This collection of entries is from February 12, 2002.
I'm turning into a curmudgeon. I just can't seem to tolerate these X-Game-type "sports" in the Olympics. At least they put it into its own category - "Freestyle Skiing". They're showing today's Men's Moguls on TV now. Yes, I see how hard it is to do these things (I mean, Johnny Moseley was just fantastic), but they're just not Olympic sports, you know what I mean? (Travis Mayer got a Silver, though, and Moseley got knocked to 4th.) Between this junk and the Figure Skating Judging fiasco last night, my "curmudgeonness" is just getting tweaked-up a notch... and now the conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork, saying that there was "collaboration" between the French and Russian judges. Canada has requested an investigation (or an ISU "internal assessment")
Looks like Picabo Street has made it into retirement successfully. She finished 16th in Women's Downhill, just 1.61 seconds behind the leader and behind 11th place Jonna Mendes and 12th place Kirsten Clark. A very nice career. Too bad we didn't have a good showing for your sendoff.
USA Women's Hockey team kicked butt in a 10-0 whipping of Germany.
Hey! More speed skating medals in the Men's 500m! Casey FitzRandolph got a Gold (with his 34.42 Olympic Record run yesterday) and Kip Carpenter got a Bronze.
Poor Todd Eldredge. He's 30 years old and he was all over the ice - and not in a good way. As I'm writing this, he's in 9th, behind Michael Weiss, who's in 8th, and Timothy Goebel who's still in 3rd. Another "old guy" is Elvis Stojko from Canada - he's 7th. Leading is Alexei Yagudin from (gee) Russia.
Whooo hoooo! Another Curling Win! This Time it's the USA Women over Sweden 6-5. We're in second place after two games (we're 2-0!) The men are tied for forth (1-1 after two games)
On my way home from my parent's house, I was listening to NPR. There was a story that kind of upset me. Every year, monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico to spend the winter, basically November to March. Last month (January 12-13), there was this cold front that moved over the Michoacan region (filled with hills and pine trees). Well, it was a weird little weather front and it killed (according to the World Wildlife Fund) up to 250 million monarch butterflies. Here's a quote: "This is not about the extinction of the species, although we cannot know for sure what is going to happen."
Well, I brought Dad to see Dr. Clark about Chemotherapy. He asked quite a few life style questions, like "Is he active?" The tumor has spread downward toward the media stinum (man, I wish I had a bit of anatomy - there's not much on the web about this). He wants to prescribe cisplatin once a week for every week of radiotherapy. The administration of the drug is about an hour, but the entire process is 4 hours long, primarily to make sure fluids are flushed through him. Side effects include "worsening" ;of the radiation side effects, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. Nothing is written in stone that this is necessary. It is worth trying. Dr. Clark thinks it can help control the cancer.
Dad says "No." He doesn't want to go through it. Mom says that over the past year, he has gotten waker and doesn't think he can handle it. Dr. Clark thanks us for our time, says that in case you change your mind, there's still time to call and start chemo, and leaves.
Let's just say the ride home was very quiet.