Whistler Wonderland

It Must Be Blenz

2011-02-10T21:42:00.000-05:00

My glasses unavoidably fog up upon entry. My blurry vision scans the room as I fumble to reach my cotton shirt from underneath my bulky winter layers. With polished glasses replaced, I glance first for familiar faces, second for an open chair with outlet access.

There are various seating options inside the small café. There are three pairs of armless upholstered chairs, set low to the ground on stumpy legs and positioned on either side of a low table. There are round tables barely able to contain two laptops, with as many as four black leather bar chairs encircling them. My favorite situation, however, is a high chair at the dark granite countertop – by far the best position for spontaneous stranger exchanges.

I beeline for the seat, wiggling past a Norwegian with stroller here, and squeezing by an Aussie couple there, before claiming my territory at the window counter with my computer bag and outer jacket. I have reached Home Sweet Home for the next few hours.

Welcome to:

The length of the line inevitably provides ample time to contemplate the menu. Supremo classic chai latte for here? Regular black peach iced tea? Not today.

“Medium mochachillo, no whip please.” It was a well-analyzed decision.

“Wow, you must come here often. You order like a pro!” Helena winked.

Why yes, yes I do.

Step Two: commence computer initialization. I lean over my chair and close out all the pop-ups whilst monitoring the pick-up counter. Malisa calls out the drink orders as if she were presenting members of a studio audience with various prizes they had won, varying her pitch and elongating selected syllables to accentuate the excitement of her tone.

“Espresso macchiato for Ronaldo,” she grins as she proudly bestows him with his reward. “An iced matcha latte for Anja – enjoy!” she chirps, a satisfied smile on her lips. “And a medium mochachillo for Nancy!” She makes it sound like I have won the lottery.

Delicious beverage in hand, I settle into my spot. Knowing my laptop battery’s life is about as short-lived as one run down the track at the Sliding Center, I turn to the potential friend next to me and ask sweetly, “Excuse me, would you please plug this in for me?” I secretly hope that my Canadian-esque politeness will allow me to pass as a local.

I never know where that initial communication will take me, which makes the line a more exciting part of my day than one might expect. During my first visit to Blenz, it evolved into a lengthy, though intermittent, conversation with a VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committee) volunteer named Ryan.

“Can I ask you something?” I begin shyly. I’m emboldened by the friendly vibes that flow from him like heat from coffee, plus I’m just bursting with curiosity about everything Olympic.

“Sure,” he shrugs, looking up from his own computer to meet my gaze. His nose ring catches the light as he turns his head, and the florescent bulbs emphasize the blonde tips highlighted in his hair.

“Did VANOC provide you housing?” This question had been nagging me for a few days.

“No, we had to find it on our own,” his voice does not express excess frustration, but rather resigned acceptance. “I’m living in a house with ten other people, and we don’t have internet.”

“Oh. I’m living in a shipping container with ten beds in one room. Our bathroom is in a different trailer – I have to put on boots and a coat to brush my teeth,” I counter, then add for good measure, “We don’t have internet either.”

“Wow. Okay, you win!” he laughs in disbelief.

After a few more exchanges we return to our own affairs. It is not long however, before my inquisitiveness prods me to speak up again.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Yeah, sure,” he chuckles, his agreement obviously genuine.

I ask him something else about being a volunteer, which he answers in enough detail to suit me temporarily. I explain my internship with Cleanevent, then our conversation fizzles out for another period of time.

By the end of the evening, I learn that in the real world he works at a bank in Saskatchewan, though for the duration of the Games he is a volunteer at the Main Transportation area of Whistler Olympic Park. This initial interaction gives me the courage and the inspiration to both seek out conversations with strangers and to be open to them when they fall into my lap.

“Supremo classic apple cider for Ryan!”

* * *

Blenz is not only my home base, but that of my friends. We meet here before or after work to get online, to share about our day, and to make a game plan for the night’s activities. Whenever I enter Blenz, my eyes search each patron for recognition, and about fifty percent of the time I know someone who is already seated, bent over a computer. If not, I continually glance over my shoulder at the people entering and exiting, hoping to prevent a sneak attack.

A daily occurrence

One afternoon, as I sit at my usual post at the counter overlooking the Village Stroll, Sydney comes in wearing that look – that I need to vent, NOW! look. I take a sip of my chai latte and invited her to open the flood gates.

She pours out all her frustration and disappointment with our company’s management, and it breaks my heart to hear her despair.

“I think I just want to go home,” she sighs, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“What would it take to make you want to stay? Can you talk to Joey again? Do you want to switch venues with me? You’d love the Sliding Center. There has to be a way to fix this,” I am in full problem-solving mode.

We reach a decision, and I can see her relax. When she stands up to place her beverage order, I turn my attention back to my blog – at least momentarily.

“Do you work for Cleanevent?” the young man to my right leans forward to enter my field of vision and points at my Cleanevent Academy binder.

“Yeah, I do,” I answer, turning towards him. “Do you?” I wonder how much of my conversation he has just overheard.

“Nah, I did, but I quit,” he says, and I smile knowingly. “As soon as I arrived at the camp and they showed me to my container, I decided to look for another job. I’m so glad I did.”

“Yeah, Camp Cleanevent is…interesting,” I hesitate, always uncomfortable with negative gossip. “I try my best not to spend any time there. I come to Blenz instead!”

“Good move!” he laughs. “I’m Mohammed,” he offers, extending his hand.

“Nancy,” I return, smiling at my new friend.

We continue to converse on and off, just as I had with Ryan. He asks if I know Carlos, the Camp Cleanevent cook, and I introduce him to my friends who wander into Blenz also looking to take advantage of the free WiFi. He even asks me to watch his computer while he runs to the bathroom. It quickly becomes clear that my ease chatting with Ryan was not as rare as I had originally assumed. It must be Blenz.

“Medium mocha latte for Mohammed!”

* * *

Early one morning as I enter Blenz and stand in line, my ritual inspection of the area detects the waving arms of Cory, who has overtaken a small corner of the coffee shop but offers me the empty green chair next to him. We’re lucky enough to score two tables in our empire, and despite being located just outside the bathroom I am thankful for this choice real estate. As we both type away furiously, hunched over the tables that don’t even reach our knees while we’re seated, a man in his early fifties with graying hair and a beer gut materializes in front of us and stares down awkwardly before speaking.

“I’m having a lot of trouble here,” his deep voice begins, then he pauses for an uncomfortably long moment as I look up at him expectantly.

What does this guy want? I wonder, squirming a bit under his gaze.

“The password is ‘Blenz Loves You’?” he asks finally, referring to the WiFi connection.

“No,” I explain, relieved that he does not turn out to be the major creeper I suspected him to be. “That’s the network. The password is Whistler with a capital ‘W’”.

“Oooh, okay. Thank you,” he nods, leaving as abruptly as he appeared.

I shudder involuntarily, exchanging a what was that?! glance with Cory.

“Regular café americano, no cream or sugar,” for the Creeper That Wasn’t.

* * *

Today is my last day in Whistler. The village is quiet, and Blenz is not as packed as usual. My frequent glances over my shoulder are only returned by the man with the violin on my right, who has hung on the wall for the past three weeks, and the noble inukshuk painted against an azure sky to the left.

The young blonde woman returns to her seat beside me, and I refocus my attention back to the last-minute writing I am attempting to accomplish. It is not long, however, before the chai latte has traveled to the extremities of my body.

“Will you watch my computer for me?” are the first words I speak to the woman. “I have to run to the bathroom”.

“Sure,” she agrees easily, then adds “the bathroom line at Starbucks isn’t long.” It is understood between us, though unspoken, that the single restroom at Blenz has been out of order for the past week and a half.

“Oh good, I didn’t want to have to go all the way down to the public ones,” I thank her and hurry out. I fully realize, as I scurry next door, that three weeks ago there would have been no way that I would have risked leaving my computer out of the sight of trusted eyes. The culture of coffee, saturated with conversation, has soaked into my bloodstream with every beerstein-style glass mug of warm latte, loosening my stress and ushering in a refreshingly positive outlook on the goodness of people. Change has brewed inside me, and will continue to percolate even after I leave Whistler behind me.

“Regular strawberry tea latte!” for the Kind Kindred Spirit. And a regretful goodbye ― for Blenz Coffee.

Nose Plugs Not Included

2010-10-30T00:40:00.000-04:00

I toured a composting facility. Voluntarily.

I made the decision during my third and final week in Whistler, B.C. Since my internship at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games was with Cleanevent ― the company contracted to handle snow, cleaning, and waste removal at the mountain venues ― I deemed it only appropriate to educate myself to the greatest extent possible about the journey undertaken by the immense volume of waste generated at an event as substantial as the Olympics.

When I arrived at the Whistler Compost Facility I was under the impression that a tour had been prearranged for me by one of the Cleanevent managers. Although that turned out not to be the case, I was received warmly by Patrick Mulholland, the Compost Operations Manager, and immediately shown around anyhow.

Prior to committing to the site visit I had been warned by Cleanevent staff that “it smells really bad”. Apparently that is Australian for “you have never smelt a stronger, more foul odor in your life”. Upon entering into the compound, my senses were flooded by the aroma of baking biosolids and fermenting food waste. I tried to cough the smell out of my nose and lungs, but it stuck like the stench of a skunk’s spray on the hottest day of the year, so I sealed my nostrils tightly closed like a camel and resolved to breath solely through my mouth for the duration of the tour. The scent alone was enough to make me never want to generate any sort of waste ever again.

Pre-composted material, a mixture of food and biological waste, plus wood chips

The facility was opened in December of 2008 at a cost of $1.5 million to accommodate the compostable material produced by the town of Whistler, and had since contracted with the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) to receive their waste, as well. Also on the property is the Whistler Transfer Station, which collects items such as untreated wood, metal, tires, and drywall for recycling.

Patrick began our tour by explaining the special compost recipe they have been developing since the facility became operational; he spoke with complete ease and expertise, demonstrating that he was a true scientist and not just the friendly neighborhood trash collector. The proportions of the compost mixture have had to be readjusted and tweaked to produce the best results, but they currently stand at a ratio of 2,300 pounds of biosolids to 1,000 pounds of food waste to 3,000 – 5,000 pounds of wood chips. The correct balance is necessary in order to control the moisture, which needs to be at levels of 60% or below.

Another important factor to control before the process begins is the purity of the substances. Patrick explained that the compostable waste arriving from VANOC is considerably contaminated, and about 20% must be thrown out as garbage and enter the landfill instead. He showed me the section of the conveyer belt at which one of his employees must stand elbow-deep in waste, hand-picking out as much garbage as he can while it slides past. It was not in operation at the time of my visit, but I glanced around at the strapping young men buzzing busily about the complex and couldn’t help but wonder who the unlucky fellow was that got stuck on filter duty the most.

I had seen first-hand the waste management system employed by VANOC. They were not simply placing trash cans throughout the venues, but rather a small army of receptacles were clustered at each station consisting of: two compostable bins, clearly marked with green lids and a graphic illustrating what items qualified as compostable; one black bin for general waste, also labeled with a picture; and a Coke recycling barrel with a red lid whose opening was only big enough to fit a plastic bottle.

Early on, as the VANOC waste began to be collected and analyzed, the data showed that contamination was still high and that only about half of the waste was being diverted from landfills, rather than the goal of 85%. In an attempt to dummy-proof the system even more, Cleanevent employees at each venue created bigger signs, onto which they taped the actual items that belonged in each receptacle, making it even clearer that all the utensils, plates, and cups could in fact be composted, and that plastic wrappers could not.

Dummy-proof sign developed by Cleanevent staff

Even our best efforts, however, could not save that poor soul from the purification process. After the contaminating garbage is picked out and a giant magnet removes metal objects, the conveyor belt dumps the waste into a tray that holds about 8,000 pounds. The plant processes roughly fourteen to sixteen of these trays daily, taking them into a 265 foot tunnel where they are first held for three days at a temperature of 70°C to kill all pathogens and bugs.

The composting material continues to move slowly through the tunnels for a full fourteen days, while the crew monitors the temperature with probes and ensures proper ventilation. It is essential that enough oxygen can flow through so that CO2 is generated, not methane gas as is produced by landfills. At the midway point in the process, spinners break up the waste so that it does not become too compacted.

At the end of the two weeks all traces of that horrid, rotten smell have fled the compost and a clean, earthy odor has taken up residence in its place. The output is blended with sand to drain some excess moisture, and can then be sold as soil.

Although the selling of the soil allows for some cost-recovery, the facility is by no means self-sustaining. Just as utilities, the capital expenditure is huge for an operation like this. The revenue from soil sales, even along with the dumping fees and the average of $1,000 per week from tin can returns, can hardly make a dent in the costs of operations. The municipality recognizes the environmental benefit of diverting this waste from landfills, however, and that alliance permits the project to continue.

Though my employment foray in the waste industry was brief, the educational component was invaluable. I now recycle even more aggressively than before, and plan to have my own composting system once I have a housing situation that allows for it. I am also taking a pledge to support legislation that advocates for sustainable waste treatment. After all, there are a crew of guys in Whistler who tolerate a sickening stench day in and day out just to do their part in helping our Earth. Are you going to spit in their coffee?

Cape Cod Confessions

2010-05-23T11:58:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone!

I still have some posts to finish up on this blog (I know I've been slacking - I'm sorry!), but I have created a new blog to share my experiences living out on Cape Cod this summer. I hope you've enjoyed this blog enough to follow the new one! I'll do my best to keep it entertaining and worthwhile for you.

You can access it here.

Enjoy!

Native Roots

2010-04-27T21:41:00.000-04:00

Roots ground us, giving us nourishment and stability, but they also reach out and connect us to our neighbors in such a deep and subtle way that the relationship may very easily go unnoticed. The Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Center was designed with the express purpose of recognizing, celebrating, and teaching about two tribes of First Nations peoples whose roots intertwine deep in the history of Whistler, British Columbia. It is a testament to their arts, their shared heritage, and their cooperative future. In their words, it is a place “where rivers, mountains and people meet”.

The Great Hall of the SLCC was inspired by a Squamish Longhouse. Its open feel is enhanced by the natural light streaming in through its wall of windows and by its lofty ceilings that mimic the tall cedar trees of the local forest. The staff is soft-spoken and serene, but remarkably hospitable. Although during the Olympics the admission fee was lifted for all visitors, I made a donation of the student price anyway which, looking back, surprises me slightly; at nearly every other establishment in Whistler, my friends and I would ask if we were entitled to any sort of discount with our official Olympic accreditation. Here, however, I chose to pay the full price normally expected of me. Before I even realized it, some of the honor and respect intrinsic to these peoples had been transferred to me, compelling me to share it back with them.

Museum map in hand, I delve into reading every word of every portion of the exhibits. I am thankful for my solitude ― I love working my way slowly and methodically through museums, so as not to overlook any interesting tidbits. I had not progressed very far from inside the large wooden doors when Martina, the beautiful young Lil’wat who had greeted me upon entry, came over to invite me into the storytelling performance taking place in the SLCC’s auditorium. I was touched by her thoughtfulness, and overly impressed when she proceeded to hold the door for me so that I had enough light to find a seat.

The storyteller wore all black, and the stage was unadorned with scenery or props aside from a single chair. She first introduced each story, then both narrated and provided voices to each character, acting out bears wrestling and siblings fighting. Each story had a moral, of course, and animals were used metaphorically to engage the children in the lessons. She was not overly theatrical, yet the energy she put into the performance was evident.

I emerged from the theater to return to my careful inspection of each display, and learned about the aboriginal carving tradition. Carving has been at the heart of Squamish and Lil’wat culture since their creation, and those who excel at the art are held in high esteem within their communities. As with everything about native cultures, carving relates to all aspects of tribal life. Their language and stories are engraved into wood to be passed down to the generations to come. Canoes, which contribute to the tribes’ sustenance, are themselves hollowed by carvers and then ornamented with symbols representing their values. Two large wooden weaving whorls stand guard in the great hall: one bearing a human face and welcoming arms, to represent the native people welcoming all visitors; the other depicting a legendary two-headed snake, slain by the Squamish hero Xwecht’aál. As Jodie Broomfield, from the Squamish Nation, says, “it’s all connected spiritually, mentally, physically”.

When Xwecht'aál defeated the serpent, he took a bone from it that gave him healing powers.

My leisurely pace caused me to still be in the vicinity of the theater when the fifteen-minute documentary Where Rivers, Mountain and People Meet was scheduled to begin. Martina approached me once more and in her quiet manner invited me in to watch, also informing me that a tour of the building would take place after. Again she held the door for me, a humble smile on her face as I thanked her and found my seat.

Our tour guide, Bill, met us outside the theater. He wore the same shy grin as the women at the admissions desk, and its placement on his round face was cherubic. Though his red button-down shirt was not traditional aboriginal clothing, a small woven cedar bark hat perched atop his head, and his proud posture carried it as if it were a bird’s nest laden with eggs. His dark eyes twinkled like those of a wise grandfather, and he shuffled around carrying a weight indicative of some plentiful harvests in recent years. I liked him immediately.

Bill escorted our small group throughout the exhibits, and his insights greatly enhanced the museum experience. He added personal touches to the pieces, such as identifing one of the men in an old black and white photo as his grandfather, and sharing a private story about some young men who were recognized for reviving their culture’s carving customs. At one point while we were paused, waiting for the rest of the group to gather around, Bill looked at me and asked softly, “How am I doing?”

“You’re doing great!” I encouraged. He was becoming more and more endeared to me every moment.
“Oh, thank you,” he blushed. “I have to ask every once in a while to make sure”.

