Morning: The Jinx is Back!

Well, we didn't win gold. Ain't no gold in them mountains. The gold rush is off. But the nordic combined team won silver, and that's not too shabby. Well done, Bill Demong.


After proclaiming an imminent win yesterday, a friggin' snowstorm cost the US their shot. Apparently our guys chose their skis an hour before the cross country portion began, when it wasn't snowing. Then the white stuff began to fall, and the Austrians picked later, and had better wax, or something. Anyway, their advantage propelled them to a 5-second win. Bill Demong was trailing by 14 seconds at the start of his anchor turn in the relay, and he erased it completely. He held the lead for most of the last 5 kilometers. But he stumbled coming down the final hill, and the Austrian's better skis propelled him to the line.

After looking at the results, I see that Demong had the best anchor time of any competitor, which is awesome. He left it all out on the trails. Brett Camerota's opening 5km was unfortunately slow, and the seems to have set us back beyond repair. Oh well. Bill has one more shot for an individual medal Thursday in the long hill/10k event.

HOCKEY!

USA vs. Switzerland today at 3. I might even get to watch some of this at the airport before heading down to Carolina. The Swiss were in our group, and we beat them 3-1 last Tuesday. We should handle this game pretty easily. Then, at 7:30, the Canadians and Russians face off. Oooh baby! I'm still torn as to who I should root for. My friend Spike made the good point that we already beat Canada, and a USA-Russia gold medal game would be epic in the old school way. But it's hard to root for Russians...so, so hard. I'm just going to let this one play out.

Here's a Warren Zevon song that sounds like most other Warren Zevon songs, except it's about hockey. (Note: I kinda love Warren Zevon.)

As I mentioned yesterday, I'll be gone from blog-land until next Tuesday. I hope to make at least one other post today, covering what a huge friggin' baby the Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko is being about his silver medal. And maybe a little something about Duke, since I won't be around for their two games against Tulsa and UVA. And I'm going to miss the whole hockey extravaganza, too.

I just had the instinct to type the word 'sigh.' And I wasn't even being cute, I meant it legitimately. This is an 'uh-oh' moment.

Sigh.


That guy's name is 'manchin.' Sounds like a hick saying 'mansion,' looks like man-chin. I bet West Virginia folk get a lot of laughs about that. There could be a hilarious 'who's on first' type routine about him.

West Virginia yokel 1: Hello, you, sir! Where's the governor's mansion?

West Virginia yokel 2: The governor's Manchin in West Virginia.

West Virginia yokel 1: I know that, you idiot. I'm asking where in West Virginia!

West Virginia yokel 2: All over.

West Virginia yokel 1: No, no, no! What is the exact location of the mansion?

West Virginia yokel 2: Manchin's location?

West Virginia yokel 1: Yes!

West Virginia yokel 2: The mansion.


Look, it needs work. I never promised you a miracle. More later, my droogs.