I helped Steve with a tiny bit of CLI programming in the widget, and we spent a lot of time discussing least common denominators and prime factorization algorithms. Mainly because we couldn’t remember anything from 8th grade math. Anyway, it was a fun project, and it’s a useful widget. And if you want, help us get it to the front of Digg.

I’ll be back again, soon. Promise.

Today I went skiing with several of my Olympic coworkers. Thanks to some friends in Sestriere, I learned we could obtain free ski passes for the entire Italian Alps. A bit of name-dropping (”Laurajo sent me”), I was able to get eight passes with just my accreditation. This morning, our international group met in the lobby. Joff and Tim, from England and Australia work in Commentary Control, Cabo is a camera operator from Finland, Andrea is an audio assistant from Pragelato, Italy. David, Kevin and I are camera assistants from France and the US.

To give some background on our current weather in the Piemonte region, we have had over two feet of snow in the past two days, and it was still lightly snowing this morning when we left. We got our skis in Pragelato, all day for 14 euro. Public transportation was less of a hassle than normal, and we were at the first ski lift by 10:45.

We knew that the weather had treated us perfectly, but the first ski lift ride showed us that in a way that was impossible to describe with words. It was mainly an echo of “Wow”s from each lift to the other, as we took in the trails we were passing over. Completely untouched powder, trails running dozens of directions, every tree dressed up in a white snow uniform. We were extremely fortunate to have the company of Andrea, who has been in ski clubs since he was nine, and grew up in Pragelato. He skillfully lead us across the mountains, through Sestriere, Cesana, Sansicario, and Clavier. We were a few hundred feet from the French border.

It’s really hard to describe how amazing the skiing was, and it’s frustrating because even the memory is so much more exciting than I can express. The ski lift system is great. Because there was so much snow, it wasn’t really a thing where I chose a slope to descend, only a general direction, and whether I wanted to ski down steep, packed snow, or through fresh powder in the forest. When I reached the bottom of a slope area, there was always a lift, and never a line (everybody else says queue).

I just took an hour long break in writing this to share pictures with the others who want skiing, and I am now exhausted. I wish I could further describe how great it was. Gigantic mountains always surround us, skiing above clouds, watching them move across the valley, and seeing the wind clear them away before your eyes. One trail was about 30-40 minutes long, and it was slow enough to take pictures as I was gliding down. It was on the very edge of the mountain, and through a few trees you could see at least three mountain venues, which are rather spread out.

Perhaps you are aware of a small Olympic competition called the Super G. We skied down that very course, only minutes after it had been freshly groomed. The competitions were finished at that venue, and we had the whole place to ourselves. My GPS said that I reached over 40mph. I only had one minor fall today, and it was in several feet of powder and my skis didn’t even pop off. It’s really hard to stay on your feet when you’re up to your knees in snow. It’s what I deserved for venturing off the unpacked snow.

Tomorrow is our final day of competition, although the race will be quite long. The 50km mass start will last over two hours. We begin to strike in the evening, and Monday is my last day. Hopefully I will have time and energy to write more about skiing soon, I have not been this exhausted in my entire time here, but it’s also such a great feeling. A quick transatlantic award of 20 man points to Michael George for e-mailing me an MP3, unsolicited, simply knowing how much I miss music. I really do hope to write soon, so I hope I have time tomorrow. Goodnight!

Of the four other students at my housing, two were sick, so they didn’t want to do anything last night. Everybody else planned to go to Torino today, which didn’t really appeal to me as a day-off kind of activity. I sent Tyler an e-mail, to see if he or any of the other students at Cesana were doing anything. Nobody had the day off, but he was as bored and as tired of being stuck as I was, so I decided to head out to his venue to spend the night. The adventurous part of it was that last night brought the biggest blizzard since I’ve been here, so the one-hour bus ride stretched into 2.5 hours, since the bus could only take the 180 degree turns so fast. The chains on the tires didn’t help either.

I had a good conversation with a writer for the Associated Press, who is based in Tokyo, but grew up in Vancouver. Plus, with each mile that was placed between me and the temporary housing, I felt better and better. I didn’t get to Cesana until about 8:30pm, and my first mission was to get some dinner. Dinner in Italy is much later, no restaurants open until at least 6:00, and it’s closer to 7:30 for most of them. I like this, because I usually eat a lot for lunch, and it prevents midnight hunger.