By the time we returned to the Great Hall, only myself and two older American women remained in the tour group. Bill invited us up on a platform to sit at a long table, which had wooden pegs fastened to the edges and a bundle of cedar bark strips next to a plastic tub of water on the top. He asked us to get our piece of bark deeply saturated with water, then showed us how to loop the bark around the peg, pulling tightly toward ourselves, while first twisting each side of the bark and then crisscrossing the two sides to form a type of braid. Once the ends were tied off, we either had a bracelet or, if the bark strip was too short, a bookmark.

Our craft table

My bracelet!

The craft project was the conclusion of Bill’s tour. While we worked, he told us about some of the special events that had been hosted at the SLCC during the Olympics, and at how shocked he was that the dignitaries and other important guests wanted to have their pictures taken with him. The three of us did not find it strange at all, however, and also requested photos.

Me and Bill!

Though I had learned a lot from Bill’s perspective, I returned to my thorough reading of each exhibit piece. Weaving is another highly revered skill to both the Lil’wat and Squamish nations. A large cedar root mat hangs proudly in the Great Hall of the SLCC, created specifically for the building as a way to pass on the artform to the youth. The entire process, it is explained, takes a whole seasonal cycle. Young members of the Lil’wat nation learned what resources are harvested when and how to prepare them for weaving. To dye the wild cherry bark black, for instance, it must spend months buried in slough water. Through the creation of this wall hanging, many lessons were able to be passed down to modern generations, and the cultural traditions can now be kept alive.

A glance at my watch told me two things. One: I had been at the SLCC for two hours, and two: it was lunchtime. Although a nearby sushi restaurant had been highly recommended to me by numerous people, I decided to continue embracing the natives’ culture and check out the café downstairs. Contrary to my typical tendencies, I opted for the venison chili (I had never before been inclined to eat venison, but I thought hey, when in Whistler…) and bannock, which was defined by the menu as “a traditional fry bread made fresh daily”. It turned out to be an excellent decision.

Venison chili and bannock

When I returned upstairs to complete my visit, I was drawn to the maps on the wall outlining each culture’s territory. Whistler was depicted in a distinct overlap between the two, and having by that point spent almost three full weeks in the mountain village I understood first-hand the value of this land. Rather than becoming a battleground of constant conflict, however, the area became a symbol of alliance, unity, and cooperation between the two nations. For centuries the two peoples lived side by side in peaceful coexistence, and in 2001 a Protocol Agreement was signed as a contract of solidarity in continued collaboration regarding matters of preservation and protection of their mutual heritage.

The following year, the Shared Legacies Agreement was signed between the Squamish and Lil’wat tribes as well as the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation and the Province of British Columbia. It was this powerful pact that granted $3 million towards the building of the SLCC, as well as 300 acres of land for economic development and another $2.3 million dedicated towards a skills and legacy training project.

As I stared at the maps inside this beautiful building, founded by a joint partnership of different cultures, I couldn’t help but wonder why other parts of the world were unable to set aside their differences in customs and beliefs and instead celebrate their commonalities. When roots are allowed to forge their paths deep into the earth without conflict, the tree – and the community which it protects – grows healthy and strong. When roots from neighboring plants are fighting for same space, however, the growth of each is stunted and their beauty diminished. The Squamish and Lil’wat peoples are excellent examples to the world of the gifts that can be bestowed by a healthy living environment – their woodwork comes from sturdy trunks, their baskets are made with strong bark. And their cultural center is operated with pure human spirit.

It's Coming Back: A Memoir

2010-04-16T22:35:00.001-04:00

Sometimes we become tethered, voluntarily or otherwise, to a slice in time, a location on a map, an event on a calendar. The land and its structures take up residency in the core of our beings, bittersweet burdens we carry with us long after our footprints are erased from the soil. Human connections jog our memories and dispatch our minds back to those moments, those settings, and those emotions. From the instant I first ducked into the Blackcomb Excalibur gondola, a union was forged between myself and my destination: the Whistler Sliding Center. It was a bond that would be tested, threatened, and strengthened over the next three weeks as my life twisted and curved through thrills and chills in a warped harmony with the turns the sliding track carved down the steep mountainside.

My introduction to the Sliding Center began with a glowing heart. I was standing outside the security checkpoint tent with our crew of workers, the anticipation to make my inaugural entrance threatening to overwhelm me. Charles paused his French conversation with Aurelien to clarify from Jan if “glowing” held the same meaning as “shiny”. My initial reaction was surprise, and I wondered why he would choose to ask a Czech rather than a native English-speaker. “No,” Jan mused, rolling the words around in his head for a breath of a moment before answering in his clean accent, “‘shiny’ is reflected light, but ‘glowing’ is light from within”. Wow. That briefest of exchanges was a powerball of significance for me, and foreshadowed many essential elements of my experience.

I could feel the venue’s glowing heart from the moment I entered the complex, despite my first glimpse being a muddy parking lot dotted with shipping containers for offices and tents for buildings. I have stood inside the Coliseum. I have craned my neck to stare up at both David and the Sistine Chapel. My fingers have traced lines on the columns of ancient Greek temples. I am no mere stranger to architectural feats or works of beauty. The sliding track, however, touched me like no other. It reached through my flesh, zigged and zagged between my ribs, and delicately wound its glow around my heart. In addition to the awe, appreciation, and respect that I have for those other buildings, there burns within me a love and reverence for the power of the track that cannot be properly qualified in words. I intend no offense to Michelangelo, but I have never been so humbled by a structure or artwork as I am by the Whistler Sliding Center.

It is a masterpiece not only in construction but in operation. Each athlete that flashes by adds a stroke of genius to the canvas. The first time I saw a woman fly around Turn 16 at nearly ninety miles an hour laying flat-backed on a luge sled, I laughed aloud in pure amazement. I heard the low, building roar of her sled for only a few seconds before she zipped past me in a crescendo, then the rumble evaporated into the frosty air. For that frozen moment in time, she was close enough to touch had I reached out my arm. I leaned on a steel support beam just outside the track, marveling at the exhilaration and adrenaline that still hung thick in the air like smoke after a wildfire. I was moved by the power of the track and the dominance each athlete fought to gain. Television does not adequately represent the speed and level of difficulty undertaken by these competitors.

But I know. I saw it. I was there.

My infatuation was only three days old on the morning of the Opening Ceremonies. I had already vowed to seize every opportunity to escape the office and bear witness to the stunning displays of athleticism occurring just up the road. The sun’s rays fell on my face as I stood inside the final turn to watch the men lugers’ last practice runs. I focused my camera on the “Vancouver” lettering in the ice and waited with my shutter finger ready until I heard the foreboding thunder of the sled barreling around the corner. I rejoiced at catching the luger in frame. The second Georgian luger to take his run began as no different than the rest. I commented to myself that I had no idea how to pronounce his last name. Click. I glanced down to see his relatively small body passing over the lower extremities of the “-er” painted blue beneath the clear top layer of ice. I glanced up, then wished my photo had held my attention longer.

Nodar Kumaritashvili 2.12.10

I do not remember hearing an audible gasp from the few of us inside Turn 16. I wondered who hit the pause button as the whole world slowed down, then the medical team lounging on the Gator beside us sprang into action, racing under the tunnel and out of the track. The screen that had showed the luger fly off his sled and into the post beside the track went blank as my whole body went numb. I had stood in that same spot the day before.

It was as if I had gone deaf. There were no panicked screams, no intruding sirens indicating grave danger. Then I heard it. The sled that had just bucked off its rider galloped backwards around Turn 16, crazed and confused, afraid of being caught. Rather than reminding me of a building shaking from a low-flying airplane, the sound was more like fingernails on a chalkboard without Nodar Kumaritashvili’s 176 pounds of force weighing it down, controlling it. It was just two steel blades scratching hopelessly on the surface of the ice. “It’s coming back! It’s coming back!”, a VANOC smurf shouted into my brain as he climbed onto the track into the path of the empty sled. His voice echoed around in there, bouncing off the caverns of my mind. It still has not found a pathway out but lives as a boomerang, retreating into my unconscious only to resurface and again bellow its promise: “It’s coming back! It’s coming back!”.

There was nothing to do but sit in the office and stare dejectedly at each other. Clouds soon blanketed the sky and began to shed their tears as we learned from repeated Google web searches the devastating news of Nodar’s passing. There was a sudden void deep within the core of me. I immediately felt an unwarmable cold, and fatigue descended like a tidal wave. I had prepared myself for virtually anything when I came to Whistler. I had not, however, braced myself for death.

Over the next few days an internal contradiction clawed at my soul, huffing and puffing and terrorizing my glowing heart. How could something I loved so immediately and unreservedly inflict such pain? Was the track a masterpiece or a monster? Was I the monster for holding the icy path in such high esteem? Who was at fault? Who had the answers?

To alleviate my torment, I forced myself to recognize the following notions: (1.) I will seek not blame nor restitution. It is impossible to point the finger when there is no one person, nor one decision. It was an accident. (2.) Perfection does not exist. The spirit is never completely free from turmoil, yet conflict leads to learning. Each luger chooses his own course down the ice, making adjustments based on previous runs and the condition of the track, but even this knowledge will not prevent hard rubs around the corners. (3.) I called the Sliding Center my destination, but I could have just as easily used its etymological cousin ‘destiny’. I know that my presence at the track and what I witnessed had a profound impact on me. Nodar changed my life and my Olympic experience.

The other solace I found was from the comrades with whom I shared my days at the Sliding Center. Jono, the hyperactive Aussie supervisor whose frantic hands and babbling lips were difficult to decipher over the radio, entertained me with the practical jokes he interjected around our office. Cedric, with his oversized doe eyes and poor English, kept me in stitches every time he innocently queried “Yum yums?” when he came to retrieve his meal ticket. Jan, who wisely defined “glowing” on my first day, reminded me daily of my brother with his smart yet sarcastic humor and geeky tendencies. Aurelien, the Parisian whose twinkling eyes and mischievous smile hide behind dark-rimmed glasses and a scruffy beard, never ceased to make me laugh by saying things like “My accent is sexy” and “napskin”. These kindred spirits, among others, were integral parts of my happiness ― and my healing.

I am still not certain it is possible to describe the true essence of an intangible feeling so powerful that it stays lodged in your heart despite being separated from its source. It is a glow from within that cannot be extinguished, because it was born in the flame of a wild, untamed spirit older than time. It is both a glow of joy and a glow of sorrow, dancing forever around, between, and through one another. That glow lives inside me now, and I will cherish it because I know that I am its true source.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T11:47:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter everyone! I just wanted to share this photo with you that I saw on the facebook fanpage for The Olympic Games. Enjoy!

Source: farm3.static.flickr.com

Funniest Man on the Planet

2010-03-16T09:37:00.002-04:00

One night, Holly and I had the honor of riding the #10 bus with a guy who I determined to be the funniest man on the planet.

Tired after a long day of gallivanting around the town, Holly and I collapsed into our usual seats and lounged quietly across the aisle from each other as the bus lingered its obligatory amount of time for stragglers to board. Normally the other passengers who wandered into the back of the bus would turn out to be Cleanevent employees, but this night it was three burly men in Swiss team jackets who interrupted my spacey stare as they took their places along the last row. My line of sight out the opposite window was soon after obstructed by a tall Austrian man who appeared to be in his early- to mid-30s. A woman sat next to him and they exchanged a familiar greeting before she introduced another Swiss gentleman to her left. I (regrettably) did not catch the Austrian's name during that brief exchange.

A (fairly accurate) seating chart of the back half of our bus

I was still largely lost in thought as the bus pulled away from the curb into the night, though before long I couldn't help but notice the intermittent rounds of exuberant laughter emanating from the Swiss to my left. Even without understanding German, I observed that each time the Austrian said a sentence - just a single sentence - it resulted in the deepest, most honest chuckles from the men and an insuppressible giggle from the woman. He wasn't telling a story, nor was there a discernible conversation between the Europeans; The Austrian just kept cracking jokes in seeming isolation and, based on the reaction he was getting, he was quite the comedian.

As the ride continued, yawning replaced jokes on his list of priorities and I fought to stifle my own breaths despite watching him open his mouth wide enough to swallow a soccer ball. Awkward eye contact was unavoidable based on the combination of the layout of the bus and the seats we had chosen, yet I couldn't manage to muster up enough courage to speak to this intimidatingly hilarious Austrian. What could I possibly say to a man whose every utterance was welcomed with such heartfelt appreciation? I kept my mouth shut (both to refrain from embarrassing myself by speaking and to avoid further infecting the other passengers with yawns), however I silently hoped he would enlighten me with a wisecrack in English. But alas, when we parted ways I was left to only marvel at my fortuitous brush with greatness: I shared a bus with the funniest man on the planet.

Nimble Management Teams

2010-03-13T15:37:00.002-05:00

A week after Paul Lovett's presentation, his older brother Craig also came to speak with us. He spoke more about VANOC's journey and the bigger picture of planning an Olympics, not just Cleanevent's role.

The timeline of Vancouver's preparation, as he presented it, looked something like this:

1960 - Vancouver started toying with the idea of hosting the Games
1980 - They started seriously considering making a bid
1990 - They started planning for the bid process
1999 - The bid process began; 32 cities were narrowed down to 16, then 8, then 5
2003 - Vancouver won the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics Games

This was $1 billion process, including infrastructure from roadways to the airport to the power grid to the waste system, et cetera, et cetera.

Craig then challenged us to list the "most important players", or stakeholders, in the Games. We decided there were:

The Athletes - of course, they are the reason for the Games; they put on the show
Management - they provide organization, safety, policy, etc
The Sponsors - they provide the essential funding
The Media - they are the "eyes of the world"
The Spectators - they bring in revenue, but also provide some of the "wow factor"
The T.V. Audience - they indirectly provide even more revenue than spectators in the stands
The Olympic Family - this term is used not only for the relatives of athletes but for anyone involved with the governing bodies of the sport or the Games.

We also came up with a list of some of the "Functional Areas" that play roles in the planning and execution of an event like this:

Sport - controls everything involving actual competition within the Field of Play (FOP)
Site Management - deals with the overall venue and logistics
Transport - responsible for getting all athletes, spectators, employees, volunteers, contractors, equipment, etc to the venue
Overlay - designs the physical layout of the venue ("the people who get handed a box of jigsaw pieces" - Craig Lovett)
Wayfinding - responsible for all signage to get spectators, employees, vendors, contractors, etc from their doorsteps and into the venue
Security - monitors access to the venue and safety within it
Broadcast/Press Media - transfers images and information from the venue to the outside world
Look - designs and hangs the "frosting" - posters, banners, fence coverings, etc.
Food & Beverage - catering for workers and concessions for spectators
SCW - snow removal, cleaning, and waste removal from front- and back-of-the-house

Sounds like there's a lot going on here, eh? Craig had one main point behind all of this: all these different aspects MUST come together to become one team. They must integrate.

This idea of "integration" is a buzz word that I've been buzzing around for a while now (my Honors Thesis paper is on Integrated Rural Tourism), and it is so essential to a large event like this. Craig also called it "venuisation", turning all the individual functional areas into a venue management team in which each department has a seat at the table.

Without open lines of communication, each area is operating in a vacuum and when the event gets closer and their isolated little bubble comes in contact with another area's bubble, both are going to pop and lie in pieces on the ground. Craig explained that “the best events in the world have nimble management teams”, the ones who recognize that “at some stage you have to stop planning and start doing”.

This is especially important with the Olympics, because there is only one Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games - there is no "next time" for VANOC to get it right. They get one shot. “What’s the most important thing in the Olympic Games?" Craig asked. "Fixing it right now”.

Venue management must put themselves in the place of spectators early on, and utilize each area's expertise in a dialogue to discuss the most practical ways to plan for every potential scenario that may arise.

That is what I LOVE about event planning. There are countless challenges, all unique to venue and the event and the location and the people involved. Every action must be thought through 10, 20, 50 steps down the road to consider all possible repercussions. Each action must be run by a dozen other departments; it is such a collaboration of minds, all experts in their own fields. It's amazing what people can achieve when working together. I look forward to the day when I can be a part of such a team.

The Bid Process

2010-03-13T12:04:00.003-05:00

Let's not forget that I also took classes in Whistler. My second class featured Paul Lovett, co-founder of Cleanevent and the man responsible for bringing us into the internship program. The focus of his lecture was on the bid process, and although he gave us a wealth of information it left me wanting to know more about bids (and how I can be involved in them).

First he explained that the IOC wants boxes upon boxes of information from the bidding city, an immense amount of work. Some of the major things they focus on these days are security, legacy, and sustainability. That being said, there isn't really a magic formula for the approach to the proposal. Sometimes it's all about building new infrastructure -- for instance, VANOC took a once dirt road in Highway 99 and went as far as blasting the mountainsides to make it wider -- yet sometimes the IOC wants a promise to not build any new structures, like Rio pledged since they already built a solid infrastructure of other games.

Sometimes it comes down largely to politics. Paul's opinion was that Chicago was too cocky and did not fight for the bid, and that Obama didn't do anything to help his hometown. One of the main things Rio had going for it was simply that South America had never hosted the Games before, as well as the fact that they threatened not to bid again if they didn't win in 2016 (they had also bid for 2012).

From there Paul moved into talking about what a contracted company such as Cleanevent goes through to win the bid from the whatever organizing committee is hosting the games (this goes for the Olympics but also things like the Commonwealth Games and other sporting events that Cleanevent works on).

First, Cleanevent goes through a process called succumbment; they succumb to the city's bid team and work for them - for free - to help put together the SCW (snow, cleaning, waste) portion of the overall bid for the Games. They sometimes even succumb to more than one city (for instance, they helped both London and New York for the 2012 Olympics). They will have a very strong "in" if they help the winning city, so assisting more than one increases their chances of coming out on the winning side.

