“It feels so unreal, was it the same for you?”
– Brother-in-law, 48 hours before the arrival of his first-born
Apparently, only four percent of children are born on the actual due date, which, to me, makes the whole concept of having one date simply ludicrous. If that’s the best they can do, why not simply give the parents a good ballpark guestimate, say, a week, and leave it at that.
“Do you remember the first time you watched a movie on a DVD? What was it?”
– Wife, last night
Sometime in 1978, my father brought home two boxes that did wonderful things. Both were really good at just one, of course, but together, they revolutionized the way our household worked.
Last night, I held a pretty decent speech to Son, about owning up to things. About how it takes more courage to stand up and confess a mistake than it takes to … do something else. I can’t remember what the other stuff was, but it was something very macho, and tough, like to do a jedi jump.
I went on a good ten minutes about the importance of being a great loser, and then of course, told him how, at the Olympics, all the players had to walk through the mixed zone and talk about the loss they had just been delivered.
And for good measure, I threw in Henrik Lundqvist’s name because I know it carries some major weight around here. So, if Henke Lundqvist can come ut and talk to the press right after he’s faced four shots and made just one save in one period in an Olympic quarterfinal, then Son can surely muster up some courage to tell me who it really was that spilled that glass of orange juice onto the carpet.
Right?
Great losers aren’t born. They’re made.
So I went to a place called “Olympics” and the next thing I know, three weeks just flashed by. I hope you had your “risto+pakarinen” Google alerts on, and caught at least some of my stuff on IIHF.com during the games and the Games.
Like this blog entry, about an event of which I wrote here earlier.
A magazine cover from 1933. I guess we’re still struggling with the same issues.
Man walks into a book store. Man sees a lot of books. Man likes books, so man really likes this particular Vancouver book store because they have a lot of books. Man realizes it’s a second-hand book store and is a little disappointed until he sees a pile of sports books next to a sign that says, “IOC Propaganda”. Man laughs and looks at the propaganda books, and realizes that the old books are cool.
Man goes deeper into the store, finds all kinds of categories he’s never gone through before. Man stops at “Cheyenne-Comanche” section. Man picks up a book, man puts it down. Man goes to “WWI”. Man goes to “Movies-Movie history”. Man finds old magazines. Man goes to fiction, stops at “Mark Twain”. Man goes to “Art”. Man goes “WWII”. Man goes nuts.
Suddenly…
Man stops. Man looks up. Man examines books in front him. Man seems to be sweating a little. Man picks up cell phone from pocket. Man looks like he’s texting somebody.
Man’s not really texting, he’s just a victim of the Bookstore Syndrome.
So, there I was, walking down Main St in Vancouver BC, when I saw this tiny store from the corner of my eye. The bearded man, in his 50s, walked out the store, and flipped the sign on the door from “open” to something else.
It said, “Gone for a bowl of soup. Back later.”
I thought it was nice. A bowl of soup. Who could blame him, really. Take your time, mister.
Twenty-five years ago, a friend of mine received a tape in the mail. It was a black, regular tape he had got from a friend from home, including the hottest hits at the time. For my friend, Terry, home was Canada, and that tape had the keys to Canadian Rock Wonderland, namely Bryan Adams’s “Reckless”.
Wake-up call: 5:55 am. Get dressed, walk out the door, meet a colleague at the edge of Stanley Park. Mission: To witness Arnold Schwarzenegger carrying the Olympic torch. Why the Governator would be carrying the Olympic torch in Vancouver on the last day of the relay was a mystery to me.
Sure, “The Austrian Oak” is a six-time Mr. Olympia, but he’s never participated in the Olympics. He’s not Canadian, he’s Austrian American with no special connection to Canada as far as I know.
But, run he would, and that had to be seen.
And that’s why I headed out into the darkness, and that’s why I was ordering a tall latte at 6:15 am. I had five minutes to kill – I was supposed to meet Lucas at 6:20 – and, well, Starbucks is never far in this city.
Greetings from Vancouver, the host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. It’s a long way from Stockholm to Vancouver (via London), and my total travel time, door to door, was 21 hours. I spent ten of them on the plane from London to Vancouver, sitting next to Victor Droop, a Dutch fellow on his way to the Olympics as well.