Cesana is a great little town, with a really nice main street that is blocked to traffic. The only problem was wading though 1.5 feet of snow. I found a nice pizzeria, and ordered a more-than-large-enough pizza for 4.50 euro. Thanks to good timing, and the magic of Blackberries (the phones not the fruit), I stepped outside just as Tyler was walking back from work. We walked back to the temporary housing where I ate my pizza and caught up with several other Asbury students. It was a great evening hearing everybody’s stories, and like the good ol’ days (of three months ago), Tyler and I were the last ones to sleep, talking business plans and summer adventures.

Taylor Vinson is lucky enough to have a triple room with no roommates, and kind enough to share it for the night. The funny part is that since it’s the same prefab as my hotel, I slept in the same bed, and everything looked identical. As I set my alarm, I laughed at how disoriented I would be when I woke up.

In an effort to maintain my good health, I got a good nine hours of sleep. A lazy 10:30am breakfast let me meet some of Tyler’s coworkers, as well as a few other Asbury kids. Tyler left for work, and I headed out to explore some more of Cesana by daylight. Turning down a side street, I walked about a mile, and found my way to a quiet country environment, where dogs sat outside of front doors and retired couples sat in chairs on snowbanks, reading the newspaper underneath the huge Alps in front of them. The mountain scenery here was some of the most beautiful I’ve seen this trip, especially because of the last night’s snowfall.

After taking plenty of pictures, but knowing they weren’t capturing a tenth of what I was seeing, I made my way back the Cesana bus stop. At the same little crepe store where I had eaten a few weeks ago, I got a delicious latte macchiato. My high expectations of Italian coffee have all been met, and I’m trying to sample as many varieties as possible. A latte macchiato is a tall cup of steamed, frothy milk, to which a shot of espresso is added, not to be confused with a cafe macchiato, a shot of espresso with a few drops of cream.. It was delicious, possibly my favorite variety so far. It was great because the milk is so rich, that along with my breakfast, it got me to an 8:00 dinner.

I took the bus to Sestriere, where I did some souvenir shopping, but I still really don’t enjoy that town. After Sestriere, it was a bus to Pragelato, but I took the stop about 5 miles before the temporary housing, and looked around at the hundreds of booths which were selling all kinds of local foods, all of which could be sampled. I had a five-minute conversation with an only-Italian speaker at a little (one-room) grocery store to try to figure out which product would fix my dry face. I finally decoded viso, corpo and mano as face, body and hands. A few weeks of sincere effort, and I really think I could learn the language.

I got back to the hotel around 4:30, finding an empty hall; the Asbury kids must have gone to Torino. Unfortunately, several minutes of digging through my backpack resulted in no room key. Fortunately, I walked onto the hall as the cleaning service was leaving, and they never bothered to make sure I was the actual owner of the room.

Again I hesitate to write this paragraph, but I need to stay honest. The bus that I’m currently writing on is going back to Pragelato, from Pinerolo. Yes, home of the my guilty Italy pleasure, McDonald’s. Fortunately this time was a much less eventful trip; as insane and unreliable as the bus system is, once you figure it out and learn how to enjoy waiting, it really is pretty fun.

The high point of the trip to Pinerolo was when an American family got on the almost-full bus while we were still about a half-hour away. After the thirty-minute din of a dozen Italian conversations, the excited voice of a six-year-old American boy snapped me out of my crowded-bus cocoon. For the rest of the trip, I listened to him sitting three seats back, telling his dad several stories, which he swore really happened. I heard tales of him driving a car at two hundred million miles per hour and slamming into police cars and then his car transformed into an airplane with a rocket engine that burned up the cars chasing him and then it turned into a needle and then a dune buggy across the whole desert. Anyway, it turned out that he was genetically cloned from Mikey Fowler who was originally cloned from me.

That was my very relaxing 1.5 day weekend; I’m now lying on my bed and it’s 10:00pm. Even though work doesn’t start until 9:45 tomorrow, I heard at least four people coughing on the bus, and I just finished my last orange juice, so I may get some extra sleep to stay healthy. I miss you all, and I can’t wait until I can talk about these adventures in person… preferably over a latte macchiato.