The next thing Cleanevent does is submit an RFP - request for proposal. Numbers must be crunched, and both a technical bid (in terms of manhours and employees) and a commercial bid ($$$) are developed. Paul stressed to us the importance of never quoting hourly rates in the service industry. He also told us that if the job becomes much bigger than quoted, you should always finish the job before asking for more money. If they’re happy with the job done, 9 out of 10 will pay more money to compensate for the extra work incurred by the company.

During this initial part of the bid, before the contract is awarded, is when many of the logistical details are planned out. What's important to remember is that at this stage "all you see is paper" - everything is based off of floor plans and diagrams and not off of an actual tour of the facilities.

Finally all applicants tour the venues and the EOI - expression of interest - process narrows down the field of bidders before going to tender. It is in the tender stage that legal consultants are brought in. Cleanevent's bid teams usually number around 15 people, mainly internal Cleanevent employees and a few from outside the company. In this critical time the bid manager must be strong enough to pull everyone together (Paul commented that in his experience a female is usually best at this role), and the marketing team must paint the story in a way that's appealing to what the organizing committee wants.

Although it is after the tender stage that a contract is awarded, Paul said that generally a tender is won even before the tender stage is reached. It's more about networking connections, and a relationship must be in place before even going to the bid table. One contract that Cleanevent is currently vying for, for example, is the Delhi Commonwealth Games. Delhi is far behind where they should be in this process, and the longer they wait the more they will be forced to go with a company like Cleanevent that has the proven industry experience. Other smaller companies don't have the luxury of simply copying and pasting bid proposals from similar events, so even though lack of planning time is frustrating to Cleanevent, it will most likely work in their advantage.

One tricky part of the contract is the issue of "field of play", and what - if any - portions of it the contracted cleaning company is required to clean. The lines are fuzzy here. In swimming competitions, for example, the pool is obviously field of play but what about the deck around the pool? It comes under the control of Sport, but they may still want the cleaning company to be responsible for it.

Paul told us about one event they worked (I cannot recall which it was, except that it was a large-scale Games) in which the contract stated that anything blue or green Cleanevent would not clean. They intended "blue" to mean water and "green" to mean grass, but the tennis courts had been painted blue and it turned out the organizing committee did want Cleanevent to take care of the courts. These types of confusions work to Cleanevent's financial advantage because they usually come to light fairly close to the Games, and by that point Cleanevent gets to charge for any changes to the initial contract.

Another change that brings in more money for Cleanevent is postponement of play. Scheduled competition days that become down days due to postponement are still charged as competition days, yet down days that become competition days also get to be charge as competition days since that type of work is being performed.

This lecture was really just a brief overview of the bid process. I can only imagine how exciting (and work intensive!) it must be to put together a bid to host the Olympics, not to mention to actually carry it to fruition. I hope one day I'll know first hand...

Puzzle Piece

2010-03-13T09:30:00.001-05:00

The two pieces I posted regarding the luge accident have been drafted for quite a while. I didn't know where to put them. They are uncomfortable. They are not sunny. But they are necessary.

Chronologically they weren't ready to be posted right after the fact; they deserved more time, more thought. But to put them at the end, to have them appear glaringly at the top of the page as a punctuation mark forever, as representative of my entire experience? That wasn't right either.

Please don't look at these two posts as shoved into the middle of happier times. This is not an attempt to bury what happened by sweeping it under the rug. I also, however, don't want to ostracize that event and make it appear completely isolated from all of my subsequent experiences - on the contrary, it in some way influenced every encounter I had throughout the duration of my time in Whistler.

I'm still trying to find a place for this piece of my Olympic puzzle. If you ask me "How was the Olympics!?" I will answer that it was an amazing experience, because it was. If you (like so many people have already) ask me if I was there for the accident, I will tell you I was. It is not, however, something I am ready to openly discuss with people in casual conversation. It was not something I learned about on a breaking news story, as the rest of the U.S. did - it was something I experienced.

I plan to carry that burden without making a spectacle of it.

I Know How to Spell His Name.

2010-03-10T07:59:00.001-05:00

I never met Nodar Kumaritashvili.

I do not know the sound of his voice.
I do not know what songs made him turn up the volume and sing aloud in the car.
I do not know his favorite color.

Here is what I do know.

I know that he was born three days after me on November 25th, 1988. He was 21 years old.

I know that he sought challenges. He chose to pursue a difficult career that requires a tremendous amount of technical skill at great personal risk. Even accessing proper training facilities, traveling to competition venues, and finding a qualified coach are significant obstacles in such a small sport world as luge.

I know that he was ambitious. He came here with the hopes of winning a medal despite being ranked 44th in the world. He believed in himself, and strove for excellence.

I know that he did not seek celebrity status in life. He chose the sport of luge, which goes virtually unnoticed in the athletic world except during a few days every four years at the Olympics. By aiming for a medal he sought honor, not everlasting world fame.

I know that he was brave. He came to Whistler knowing that he would be competing at the world's fastest track. He continued training after a dozen minor accidents occurred in the week leading up to Opening Ceremonies.

I know that he was focused. I could see it in his eyes as he adjusted his helmet and prepared to make what would become his final run. He took his sport seriously.

I know that my presence at the track and what I witnessed had a profound impact on me. He changed my life and my Olympic experience.

I know that he will never be forgotten. He will live forever in my glowing heart.

Blind-Sliding Low

2010-03-10T07:58:00.001-05:00

I still have a hard time sorting out my feelings about Friday, February 12th, 2010. You all know, I'm sure, about the fatal luge accident that occurred during the final training runs for Men's Luge. I hope you only heard about it, and did not watch the gruesome video.

Death is a heartbreaking tragedy no matter what the circumstances. I can’t convey how much more difficult it is to face such a sorrowful incident in the midst of a large, juggernaut of an event like the Olympics. There is a line from a song by Ingram Hill that says “I don’t know what I’m feeling – it’s not alright, it can’t be”. That’s basically how I felt that Friday. There was no room for feeling distraught at a celebration as joyous as the Opening Ceremonies, yet I couldn’t feel right about cheering wildly in honor of Canada with this weight on my shoulders. I was in limbo, a weird funk, but of course time marches on.

I was there. I was standing inside Turn 16 – the final curve – the morning of the last practice runs for Men’s Luge. I saw the Italian gold medal favorite fly past me after faltering and correcting his positioning further up the track. I snapped photos of the screen displaying each athlete before they began their runs simply so that I could accurately caption my facebook photos later on. I focused my camera on the “Vancouver” lettering in the ice and waited until I heard the rumbling of the sled barreling around the corner. I rejoiced at catching the luger in frame. The second Georgian luger to take his run had been no different than the rest. I commented to myself that I had no idea how to pronounce his last name.

I don’t remember hearing an audible gasp from those inside Turn 16. There was the briefest of pauses as the whole world slowed down, then the medical team lounging on the Gator beside us sprang into action and raced out of the Dog Bone. The screen that had showed the luger fly off his sled and into the post beside the track went blank as my whole body went numb.

The three other interns and I walked out of track in a shocked daze, mumbling that we hoped he’d be okay and what a shame that he’d more than likely be out of the Olympics. We attempted to check on him from the same spot we watched the Romanian luger be loaded onto a stretcher the day before, but were stopped and asked to clear the area by a VANOC official. In hindsight, I will be eternally grateful for that.

We walked somberly back to the trailer and reported to Scott what we had just witnessed. The office was still quiet (which was the only reason all four of us had been at the track in the first place) so after not too long we were able to slip out into the Workforce Break Tent and watch the news updates on T.V. They replayed the video a couple times, which was completely nauseating to watch. None of us had an appetite for lunch but we ate anyway, clinging to some semblance of normalcy.

After repeatedly searching Google for updated information, we learned that the luger did not survive his injuries.

There was a void deep within the core of me. I immediately felt an unwarmable cold, and fatigue descended like a tidal wave. There was nothing to do but sit in the office and stare dejectedly at each other. As VANOC scrambled to keep media releases under control and a meeting was set up with luge coaches and captains, all of our workers were pulled off the mountain and contained within Lot 7. We speculated as to whether or not they would cancel the luge events, but Kelly pointed out that "the show must go on". That made me even more sick to my stomach, mostly because I knew he was right.

Since our team could no longer access the areas we were scheduled to clean, we were sent home early. Holly and I returned to camp to change and get ready to meet Sydney and Colleen in town to watch the Opening Ceremonies. I felt like I was in a fog. I didn't cry. I didn't want to talk about it, though Holly and I spoke briefly enough to agree that somehow we would feel differently if we hadn't been there - right there, in the Dog Bone, watching...

The Opening Ceremonies were beautiful. Part of me welcomed the distraction, although when the screens at Whistler Live in the Village Square temporarily lost the feed from Vancouver there was room for my mind to wander. Part of me didn't want to be there.

I found it cruelly ironic that the sixty seconds of silence in honor of Nodar Kumaritashvili equaled the approximate amount of time I knew of his existence before his name was ingrained in my memory forever. Tears finally streaked my face during K.D. Lang's rendition of Hallelujah, and I stood grateful for the drizzling rain and the hood that I used to conceal my face. I then felt strangely comforted when one arm of the torch did not rise triumphantly toward the ceiling to meet the others, as if it representing the piece that was irreplaceably missing from these Winter Games.

Oddly enough, that was the small bit of peace that I took with me when it was finally time to escape consciousness for a night's rest.

Venue Tour - Athletes' Village

2010-03-03T13:04:00.006-05:00

The Athlete's Village is located about 15 minutes south of the center of Whistler. Perched atop a former landfill, 80% of the homes were sold at an auction before they were even built. This "venue" is definitely counted among the successes of the Vancouver 2010 Games, coming in under budget and successfully converting the methane gas produced by a nearby waste facility to provide 80% of the energy used.

All the houses have garages and driveways, but the athletes are not allowed to have their own cars during the Games to cut down on carbon emissions and encourage the use of public (or at least shared) transportation. Also, the kitchens in the houses have not yet been installed in order to force the athletes to eat in the dining tent. This ensures that the caterers' food does not go to waste, and encourages social interactions by the athletes.

Here are some exterior photos of the athletes' sweet digs.

Little Italy of the Athletes' Village!

L-R: Chile, Iceland, South Africa

New Zealand

Me with the moose in Team Canada's neighborhood!

USA!

In addition to the actual houses where the athletes live, there are other buildings providing anything the athletes may need...

One of the buildings that features many amenities to cater to the athletes.
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Classy black leather furniture was standard around WVL

There is a "water bar" for the athletes - how cool is that!?!

Chef de Mission tent - where meetings are held, not where press conferences take place

There is a hostel in the WVL (which I intend to stay in when I return to Whistler) that includes a T.V. room (pictured below), a mini movie theater, an interfaith worship center, internet stations, and other amenities in addition to guest rooms.

T.V. viewing room

Laptop station in the front part of the hostel. The windows look out into the WVL.

To give you more a sense of of the WVL, here's a map of the entire venue:

Areas 10, 4, 3, 11, and 17 are where the houses are. The parts printed in a lighter gray are back-of-house.

This section shows some more of the athletes' areas, including their retail shops (such as their own Olympic merchandise store, a bank and a post office), their recreation and leisure center, and the hostel.

Daily Commute

2010-03-03T12:12:00.000-05:00

My commute to work starts off not too fun, crammed in a van with a dozen other people. The next leg is nothing spectacular - on the BC Transit bus #2 as it winds its way through The Highlands residential area, taking longer to get to the Whistler Village than the #10. The #2 does, however, drop off at the top of the Village rather than the bottom, making it more convenient to get to the best part of the trip - the gondola!

I took this video one day when I found myself all alone in the gondola. I had to take the rare opportunity to record the beauty of the pristine, fresh snow!

You Couldn't Pay Me To Do Skeleton

2010-03-03T11:49:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to have the evening off on Thursday the 18th to take in some of the action at the WSC with the other girls. We caught Heat #2 of Women's Skeleton and Heat #1 of the Men's.

For this event, I decided to check out the vantage point by the finish line. Please note that the finish line and the finish dock are different, and quite a distance from each other. The finish line marks the conclusion of the official timing of the slide, but when going 90mph it takes quite a while to slow down. By the time the athletes reach the finish dock they have slowed down enough to stop and get off their sleds (or in the case of skeleton, they crash head-first into sheets of foam placed in the track).

At the finish line, the athletes were still a blur shooting past me. My first shot would have been awesome...had I stuck my camera out further!

That little blur is a skeleton woman crossing the blue finish line - trust me.

This one is better of the athlete

I'm pretty sure this was up by Turn 15, just up the hill from my normal spot in Turn 16

This is a Vancouver band called Swarm that entertained the crowd during the break in competition. They were awesome!

Tubing!

2010-03-03T11:13:00.001-05:00

Having only been skiing once previously (7 years ago) I didn't feel comfortable braving the slopes alone, especially on such a world-class mountain. I did, however, find something more my speed...

Tubing!

Just above the entrance to the Sliding Center, parallel with Lot 8, is the Coca Cola Tube Park. It was $18 for an hour, or $27 for two hours. We were warned, however, that an hour was enough. In fully-winterized gear, we trekked up the hill to the entrance, then dragged our tubes over to the "lift", which was a moving sidewalk angled up the hill.

The other girls riding the lift up the hill

There were a few tracks designated for little kids, a few "black diamond" lanes, and a happy medium section. Naturally, we headed straight for the black diamond. Unfortunately it was drizzling that day, and the staff told us the course wasn't running very fast because of it. That didn't stop us from having fun!

After some solo slides, we teamed up and went down in pairs. Going down with Holly was the most fun because the entire time we were tubing she could not contain her excitement - she definitely had the most fun!

I hope this doesn't make anyone dizzy!

At the end of the hour, we were all pretty tired and crashed in the tubes for a photo shoot.

Prankster Payback

2010-02-28T01:06:00.002-05:00

Our crazy Australian supervisor Jono likes to play pranks. I never seem to be there when he attacks his victims, but I am fortunate enough to be there when they retaliate against him.

The other day I was walking through the office and I saw Erin's accreditation, sitting on the table, covered in doodles with a black Sharpie. Lucky for her, it mostly came off with water and now bears only black smudges. Still angry, Erin wanted revenge. "Give me something of Jono's! Anything!" she said. She found his boots.

For some reason she had Corn Flakes with her. And yes, she put gloves on before touching his nasty boots.

The cereal started coming out the hole in his toe!

Needless to say, Jono wasn't too pleased to stick his feet into his boots that night. His next victim, however, was not Erin again but rather another SCW employee - Tyler. I wasn't there that day, but Holly said Jono took everything out of Tyler's backpack and duct taped it all individually to the ceiling, along with the backpack itself. Today Holly and I were in our office and could hear duct tape being pulled off the roll and ripped. I went to check it out and found Tyler in the VANOC office duct taping Jono's wallet. He first covered each card in duct tape, then wrapped and wrapped duct tape around the open wallet. He fastened it closed with six zipties, then added more duct tape for good measure. He then duct taped it dangling from the ceiling.

Tyler exacting his revenge

As if that wasn't enough, he coated it with hand sanitizer too

When Jono came into the office looking for his wallet, he searched the shelf and kept asking us if we knew where it was. He even walked by it hanging there a few times without even noticing that anything was there. Finally Scott suggested that maybe Tyler stole it, so Jono gave him a call. Eventually Jono caught on to the game and found it.

It was right in front of his face the whole time.

The whole time he was cutting his way into the wallet, Jono was laughing and admiring the great lengths Tyler went to in his payback. It was all in good fun, and both guys knew that.

Hang Tight

2010-02-28T00:00:00.002-05:00

WOW! So many interesting and AMAZING things have happened this past week! I've been trying to post frequently, but I'm still behind on so many things, especially the information I've learned in class. Today and tonight, too, could fill a few blog posts - so much has happened!

Tomorrow (Sunday) night the JWU Providence interns will be taking a shuttle from camp to the Vancouver airport (YVR) at 11:00PM and we will be "sleeping" in the airport overnight until our early morning flights (mine's at 8:30AM). The good news? YVR has free WiFi! I hope to get caught up then. If not, I will be blogging over spring break. In addition to reporting on my experiences, I will be doing some deeper reflections while the memories are still fresh.

So basically, please hang tight and bear with me while the dizziness of this whirlwind fades away. Some of the best stories are yet to come. I will leave you with this captionless picture as a cliffhanger...

Fairmont, Olympic Family, and Cupcakes

2010-02-26T20:13:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday morning I arranged for myself a tour of the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. I was taken around the property by a young woman from the Sales Office named Andrea. She apologized that she could not show me any guest rooms because they were at full occupancy, but that's great news from a hotel standpoint. I was able to see one function space, the dining and retail facilities, and the health club/spa. Fairmont even has a Mountain Adventure Club where lift tickets and ski rentals can be purchased. There's a chairlift out the back door, making the hotel an ideal accommodation for skiers. The Fairmont even has their own bobsled in the lobby!

On the bus back to Athlete's Village last night I rode with the mother and sister of American bobsleigh bronze medalist Elana Meyers. Her mom was telling us that Elana used to be a softball player but softball is no longer an Olympic sport, so Elana turned to bobsled. "I personally think she picked the craziest sport she could think of" her mother joked. The sad part of the story is that Elana's family never received any accreditation, nor did the families of any other American bobsled athletes. This has created a lot of hassle and frustration for the families, who have had difficulty gaining access to the Athlete's Village, the Sliding Center, and the special Olympic Families areas. Mrs. Meyers didn't seem to be putting the blame on VANOC, but rather on the U.S. Bobsleigh Team for not arranging the necessary credentials.

