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Quick before the Olympics end

Karen, a friend of mine who lives in North Carolina, and I seem to have started a tradition for ourselves.  When the Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver in February 2010 we phoned one another and managed to talk our way through the entire Opening Ceremonies.  We enjoyed it well enough to continue the tradition for the Opening Ceremonies of the London Summer Olympics.

This is how it works, we both try to watch the same U.S. based broadcast so we're seeing the same imagines at the same time.  I remember in 2010 my broadcast was about 5 seconds ahead of hers, which created some fun for me as I could announce the upcoming event to her.  We can talk our way through the spectacular programs, the 200 or so different countries who march in the ceremonies, where certain countries are actually located in the world, what the athletes are wearing, why so and so was invited to be a part of the ceremony etc.  This time we speculated what it was those kids were carrying (it was part of the Olympic Torch).   If you know either of us you'd know we have 2 hours of talking  in us.

Now North Carolina is located in the Eastern Time Zone and Vancouver in the Pacific Time Zone so Karen's watching a broadcast three hours later than I am.  I believe I kept her up quite late in 2010 and I know I did the same for the London Olympics.  And of course during all of this time I can knit.  As Karen describes it, the ceremonies are good for the type of television watching that doesn't require total attention to understand.  (It also helps to have a mindless knitting project, like the Blossom Sweater that was just knit for long lengths without a change.)  Karen said after the fact:  "I enjoyed our couple of hours together and we even made it work across international borders, too."  (I guess that might be three borders, UK, US, and Canada.)  So it appears we've created our own somewhat strange Olympic tradition, but I don't think there'll be any medal in it for us. 

Here's a couple of other Olympic tidbits to share.  How about a knitted Bradley Wiggins, fresh off his Tour de France win and now sporting a gold medal.  You got to love that they got his reddish hair and sideburns just right.  And very clever to use felt for his clothing and an appropriately sized photo of his bike in the background.





Or how about Jamaica's sprinter, and fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt in his signature pose.



And as the Closing Ceremonies are upon us, the London Philharmonic Symphony (responsible for the recordings of the national anthems used at all the medal ceremonies) used Mini Cooper horns for one last hurrah in putting the games to rest.  Check out this video.  Perhaps you should stand when you listen to it, but that's really up to you.
  



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