I am sorry for the lack of content in my last entry, I had forgotten that there was so much I wanted to cover, but only mentioned in passing to a few people. I imagine the most enticing story is that of the snowmobile theft. Of course, the description of the story gives most of it away, but here goes…

Olympic Malevolence, Pt. 1

Grand Theft Ski-doo
My cameraman boss, Jari is an upstanding Finnish citizen and a decent guy; he has a wife, two kids, one of whom will be getting a plastic Millennium Falcon as a gift upon Jari’s return. Normally Jari is a handheld operator at the start and finish lines, but for two races he operates a fixed-position camera further along the trail. After the races, the camera has to move to another fixed position. This requires a snowmobile, something which TOBO never seems to have enough of.

The course is 15km long, so there are times when it takes a long time to find a snowmobile and driver who can move a camera. However, there always seem to be a few extra snowmobiles hanging out behind the Mixed Zone (you may remember this from my photos). The events which are about to unfold take place on the day before the first official competition, which means that many athletes are practicing on the course.

Jari and I were waiting at the finish line for a snowmobile, but it seemed that none were going to be available for a long time. Because we were in a hurry (lunch was served in only ten minutes), we decided that desperate measures must be taken. We asked the snowmobile security volunteer if we could borrow one of the unused snowmobiles to move a camera. Like a good security worker, she told us that only official snowmobile drivers could use the snowmobiles, because there were many prohibited areas, due to the athletes practicing. Lunchtime grew closer, and we knew that the camera must be moved before the inevitable lukewarm pasta was placed on the serving lines. Ingenuity struck, and in an instant, we found a small chink in the snowmobile security procedures. Namely, that the keys for snowmobiles were left in the ignition.

We jumped aboard the nearest snowmobile, and after two dozen key turns, and quite a few helpful words from bystanders discussing the reliability and efficacy of Japanese-made snow machinery, we made a stealthy and speedy getaway. Swerving through athletes and more security volunteers, we made our way to the camera, and successfully moved it to its new location, arriving back to the compound just in time for the lukewarm pasta to turn room temperature.

Olympic Malevolence, Pt. 2

Assaulting a police officer
As you now know, Jari’s role is on the field of play in the stadium, and this makes him the handheld camera that walks with the medal giver-outers and the athletes as they parade from the Mixed Zone out to the medals platform. This means that he has to walk backwards with the procession for about 50 meters, dodging photographers, course markers and carabinieri, or Italian cops. The carabinieri easily outnumber the photographers, and probably the spectators and the number of bacteria currently on your mouse.

Due to heightened terror concerns, the International Olympic Committee has opted for a new preventative tactic of hiring so many police that the terrorists, athletes, spectators and broadcasters can’t squeeze through the crowds of police milling about. Anyway, during the medals ceremonies, I walk behind Jari as he walks backwards, to keep him from tripping over things.

In one particular ceremony, Jari was walking backwards with the procession directly toward a carabinieri, who was carefully executing security procedure 4.2.7, Aimless Wandering While Holding a Digital Camera. Because Jari’s camera is the live camera, I don’t really have time to fake an Italian phrase. Suddenly every bit of stress that resulted from blue flashing lights in my mirror was turned into adrenaline, and I realized that it was my duty to the Olympic games to shove the police officer to safety and away from Jari’s path.

It’s not every day that you get to save the Olympics by shoving a police officer and then exaggerate it afterwards on a web site.

Misc. Stats

Those are the two main stories that I had forgotten to write about here. My friend Sam asked some great questions about the Olympics, some that I hadn’t even thought about, so I’ll try to answer a few of them here in short form.

Altitude
According to my GPS, we’re at 4,841 feet at our “temporary housing” (hotel). I think the venue is probably a little bit higher, but probably only up to 5,000 feet. Both the hotel and venue are in valleys, the downhill skiing venues are quite a bit higher. While it’s not actually as high as I thought it might be, I still get out of breath after walking up the three stories to my room. Sidenote: in Italy, (maybe all of Europe) the first floor is actually what we would call the second floor in the US. The ground floor is floor 0, and I’ve seen some basements labeled -1.

Cameras
There are about 40 cameras at our venue, which I think is actually higher than the average. Remember that there are some routes that give 15km laps, and you’ll understand the need. There are at least four cranes/jibs and two cameras mounted on Steadicams attached to special snowmobiles.