The other night when Holly and I got off work, we had a clear mission in mind: cupcakes. Holly said she knew of a place that sold really good cupcakes that she wanted to try. Scott dropped us off a the Gondola Transit Exchange and we walked along the road on the outside of the village until we got down to the Bus Loop by Blenz. Holly could have sworn the cupcake place was in that area, but all we could find was the creperia that she also wanted to try. Not sure we had enough time for crepes, we asked some VANOC volunteers if they knew where the cupcake place was. One guy did, and directed us up to the Visitor's Center. We hurried up there, but it was a longer walk than we had anticipated. When we finally got there, we were dismayed to find that is was closed for the evening (it was, after all, 9:30PM). Pressed for time, we hurried back to the bus stop. The number 10 bus had passed us on our way up, and it was imperative that we didn't miss the next one if we were to make the 10:15 Cleanevent shuttle. When we returned to the bus stop we were the only ones waiting for the 10. Knowing that we had a few minutes before the next one arrived - and that when it did it always sat for a few more minutes - Holly took off jogging to the Starbucks, which she suddenly remembered sold red velvet cupcakes. She returned triumphantly just a moment before the 10 rounded the bend. We decided that it was actually the ideal situation because if we had gone to Starbucks in the first place we would not have gotten the exercise that we did on our fail first attempt. Since Holly purchased both cupcakes, we agreed that we'd have to go again on my treat...

More Medals, More Music

2010-02-24T01:24:00.000-05:00

My buddy Steve came through for us again! I was one row back from the front of the mosh pit fence for the Medals Ceremony and The Fray concert. I'll let the pictures tell the story

This is Fred, who played a hilarious role in the movie A Guy Thing (starring Jason Lee and Julia Stiles - it's a great movie). His job is to entertain the crowd before the ceremony begins. He does trivia and reads his "Top 5" list of events and results around the Games.

Team Russia took gold in Biathlon Women's 4 x 6km Relay, France took silver, and Germany took bronze. There were three Russians in the crowd directly in front of me who cheered and sang loud and proud.

The medalists for Men's Alpine Skiing Giant Slalom. Kjetil Jansrud - NOR (left), Carlo Janka - SUI (center), Aksel Lund Svindal - NOR (right)

The medalists for Men's Nordic Combined 4 x 5km Team. Team USA - silver (left), Team Austria - gold (back), Team Germany - bronze (right). I love Germany's uniforms - blue for boys, pink for girls!

Isaac Slade, lead singer of The Fray

Isaac and lead guitarist Dave Welsh, with Ben Wysocki on drums in the back left corner. He makes weird faces while he plays.

Isaac sat at the piano...

...and sang on the piano

Someone threw a Canada scarf onto the stage and he wore it for the rest of the show

This photo is not zoomed at all. That's how close I was to the stage!

I Love Information

2010-02-23T17:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we toured the Media Center, which is housed in the Whistler Convention Center in the center of the town. We saw the public press areas in the front, and nearby there were rows and rows of documents of information organized alphabetically by sport, and then labeled according to the topic of the document. My eyes went straight to the Luge section, which still had papers sitting in the cubbies despite the fact that luge competition had ended last week.

Excited by the potentially valuable information those documents contained, I got our tour guide (a Cleanevent team leader) to snag me one of every document we dared to take, since we weren’t sure if we’d get in trouble if caught. The pieces I took contain lots of background information about the sport and the Sliding Center, as well as some Games News. I ranked the Flash Quotes and Press Conference transcripts lowest on my list of priorities, so we abandoned those in favor of quitting while we were ahead. I might ask Sara to get some more next time she goes to work…

The most interesting document, i.e., the one containing the most random facts, is “Luge by the Number”. The following are some highlights.

•    153.93 – top speed in km/h reached in Men’s Luge on the Whistler Sliding Center track
•    104.6 – cost in millions of Canadian dollars to build the Whistler Sliding Center track
•    65 – number of Olympic medals won in Luge events [out of a possible 108] by German competitors since 1964. Twenty-nine were won under the banner of East Germany, 10 by West Germany, and 26 as Germany (GER).
•    46.808 – time in seconds of the Men’s Singles Luge course record at the Whistler Sliding Center, set by Felix Loch (GER) during a World Cup run on February 21, 2009.
•    14 – a total of 14 different Luge competitors at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games have a relative also competing in a Luge event.
•    8 – birthdays celebrated by four females and four male Luge athletes during the Vancouver Games
•    2.5 – average thickness in centimeters of the ice on the Whistler Sliding Center track. Depending on the turn and the sport, the thickness can range from two to five cm.
•    -5 – temperature, in degrees Celsius, that ice makers try to maintain for the Whistler Sliding Center track, the ideal temperature for achieving the fastest speeds with the most consistency.

Okay, I understand that you aren’t all as obsessed with Luge as I have become, so I’ll add some more photos from my tour of the Media Center.

A floor plan showing part of the building and where each media broadcaster is housed. Some of these offices, such as Canadian Olympic Committee, have leather couches and refridgerators.

You cannot imagine the sheer volume of cords that run all through this place. The cages had to be built to sustain the weight, and this isn’t even one of the thickest bundles!

We got to sit at THE press conference table! Some OBS guys came in and out while we were there, but they couldn’t have cared less.

There is no assigned seating in here – all the media just comes in and picks whatever vantage point they want.

I got to stand outside NBC’s room!

"Don't Do That"

2010-02-23T17:18:00.001-05:00

Bus 10, “The Games Express”, is really my favorite bus. Not only is it the quickest way to get to Blenz – I mean, the Whistler Village – it is also frequently used by athletes since it terminates at Athlete’s Village. We usually head straight to the seats in the back of the bus, and the other night two young German athletes were sitting across the back as well. Sydney and Charlotte Sarah were the closest to them, and this is really their story.

As the bus zipped along through the dark, it made a couple of stops at which no one got on or off. Sarah picked up on this and, nudging Sydney, pointed to one of the German guys who had his arm wrapped around the yellow cord. Each time he moved, the “stop requested” light lit up and the driver pulled over and opened his doors.

Sydney turned to the kid and, in a surprisingly serious voice, said the most obvious thing she could think of: “don’t do that”. The kid looked at her with a shocked expression on his face, unwound his arm from the cord and placed it in his lap as she burst out laughing in his face. Suddenly a sense of realization overcame him. “That,” he pointed to the cord, “open door?” “Yes!” Sydney nodded, and soon both Germans joined in her laughter. It was hilarious.

Whistler's Live Music Scene

2010-02-23T17:15:00.000-05:00

This past weekend featured some extraordinary live music around Whistler. It began after the medal’s ceremony on Saturday night with a band I had never heard of called Stars. Almost instantaneously after the conclusion of the ceremony the back wall of the stage rotates around, bringing the band out with it.

The instruments were covered in floral arrangements, and at first I thought they were tacky silk flowers. Not too long into the show, however, the guitarist dressed head to toe in spandex grabbed some of the flowers and hurled them into the crowd. They were real roses! I caught a white one that was in full bloom. Sydney and someone else caught roses as well.

My beautiful rose! Too bad it's perishable and can't come home with me.

On Sunday after horseback riding I took the bus to Creekside for another delicious lunch at Samurai Sushi and then went back into town. Unsure of what exactly I was going to do, I got off the bus at the top of the village and walked down through the congested streets. There was a huge crowd in the Village Square listening to a concert at Whistler Live. After navigating across the two slow-moving lanes of pedestrian traffic, I stood at the edge of the crowd to listen. The band was awesome! I asked someone next to me what the band it was, and a girl told me they were called Sam Roberts Band, a Canadian group. Not only did I love their music, they put on a great concert complete with crowd interaction. The lead singer, Sam Roberts, made a point of acknowledging the accomplishments of the athletes, which I really appreciated. When they were finished, I promptly headed to Blenz to download their CDs from iTunes.

On the way down to Blenz, however, I made a few more stops. First I watched some speed skating with French commentary at the Omega bobsled, and was entertained by a marching band of middle school aged kids. I also received a cool gray hat that says Omega - Official Timekeeper and has the Olympic rings on it in white.

I paused again on my way to Blenz to listen to an acoustic cover of Wonderwall outside The Brewhouse right before the duo moved inside to escape the onset of dropping temperatures. What you cannot fully appreciate is that the space between Whistler Live, where Sam Roberts was playing, and The Brewhouse is only a few city blocks and in that space I heard three very different live performances. I understand that the frequency of free outdoor concerts is not a normal Whistler occurrence but rather due to the presence of the Games, yet Whistler does traditionally host live music performances in their many bars.

As I continued my walk toward Blenz I called Steve Ernst, the VANOC employee who had escorted us into the mosh pit for the Medals Ceremony the night before, to see if he could get five of us in to Medals that night for the OneRepublic concert. “Regrettably” (his words, so sincerely Canadian) he had the night off and he apologized that he would not be able to get us in, but he encouraged me to hang onto his number and call him for any other shows we wanted to get in to.

Fortunately, as we watched the end of the Medals Ceremony (including Bode Miller’s gold!) we saw that the Plaza was quickly emptying after the conclusion of the ceremony. We listened to the first OneRepublic song from our perch on the wall at the playground, then made the decision to enter the quickly moving standby line. By the end of the second song of the set, we were inside the Plaza. We moved our way up towards the front and enjoyed an awesome performance by one of my favorite bands. They played a good mix of new and old stuff, and I downloaded the new album the first chance I got.

Just as the Sam Roberts Band did, OneRepublic put on a great show including giving respect to the athletes and interacting with the crowd. The lead singer, Ryan Tedder talked about walking around Whistler and noticing that the whole town smelt like maple syrup. He joked that he wasn’t sure if it was because of all the Canadian flags featuring the maple leaf, but then explained that they learned a local business had been handing out maple candies to all the kids running around.

I also have to give props to OneRepublic’s music for incorporating instruments such as the cello (which I LOVE!!!), the viola, and the glockenspiel (similar to a xylophone). They’re from Colorado, so hopefully I’ll get more chances to see them when I move out there this summer.

OneRepublic cellist / base guitarist, Brent Kutzle

OneRepublic violist / lead guitarist / backup vocalist Zach Filkins.

Yesterday Steve Ernst went out of his way to call me to again apologize for not being able to get me in to the mosh pit for OneRepublic, and to let me know he was working the rest of the week. I was so touched by this, and reassured that he was genuinely happy to get us in. He said the only concert that might be an issue is Usher, which I wasn’t planning on going to anyway. I will, however, be calling him tonight to get us into The Fray!

Pemberton, Eh?

2010-02-23T01:31:00.001-05:00

I spent a clear blue-skyed Sunday morning on horseback with a mumbling Canadian named Bob.

Bus 99 to Pemberton was a beautifully scenic journey, marred only by the filth coating the large glass windows. Mountains towered above me, still bearing scattered spots of snow towards the peaks. Rivers in deep ravines hurried past, not impeded by the smattering of boulders large and small. No more than three men rode on the mid-morning bus with me simultaneously for the half-hour duration; all of us were silently lost within our own minds.

I disembarked the bus alongside the railroad tracks, and had the faintest feeling that I had stepped back in time to an Old West cowtown. With a blue sign reading "Trail Rides" as my guide, I turned off Frontier Street at the edge of town. Not seeing the large log cabin as promised, I approached the nearest two men, who were loading supplies into the back of a pickup.

As I stated my inquiry one of the men turned around, causing me to do a doubletake. He was average-looking man in his mid-40's, and my mind raced from thought to thought trying to place him. He certainly was not from home or school, nor could I link him to Camp Cleanevent. "You work at the Sliding Center, right?" he asked, also puzzling over seeing me out of context. That was it! He works for Kelly doing mechanized snow removal and is often in the large shared portion of our office trailer. How strange it feels to have been here long enough to randomly bump into people that I know outside of the capacity in which I know them!

Following the direction of his finger, I continued down the road until it abruptly terminated at the log home. A tall cowboy named Bob came and greeted me warmly, speaking his Canadian mumble just as he had on the phone, eh? As we headed inside the garage / tack room / craftsman area, three friendly black Border Collies with sleek gleaming coats scrambled out to welcome me. In a flash I signed a liability waiver, strapped on a helmet, and mounted a Quarter Horse named Honey.

Honey's stride was much shorter than that of the lead horse Pacha, but I didn't mind the smooth trot she employed to keep up the pace. We ambled through the village, observing the townspeople out for a Sunday stroll with their dogs and/or kids. Before heading into the shaded woods we even climbed over a snowbank in someone's backyard and passed Kelly in his truck.

From my unique vantage point I could see the tracks of moose, deer, and some sort small wild cat weaving to and fro beside the riverbank, as well as staggering mountains that failed to shield the brilliant late-morning sun. We plunged belly-deep into the brook and crossed up behind a Swiss cow and cheese farm. It was here that we cantered down the snowy lane with sun at our backs.

Words don't do horseback riding justice. There's something intangible and indescribable about the bond between horse and rider. It's quite humbling to trust another living being so deeply, especially considering the superiority complex we arrogant humans have. This ride was a refreshing reminder that magic lives beyond the Olympics, and that I will find it wherever I seek it.

Feeling Like VIPs

2010-02-22T19:05:00.004-05:00

Saturday morning I had an opportunity to switch out to the Athlete's Village and work with Sydney instead of working at the Sliding Center, so I took it. I was only there a few hours but Craig Madigan, Cleanevent's Project Manager, was there filling in for the Village's venue manager and I was able to ask him lots of questions.

First, I was able to learn what some of the acronyms scattered around these Games mean. At the Sliding Center, for instance, we get lots of calls from two women who work for "VCC". They usually tell us about issues that someone else told them, and now that I know that VCC stands for Venue Communication Center, that makes so much more sense! He explained that OBS stands for Olympic Broadcast Service. These people are take all the footage of the Games and then sell it to the various networks around the world. Their snowsuit uniforms look a lot like Italy's, and I think Romania's too.

My conversation with Craig was scattered throughout my browsing Cleanevent's Manual for the Village. It's confusing enough that there's Whistler Village (the center of town) and Athlete's Village (about 15 minutes outside of town in a highly secure area housing competitors and their crews). The abbreviation for the Whistler Athlete's Village is WVL, for Vancouver it's VVL, and on a 2nd Part Pass that allows access to both, it's just VL. Looking over this book, however, I saw a document containing meeting minutes from October that referred to the venue as OVW, for Olympic Village Whistler.

I commented on this to Craig, and he agreed that it was confusing and explained that various groups throughout (and during) the process refer to the same place in a slew of different ways. The construction team may call something one thing, the Overlay department another, and the venue manager still another. From my position at the Cleanevent Help Desk, this jumble of terms is often difficult to unravel. When Vicky or Lisa from VCC call with an issue, they can only describe the location as well as the person who told it to them, and then I have to gather as many details as possible so that I can ensure my team knows where to go. Each (or most, anyway) trailer at the WSC is labeled - for instance, ours is 7-2 because we are the second trailer in Lot 7. I was surprised to find, however, that the Sliding Center is the only venue labeled as well as that. Apparently it was at the venue manager's discretion. Craig expressed frustration about this, and then proceeded to show me on CE's database how well the Australian Formula 1 labels their venue. Every single location, down to individual porter toilets and propane gas tanks, is micromanaged with a sticker on it that says "Problems with this facility? Call ______ and site #----". In CE's system each number is attached to all important information about it, including what area it's located in and who is in charge of handling problems. Rather than receiving calls such as "The portapotties near the Workforce Break Tent need toilet paper" and then making Jan check 12 toilets, we would be getting calls like "4014 needs toilet paper". If it was something more complex than that and we had follow-up questions, the contact's name, phone number, and email would be attached to that reference number. That would make our lives so much easier!

So far this post has nothing to do with the title, eh? I'm getting there...

I went to Blenz in the afternoon, the home-base for all the interns. I'll have to do a blog spotlighting Blenz, complete with pictures. I love this place!

After getting my internet fix I met up with the rest of the girls, who were buying awesome bags at great sale prices. I get bored with shopping exceptionally easily, however, so I asked Colleen if she wanted to go check out the Jamaican House a few doors down. I had seen a T-shirt in the window that I instantly fell in love with, and we had heard that members of the 1988 Jamaican Bobsled Team were signing autographs. (If you haven't seen Cool Runnings, go watch it. Now. If you have seen it, watch it again. Love it.)

We headed down into the basement of The Savage Beagle, which has been turned into the Jamaican House for the Games. First we stopped at the Jamaican team's sponsor table. MoneyGram, a service like Western Union, had giveaway baggies that included a small Jamaican flag, a lanyard, a keychain, a signed poster, and a book-on-tape about the '88 team. The girls there then directed me to another table where the shirts were sold. I got a green one with a shield on the back and a small logo on the front. It's awesome! (Photo to come).

From there we headed upstairs, where Devon Harris was hanging out signing autographs and posing for pictures. We had to wait our turn a little bit, but then I introduced myself and asked him to sign my shirt. We chatted with him the whole time, and it turns out he's now a motivational speaker. He gave me his card and I'm going to try to bring him to JWU this spring! He also wrote a children's book and has another book coming out soon. I told him I worked at the Sliding Center and asked if he'd be at the bobsled competitions later this week, but he said he didn't have tickets. "I can get you in!" I exclaimed, then reason caught up with me. "Do you have accreditation?" He didn't, so I explained that if he did I could have gotten him a 2nd Part Pass but without the initial accreditation it was worthless. As it is, he's leaving on Wednesday for a speaking engagement. All in all, this was an EPIC athlete encounter!

