| 10 June 2001
Greetings from Indy all you Ratketeers. I don't know if it is a sign of things to come but the trip started off on a bad note. My flight into Indy was scheduled to lave Newark at 3:25PM. Just before we boarded, it was announced that the plane was "taken out of service". After some time, we were told that they found a plane, which was coming in form Ft. Myers, FL. We all went to the gate on the other side of the terminal and waited...and waited...and then told that there was problems with the plane's rudder (Oh Joy!!!). The short of it is we left Newark at 6:30...Usually, when there is bad news, there is some good news to counteract it. There were some other athletes who were going to the games. In the terminal I was sitting with the British women's swim team. This is good news....or so you think. How do I put this delicately? Fans of the Simpson's cartoon may be familiar with a book made reference to in the show; "The Big Book of British Smiles".......But they have great personalities. The flight was relatively crash free and other than Hertz losing my car rental reservation, everything went well.
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For those of you who play the lottery, here's one for you. My hotel is on New Jersey Street and my room number is 237. Those of you familiar with the street address of the Kearny Police Department, you know the connection |
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Right across the street is the Market Square arena, the former home of the Indiana Pacers. Much like the Devils, they moved out of a relatively new arena to a newer one. The difference is the new one is three blocks away from the old one. See what the Continental Arena will soon look like. The arena here is to be imploded next month. |
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My hotel is home to the Montreal P.D., RCMP (Alberta) and Stockholm Hockey Teams. Team Singapore was here on Friday night. The problem is that this wasn't their hotel. So there were a dozen or so Singaporeans (is that the right word?) camped out in the lobby until they found out where they were suppose to be staying. |
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The opening ceremonies on Saturday were at the RCA
Dome. The problem with this, as compared to Sweden is that the arena
was partitioned off and the athletes were seated prior to the ceremonies.
How does this effect me? Not too many Rat photo ops. I did get one with
the Games Mascot at registration (His name is
Capt. Courageous).
The one cool thing was a motorcycle cop from Indianapolis doing some
tricks. |
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The other thing was that the US athletes were separated from
the rest of the athletes. They proceeded from the back of the arena and we
proceeded to the front. The lighting of the flame was real uneasy, given
local events around here (more on that in a bit). The torch was lit by
Christopher Fields of the Oklahoma City F.D....He's the fireman in the
famous picture from the Oklahoma City bombings
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The city is really into the Games. They even did up some Police Car and Fire Trucks in the Games logo. |
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On a somewhat surreal note, as many of you know, Timothy McVeigh of the aforementioned Oklahoma City bombings is set to be executed Monday morning in nearby Terra Haute. Believe it or not but there are plans, should it become necessary, to have the athletes from the games be used for emergency purposes. Read the article from the 9 June 2001 edition of the Indianapolis Star. |
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As far as my events go, a change in the track scheduling
pretty much precludes me from competing in any track events. The
Half-Marathon is on 16 June (@0700.....ichhh!!). The track 5000 is also on
that day...at 0730...while the HM is running. The 10000 is on Thursday;
also a little too close to the HM. Cross Country is on Tuesday, but
because of my ongoing battle with my Achilles' tendon, I was not going to
run. However, I went over the course and found it surprisingly even and
firm. So at this point, I am likely (but not definitely) running Cross
Country.
That is all for now everybody. I'll leave you with a copy of my Games ID card. If nothing else, it is worth a laugh. I'll update you when I get more....See Ya |
