Monday, August 13, 2012

NOW what do we do?

I can hardly believe it...the Olympics are OVER! Between that and the Tour, 6 weeks of my life has FLASHED by in a blink!

I didn't even get to watch nearly as much of the Olympics as I had hoped. Lots of reasons, mostly just the lack of that kind of time. One of my bi-annual gripes is the lack of specific event programming. I do NOT want to have to record 6 to 12 hours of general Olympics and then FF thru it to find the event I want, and then to have them show part of it, move to something else for awhile, then back and forth. I HATE THAT!

I ended up seeing ZERO gymnastics. Very little diving. A little bit of shooting (air rifles...they are just INCREDIBLE!), very little of the track cycling, and almost none of the track and field.....sheesh, just what DID I watch?

Somehow the time flew by and I can't really tell you what I did see...I did catch a few games of volleyball (both indoor and sand). Don't really care for basketball, not a huge soccer fan. I know I quickly wore Jeannie out and she put her foot down when she'd come home from work and I'd have it on day after day. So there were many days when I saw nothing. I manage record a whole bunch over the entire duration, but due to the complete lack of specific times/events, most of those ended up getting deleted unwatched.

And so...the 2012 Olympics are finished. The Thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. The sheer joy of just BEING THERE for the majority of the athletes. I did catch SOME of the closing ceremony...recorded the rest but again, that TIME thing...not sure when/if I'll get to it.

Life has returned to normal around here...now there's only football (US style) for me to look forward to...but I don't actually watch very much of that either (time to sit and watch, and also Jeannie pretty much hates it overall). I do catch an occasional quarter or 2, college or pro...but over the course of the season I'll prob get to actually watch about the same as I did the Olympics....not very much. Oh well...life goes on. Summer is drawing to a close. Soon it will be cooling off (for those of you who actually GET summer anyway)...

As for me, I'm still trying to mount my cycling 'comeback'....turns out being on travel for the first 4 months of the year (which is following the annual Nov/Dec holiday season of very little riding) doesn't bode well for me being anywhere NEAR prime condition. I had the one month (March) of riding in England...and even though I did log some good miles, those were all 'tourist' miles. I do know that overall I'm putting in the slowest average speed rides that I can recall (and I keep a log of EVERY ride). But I am slowly making progress.

Getting older stinks...comebacks seem to be OH so much harder the older you get. That is my words of wisdom for today.

And so, I wish you  a  "Happy nearly the end of summer" to all...get out there and ENJOY IT  while it lasts (and get AWAY from the TV for a while!)

Now we can officially begin the post Tour/Olympics withdrawl blues.

Game OVER.

6 comments:

  1. Now what do we do?!! We watch the Vuelta LIVE every day starting Saturday with the Team Time Trial in Pamplona and then on Monday we start watching the USA Pro Cycling Challenge LIVE everyday from Colorado! Plus I get to throw in coverage for a few other French races during the same time span....so much more cycling to go this season!

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    1. Whaaatt????? You mean to tell me there's bike races AFTER the TDF?

      I just checked...I GET Universal (with my package upgrade I did for the Tour...kept it for the Olympics, now I guess I'll keep it 3 more weeks)...just set the DVR up last night to record as they are showing every stage it looks like...Woo-HOO!!!

      Tho I didn't see anything on the USA PCC...who is broadcasting that? Did a cycling search w/ my DVR and only saw the World Mt biking championships and the Vuelta. If it's only shown online that does me no good...I NEED to record it.

      And can you believe August is already HALF Over?? Where did the summer go?

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    2. The Colorado race will be broadcast live daily at 4pm (eastern) except on the 26th when it will be 2pm. On NBCSports channel (the former Versus. also there is a program at 3:30 daily on the weekdays called "Rematch in the Rockies, Race of Truth" and there are 1 hr replays of each stage at 11pm and again at 9am the following day (except not at 9 on Sat & Sun)

      Rae

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  2. For me, the slew of coverage had me sated after the first week. Plus, so many of the events just don't interest me (to watch). Swimming, for example, I can get into the race, but after 500 various heats I am over it! I would have liked the format of prime time better if they had offered more variety of events, I think.

    But right now, I am SO ticked at NBC that I can no longer watch the Vuelta (or any other race, even though I PAID to see the early season races) on Universal sports.com. You can only have access now if your cable/satellite system carries the channel -- and mine doesn't. So now, instead of being a PAYING viewer, I will be watching the pirate streams from who-knows-where, seeing commercials from European sponsors instead of our home-grown sponsors!

    Some of our local schools are in session already. That makes me sad. Summer went by WAY too fast! And I also spent way too much of it sitting and watching, or just working around the house and yard. I plan to make this next week starting today(I've taken a couple of PTO days) a "start back to getting active" week. Keep me accountable guys!

    Rae

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  3. Rae, I think Euro-sport covers the Vuelta live and they are quite tolerable. I view many of our races through the year by watching them online and get lots of good info....although they do tend to talk about Team Sky quite a bit! BTW, the Vuelta and Colorado races are not showing on the same channel on my Directv, although they are both NBC sports channels - just different ones.

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  4. Hello all!
    I feel like I've been M.I.A. from so many things for the past month. We took our first big family vacation from July 24-August 4 to Seattle! Planes, transfers, driving, vacation rentals, ocean, mountains.....and back again. The kids are now 7 and 3, so we thought that we were ready to attempt a "real" vacation. We had a super time! My brother in law and his family live in Seattle so we visited them and stayed for 2 day increments, which was perfect. In between we had little excursions that were adventurous and fun. A success all around!

    We were able to watch some of the Olympics while we were out there, but I wasn't overloading like I usually do. LOVED the gymnastics! I caught swimming and the cycling RR, along with a few other sports and track. We sort of claim Gabby Douglas for Iowa, so that was exciting :)

    Returned home to a week of assisting with vacation bible school and then the dreaded start of school was upon us - ack! I've been back to work for a week now and finally feel like I'm starting to get into a regular routine again. After being on west coast time, it certainly was a SHOCK to get back to the midwest and suddenly have to get up in the morning! I am not a fan of getting up in the mornings.....well before 9 anyway ;)

    It is KILLING me to not be in Colorado this year!! But, we spent our money for the summer and I'm outta luck :( I have some friends out there - continuing to make me more jealous by the day. I am looking forward to the coverage! I don't get Universal and am also ticked over their viewing rules, Rae! I am unable to watch the feeds, as they just don't fit into my day (there aren't any that you can watch later, right?), so I guess I'll have to just read some race reports - bummer.

    But - HOORAY - Jens signed on for another year yesterday!!! Can't ask for better news than that :)

    Thanks for keeping the IA running, Matt. I've missed chatting.
    Later taters
    -Janann

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