay tuned for continued pics, grumping, and the solutions to all your problems. please tell your friends about this blog, and if you don’t have any friends then get on craigslist and make some.

this is the women’s olympic triathalon. an hour or so outside of beijing on an absolutely perfect day. i went with my then-boss and the parents of a swiss friend. they brought a swiss flag and matching shirts and came ready to singlehandedly boost swiss morale. the american and swiss teams both had three athletes in the lead pack and no one else rooting for either team. swiss-usa alliance forged out of necessity, we did a lot of shouting, switching from ‘auf schwiss!’ to ‘usa! usa!’ and, of course, ‘zhong guo jia you!’ to placate the locals.