Dragonboating & Beyond

So every Tuesday (when it isn't storming) a group of people from work go to Canton Marina and practice for our dragonboat race in September. I'm not the most in-shape person (or really in-shape at all) but I enjoy doing this and am pretty strong overall, which helps with the paddling. We have only practiced a few times, but every time we do, things seem to be coming together more and more. This year's race has two categories, competetive and sport. We are in the sport division so it takes some pressure off and we are mostly just out to have fun and do something good for charity. Here are a couple pictures from today:


After practice, a few of us grabbed a couple beers and I headed to Speakeasy again for my daily dose of the Olympics. Caught the end of men's beach vball USA beating Argentina and then watched as local Katie Hoff fell to fourth place as the top 3 all beat the world record in the 200M Freestyle. Saw some women's (but none of these girls seem to be women yet, they all look 12 years old) gymnastics and then watched Phelps become the life-time gold medal record holder.

Olympic Thoughts

It was only a week ago that my feelings toward the Olympics could be summed up as apathetic at the best, but now that the NBC barage has begun I find myself completely drawn to everything Olympic. I find myself spending my free time at work researching the athletes and the sports that no (or maybe only a few) American cares about (Hand ball anyone?). I realized that America's best hope at a badmiton medal works at the Home Depot and that the Chinese loves team USA basketball more than team China. I was out at Buffalo Wild Wings in White Marsh Saturday night (after a horrible round of golf) and there was football, baseball, the olympics and several random sports channels on. My choice to watch, everything having to do with the olympics. I can't really remember who was playing football, the O's were winning (I think because they fell into their usual play a few months ago), the White Sox may have been playing, and I think there was some other sports news going on. I do remember everything olympics we watched; Phelps getting his first gold in the 400M medley, the US Women's beach vball winning and some other things. Tonight, I went to Speakeasy in Canton to watch Phelps get his third gold after watching some more beach vball and gymnastics. I completely expect this obsession to continue and I cannot wait until track starts.

I wish I had some form of cable to watch the Olympics (yes, yes I know NBC can be watched over the air but the signal is fuzzy and I don't like poor quality), but I don't feel that the cost of comcast or direct tv is worth the short amount of time I would spend watching it. Plus, I can get almost all the content I want to watch online and I have a 600+ DVD/Blu-ray collection to keep me entertained.

I think I will try out NBC's streaming video at work tomorrow .