A quick sidenote on the snowmobiles. We have a special crew of three Norwegians who drive and maintain the snowmobiles, which are specially designed to be quiet at all speeds, because the microphones are still used on the cameras. The Norwegian crew is very friendly, and they look like they would be completely at home at a NASCAR race. They have their own snowmobile company in Norway.

While there are 41 cameras, we actually have a lot more possible camera positions, which means that there are many times we are repositioning the cameras in between races. Camera 27 may be in position 27A during the 15km Nordic combined and then move to position 27C for the 4×5km relay. This makes sense, although it gets frustrating to move gigantic cameras across a venue and up a 30 foot scaffold, just for one day.

Most operators don’t have assistants, a few of the jib/crane operators do, and there are a few tripods mounted on little sleds. The sled cameras have assistants who help to pull the sled to reposition the camera in the middle of the race. During the races, there are more assistants than necessary, which leaves a few standing around, desperate for the smallest job. Once the race is over, there is plenty to do if the cameras need repositioned.

One last, even nerdier note on cameras. The wireless system that is in place here is pretty amazing. The signal received from the camera is indistinguishable from a wired system, and it’s a two-way signal, something new for wireless cameras. A quick briefing on how broadcast cameras work: back in the truck, there is a team of several “shaders” or “vision operators” that control the exposure and color levels from each camera. In our venue, each shader has six or seven cameras that they are responsible for. It frees the camera operators from worrying about exposure and other details, but more importantly it keeps things consistent from camera to camera.

Anyway, the wireless system here is special in that it allows the handheld cameras to have the same level of remote control as a fixed camera. White balance, exposure and gain are controlled from the truck. Additionally, the wireless carries a tally light signal, which tells the operator when his or her camera is live.

Fin
I had hoped to talk about security and some of the other things that Sam asked about, but it’s getting pretty late here, so I’ll have to write on that some other time. And remind me to write about Bruce, the new, obnoxious shader from Long Island who reinforces every negative stereotype of America. I appreciate all of your prayers and the e-mails from home, and I’ll see a lot of you in eleven days. Arrivederci!

After a successful morning production, we went back to the catering tent for lunch. As we were eating, the walls of the tent suddenly brightened, and as we left, it felt like a completely new day outside. There were only a few puffy clouds scattered around, (the shaders called them “floaters”), but it was otherwise bright blue skies and warm, dry breezes. This gave us great afternoon weather, and the production seemed to go very quickly. The only problem is that the days seem to be marked by an exciting hour of production and then three hours of waiting.

It’s part of the reason I have not been so vigilant in writing. As exciting as things are, they do remain mostly the same. I am still working as a camera assistant for Jari (I finally looked at his accreditation for spelling). This means making sure he doesn’t fall over things with the camera, changing batteries, carrying fifty billion things in my backpack and pockets. Let me take that tangent for a minute:

Yesterday I had two wallets in my pants pockets, a battery in each coat pocket (they weigh about 5 lbs. each, and are literally the size of a brick), two digital cameras, pen, notepad, lens cleaning kit, chap-stick, and gum throughout my various coat pockets. In my backpack I had four more batteries, several Powerades (if I carry batteries for the cameras, I may as well carry food for the operators), three cell phones, and an uncountable amount of backup/rain clothing.

So I do a lot of carrying. Probably the most exciting task is watching for incoming athletes. Since Jari is only seeing through a lens, I have to watch for specific skiers as they enter the venue. I usually carry a list of six or seven specific athletes that the producers want to highlight, and I spot them as they have their skis tagged and transponders attached to their ankles.

Anyway, while I find the whole thing exciting each time, it really is the same kind of work, so I can’t find many new ways to dress it up for you readers. I’ve also written lots of personal e-mails to people, and I forget what I’ve written on this journal and what I’ve told one or two people. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to open this thing up for questions. What would you like to hear about? You can leave comments on here, and I’ll try to answer any questions you have, or just to expand on things that I’ve glossed over.