Me and Devon Harris - a legend!

That evening Craig Madigan was taking all the interns out for a drink. He told me this earlier in the day at WVL, to which I said "Oh." When he and the other girl in the office just stared at me I explained "I don't drink, but I'll still go". We hadn't been there long when the maintenance guy, "Super Dave" Brown, offered to take anyone who was interested to the Medals Ceremony. All of us from the Providence campus, plus Charlotte Sarah (an honorary Prov girl) jumped at the opportunity and grabbed our coats to follow Dave down to Medals Plaza. He has a buddy (Steve) who works for VANOC, and all we had to do was hop in line, no tickets required. We went through the metal detector before anyone even asked us for tickets, and then we gave our instructed response "We were in the Standby line". Those six words were enough to let us glide right in. Once we crossed that threshold, Steve quickly ushered us up to the front and into the Mosh Pit, directly adjacent to the Olympic Family area. SO AWESOME! We felt like VIPs!

We were so stoked to be there!

The guy you can see in the screen on the back said his name was Fred and he was the emcee before the ceremony began. I turned to the group and asked if anyone had seen the movie A Guy Thing. Only Jessie had, and she agreed that he looked like the guy from the pharmacy who ends up cooking the rehearsal dinner. I just IMDb'ed him, and he is!

The first medals presented were for Women's Skeleton. I watched heats 1 and 2 on Thursday, but had to work from 12-10:30PM on Friday and couldn't watch the finals. Brit Amy Williams took gold, the first individual gold medal for Great Britain at the Winter Olympics in 30 years. Two Germans finished behind her, Kerstin Szymkowiak earned silver and Anja Huber took bronze. While the British national anthem played, I continually glanced away from the flags and back at the athletes, watching Kerstin become completely overwhelmed with emotion. It was already a magical night.

Kerstin - GER (left), Amy - GRB (center), Anja - GER (right)

We were quite close to the stage, as you can see.

The next medals awarded were the biggest deal of the night. The first Canadian gold in Whistler was awarded to Jon Montgomery for Men's Skeleton. Late on Friday night I could hear the cheering in the spectator areas all the way from my office in Lot 7. Canada was pumped! As I mentioned before, we were standing right next to the Olympic Family section, so his family were all gathered there. As the athletes make their exit across the stage, many of them throw their bouquets into the crowd; Jon threw his perfectly into his mother's arms. Not long after, Colleen received a text from her mom saying that she saw us on T.V.! We'll be going again on Tuesday (now that I have Steve's number) so watch for us!

Martins Dukurs - LAT (left), Jon - CAN (center), Alexander Tretyakov - AUT (right)

Jon Montgomery's family after he threw the bouquet

The next medals awarded were for Ladies' Super-G, in which American Lindsey Vonn finished 3rd behind Andrea Fischbacher of Austria and Tina Maze of Slovenia. The other girls screamed "Yeah Lindsey!!!" a few times and she waved right at them!

Lindsey Vonn getting her bronze medal - this one's for you, Prof. Zacchilli! I know it's not an autograph, but it's the best that I've managed so far

Tina - SLO (left), Andrea -AUT (center), Lindsey - USA (right)

The last medals awarded were for Ski Jumping, Long Hill Individual. The Swiss Simon Ammann won gold, and he was the happiest person on stage that night. Something about his smile radiated positive energy that outshone all the other athletes before him. I can't explain it, but I could just feel his joy so strong. It was truly touching. He seemed to be besties with silver medalist Adam Malysz of Poland, which was also really cute but I felt like bronze medalist Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria was a tad left out. Even still, it was a great group to close out the medals presentations with!

Adam - POL (left), Simon - SUI (center), Gregor - AUT (right)

All in all, Saturday night was one to never forget.

Tea, Ghost Busters, and Interesting Items

2010-02-20T00:46:00.005-05:00

I had a long conversation with an Aussie girl (I'm telling you, Aussies are all over Whistler!) while my laundry was drying the other day. I learned that Australians call dinner "tea", so when they say that they're going to "take tea" they're not sipping flavored hot water with biscuits, but rather are consuming a substantial meal. When I pressed the girl about it she shrugged and said "If we can shorten something to three letters, we do". Interesting, eh?

Tonight I got a call on the helpdesk from a German man who wanted to borrow a vacuum overnight. I ended up having to turn the call over to Scott (who, fortunately, was sitting right there) because I wasn't sure if we had protocol on something like that. In the end Scott told him to come on down and pick it up. He arrived not long after and Scott handed the vacuum to the German. "This is, very cool one...is like, Ghost Busters?" he marveled, clearly in awe of the vacuum that straps onto one's back. "Ghost Busters!" he exclaimed, picking up the contraption with a big grin. I think we just made his night.

Currently on our wall we have a list of "Most interesting thing found on-site". My personal favorites are:

        Found by                   Item                                          Location
#3. Scott/Culley   Dead, possibly sleeping, raccoon*         OBS Compound
#11 Ina                 1 cent :) very rich now!                          Middle section
#13 Culley             Jono's personality                                Lot 9**

*There is a blue sticky note on the list that reads: "Do you mean to say you may have thrown out a SLEEPING raccoon??!??"
**Scott wrote in today "found in a big pile of bear shit".

It's fair to say that I have fun at work.

Go Lemonade

2010-02-19T14:25:00.001-05:00

Obviously it was impossible to imagine before arriving in Whistler what this experience would make me feel. That being said, I am still surprised at one thing I don't feel, which is a strong national pride for being American. Let me explain.

Freshman year I went with Professor Drohan, my fellow Cleanevent Intern Colleen, and my Providence roommate Laura to a panel discussion at Brown University in which human rights and sport were discussed in relation to one another. One of the presenters spoke about the Olympics, and his position was that the focus of the Games on representing one's country was detrimental to the original spirit of the Games. He contended that the Games began as a laying down of arms between nations and a peaceful, neutral convocation of athletes to compete as individuals. At the time that I heard this, my mind was not open to this concept. Especially after Salt Lake City in 2002, the first Games I remember watching, I couldn't imagine removing patriotism from the fabric of the Olympics. To me, that was exactly what the Games were about.

Now that I'm here, however, I finally understand what he meant and I agree with his position. I am not ashamed of being American, and I root for our athletes and am proud of our ranking in the medals count - all to an extent. I cheer loudest for Canadian athletes. Not as a sheep being led blindly with the crowd, but out of appreciation for what these Games mean to Canada. Their excitement is contagious, and I recognize how much it means to their athletes to compete on home soil.

Not only am I happy for Canada, I have the deepest respect for every single athlete from every part of the globe. One of the main slogans here, that's found on posters and signs, in shop windows and on the buses, is "Go Canada Go!". The slogan of Visa, however, is "Go World" (in French it's Go Le Monde, which looks like Go Lemonade if you glance at it quickly). I love that. That's how I feel. I root for every single competitor who steps up, puts their health and safety on the line, and gives every molecule of their heart, energy, strength, and passion into challenging the limits of their sport. Nationality has nothing to do with that. Nothing.

I covered a shift for someone in the Camp Cleanevent office on Wednesday night and from there I watched the Men's Halfpipe snowboarding competition. An Australian girl in the office was badmouthing Shaun White and criticizing her friend on the phone for rooting for him since he was American. I was not offended by this because I, too, am American but because he deserves respect for the dominance he has earned in snowboarding. He puts in the work, the time, the effort. He develops new tricks, advancing his sport. He has his fair share of falls and crashes (Winter X-Games practice, for example). And he excels. He does what no one else can do. How can anyone fault him based on where he was born?

Everyone is going to have their favorite athletes. National pride will never be removed from the modern Olympic Games. The host country will always have full bragging rights. But please remember, as we enter the final week of Vancouver/Whistler's Games, that even a 15th place finisher from Latvia is capable of doing something you or I could never imagine achieving, and that deserves our utmost respect and admiration.

The bags from the Official Olympic Store. Each has an English and a French side.

Go Lemonade!

Fires, Time, and Athletes

2010-02-19T01:36:00.001-05:00

When we got home the other night, someone told us that one of the bathrooms had caught fire. I saw a maintenance guy in the closet by the small women's washroom and I asked him about it. He explained that it was just a small fire in the closet of the large women's washroom. They think the broom got too close to the water heater. A couple of girls who went to the bathroom at about 1:30AM found it burning, and it's a good thing they did because it would have spread to the whole trailor! Here's a photo of the scorched patch of floor.

It still smelt like burning.

On Monday evening the girls and I went to see the movie Valentine's Day in a local cinema. When we emerged from the theater and into the Whistler evening, Charlotte Sarah asked if anyone else had forgotten where they were for a minute. "Yes!!!" I agreed, because it was so true. Being here is truly like being in another world. Days on the calendar don't have the same significance as they do back home - there are no Monday Relay For Life meetings, no Tuesday CHS meetings, no Grey's Anatomy on Thursdays. It's as if time and space are frozen here. I'm not looking ahead more than a day at a time because each day holds enough excitement to capture my attention. I'm trying to remind myself every moment that this is an extraordinary experience, and not to let it feel commonplace just because I've nestled into some semblance of a routine here. Each day is to be savored.

This morning we toured Creekside, host of the alpine skiing events. We weren't able to see too much of the venue since we could only go up as far as the base of run, but competition was going on during the tour. We got up to the finish line just as Lindsey Vonn finished her downhill run of the Super Combined event (unfortunately she fell during the Slalom portion and didn't medal). Our 2nd Part Passes didn't get us into the main spectator area because we weren't in uniform, so I couldn't get close enough to get any good pictures of the skiers crossing the finish line, but I could see fairly well. Here are some photos:

We watched from up where those people are at the bottom of the photo

There was a great sushi place just outside Creekside - Blaire and I were so happy!

After that delicious lunch we had some time to kill before our class and didn't want to go back to camp just yet, so we called Sydney and she brought us 2nd Part Passes to the Athlete's Village (I still think it's so cool that we can do stuff like that!). Our mission: accumulate pins! I hadn't been asking people for pins because I didn't have any from Dalton or Mass or USA and I thought the idea behind it was an exchange, but apparently it's acceptable just to ask people for pins. Some people have had good luck from the police officers or other employees at various places. We, however, wanted athletes.

Blaire is determined to get a USA pin, so we stood in WVL near where the athletes go to the dining tent, since it was around lunch time. We spotted some guys in USA jackets right away, and stood awkwardly near them so that we could pounce as soon as they finished their conversation. Soon enough two of them walked toward us a few moments later. "Hi! Where in the US are you from?" Blaire asked. "Actually, we're foreign" a heavily-accented man said. "Oh, well do you happen to have any pins?" she continued. "No, but that guy usually does. You should chase him down," he told us. Glad to have permission to stalk someone, we hurried off after the man our foreign friend had been chatting with. After a few "excuse me!"s he turned around, as did the young guy he was with. We opened again by asking where in the US he was from (Lake Placid, NY) and then I asked the kid he was with "what's your sport?" (which feels a lot like asking "what's your sign?"). He was a luger! We talked to him for a little bit, and he handed Blaire one USA Luge pin - which I want! She said I could have it if she got another USA pin. Let's pray that she does! I had forgotten to look at his accreditation to get his name, but I checked on the Vancouver 2010 website and found out his name is Chris Mazdzer. I'm going to keep my eye out for him at the Sliding Center, because he said he was going to be around for the rest of the Games!

Chris Mazdzer's official photo for the Games

You're Such a Luger

2010-02-16T19:15:00.003-05:00

While I was waiting for the accredited shuttle to go up the hill this afternoon, I noticed a bunch of Sochi guys standing around by the security tent. I asked the driver if he knew what they were doing here, and he said "they're trying to decide if they want Thai or Indian food". I didn't quite know what to make of his joke, and then he clarified "I don't know". "Do you know if they're coming or going?" I pressed him, just because I was curious and wanted to know whatever information he could tell me. "They're leaving - because Whistler doesn't have any Thai food". Not only was this really not very funny, I had a Thai Chicken Wrap for lunch in the Workforce Break Tent today.

Just before the shuttle pulled away, a VANOC "smurf" (they have all-blue uniforms and there are thousands of them, so they've been nicknamed "smurfs") and two Ukranian athletes climbed aboard. "Athletes?!" the bus driver exclaimed. "I get to drive athletes?!" he carried on, fist pounding the two men as they got on. Not getting much reaction from us, he said "You can tell they're bobsled guys because they sat right behind each other". "No, they're lugers," the smurf said, "they compete tomorrow" (which means they're doubles lugers - a team of two people per sled). "Hey, my sister used to always tell me that I was a luger too!" the bus driver cracked, which is so old and obvious that it just wasn't funny. The Ukranians didn't laugh. I got off at the second stop, and wished them luck before I scooted out of there.

In other important news, Jono labled all the nipple grabbers (or "nipple crushers" as he calls them) in Sharpie with nicknames for each worker. Ina's says "The Germinator" because she's German, Steph's is "De Groot The Mad Root" because her last name is De Groot. Culley's says "Ivan Milat", who Jono explained was a crazed serial killer in Australia (Jono and Culley are both Aussies), and Jono's says "Optimus Prime". After lunch, however, Ina's and Steph's were missing and in looking for them I found Libor's which is named "Ice Cold Baby". On another side "Be Aware I Bite" is written, and on yet another side it says "Steal me and I'll crush your nipple". Needless to say, I didn't let either of the girls take that to replace their missing ones.

While I was writing this, another strange thing happened. Erin, who works for VANOC in SCW (snow, cleaning, waste) came into my office and asked if she could take off her longjohns. "I can't do it in my office or the door would come flying open" she explained. Awkward! Fortunately she did it quickly and I had my blog to distract me!

Fun Facts About the WSC

2010-02-16T16:29:00.002-05:00

Sorry folks, no creative title for this one. It's pretty slow in the office today, despite the inch or two of wet snow that fell from early this morning until about 9:45AM. While Scott was using the computer I poked around the office a bit (after my coffee break, during which I watched some curling. The Norwegians have awesome diamond-checkered pants!) and pulled out the binder of the Opertations Manual for the Sliding Center. To go along with my unoriginal title, I will now quote the Overview information about the WSC; I don't have the motivation to paraphrase it, especially since it's mostly quick bullets anyway. Anything I add will be in [brackets].

Introduction:

The Whistler Sliding Center is one of only 16 international competition sliding tracks in the world
It has the highest vertical drop from top to low point of any track in the world - 152 meters
Track G-force is expected to reach 5.02Gs (men's luge) [This will actually be lower since Men's Start was moved down to Women's Start, and the women will start from Novice/Junior Start]
A thin, two to five centimeter ice surface is produced and maintained by hand
Construction began in June 2005, with the track being operationally complete in winter 2007-2008. The formal public opening took place in fall 2008

Bobsleigh:

Part of the official competition program since the first Olympic Winter games in Chamonix in 1924
Women's bobsleigh was introduced at the Salt Lake City 2002 Olypmic Winter Games
The five-man bobsleigh was contested for the first and last time at the St. Moritz 1928 Olympic Winter Games
Following a sprint start, the bobsled travels down the track on four higly polished steel runners. Sleds are equipped with breaks

Luge

Luge made its Olympic debut in 1964 in Innsbruck
Luge athletes start in a seated position, gripping start handles to propel themselves down a steep start ramp. They use gloves with small spikes on the fingertips to push themselves along the ice before laying feet first, on their backs
Luge athletes steer with their legs and shoulders by applying pressure to the sled runners

Skeleton

Skeleton first appeared at the 1928 Olympic Winter Games and then again in 1948, both times in St. Moritz. The sport returned to the Olympic Winter Game program in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
Skeleton athletes [lay on their stomaches, going head first, and] steer with their shoulders and knees by applying pressure to the sled.
There are no brakes on a skeleton sled

Post-Games Use

The Whistler Sliding Center will be operated under the direction of the Whistler Legacies Society, supported by an endowment trust that was established by the federal and provincial governments as part of their 2010 Winter Games venues investment. The Whistler Sliding Center will showcase sliding sports by hosting international competitions and developing sliding sports opportunities in the local communities. Its location, near several of the resort's world-class hotels, will attract many tourists, providing a sustainable revenue stream towards the center's long-term opperations.

VANOC Investment

The Whistler Sliding Center was built at a cost of $104.6 million, funded jointly by the governments of Canada and British Columbia

Sustainable Attributes

Smart site selection - adjacent to previously developed areas within a major ski area (such as ski trails, parking lots)
Site designed to minimize required vegetation clearing and to reduce the facility footprint (such as soft edging and tree islands)
Long-term operations and revenue generation opportunities through athlete training facility and visitor use
First construction contract (2005) awarded to local Whistler business
Energy efficiency initiatives to minimize refridgeration plant energy include

Ammonia refridgeration system. Ammonia is one of the most energy-efficient refridgerants producing no chloroflourocarbons (which contribute to ozone-layer depletion and global climate change)
Track shading and weather protection system
Tree retention to cast shade
Track painted white to minimize heat absorbtion
Capture and reuse of waste heat from refidgeration plant

Scope of Work for 2010

The venue features a new 1,450-meter competition-length concrete sliding track, refridgeration facilities, support buildings and access road. The Whistler Sliding Center will host Sport Events for bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton. Over the 13 days of sliding competition, athletes will compete for a total of 8 Olympic medals [Men's/Women's Single Luge, Men's Double Luge, Men's/Women's Skeleton, Men's 2-Man Bobsleigh, Men's/Women's 4-Person Bobsleigh].

