The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming!

The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming!

If you're like me (in years past) you probably tune in to these winter sports, oh, once every four years. You get a general sense of who the favorites are from the announcers and interviews, roll your eyes at the inspirational life story clips, and root for the home team.

Now you don't have to be in the dark. You can be knowledgeable long before the Olympics hit.

At least about figure skating. (Everyone, feel free to correct me. I'm not an expert, I've just been following skating to the best of my ability for a couple years.)

Right now the horse race is on. It's the Grand Prix. As we speak, world class skaters are competing in a series of competitions Russia, France, Canada, the U.S., Japan, and er, I think elsewhere. Right now they're trying to earn points to get to the Grand Prix final -- and prove themselves worthy of the Olympic teams.

You see, last March at the World Championships each country won the number of slots they'd have at the Olympics based on how their skaters did. (The max is three.) China was very disappointed to not win any for men's figure skating. In a real shocker, the U.S. women's figure skating only scored two slots as our current National champ fell apart.

But our men are doing fab. Evan Lysacek won the gold at Worlds and we have a "deep field," namely, many guys running neck and neck for the same titles.

Let's have a look at our boys.

The Americans.


The ever-hot gentleman, Evan Lysacek. (The belt buckle is Batman, with cable and bat-grappling hook.)

( Evan has the quad. He has the fire. He's a skater who starts pouring it out in the last 30 seconds of his performance.... )

Finally, there's Mabanoozerabadahblbrghf. Graceful, fluid, fun to watch. I don't know if he'll keep moving up, he's still inconsistent. But he has a musical sense that makes him figure skating eye candy.



Only three will make it to the Olympics.

Which three? We'll know at Nationals in Spokane, January 2010.


Tomorrow: those other guys, yeah, them foreigners.

Buddhism questions: passing the buck.

People always ask me about Buddhism ... and I'm caught flat-footed. You should ask a good Buddhist!

Well we're in luck. And online, too.

Tulku Orgyen has offered to help anyone with any questions about Buddhism: http://twitter.com/TulkuOgyen

Retweet, tweeters.

And thank you, Tulku Orgyen, for letting me pass the buck.

Mousie report.

Mousie report.

Some of you may recall this post wherein a family of mouse babies took up residence in one of my fleece jackets (in a box that happens to be outdoors). I discovered this when I pulled my jacket out of the box, scattering mouse infants everywhere. I removed my other jackets, packed the box with newspaper, and used newsprint to scoop the littles back in the box.

A week later I discovered I'd missed four mouse babies, who'd fallen into a box I took inside. Noooo....

Then the temperature dropped and I thought the outdoor mousies were history.

Three weeks later ...

I'm happy to report that the mouse babies survived, and have moved on. But the nest is clearly there, and there are no apparent corpses.

Proof of life: the fleece jacket was not so lucky, sacrificed to the cause. The Mousies chewed a few holes.

Unless Rainy Pass can fix it.

Quantifying a life.

Good news on the work front: My tutoring job is going to give me 16 hours a week as of Dec. 1, which is great. It's an improvement.

The pay rate is good, and it gives me the required experience I need for teaching. (90 hours is the magic number. I'll have it by the end of December. Then I need a year of school for the teaching certificate.)

Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to live off of.

I don't have a car in car-dependent Maryland, so I'm having to ask "mommy" for rides to work, to interviews. I have all the time in the world to write -- yet can't find the space because I have to write around other people's schedules.

It's been four months and I'm getting the feeling she's burned out. As am I.

I want my life back.



Quantifying a life.

( When I drove across country to Seattle in 1996, I had a car. )

Aside from the degrees, how did I end up with less than when I started?

Women ninjas.

The music awards:

Shakira has women ninjas!