My brother was critical to the Adopt-a-Dog project, so we talked pretty often this week.  He mentioned that the Olympics were starting in a few weeks.  I thought the Games were starting sooner. 

That was the conversation.  Neither of bothered to look up when it started, and I had no idea that the Games were in Milan, Italy.

How did the Olympics get so mundane?

Like everyone else, I’m in a bubble, so maybe I’m wrong about this, but it should have come up somewhere.  I used to care about the Olympics.

Ten years ago, I felt connected to Ginny Thrasher when she won the gold metal in the women’s 10-meter air rifle event at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics.  I had used a VPN to watch foreign coverage, so could watch all events.  I watched Ginny advance from the preliminary rounds all the way through to the gold metal.

Before that, in 2008, the Olympics were in Beijing.  It was summer, the VPN was on, and I was up, late into the night, to watch all of it.

This year, I didn’t know where or when it was.

I like the Winter Olympics, and I like Italy.  I should be enthusiastic.  I like the Winter sports better than summer because I ski, shoot, and can snowboard and skate.  I’m not nuts about figure skating, and hockey is fine if the US is playing and it’s on in the background.

When traveling, I’ve visited a few Winter Olympic villages.  I’ve been to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where the Winter Olympics were held in 1936.  It was the Summer Olympics in Berlin that year that everyone remembers.  Hitler, Jesse Owens, and all that.

Side Note:  Jesse Owens attended The Ohio State University.  His real name is James Cleveland Owens.  His family moved to Cleveland, Ohio from Alabama when he was 9 years old.  He went by “J. C.”, but because of his Southern accent, that morphed into ‘Jesse’.

I also visited the ski jump facility in Norefjell, Norway.  I suggested to the guide that they should have a zip line so that regular people could ski jump without having to worry about sticking the landing.  She seemed to think that I was retarded.  Norwegians have no sense of humor. 

A former student, Chris Nurre, attended the Rochester Institute of Technology and was training for the Olympics to compete in the skeleton.   That’s where they go down the chute head-first on a tiny sled frame.   During the winter, he trained at the Olympic village in Lake Placid, New York. 

He said that at Lake Placid, at night, they would go down the ice chute on cafeteria trays.  He invited me to come out to visit, and maybe give it a try.  I didn’t, but appreciated the offer.

Damn it, now I’m starting to care about the Olympics.