I think really think the Sliding Center is pretty cool, and I when I visit other venues I'll look for their manual and try to pull out some fun facts for those venues too!

1st Canadian Gold!

2010-02-15T00:35:00.003-05:00

I know people think of Canadians are quiet and laid-back, and they're right. But let me tell you, when one of their countrymen is competing, especially on home soil, they exhibit as much passion and pride as New Orleans fans at the Super Bowl.

Tonight at Cypress Mountain Alexandre Bilodeau took the gold in Men's Mogul Freestyle Skiing. Holly and I were eating dinner in the Workforce Break Tent at the Sliding Center during the final dozen runs, and I couldn't help but grin as the entire tent erupted into cheers as each Canadian took his run. I cheered quietly for Bryon Wilson, the American who won the bronze, and received a few glances from those around me. When the Canadians landed impressive jumps and flew across the finish line, however, it was as if there were no other competitors in the running. I know I've said this before, but I can't stress enough that there's some unwritten rule that at the Olympics everyone is free to express their joy, share their excitement, and relish in the glorious moments that they are a part of simply by being present. It truly is a beautiful and inspiring thing.

Also today were the final two runs of the Men's Luge. In between runs 3 and 4, I gave a tour of the lower portions of the track to Maxim, a Russian representative of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics who is staying with Cleanevent to learn more about snow, cleaning, and waste at an event of these proportions. As we trekked around through the pouring rain, I explained everything I knew about the Sliding Center and Cleanevent's role in keeping it clean and clear for both the athletes and spectators. One of the things I asked him about was if he had connections with other parts of the Games, besides Cleanevent, and he made a good point that if he talked to VANOC they would only tell him the positive things, whereas we are much more likely to tell the truth as we see it.

One of the other things I was interested to learn from Maxim is that Russia doesn't have the luge specialists that VANOC currently has to successfully maintain the ice of the track. The track staff work hard to make sure the conditions are just right, whether it be scraping off ice or watering the track down. It looks like finding that kind of experts may be a challenge for Sochi, but their track isn't even built yet and they have four years to find a solution.

Our period of miserable rain soon ended, and the sun shone for the final runs of the luge. I was able to head up the hill a bit to watch the final five runs on the big screen from behind the track. I stood on the access road by the Track Lodge surrounded by five men, four of whom had countries names displayed proudly on their jackets - the Swiss and Norwegian chatted amicably, the Latvian stood quietly to my left, and the Kiwi showed up just in time to see the final run. While no one cheered during the runs of the final athletes - the world's best lugers (the final five runs each placed in the top five) - I knew that each one of us appreciated the feat we had just witnessed.

During the course of writing this blog post, I chatted extensively with the kid next to me at the Blenz Cafe window counter, overlooking the Whistler Medals Plaza. I saw some flags raised and some athletes receive their medals on the big screen, culminating in a fireworks display. There really is never a dull moment here, as long as I keep my eyes and ears open.

Let The Games Begin

2010-02-14T01:26:00.002-05:00

Competition began at the Sliding Center today!

I got to watch some of the practice session this morning, during which I took these photos from inside Turn 16.

This last one I did crop in close. It is currently my desktop background

I was also able to watch some of the actual competition after I got off work. I saw some of the men's second run of the night. They will have two more runs tomorrow.

The excitement within Turn 16 was almost tangible tonight every time a Canadian luger got set to make his run. Cowbells clanged constantly, the cheering grew deafening, and red mittens warmed most hands. It was an exciting atmosphere to be engulfed in, and I was right in the action at the bend of Turn 16.

Don't Wiggle!

2010-02-14T01:07:00.001-05:00

It has become quickly apparent here in Whistler that one of the best times to strike up conversation with anyone is during transportation. For some reason, riding the same bus is a sufficient excuse to approach strangers and ask them where they're from and what they're doing here. Perhaps it's because, often times, we are sharing a very tight space other passengers and the reasoning is that if your bodies are going to be pressed against each other for 5-10 minutes, small talk is in order to quell the awkwardness. Or maybe it comes from the "there's nothing else to do on this bus ride" mentality, since chatting is a good way to pass an otherwise boring amount of time. For me, it comes from an uncontainable excitement and insatiable curiosity about everything - and everyone - around me.

Last night we watched the Opening Ceremonies in the Village Square (story on that later) and then went to the Athlete's Village to wait for the Cleanevent shuttle back to camp at 10:15. In addition to myself and three friends, four Denver interns were also escaping the rain under the tent well before 10pm. We knew that the Village workforce had a shift getting off at 10pm, so there was quite a frenzy when the van arrived. After all the interns and some of the workforce had climbed aboard, we waited to fill the shuttle.

Fill it we did.

Although there was another shuttle coming everyone was anxious to get back to camp, so one of the Denver interns sat on the floor between the driver and shotgun seat, and Holly climbed across my and Sydney's lap to make more room, encouraging others to hurry up and climb in so we could leave. An Aussie guy sat next to me and ended up with an Asian kid half on his lap. All in all, we counted 21 people crammed into the 14 passenger van. (Rumor has it, they have fit 22 before).

One of things that had been called out when we were inviting more and more people onto the shuttle was "make some new friends!" so we got to know the guy next to us a little bit. The first thing I learned about him was that he really had to pee. He learned that I have a strong aversion to elbows, since I had to ask him to remove his from jabbing into my arm. See what I mean? Something about being in close quarters has the ability to eliminate any hint of shyness from people.

Partway through the ride, I slightly moved the fingers on my left hand, which were holding onto a "Go Canada Go!" banner I received while watching the Opening Ceremonies. My left arm and hand, however, were sandwiched between Sydney and Holly, who both wailed at my unexpected movement. "Don't wiggle your fingers!" they told me. We all had a good laugh about that, and I tried to suck it up and bear it but towards the end I requested to move them, reasoning that this time they would know it was coming. "Don't wiggle!" they insisted, which made the Aussie continue to laugh and long for the loo.

Cleanevent shuttles aren't the only rides in which I've talked to strangers. Earlier that night, while I was reading aloud everyone's horoscope from a free weekly magazine I picked up, an athlete on the bus turned to me suddenly as said "This bus goes to the Athlete's Village, right?" I'm not sure why he waited until halfway through the ride to ask me, but I assured him it was. A few minutes later he asked if it was the last stop, and Sydney said that was, and that when we get off, he should get off - which earned her a wink from him. If it hadn't been so close to the end of the ride, I'm quite certain the conversation would have continued.

This morning on my way in on an exceedingly crowded #2 bus, the man sitting next to me seemed concerned when the bus turned off the highway and into the Highlands, and he mumbled something to a girl who I assume was his daughter. "Yeah," I said, "it goes through the residential area which takes a while". I could be wrong, but on a "normal" city bus, the conversation would have ended there. At the Olympics, however, it lead to me finding out that he's from Seattle and has tickets to the luge event at my venue, and me telling him that I'm a student intern with Cleanevent working at the Sliding Center. There are almost as many examples like this as bus rides I've taken.

I absolutely love the human element of the Games - that desire to connect with others, becoming more aware of the people around us than in our normal daily lives. Just as every athlete has a story of how they got to the pinnacle of their sport, the spectators and tourists seem to recognize that each person walking through town or riding on the bus also has a story that brought them here to Whistler.

I'm looking forward to collecting more stories.

Scalpers, DUIs and Smokos

2010-02-11T22:57:00.004-05:00

A few quick notes:

Walking down the street in the Whistler Village today, we saw a guy who had written with reflective tape "I need tickets to Men's Downhill" on the back of his jacket. I have yet to see any scalpers, but that guy probably has the right idea - he can bring scalpers discretely to him and hopefully not get caught!

Did you know that if you have any sort of DUI or misdemeanor, in any country, there is no way you'd be allowed to work or volunteer at the Olympics? They aren't taking any chances here.

New lingo: the Australian word "smoko" developed from a smoke break to just any kind of break, so when the shuttle drivers are walking around waiting to take us to Function Junction, they sometimes slip out for a "smoko".

Do you remember my pre-departure post in which I talk about the weather? It costs $25,000 PER HOUR for the helicopters to bring snow to Cypress Mountain. Can you imagine!?!?!

Right outside the Medals Plaza, where there will be live concerts, there is a little park. Here are some of the girls playing on the round on the round swing. We'll probably try to grab a seat here to listen to the awesome bands (including OneRepublic, The Fray, Usher, Feist, All American Rejects, Our Lady Peace, etc...)

Bars of Soap

2010-02-11T22:55:00.003-05:00

Today Holly and I were in charge of the Helpdesk at the Sliding Center since Nikki was in class. Thankfully, our team does their jobs exceptionally well so our phone hardly rings. A few things of note did happen today though, and some were quite humorous (at least to us).

This morning as we waited to get our 2nd Part Passes to enter the venue two of our guys were speaking in French, then Charles turned to Jan, a Czech, and asked if "glowing" was the same thing as "shiny" (the motto of the 2010 Vancouver Games is "with glowing hearts"). After thinking for just a moment, Jan explained that "glowing" was like light coming from within, whereas "shiny" was reflected light. I turned to Jan and told him that I was impressed with his explanation, and that I didn't think I could have put it that well. Language has always fascinated me, so it was interesting to see how a non-native English speaker conceptualized vocabulary that is second-nature to me.

Later that day a woman from VANOC Transportation came by the office to explain some ice concerns she was having and wanted us to take care of. She was quite chatty, and started talking about the raccoons and coyotes. Then she launched into a thing about bears coming out of hibernating. My favorite line was when she said "If I can smell the earth, the bears have been out for 2-3 weeks". Oh, how I love Canada!

Holly and I got to see a couple of women practicing on the luge track today! Before our lunch break we went up to the track lodge to use the "flushies" (flush toilets) and we heard announcements about the practice beginning. Unfortunately, both of us had neglected to bring our cameras, and my phone was not quick enough to catch the athletes. We went up after our shift, but when we got there a Romanian woman had been knocked out. She was going around Turn 16, the "Dog Bone", and went up over the lip. They had to take her out in a stretcher - I'm going to be checking the news to see if she's okay.

Medical personnel assisting the injured athlete

Our main entertainment for the day was a call I took that I didn't even think was that funny until everyone started freaking out about it. A woman called to tell me "there's an apple core in the waterfall". She said she tried to get it out but didn't want to fall in, and asked that we get the 'nipple grabbers' to get it out. I wrote down all the info, and as per protocol I repeated the information to ensure accuracy. When I got off the call a guy who works in the other half of our trailer poked his head in and said "Did that really just happen?!"

Holly 10-4'ed (radioed) Whitney, who is up at Men's Start where the waterfall is, and asked her to take care of it as our venue manager Scott came in and everyone cracked up laughing. Whitney 10-4'ed back a few minutes later and in a mock-serious voice informed us that the apple core had successfully been removed from the waterfall. As a joke, we logged the issue as high priority, and made wise-cracks about it the rest of the day.

This is the waterfall up behind Men's Start

Nipple-grabbers, in case you were wondering, are mechanical claws on sticks used to pick up trash. I model them, as well as some other gear we had laying around, here below:

Cleanevent ran out of anything smaller than an X-Large in all parts of our uniform, so my coat swallows me.

Wondering about the title? That one is courtesy of Jono, the hyper Australian supervisor. At the end of the day he and Scott were looking over the roster for tomorrow and they were noting the new additions to our team. They try to strategically assign people to the different areas, and Jono made a comment that "these new people could be bars of soap for all we know!". I found it hilarious, but I guess it's no different than our expression "dumb as rocks".

120,000 Hours of Work

2010-02-11T21:52:00.002-05:00

Following our first venue tour, we had our first session of Cleanevent Academy. Those of us interns – from University of South Carolina (USC), JWU Providence, JWU Denver, and the one girl from JWU Charlotte – have been mixed up into three groups which will each have 5 days of class. In addition to the venue tours and lectures from Scott Williams, we will have at least one guest speaker per session from Cleanevent. Our special guests from VANOC and IOC have not been finalized yet.

Today Craig Madigan, Cleanevent’s Project Manager for all 7 mountain venues, came and spent about an hour with us.

One thing we talked with Scott about before Craig arrived was the reading assignment for the day, about In-House versus Contract services. Craig explained that VANOC looked two separate modules for contracting cleaning services – one for the city of Vancouver, and the other for the mountain venues of Whistler. When looking at it from this perspective, the main difference is that just about every mountain venue had to be built, and most are temporary, whereas the city venues were previously established with existing staff.

Stemming from the consideration of staff, which – let’s face it – is huge in the event industry, Vancouver also had a larger pool of workers that made it easier to simply bolster the venues’ existing cleaning crews. The local population in Whistler, however, was drastically different. Whistler locals’ lifestyle was simply not reliable enough to be compatible with Cleanevent’s needs. This is a wealthy area driven by the ski slopes, so the kids here aged 18-25 don’t need to work and would rather skiing or snowboarding all day.

Based on those considerations, it made sense for VANOC to contract out almost everything in the mountain venues, essentially buying a solution to the complications presented here.

We also talked about resident perception of the Games. In Whistler, for instance, most of the locals wanted a way out because of concerns over things like safety and traffic. They also had the option to rent out their businesses to VANOC, rent out their residences to spectators, and take off on a month’s paid vacation. Scott admitted that hosting the Olympics is financially an endeavor that just doesn’t work, but if the community is willing to do it they can have a lot of fun.

Our next topic of discussion was some of the function teams involved in putting on the Olympics. Staying with Cleanevent right now is a Russian guy named Maxim who is representing the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games. He is on what’s called the Overlay Team, whose responsibility is to design all the Olympic buildings in CAD and then supervise the custom-building of all the venues and support buildings. The Overlay Team owns and controls the venues for about three years before the event, and in a short period of time before the Games they turn it over to the Operations. During his time at these Games, Maxim is looking at all the short-comings of the planning to see how Sochi can avoid the same mistakes.

There is also something called the “Look” department. These people are in charge of dressing everything in banners and flags and drapes on the scaffolding. They also worked out all the ultra-specific colors chemes and uniforms and other visual marketing. Scott kept referring to all this as the “frosting”.

The last group we talked about were the Wayfinders. This crew is in charge of all Olympic signage/directions/arrows to direct the spectators with all the knowledge they need to get to and around within the venues. They must do the majority of their work from Overlay’s CAD design, and then only have a couple weeks to make last-minute adjustments, sizing, extra considerations.

In the last 2-3 weeks leading up to the Games, a lot of the planning must be adjusted as unforeseeable circumstances rear their ugly heads. For example, when Look designs and sizes their grandstand drapes, they plan for a certain height of snow – which just isn't here in Whistler. The Wayfinding team also has to make adjustments as people begin to come to the venues and report oversights in the signage.

This is a good example of a calculation that the Look department made when creating the signage - they were counting on a few inches of snow to cover the bottom of the fencing.

A lot of things have to happen really fast around here. On our initial tour Joey was pointing out entire buildings that were not there just a few days before. The Media Center, which overtook the Whistler Conference Center, was not even made available to VANOC until January 3rd. Craig was telling us that 12 months of planning for an event like this is ideal, but he didn't get here until May of last year.

The last thing Craig talked about was working for Cleanevent as a whole, including the other large events they work for. They are currently bidding for the contract for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi; they submitted the bid around 212 days before the game, but they would have liked to have had that done 300 days before that! The Commonwealth Games are one of the biggest event for Cleanevent, managing 50 venues and requiring 1 million manhours of work. The Summer Olympics require 1.7 million, the Winter Olympics need 120,000, and the Asian Games take 650,000 manhours to clean the venues throughout the entire period. It's quite difficult to imagine, wouldn't you agree!?

Venue Tour – WOP

2010-02-11T21:18:00.004-05:00

Welcome to WOP!

The inukshuk at the bus stop at the Ski Jump

Our first venue tour as part of Cleanevent Academy was the Whistler Olympic Park, better known as WOP. This site has four different areas – the Main Transportation Area (non-competition), Ski Jump, Cross-Country Skiing, and Biathlon.

Map of Whistler Olympic Park

Spectators will come to the Main Transportation Area either by BC Transit bus or by car, the latter of which must be parked in one of four lots outside the security checkpoint. From the security line, a coach bus (different from the BC Transit bus) will take people up to the Ski Jump area and drop them off. From there, they can either walk into that venue or take one of two other buses to see either Cross-Country Skiing or Biathlon.

We visited the Cross-Country Skiing site first. Five years ago, it was just the heavily-forested Callahan Valley. The majority of the trees had to be cleared, trails had to be blazed, and the course had to be built. After the Games, all the buildings will be taken down and trees will be replanted, but the trails will remain open to the public for use as part of the “legacy” of the site. In addition to skiing in the winter, the trails will probably be used by mountain-bikers in the summer.

Our second stop was the Biathlon course. This is an interesting event that I’m just beginning to understand a little more about. The athletes first do several laps of their cross-country skiing course, then stand to shoot their rifles at targets the size of baseballs. They proceed to do some more laps, then lay on their stomachs to shoot targets the size of golf balls. The catch is that for every target they miss, they have to ski another lap.

What makes biathlon even more difficult is what happens to the athlete’s body. Obviously cross-country skiing is a physically demanding sport and it therefore increases the heart rate. For shooting, it is ideal to have a slow heart rate, steady breathing, and a clear mind to focus on aim. Biathlon competitors don’t have the advantage of the first two elements, which makes the third all the harder to achieve.

The Ski Jump venue was last on our agenda. This competition will be the first event, yielding the first medals of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Games. Each skier gets two runs off the jump – just two runs to prove their ability.

