Saturday, August 23, 2008

08/22/08

Well I think I'm starting to run out of any intersesting stories because my brain is becoming as tired as my body. My mind is a bit mushy right now and remembering details is becoming more difficult - like with whom I had lunch with is getting lost...

So I sort of got to sleep-in today - didn't get up until 10:30 - but I went to bed around 4:30-5:00, saw a little early morning light starting to appear. Ran into Rod Mar (The Seattle Times) as we were getting on the bus to the MPC - we happened to be going to the same place - Men's Volleyball at the Capital Gymnasium. It's about a 35 minute bus ride from the MPC. I headed straight to the bus MB10, I think, when we got the MPC while Rod went over to grab some coffee. He was nice enough to pick up a banana and some almond cookies for me.

It was cool to catch-up with Rod, I'd seen him here-and-there but hadn't had a chance to chat with him, he didn't much of a choice since we sat next to each other.

The volleyball game was pretty exciting. I was disappointed yet again on the merchandising at volleyball they had no volley-ball specific merchandise - how idiotic is that? Sorry Jessica, I wandered all over the venue. Just like freaking the swimming venue didn't have any swimming pins! Sorry Caroline!

After volleyball I headed back to the MPC. Had lunch with Tom Fox, Carlos Gonzales (Minneapolis Star Tribune) and ??? - crap I'm totally spacing out who the other person was - the sad thing is that I actually walked into the cafeteria with that person and happened to run into Tom and Carlos! That's really terrible.

ok, I'm in the workroom at the media village sitting next to Chris Detrick and after several minutes of asking what day was what we figured out that it was he who was the mystery lunch guest.

Well after lunch I headed over to the Yingdong Natatorium where they play water polo, I ran into Michael Goulding (Orange County Register) there. The Men were playing Serbia in the semi-finals. They had lost to Serbia 4-2 and no one really thought they had much of a chance. Supposedly no one outside of Europe has ever won the gold in water polo!

So it was very surprising that they destroyed Serbia 10-5. I shot next to Scot Strazzante (Chicago Tribune) down on the water for the first two quarters and then photographed from a little balcony area for the last two quarters.

Michael was going to head out after water polo but I mentioned that as soon as water polo was over I was planning on heading to track so that I could catch the Men's 4x100m relay - mainly because Ann was writing something about Usain Bolt - the Jamaican guy who had already won two gold medals and set two world records. We jumped on the bus to the MPC and then from the MPC we jumped on the National Staidum bus. It's about a 15 minutes walk versus a 10 minute bus ride, might as well relax a bit and take the 10 minute bus ride.

Got there about 30 minutes beforehand... so it worked out okay...

Several photographers have been attacked by the Beijing bug, with fever like symptoms. Luckily I have avoided that bug pretty well... especialliy considering that I'm pretty beat down. Don't ask me what it is or how one gets it but it's out there.




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