a quick note

-Written from Whistler Paralympic Village-
I am in an amazingly interesting place for a number of reasons. We all know this place has a physical beauty. Most of us are aware that the price tag for all the beautiful green is all the rain and wet. That is fine, a little wet goes a long way in green, and cool rivers. Anyway, the dramatic topography makes up for any inconvenience of wet.

I think all the energy expended here is what is really amazing. Not referring to the athletes, coaches and athletic work put in to being invited here. There is an army of volunteers making this "thing" go. Medical staff, janitorial services, transportation, and the list goes on. I think the amount of support staff doubles that of the athletes.And then you have all the paid staff, who make the food and clean up, and also drive and such. Where else does this occur at this level? I mean, we (the non pilots) supported pilots in the AF, but not like this. I have my choice of food to eat, and it is all food that I would pay money for. That being said, I have paid money for some of the food I was fed in the Military, but this is a different entity all together.

As an example, last night we watched Star Trek in a home theater style room. There were three staff there to make sure the equipment worked to our desires. There were bean bags on the floor to sit in. And they wanted to help. We were not an inconvenience to their solace.
-And I guess I ran out of time and motivation-

I went to Aspen for a week, invited to the Winter Sports Clinic by the Paralympic committee, from the request of Secretary of the VA Shinseki. I was a VIP as they say. A strange position for me. Management whisked me past any staff who needed proof I was signed in. I needed no participant number, even though I was asked for it a number of times. I was also handed the microphone during opening ceremonies -apparently they wanted to hear me say something about what the WSC meant to me. It all related to a nice week of skiing, hockey, and talking with the participants (I got to ski with some Olympians Bode included). It was a fun week.

Ethan had his first soccer game yesterday. Riles went to Gymnastics. After breakfast at Grammies, Ethan went with Grandpa and I to the soccer field. Riles went with Sarah and Keelie to Funtastics. We got a few snow showers, and Ethan got to chase a soccer ball around for two games -"My team mates and I scored three goals"