Despite what it looks like on T.V., skiers do not get launched up into the air in ski jumping. The top part of the run has groves for the skis to rest in, and then right at the lip of the jump there is a 10 degree declining slope; the skiers don’t go up, but rather the ground just drops away, creating an optical illusion. We were lucky enough to be able to see some women practicing their runs.

At the foot of the ski jump during a practice session

Volunteers are packing down the snow on the ski jump between runs. The dots crossing the path are the meter markers

Our Cleanevent Academy instructor, Scott Williams (not to be confused with the WSC venue manager, Scott Parnell), stressed to us how cool it will be to see events happening here – either in person or on T.V. – after having seen the behind-the-scenes action before the venue was opened to spectators. The camp and the employee break rooms at all the venues have T.V.s that will be broadcasting the coverage, so I hope I get to see some of each event throughout the Games.

So, Where Are We?

2010-02-10T20:23:00.003-05:00

I’ve mentioned the buses a few times, but I want to give you a better idea of where we are living in relation to where we’re working. Whistler RV Camp, home of Camp Cleanevent, is located about 15km south of Whistler Village. Going North on Highway 99, there is a turnoff on the left that takes us up a steep, exceedingly winding road to the RV Park. Once through the security gates, we drive past all the RV parking spots to the very back of the camp, where all of our containers are located. Since we have to go up and around so far on our driveway, we are far from the sounds of traffic and civilization, so camp is quite peaceful (as long as the drunks aren’t around).

To get to work we first take the Cleanevent shuttle north towards Whistler, but our normal shuttle runs no longer take employees straight to the Village. Instead they drop off at both the Athletes’ Village, on the right, and Function Junction, just across the street. From here we take the public buses. The shuttle ride and bus ride are each about 15 minutes.

In order for our van to gain access, the dashboard has to bear a sign with the infinity symbol, ∞, and the first line of security waves the van through. Once we get off the shuttle, our accreditations are what get us free rides on the public buses.

Different buses pick up and drop off in various locations around the Village. One thing about Whistler we noticed right away was that a great many people walk around in ski/snowboard gear all the time. One of the main bus stops is located by the gondola I take to work, and I watched a guy literally snowboard down the mountain, stop at the bottom, unstrap his bindings, and hop on the bus. Transport really is as easy as that in Whistler!

While the half hour of transportation time might seem long, we really have great deal. CE’s competitor, who has the contract for the housekeeping services in the Athletes’ Village, did not square away their housing far enough in advance and are stuck about an hour and a half down the mountain, much closer to Vancouver than Whistler. Gabby, from our camp office, explained that they will have to worry much more about traffic and weather delays, and she hopes they don’t make it to work on time so we can win back the contract.

Other volunteers are about 50 minutes south of Whistler, living on a cruise ship docked in the harbor of a town called Squamish (where the Wal-Mart and other such stores are). We were also told that the housing for security at the Games is really tight quarters, without much space between the bunks. As I mentioned in a previous post, VANOC volunteers were on their own for housing, and may have ended up either paying exorbitant amounts or living way out of town. I learned very quickly that perspective is very important when scrutinizing our situation, and I refuse to complain about how Cleanevent runs their camp.

Another logistical concern, besides transporting all the workers/volunteers required for a successful event, is feeding everyone. Cleanevent had to purchase meal tickets months ago, for $18 a pop. Someone from FAB (Food And Beverage; I prefer the – American? – F&B) stamps the date and meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, overnight) on the tickets and hands them out for the week. At WSC the Employee Break Tent is in Lot 7 with our office, and that’s where we go for our catered meal.

The break tent offers coffee, tea, cocoa, and cookies at all times. Lunch is a choice of two soups, one of three sandwiches, a piece fruit, a granola bar, and a Coke beverage (Coke, Dasani water, Minute Maid orange juice). I’m not sure what dinner will bring, but I’ll let you know.

As I said, Cleanevent had to purchase these meal tickets about 6 months ago. My first day, we had about 9 extra meal tickets, which already had the date and mealtime stamped on them, so we each took an extra sandwich, granola bar and drink so as not to waste the money already spent. Nikki and I counted ahead the meal tickets we got for the rest of the week, however, and when compared against the number of people we have rostered (scheduled) there are days in which we are one meal ticket short. I’m interested to see what CE does about this.

Russian, Russian, Russian coach, Holly, Russian…

2010-02-10T20:19:00.002-05:00

The other night we hopped on a very crowded bus #10 from the Athletes’ Village. Not only was it standing-room only when we boarded, more and more people piled on as we got closer to Whistler Village, and we were forced to walk further and further toward the back of the bus to accommodate the other passengers.

The next thing I knew, Holly was seated in the very last row of the bus, squished between the shoulders of a coach and player from Team Russia. I wanted to sneak a picture so badly because the sheepish look on her face was priceless, but I want to practice good etiquette around the athletes and so I refrained. On the same trip, Colleen was bumping elbows with a Norwegian athlete, and I think some Japanese competitors were sitting a bit further up.

The same night, once we got to town, we took pictures with the fake Olympic rings. Later we saw some athletes in red and white track suits climbing up into the rings and posing dramatically for pictures. We were all impressed and excited until one guy and his snowboarded toppled out of the ring and off the platform. There was a collective gasp of concern from the crowd that had gathered, but he got up and seemed unharmed. The two girls stayed in the rings posing a bit more, but the guy didn’t get back in.

The JWU Providence girls in the Olympic Rings

Tukes, Snipers, and Waste

2010-02-10T00:21:00.002-05:00

In addition to providing some daily updates and extended stories, I'd also like to share some miscellaneous tidbits that I pick up from keeping my ears open around the Games.

It was estimated that about 80% of the employees at the camp are Australian, due in large part to the fact that Cleanevent began in Australia. A couple of our roomies are Australian, and we were chatting with Jacinta the other day about assorted things, like conversions between American measurements and metric. Fun fact: while Aussies use the metric system for almost everything, they still refer to their own height in feet and inches, and when babies are born their weight is given in pounds and ounces. Every other distance and weight measurement is given in metric. We're also learning dialectic lingo. For instance "tukes" are what we'd call beanies or skull caps (in both Canada and Australia). Jacinta also calls flashlights "torches".

Paul Lovett, the brother of Cleanevent founder Craig Lovett, mentioned in our meeting last night about the five levels of security at the venues. The front lines are volunteers, who direct us to venues and scope out our accreditation. Next are the local police, followed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and then the Canadian military. Apparently there are also many Secret Service snipers hiding in the hills, and helicopters circling constantly. While the idea of snipers is a bit unsettling, at least I know that VANOC is taking every safety precaution!

At work today a woman from VANOC's Snow Cleaning and Waste department explained to us about the Games' sustainability goal in terms of recycling. The Games are aiming to divert 85% of the waste generated at the venues from the landfills. All the paper plates, utensils, and coffee cups are made out of compostable material (corn) and can therefore be thrown into the same receptacles as banana peels and muffin crumbs. Someone keeps track of the percentages, and the venues are ranked in how well they are meeting the standard. Currently WSC is only diverting 58% of the waste, and are ranked 9th out of the 17 overall, but 5th out of the 7 mountain venues. One of the Cleanevent girls today was working on making fool-proof signs to show crew and spectators alike what trash goes where.

I snapped this photo before Jessie could tape the Coke and Dasani bottles to the left of the red recycling symbol. Coke one of the three major sponsors (along with Visa and McDonalds) so only Coke products are sold.

Sitting in a cafe with free WiFi tonight, I chatted with a guy named Ryan from Saskatchewan who is volunteering with VANOC. We've all been pretty jealous of VANOC's awesome uniforms, so I was curious as to what other cool things volunteers got out of the deal. Apparently they don't even get housing or any real access to events, so I am no longer as envious of their materialistic superiority and I am more grateful for all that Cleanevent has given me.

I Take A Gondola To Work

2010-02-10T00:14:00.003-05:00

Today was FINALLY my first day of work, at the Whistler Sliding Center (WSC). I took the 7:00AM Cleanevent shuttle to Function Junction, then hopped the #2 bus up to the top of Whistler Village. From there we had two options to get to the WSC, but bus #77 was certainly not as appealing as taking the gondola (glass-enclosed ski lift) up the mountain. Already, I loved my venue.

From inside my gondola, looking at another

Interns from University of South Carolina have already been here for a month, stationed at each venue, and are responsible for training us. Nikki is the intern at the WSC, and she is basically the assistant to the Cleanevent venue manager, an awesome laid-back American named Scott.

Our main responsibility is manning the Helpdesk at our assigned venue. This is where calls relating to our cleaning / snow removal services are directed; we answer the phones, gather information about the cleaning need, and then radio the employees assigned to that part of our venue and instruct them to take care of the situation. At the WSC, there are five "areas", but our team is generally broken down into three groups. Area 1 is the top of the venue, where the Mens' and Womens' Start are. Areas 2, 3, and 4 are the mid-track, including where the Finish Dock and Olympic Family Viewing Tent are. At the bottom are Lots 7 and 8 - Lot 7 includes our office and the Worker Break Tent (where we eat), and Lot 8 is home to the Media Center and storage shed for the athletes' equipment.

After dispatching our employees to take out the trash, vacuum the rug, shovel a walkway, or whatever else the caller might need, we enter the details of the "issue" into the Cleanevent database, so much of my training today was how to use the CMS system (I believe it stands for Cleanevent Management System). I was also able to walk around with Nikki to the Finish Dock, and later in the afternoon we took the shuttle up to the top starting area, which is about 1.5 miles up an extremely steep mountain (hence the need for the shuttle).

There will be two other interns working at the WSC besides myself and Nikki, including Holly from JWU Providence. Since that's more staff than is really necessary, on Friday we're going to work out our schedules around what competition events and concerts we'd like to go to. Each site is issued a certain number of 2nd Part Passes to the venue, and when there are extras other CE employees/interns have the opportunity to get into the venues for the events. Also since we will have extra interns on our venue, we'll be able to each take about 30-45 minutes to walk up and check out the action while on shift.

One other thing I enjoyed about the WSC today was the international diversity of the staff. At lunch today there was an Australian guy, a German girl, a Swiss girl, and a couple of French guys. There are a few more Australians, another Frenchman, and a Czech that I know of who are assigned to our venue as well, and I think the employees will be shifting around during the Games a bit according to the need of a particular venue on any given day.

Tomorrow I have a venue tour of WOP - the Whistler Olympic Park (cross-country skiing, biathlon, ski jumping, and nordic combined), followed by class. Thursday I'm back at WSC, but Nikki has class so Holly and I will be "in charge", after one day of training each! Should be an adventure...

Here are a few shots of the venue that I got today. I saw a few athletes around, including some Italians, a German, and a bunch of Czechs, but not in great picture range.

The official emblem in the ice at Mens' Start

One of the turns

Looking down the track

This is down by the finish. The athletes get going so fast that in order to slow down, they have to loop around and go back uphill quite a ways before they lose enough momentum to stop, so they actually come up from the bottom of this picture.

Wait for it...wait for it...

2010-02-09T23:13:00.001-05:00

(Written on Monday 2/8 - my internet is spotty!)

I wish I could explain to you the exhilaration that’s building and bubbling inside me, and make it as tangible for you as the Official Olympic Accreditation that now hangs around my neck.

I woke up multiple times during the night on Sunday, mostly just because I was too excited to sleep. Despite going to bed at 1:00AM, I got out of bed at 6:40 after laying awake since 6:00. I am so ready to begin!

At 10:00AM we met the shuttle bus and were taken to get our accreditation, which is our credentials / access pass. We were told that our accreditation was our lifeline – without it we would not be able to gain access to anything, and therefore were required to wear it at all times. All we had to do was show our passports, and the documentation had been preprinted for us per Cleanevent.

My general accreditation. I need a "Second Part Pass" to access particular venues.

After asking a few people, we determined that OCOG stands for Organizing Committee Olympic Games. In addition to getting us into venues, this accreditation gives us free transportation on the public buses, two of which have been set up especially for the Games.

After gaining our accreditation, a guy from the camp office (Joey) gave us a walking tour of the Whistler Village, which is the town center (not to be confused with the Whistler Athletes’ Village, which is the residential area for the competitors). We were able to see things like the Medals Plaza, where nightly concerts will be held, and there was a ski lift right in the middle of all the shops. Our credentials will also get us discounts on rentals and lift tickets, so I may look into that…

Walking around the Village was fascinating, and I plan to spend most of my free time hanging out there, people watching and soaking in the experience as much as possible. Olympic fever is certainly omnipresent here in Whistler.

We ate lunch in town, then walked to a bus stop where we hopped on one of the public buses to Function Junction, another hub of activity and one of two pick-up/drop-off spots for the Cleanevent shuttles. The other is across the street at the Athlete’s Village.

In the afternoon we had an orientation to the camp, and our academic adviser came to speak with us about “Cleanevent Academy”, which is the educational program the company has set up for the student interns. He created a binder with extensive information on topics such as Event Production, Facility Operations, Risk Management Operations, Revenue Sources, and the list goes on and on. He asked us to read the section on In-House Versus Contract Services for our next “class”. It was also confirmed that we will have guest speakers from VANOC and IOC, among other organizations.

The entire day, as we kept hearing more and more about all the amazing experiences we would have over the next three weeks, I was practically jumping out of my skin in anticipation. The wait to find out my schedule and the venue I would be assigned to was excruciating!

FINALLY, at about 8:30PM, I found out that I was assigned to the Whistler Sliding Center, the venue for bobsleigh, skeleton, and luge – my ideal location since finding out that interns are not being placed at Cypress Mountain (due to the long travel time). I was ecstatic! Fortunately I was able to start there the very next day, whereas some interns had “class” before ever going to their venue.

It took me quite awhile to quiet my mind enough to go to sleep and get some rest before my first day working at the OLYMPICS!

"We're Living In Containers"

2010-02-08T17:07:00.002-05:00

As my departure date grew closer, people began to ask more logistical questions, such as what my living situation would be. At first I’d laugh and say “I’m pretty sure it’s a trailer park”. Some of my friends then corrected me that the location we’re staying at is Whistler RV Park, which sounds a little better.

We were all a little off the mark…

When we arrived we got off the shuttle van and entered the “office”, which looks like a portable storage unit. From there an intern from the University of South Carolina, who has been here for a month already, gave us a mini tour on the way to our room. First we passed the dining car…I mean hall. I was beginning to feel a bit like the Boxcar Children books. Then there was a similar structure that is the girls’ washroom. It has four showers and four toilet stalls. Next to that there is a “building” (I use that term loosely) that has the boys’ bathroom and showers as well as another girls’ shower and two toilets.

Off to the right another “building” was the rec room, which has a projector and screen, DVD player, Wii, etc. Behind it there was a bonfire and a lot of the male staff had gathered around it, watching Kings of Leon being projected on the back of the white outer wall. Right next to the rec room is our home sweet home.

It’s a storage unit. In the main room there are five bunk beds. To the right of the entrance is another room with one bunk bed, and two girls from the workforce have been living there for a while now. To the left of the door is another small room, which currently has no door and a few scattered items in it. There’s one barred window in the main room, with a sticker that says “Accurate Alarms”. I don’t think we’ll be opening it.

I was worried about being cold, but now I doubt I’ll use the comforter that I brought. It’s so hot in our room! While we unpacked and got settled in we kept the door ajar, but we closed it overnight. Our room doesn’t lock, but we don’t have much of a choice but to trust the other staff. We were told there was a room with lockers and I had brought a padlock, but last night I just slept with my computer (my only thing of real value) on my bed.

To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, here are some photos I took this morning.

Camp Cleanevent Office

The backside (entrance) to the large women's washroom

Laundry room (far left), men's washroom (middle), women's washroom (far right)

Our "building", K

The View

I have to say, I continually reminded myself in the days and weeks leading up to this trip to not glamorize it in my mind. I’m focusing on being grateful that my housing and living conditions are clean, safe, warm, and dry. We’re going to be working very long days and the camp is accommodating around 200 people, so there will always be things to do and people to meet. I’m not concerned about being bored or stuck in the room. It meets my basic needs of a place to sleep, and that’s all I can really ask. I understand that it’s such an expense for the company to run this camp, and I’d say they’ve done alright by me so far.

Sitting in the dining hall this morning, Sydney was reading someone's horoscope and it mentioned something about containers. She laughed and said "that's funny, because we're living in containers". As long as we can all laugh about the situation and focus our minds on more important things, I know we'll be fine.

Clearing Customs

2010-02-08T12:14:00.001-05:00

I arrived in Whistler last night! The internet wasn’t cooperating so the post is only going up now.

It was a fairly uneventful day of traveling. I was flying solo because my dad’s airline miles were on United, whereas my friends all chose American Airlines. I left Providence at 7:15AM EST and finally arrived at the Cleanevent Camp at 10:30PM local time, or 1:30AM EST. Then it was time to settle in, meet people, clean up, etc. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The only thing of real note between my two flights were the gates I boarded in: C15 in Boston and B14 from my layover in Chicago. Fourteen and fifteen are my two lucky numbers, so I smiled to myself at this friendly omen.

When I arrived at the Vancouver airport it was quite a trek to get to customs, but I can’t complain because along the way there were beautiful aboriginal exhibits, complete with extensive water features. If I hadn’t been alone and anxious to clear customs, I would have stopped for a few photo opps. Perhaps on the return trip.

I had expected long lines at immigration, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the only passengers there were the ones who had disembarked just before me from my flight. Line 15 caught my eye and I patiently waited my turn. The man behind the counter wasn’t openly smiling, but he had kind eyes and a gentle demeanor.

