The Journey Home

The time clock is counting down but it is still measuring in "days". It takes a few moments for me to convert to hours and by that time I have to start the whole process over again because I am getting more and more of these "old age moments." Joe will soon understand this as he is turning 40 today. Just in time as I still have a bottle of "Paarl" and I'm not afraid to use it. We have gotten through Joe's meat locker and I'm kind of happy to be going back home and not being so much of a "meatatarian."

Although we spent months building our network at the "Athlete's Village," it has taken the Bell team two days to take down. We removed all the IP phones, HDTV's, projection TV's, DVD's, WAP's (wireless access points) and LAN/WAN switches. All this hardware was packed and wrapped by our "ARCes" team (Bill and Jeff P) in the Logistics tent. They told me they were the founders of the "asset recovery crew" but preferred to be known as "arses," not "arcs."

Guy from Opti-net has come back and will remove all the temporary wire that was laid down (which is now exposed on green grass) as well as the overlay wires that were placed in the HPC (high performance centre ie gym), lodge(lot 5), lots 6, 7, 10 and lot 8 (pointy building) and the hostel (lot 13). It's funny now to hear these areas as places designated on a drawing because from the Olympics we know Canada owned lot 3. Sure Great Britain was there with Japan, but Canada owned lot 3. The USA was in the lodge, Italy was lot 10 and for reasons that only the "Village People" can truly appreciate, Finland was in lot 4 and France was in lot 11.

We found that although we might have had the best medical staff with us on site, we also ended up with the most colour blind medical staff. Our "Games" network was totally separated from internet access and our "Admin" network. The Admin network would give you access to the internet. The Games network was dedicated to the Olympics only for timing, scoring and for our purposes at the village, results reporting. We used green cat 5 cables on the Games network so everybody would know that you would not be able to surf the net on it. Most everybody understood this. Most of our visits to the Polyclinic however, were for Games port violations (where the port would shut down on unauthorized use) and not because we wanted to chat or because we were feeling ill.

Getting back to the Paralympics, you have to love those Swedes and of course, our Canadians. Both of these countries over-estimated the amount of beer they could consume (safely or otherwise). In our hardware sweep of lot 6, the Swedish team left us one can of Heineken and many cans of Coors light. Somebody bought a combo pack and drank all the good stuff. The Paralympic Canadians who were in lot 8 (pointy building) of course, left Canadians! A number of us drank a few in the team Canada offices until Tim the VGM (venue general manager; not fond of Bell techs drinking "illegal" McDonald smoothies) saw me (and probably a few more of us) as he lurked past the hallway in front of the team Canada office. Apparently, it is cool with Tim that we drink a beer in a Team office but not okay that we drink a "smoothie" outside in front of the athletes. Maybe he was just not cool with one of us!

Somebody, (won't say who, so don't ask) felt that he got sweet revenge by shoving a pin into Tim's keyhole followed by copious amounts of instant glue. Not feeling that was enough, this person proceeded to take Tim's "Gator" for a one way trip into the forest which surrounds our venue. I'm not sure how this will affect Germana and Maurizio as they will remain on site for a few weeks and this "somebody" made sure Tim knew who the perpetrator was!

I'm not sure if that will be this "somebody's" highlight of the Games. I look back to the Calgary Olympics and one of my fondest memories was watching Karen Percy receive her bronze medal. That for me defined those Games but that was from the perspective of a spectator. There have been many highlights at these Games and I'm not sure yet what the defining moment will be. I'm working on it as there are many to choose from in the spectator's perspective.

There are also many to choose from in the workforce perspective. Just the other day, Joe and I were driving our Bell van up the hill toward lots 11 and 17. There was a Croatian athlete at the side of the road with his thumb out looking for a lift up the hill. Once I convinced Joe that he wanted to latch on, we backed up and our Croatian athlete grabbed hold of our mirror with his left hand, continued smoking with his right hand (yes smoking) and shifted his body to steer his wheelchair up the hill. The few remaining "smurfs" that witnessed this sent one of their representatives up the hill to take pictures. Although we were all laughing, I had to shout protests to this "smurf." I was going to be in this picture as was our Bell logo. That might not look so good on Facebook!