The Streets Of Vancouver During the 2010 Winter Olympics

After Monday’s Victory Ceremony this ad said it all. Canada broke a streak of no home soil gold medals thanks to the brilliant performance of Alexandre Bilodeau. NIKE was all over this projection billboard along Robson Street that greeted people as they left BC Place. In addition to this ad, NIKE also had one for Moguls and Hockey. They’re featured in the gallery at the end of this post.

After the victory ceremony, Kelly and I decided to take a walk around Vancouver to see some of the Olympics inspired sights and sounds that were being offered to the public during the games. With Robson and Granville Street closed off, the streets were full of people from around the world.

One of Robson Street’s biggest attractions is the indoor skating rink. The venue was packed with tourists and throughout the night due to the live performances and events taking place there.

Directly behind it was the zip line attraction that allows brave souls to hook themselves to a steel wire and zip across Robson Street, high above the crowd. This was one of the most popular attractions as people start lining up at around 7AM in the morning just to be the first one on.

Taking a turn onto Granville Street there were a number of artistic displays including this row of trees made up of lanterns from the recent Lunar Festival.

Also on Granville Street was the Royal Canadian Mint Display which is normally the Segal School of Business. Here you can take your loonies and toonies and other Canadian coinage and change it up for Olympic editions. No doubt our Canadian one dollar coin (pictured above oversized) was embedded in many of the courses that have led to medals for our athletes.

Finally, the Olympic Cauldron was the last stop on our walk through Vancouver. This picture was taken before VANOC improved the viewing situation by moving the barriers forward and cutting a hole in the chain link fence so that people could actually get an unobstructed shot. And yes, Jor El wants his Fortress of Solitude back.

As the rain started to come down hard, Kelly and I decided to take a detour through Gas Town which is near Waterfront Station and just past  the German Fan Fest Beer Gardens where they were not only serving beer, but also delicacies from the uberland like grilled sausages. It’s weird how it takes a world class event to make you rediscover your own town. I definitely had a good time checking out the sights and sounds.

With the excellent weather this week (for walking around, not  so much for Winter Sports) and tickets to Friday’s victory ceremony, I’ll definitely be checking out some more of the sights and sounds (and hopefully some food too) from this one in a lifetime opportunity known as the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. More pictures after the jump!

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OMG! It’s the “Will It Blend?” Guy!

Tom Dickson of Blendtec has made quite the name for himself and for his company by blending all sorts of things. From iPhones to Chuck Norris, there doesn’t seem to be anything left for him to throw into these crazy powerful and super loud blenders. I met up with Tom at the Lunch@Pieros press event across the street from the LVCC during CES 2009 to ask him a couple questions about blending stuff…

Initially I was kind of star struck but after talking to him for a little bit, it’s pretty clear that he’s a big gadget geek like the rest of us and really loves what he does. I mentioned to him how Kelly has broken my blenders with her weird protein shakes. Of course, I had to tell him the reason why she drinks these blender wrecking concoctions.

After hearing that Kelly can easily throw my 80 kg frame over her head and that she was on track to compete at the 2012 Olympics for Olympic Weightlifting for Canada, Tom immediately hooked us up with a Blendtec Blender which should be arriving soon. A powerful little female Olympic Weightlifter vs the world’s most powerful blender. Now there’s something that blends well together. I can’t wait to have this thing in the house!

Some of the things he blended at this event included…

A Tape Measure which put up a really good fight…

A few cellphones including the legendary Nokia 5190 which went down without much complaining…

Michael Kwan tried to blend too, but we all know that he doesn’t do so well with things with motors. He seemed to take the task very seriously though. Why so serious Michael? More pictures after the jump.

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I Knew It! Phelps is Some Kind of Marine Mammal!

In my last post of complete randomness, I mentioned how I was heading back to the pool to work on my swim. I’d never been a good swimmer, and in fact, I’m about as clumsy in water as Michael Kwan is on a Segway or a Scooter. I guess we have something in common…sort of…nah…not really. I’m not that uncoordinated. At any rate, I’m a bad swimmer. So bad, I had to be saved once, and I nearly drowned myself in a kayak…in a swimming pool. After watching Michael Phelps take home more Gold medals than the entire Canadian Olympic Team, I was inspired. On TV, he makes the butterfly and breast stroke look so easy and the freestyle look like a walk in the park. Well, looks are very deceiving.

On my first day out, trying to do my best Michael Phelps imitation, I ended up doing a Michael Kwan Segway imitation: I failed. I was so useless, flailing around in the pool and barely made it to the other end. I I knew in that moment, if I was on a cruise or a boating trip, and the boat sank, I’d be going down with it. I would not go down like that, so I swam harder. After two and a half laps, my body was full of lactic acid and it felt like my chest was going to explode. Maybe I should have had a Phelps breakfast that consisted of a bowl of cereal, three egg sandwhiches, bacon and eggs, and two chocolate chip pancakes to wash it down before heading to the pool.

Today, I had a bacon and egger (as close as I had to the Phelps breakfast at the time) at A&W and swam much better than the day before, but it was still the hardest four laps I’d ever doggied, flailed, something resembling freestyle, swam. There had to be some explanation as to why Michael Phelps can do it without seemingly any effort, while I was killing myself to stay afloat. Then I found this…

It appears that the Onion News Network has unearthed the true reason behind why Phelps is the man that he is: He is not…a man that is.

Shortly after his return from Beijing, his handler, Bob Bowman, coralled “the 6′4″, 200-pound aquatic mammal, and the first ever SeaWorld swimmer to be raised in captivity by foster swimmers (Mark Spitz and Dara Torres)” back to his tank at Sea World. Apparently, in addition to fried egg sandwhiches, he has an even greater love of “Dutch Apple Pie” which Bowman used as bait to get him back into the 5,500 seat stadium known as “Phelps Happy Harbour”.

Although they let Phelps out every four years to play with the US Swim Team, the “World Society for the Conservation of Olympic Swimmers” alleges that he’s not really as happy as he seems. “When he was placed back into his tank, the slightly loose portion of his black swim cap immediately folded over to the right side, a telltale symptom of stress and angst”.

No wonder this guy swims like a Dolphin. He practically is one! However, I now feel sorry for him being all locked up like that. I’m sure that there will be a movie called “Free Phelps” somewhere down the line. I guess I’ll stop pitying myself and go back to flailing like a human being. I must not be doing as bad as I think I am.

You can read more about the Marine Mammal known as Phelps at the Onion News Network. Thanks for the laugh guys!