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of my friends (Marc) had been denied at the border crossing the day before, but I was careful to hide the twang of nervousness that tickled the back of my brain. After handing over my passport, the customs agent asked the purpose of my visit and I responded as instructed: “I am a volunteer intern for a company called Cleanevent in Whistler”. When he requested documentation to that effect, I presented the letter I had received via email that morning. I apologized for its wrinkles, and after reading through the pages briefly he said “Okay, have a nice trip”, and I was free to enter the country.

Once at baggage claim I received a text from Marc asking me to let him know when I got in. Assuming that he, too, was at the airport to wait for the shuttle I called him back expecting to meet up soon. Unfortunately luck had not been on his side today, as he was again denied entry into Canada. He told me he would stay the night in Seattle and try again, and expressed his frustration at the unfairness of the situation. I have to agree with him there – why is the same document permissible for me, yet not for him?

Luggage in hand, I headed upstairs to the foodcourt where I enjoyed sushi and free wireless. The football game was on, and whenever I heard wild cheering I turned to watch the screen. I kept hearing cowbells, but it wasn’t until after the game had ended that I saw where they were coming from. A group of Canadians were decked out in bells and other metal that added to the cling and clatter. One even had a giant Canadian flag. They walked around cheering, not at the game, but out of excitement and patriotism inspired by the imminent Games. While the racket wasn’t pretty, I appreciated their enthusiasm.

Time at the airport passed quickly and soon the other five girls joined me. We lounged at the Fairmont briefly before our shuttle arrived. Don, a older Irishman, loaded our many bags into the van and I hopped in shotgun to help with the navigation. Though hired as a driver for Cleanevent, it was Don’s first airport pickup and the quickly descending darkness complicated things.

I helped Don scout out the signs along the road to find our way. There were sections with many meaningless signs and stretches with minimal signage, but what was frustrating was that even main route numbers were not clearly marked. There are no bright blue interstate signs here, which made choosing the right route more like a scavenger hunt.

The other thing Don wanted me to watch for were changes in speed limits. It was sometimes hard to pick them out amongst the sea of other signs, and Don also had to concern himself with translating the kilometers per hour from the signs into the miles per hour that were marked with large numbers on his speedometer. Police officers were everywhere, and he didn’t want to get pulled over for speeding.

I learned that night that there is only one road from Vancouver to Whistler. To increase efficiency on Highway 99, two lanes became three. Yellow stakes with reflectors on top were placed in the road to create a middle lane, which sometimes flowed toward Whistler and other times away. There were signs on the side of the road to let you know the direction of the middle lane, but it changed based on the time of day and the exact location of the stretch of three lanes.

Another effect the three lanes had was to push the outer lanes towards or sometimes into the shoulder. There was also a bike lane, but I hope nobody risks that perilous cycling trip with the extra Olympics traffic on the road. There were stretches of road with profound darkness, which made the glare of oncoming headlights and the glow of the reflectors particularly unpleasant. The stakes in the road also cause shadows when the cars passed such that once I thought a person was trying to cross the road.

During the ride I began to casually ask Don questions, unable to quench my innate inquisitiveness. Some he was able to answer, some he wasn’t, and some he didn’t elaborate on because he was concentrating so hard on the road ahead.

Supposedly the views would have been spectacular had there been daylight to see by. We hugged a steep rocky face on our right, but we were told that the black abyss to our left was at times a another steep drop, at others a harbor. Again, the trip back may be the time to enjoy this.

After what seemed an eternity of anticipation (which had begun in October), we arrived at the place we will call home for the next three weeks…

Assurance

2010-02-07T06:30:00.001-05:00

I woke up to some relief this morning!

In my email I found a letter personally addressed to me from Cleanevent that I was able to print to present to immigration upon entering Canada. A friend of ours who is also going had some troubles at the border crossing last night, but this letter should clear that up.

We also received 13 other documents that outline in detail the educational program components we are to receive. It looks like everything is coming together!

It's time now to leave for my bus to the airport! My next post will come from Canada!

A Day Away - Review of Advice

2010-02-06T15:25:00.001-05:00

I depart tomorrow for what is sure to be an adventure of a lifetime.

There are so many questions running through my zealous mind, so many imaginative scenarios playing themselves out in my head. It's as if my toes are dangling over a deep, black ravine and I'm just waiting for someone to turn on the lights. I want to know if I should dive gracefully into cool, refreshing water below, or if it's better to skip across a nearby bridge built safe and sturdy across the gap, or if I should take the challenging yet rewarding path of climbing down one side and up the opposite. I'm anxious for someone to flip the switch and allow me to see and assess the situation, so that I can strategize my approach.

I have received numerous pieces of sound advice, all of which I will attempt to keep in the forefront of my brain.

A fortune cookie I opened the other day, for instance, read: "pursue your wishes aggressively". Anyone who knows me knows that those words are essentially preaching to the choir. I don't know how not to do that. And, for the record, I prefer the term "assertive" to "aggressive" - the latter has violent and rude connotations which I do not condone nor embody.

Words of wisdom that will be harder for me to internalize come from a professor who apparently knows me better than either of us would have expected. He said: "remember to be patient as the experiences unfold around you". I'll need to expend extra effort to live up to this one, but I recognize that it is advice which should be heeded. I take an oath here and now to do my best to practice patience despite the electric atmosphere that I'm sure will engulf me.

"Take every advantage of your time there" is another tidbit I have gleaned from the encouragement I have received. I intend to use this blog to reflect on each experience I find myself in, no matter how seemingly insignificant, because I believe the opportunity to learn and grow can be hidden within unlikely packages.

A former Olympic blogger that I contacted also had some valuable insights for me:

"Take some chances". Athletics is all about pushing oneself to go the extra mile, about challenging all boundaries. The Olympics, as the pinnacle of athletic competitions, represent that spirit and I intend to adopt it as well. I look forward to finding fulfilling ways to step outside my comfort zone and into something extraordinary.

"Talk to fans from other countries". This is perhaps one of the things I am most eager to do during my time at the Games. There is something intangible that I love about "fans"; they have an inherent passion that soaks into their words and actions, and it fascinates me. Add that to my own passion for diversity and cultural awareness, and I will be as giddy as a kid on Christmas while interacting with the international population of tourists.

"Stay out late". Basically, I am prepared to get minimal amounts of sleep during this internship. The original information we received from Cleanevent listed our hours as 7:00AM - 6:00PM. Add on top of that trying to gain viewing access to the medals ceremonies, attempting to mingle with the athletes, and socializing with Cleanevent's international workforce (and any other people we may meet), plus taking the time to reflect properly on each day's activities - I figure that leaves about four hours of rest per night. But the way I see it, it's only for three weeks and then I'll be on spring break. As long as I get enough energy to power my body out of bed, adrenaline and excitement should take care of the rest.

"Go to events you might not usually have thought you'd enjoy". The only sport being held in the mountains that I am fairly familiar with is Snowboarding Halfpipe. I know hockey and figure skating both very well, and will embrace the opportunity to expand my winter sports palate to include more obscure events such as skeleton and biathlon. Reverting back to my fascination of fans, I must say I have a deep respect for diverse enthusiasms. Everyone has something that they get out of bed for - mine may not be skeleton, but it may bring someone else unspeakable joy. Witnessing a fan become overwhelmed by emotion due to the triumph of their idol will more than make up for my lack of knowledge of the sport.

Lastly, everyone I speak to advises me to "Have fun!". It may sound like a no-brainer, and to me it essentially is, but I know from experience - especially with internships - that there are people who will always find one small thing to complain about, and it will impact their ability to move past it and simply have fun. Rest assured that I will not fall victim to that state of mind. This past October I volunteered at a marathon on the day of which there was a driving wind, pelting rain, and frigid temperatures. I still had fun. I helped an elderly runner get into his warm clothes, since his fingers were too cold to function properly --- that is the strongest, most meaningful memory I took from that day. No matter what hardships and obstacles I may face during this internship, the one thing I guarantee is that I will have fun.

Weird Winter Weather

2010-02-05T10:52:00.009-05:00

Since mid-October when I found out I was going to the Olympics, I have been preparing for frigid temperatures. I have waterproof pants from my trip to Alaska in May '08 and a warm Columbia snow jacket from my trip to the Canadian Rockies in fall of '08; I received waterproof winterized hiking boots from EMS for my birthday in November; I acquired long underwear at Christmas; and I just purchased wool socks and the perfect gloves to protect my extremities. (Side note - I really love EMS. They hooked me up). Our uniform from Cleanevent also includes a long-sleeve shirt and fleece, outerwear jacket and pants, and a beanie.

That being said, the weather forecasted for the upcoming week in Whistler is mid- to low-40's during the day, occasionally dipping below freezing overnight. That's right - it's expected to rain, not snow . In fact, weather.com's 10 day forecast shows the weather getting warmer (by a degree or two) as the week goes on.

A recent article tells of trucks importing snow to Cypress Mountain, host of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. One of Cleanevent's original duties as the cleaning company was snow removal, but it is beginning to look like they are more likely to re-move the snow --- that is, move it from the trucks it has been shipped in and onto the slopes.

This is not the first Winter Olympics to experience considerably warm weather. I attended the 2006 Torino Winter Olympic Games (I saw a women's hockey game in which USA def. Switzerland 6-0, first round) and spent the day walking around the city without my coat.

In front of the Olympic Torch four years ago

I was told by friends who witnessed a day of skiing competitions at the '06 Games that it was plenty cold in the mountains and there was no shortage of snow.

While I have no intention of wishing hardship on anyone, it will be an interesting learning experience to see how organizers handle this dilemma in the days leading up to the commencement of the Games.

Mountain Venues Overview

2010-02-04T16:23:00.004-05:00

It's a bit hard to imagine a city hosting an event of such epic proportions as the Olympic Games, wouldn't you agree? Where do they put everything? Sure there are ice rinks in the city for those sports able to be contained indoors, but what about all the skiing, snowboarding, and other downhill events? Not to mention cross-country skiing --- these events need space. That is why these competitions are held outside the official host city of Vancouver - in Whistler and West Vancouver.

Whistler has its own Athlete's Village, separate from that in Vancouver, nestled into the Cheakamus Valley between the river and the forest. The planned occupancy of the Village for the Olympic Games is 2,850 athletes, spread amongst a mixture of apartments, town homes, and hostel accommodations. The Paralympics, which begin March 12th, will utilize the same living spaces with approximately 1,200 athletes.

Whistler Olympic Village, aerial view

The Whistler Olympic Park is home to three separate stadiums within one-square kilometer, each with a capacity of 12,000. Cross-country skiing and biathlon trails take up about 15 kilometers of the space, in addition to the biathlon's 30-lane shooting range and the two ski jumps (normal hill and large hill). Nordic combined is the other event being held here, using both the cross-country trails and the ski jumps.

Whistler Olympic Park, ski jump

Another complex, the Whistler Sliding Center, will feature the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton competitions. Located on Blackcomb Mountain, the venue has a capacity of 12,000 spectators. This site, a little more so than others, is destined to leave a "legacy" for the local community; the facility will be accessible to athletes in training, youth recreation programs, and tourist and public admissions.

Whistler Sliding Center

Alpine skiing has its own 7,700-person capacity venue, called Whistler Creekside. There are two runs: Dave Murray Downhill for the men's Olympic alpine skiing, and Franz's Run for the women and Paralympic competitions. Fun fact: the fastest documented speed for an alpine skier is 148kph, or 92mph.

Whistler Creekside

Last but not least, Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver rounds out the mountain venues for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This site is the host of two of the most popular outdoor events at the Games - freestyle skiing and all of the snowboarding competitions. I have to say that for the past week I have received numerous requests for Shawn White's autograph. For the record, if I do meet Shawn White, the first person I am getting an autograph for is myself! I'm sorry folks, but I'm a big fan too. There's a pecking order after that, so get your requests in early!

Freestyle skiing and downhill snowboarding events are each open to 12,000 spectators, but the halfpipe (my favorite!) only has a viewing capacity of 8,000. In addition to the 51 downhill runs serviced by 9 lifts, there are 10 kilometers of snowshoeing trails and 19 kilometers of cross-country skiing trails criss-crossing the mountain.

Cypress Mountain, aerial view, Vancouver Harbor behind

Where I want to be, aka the Halfpipe at Cypress Mountain

Hopefully next week I'll have my own pictures of the venues to share with all of you.

Learn more about the Olympic venues and see maps here.

It's The Things You Don't See...

2010-02-03T09:38:00.008-05:00

...that make all the difference.

That is the motto of Cleanevent, the company I am working for at the Olympics and, quite frankly, I am excited to be a part a company that excels in its field the way that Cleanevent does.

This family-owned business was founded in 1987 by an Aussie named Craig Lovett, and it has since grown to operate not only in Australia but also in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and the Middle East. In addition to creating a presence across the globe, the company has also developed a corporate group, CE Property Service Group, which has an assortment of specialized service arms reaching different sectors of the business world.

Cleanevent's impressive resume boasts four previous Olympic Games: Atlanta in summer 1996, Sydney in summer 2000, Salt Lake City in winter 2002, and Athens in summer 2004. Other organizations that Cleanevent has serviced include the NFL, the NBA, Formula 1, and FIFA.

This company will be taking good care of its student interns. In addition to our complimentary room, board, and transportation (that is, transportation once we arrive in Vancouver - our airfare was our own responsibility) and the chance to work at an event of this scale, there will be an educational component to our program. In a letter we received from Craig Lovett himself back in October, we were told that we "will be lectured by some of the best that the International Events marketplace has to offer". At the time we received the letter they were coordinating our exposure to:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC)
Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Games (VANOC)
Cleanevent executives
Athletes' Village planning teams
National Olympic Committees (NOC's)
International-class event planning and management companies

We have not heard anything of late updating us on these opportunities and it stands to reason that some of these connections may not play out as Cleanevent had hoped, but even if we get to experience a fraction of the program they had been planning it will be an unparalleled opportunity.

We also received an email recently from a man who introduced himself as our intern adviser/mentor. We will meet regularly with him to discuss what we're learning and how to apply this experience to our careers. We also may be able to tour some of the venues with him, which will further increase our exposure to the Games.

I'm chomping at the bit now, anxious to get started and discover all that is in store for me. I'll have to contain my excitement for a few more days now...

What's An Inukshuk?

2010-02-02T10:18:00.012-05:00

Have you been puzzling over the stack of colors resembling a person that is Vancouver's Olympic emblem?

That, my friends, is an inukshuk (in-ook-shook). Traditionally a stack of stones, it is a symbol used by the Inuits to mark trails, good hunting or fishing spots, caches of food, nearby settlements, you get the picture. It means "likeness of person" and it was a comforting sign for travelers - a reassurance that they were not alone in the barren tundra. According to the official Vancouver 2010 website, "Over time, the inukshuk has become a symbol of hope and friendship, an eternal expression of the hospitality of a nation that warmly welcomes the people of the world with open arms every day".

But the inukshuk is so much more than just a pile of stones. For one, it is a sophisticated communication device. When serving as a trail marker, for instance, the longer arm of the inukshuk points in the recommended direction of travel. When marking a good fishing hole, the inukshuk is positioned so that the distance between the statue and the shoreline equals the distance between the shoreline and the best place to find the fish. An inukshuk at a food cache would have no arms and legs, but instead may have caribou antlers. Within these small subtleties lies the unspoken language of a people.

The structure of the inukshuk is also intrinsically symbolic. The strength of the inukshuk depends on the ability of the stones to compliment each other and achieve balance. Each stone provides support to the stone above and below it, without which it would not stand. It is representative of the cooperative nature of the Inuit communities that inhabit the Arctic of Canada.

You can learn more about the inukshuk from my source.

Welcome Readers!

2010-02-01T16:44:00.015-05:00

Hello, and welcome to my Olympic blog!

"What?!" you say? "You're going to the Olympics???"

For those of you who just started wondering if I am secretly an expert at the sport of curling, let me explain. Through a string of contacts within Johnson & Wales University I have secured an internship with a company called Cleanevent at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. For three weeks I will be living and working in Whistler, a town located a couple hours outside of Vancouver, where the Olympic competitions for mountain sports such as skiing, snowboarding, luge, etc will be taking place. Cleanevent is providing me with food, housing, and transportation throughout my time there, which makes up for the fact that this rewarding opportunity is unpaid.

So far as I know, my duties will be organizational tasks for both event management (dealing with aspects pertaining to the venues of the Games) and for camp administration (i.e. the the logistics of everything relating to the workforce, which I believe will number around 200 people). Right now our intern schedules are still being finalized and therefore I will not know my exact duties until I arrive in Whistler - a little scary, I know, but what can I do?

My flight departs Sunday, February 7th from Boston and gets in to Vancouver around 6:00PM. Upon my arrival I have two and a half hours to kill before the Cleanevent shuttle comes to take me (as well as some of my friends who are coming on another flight) to the camp in Whistler. Luckily for me, the shuttle will be picking us up in front of the Fairmont Hotel located right next to the airport. Fairmont is the company I intend to work for upon graduation, so I plan to take advantage of the opportunity and give myself a tour of the property, and perhaps partake in a meal before the shuttle arrives. We will be getting to the camp late on Sunday night, and therefore requested to not begin work until Tuesday, giving us all of Monday to get ourselves acquainted with everyone and everything. Other student interns will be arriving that Monday, including a group from JWU Denver.

My goal is to post daily updates on my activities, both for your sakes as well as to ensure that I don't forget any of the valuable experiences I encounter. I will do my best to keep these posts interesting, exciting and - hopefully - humorous. Feel free to use the comment box to ask questions that I may neglect to cover in my ramblings. I will also do my best to post corresponding photos (but not so many that they get overwhelming, if I can help myself).

That covers everything for now. Over.