As much as I’d like to think that I’ve done a good job clearly and eloquently communicating what it’s like to be here, if it was the type of thing that could be expressed easily through words, we’d all be reading a book about the Olympics, rather than being here. I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve run out of words. It’s too early to write about the things that I miss (Cozy Burger), but I’m sure I’ll do that sometime. In the meantime, it has begun to snow, and in the last half hour we’ve had over an inch. The way it works is that when it snows, it often snows at least a foot at a time. We’ll just have to see what it looks like tomorrow.

I can’t wait to see all of you again soon! I appreciate your e-mails and prayers, and I hope to make some more interesting entries soon. Goodnight!

My job is absolutely amazing. I follow around Jalli, one of three handheld operators. We only work at the start/finish areas, which includes following the athletes as they check in, are tagged with anklets for the timing system, and as they stretch out. After the race begins, we don’t really do much, but we’re right at the finish line, so we have a great view of the whole production on the big screens, and the athletes race through the stadium several times.

Jalli is the primary handheld camera, so he follows the gold medalist for a long time after the finish, which is simply an amazing time. You can’t begin to understand how much emotion flies around the finish line. The races are of many different lengths, but a lot of them are a half hour or even an hour long, so they feel monotonous as we just sit in a little snow trench. But as the athletes approach, things feel so tense, and as they cross the line, the coaches and athletes’ families are going crazy and I feel like I want to take a step back and just soak in everything that is happening.

I do wish that I could write more, and although I’m much more rested today, tomorrow morning will come quickly. If you want to look for me on TV, watch for the handheld camera guy with a black backpack kind of rigging, I’ll usually be within a few feet of him. Of course, I wear an all-white jumpsuit, and my job is to not be seen. If all goes as planned, I’ll be off tomorrow around three, which would give me plenty of time to come back and catch up on e-mails and journalling. Here’s a little list of what I need to remember to write about:

• Stealing a snowmobile
• Shoving a police officer
• Plans to ski the Alps
• All of the great people I work with

You should really look at the pictures I uploaded tonight (on Flickr); I think there are some really good ones. You’ll realize how close I am to the field, and how it’s an experience that my writing skills aren’t up to describing. Happy Valentine’s Day, USA, it’s already the 14th here.

In the U.S. I surely would have chosen Taco Bell or Wendy’s, but in Italy, the only option from that genre is McDonald’s. Although McDonald’s is a “Worldwide Partner” of the Olympics, and the president of McDonald’s is in Torino right now, the nearest McDonald’s is an hour away. An Italian hour away.

I talked up Kevin, Erika and Kim on the idea, and soon we all had visions of warm, smushed cheeseburgers in our heads. We decided to meet at 7:00 to leave. Being the flexible Olympic workers that we are, we planned on plenty of bus stop waiting time. At 7:20 we were able to catch the bus to Pinerolo, although it was the bus normally used by volunteers, not the fancy media bus (which was probably only 30 seconds behind us). No stretching across the aisles on this trip, and it necessitated a trip up to the driver to inform him that the internal climate of the bus was similar to some areas on the surface of the sun. Actually, I wasn’t quite so poetic, but I called upon my expanding Italian vocabulary to say, “Es molte caliente en il autobus.” When I don’t know the Italian word, I use the Spanish word, and that probably just makes me sound silly. It did quickly cool down, so I guess my Spantalianish worked.

After the 70 minute bus ride, we arrived in Pinerolo. Unfortunately, this hot little worker bus also took us to a strange stop, and we had no clue where to go. A conversation with a train station worker was unfruitful, but we soon found some Canadian curling team family members, who pointed the way. Several more conversations with different people to verify that we were going the right way and we arrived to the media compound in Pinerolo. Still, the golden arches eluded us.

We went through the whole rigamarole of security, just to ask a fellow TOBO worker where the McDonald’s is. Somehow he found it humorous that we were actually seeking out a McDonald’s, but he did point us the right way. We left the compound, and as we rounded a corner, we were suddenly basked in the glorious yellow glow of those golden arches.

For some reason I’m dragging this story out, so I’ll try to get on with it. Needless to say, we were quite happy at our own navigational prowess, through the foreign land of Pinerolo. We enjoyed our meals, and decided to make our way back. We went to wear I thought the bus stop was, but Pinerolo seems to be a bit behind the times, and does not have the official Olympic bus stop signs set up yet. That’s okay, I know this is where the buses stop, I’ve been on one here before. A bus pulls up, and look! It’s trusty ol’ OFM3, the special media bus that goes to our lodging. No, wait, that one is going back to Torino, we need to wait for the one travelling back up the mountain.

Some more minutes went by, and lo, another media bus arrived. OFM3! Surely this one will take us to our haven in Pragelato. Nope, again to the wretched land of Lingotto. Wait a minute, why are all of those buses on that side turning off their lights? They’re the media buses, but all “Fuori Servizio,” and I can guess what that means. Again I’m dragging this out.

Perhaps we’re at the wrong stop. We walked back into the venue and media compound (this means going through security again). This time we couldn’t find any TOBO workers, but the NBC workers were burning the 10:30pm oil. Let me just jump ahead and say that the NBC producers at Pinerolo may have been the nicest people I have met in Europe. They began dialing different numbers and trying to put us in touch with TOROC transportation. Unfortunately, all we could get from many phone calls was that we were at the right stop, and so we decided to go back and wait. We ended up talking to the NBC people for a little while longer, and they even told us that if we got stuck, they could get an NBC car to drive us home. If anybody at Pinerolo talks to the NBC people, tell them that the little lost TOBO kids made it home safely.

Back at the same bus stop, I talked to one of the buses that was shutting down for the night, and the driver didn’t speak a word of English the entire time (none of them do). However, I was able to successfully translate a complex message from him, informing me about tonight’s bus schedule. Although every written schedule says that buses from Pinerolo to Pragelato run until midnight, it seems that tonight they decided to turn in early, and quit running in that direction at ten (”ciente,” I think). Buses coming down the mountain still run until midnight.

The next bus to come along opened its doors, and although it was supposed to be going to Lingotto, a kind American with a New York accent told me that they had convinced the driver to take them to the larger bus stop in Pinerolo, because many of them had the same problem. We got to the large bus stop, where the volunteers began to work to figure out how to get us (and several others) back up the mountain. We talked to some Norwegian spectators, and congratulated them on the bronze in the Nordic Combined at our venue today.

I seemed to have stretched this story out way too long, and I know it’s much more boring than my actual work today, but I felt like writing this whole thing out because it was frustrating and fun and tiring and one of the million roll-with-the-punches experiences I have had so far. I am now sitting on the aforementioned bus on my way to Pragelato. Unfortunately there are three Pragelato stops, all 10 minutes apart, and the driver doesn’t know where to go. I had better go sit up front and make sure we do get home. Kevin, Erika and Kim have been sleeping for at least a half hour.

I will write soon on the amazing emotional experience you get at the finish line; it’s something you don’t realize until you’re surrounded by athletes and coaches who are shouting and crying and collapsing from exhaustion.

Oh, speaking of that, tomorrow we start at 6:15. And I’m still having the time of my life here. Ciao!

Italian Dance,
originally uploaded by Andy Fowler.

Just a bit of a mobile update here. I’m sitting in the VIP section of the luge/bobsled venue at Cesana Pariole. I was sitting in the front row. As you know, it’s my day off, so I’ve been touring around some of the different mountain venues.

Anyway, I moved back a few rows because this lively group of Italian dancers showed up. My venue has these too… I guess watching people fly around on snow isn’t exciting enough, and they’ve hired cheerleaders to keep the crowd excited.

They’re still practicing, and now they’re singing “She Bangs,” as if they’ll be practicing in a few minutes. This may be the comical highlight of my trip thus far, although stealing a snowmobile yesterday is a very close runner-up.

This venue has much better music than mine… I hear the Black-eyed Peas and Tina Turner all day. Here it’s the Bittersweet Symphony (was that by Verve or Verve Pipe… I think they’re two different bands).

As you can see, my mind is wandering, and I’ve been enjoying my day off. Now the cheerleaders are behind me running up and down the stands, practicing to Mr. Taliman. Hey Mr. Taliman, tali me banana. What does that mean? 80% of the music here is American, and 95% of the movies that people talk about. Think that affects what they think about the USA.

Now they’re dancing to this same instrumental thing that others have been at my venue.

Oh and I’m also uploading a picture of my lunch.

And finally here they go… She Bangs. “She looks like a flower but she stings like a bee.” How profound, Ricky; truer words were never sung, Mr. Martin. Me say day-o.