February 14th and 15th and the Olympics

Curling. Lots of curling. Skeleton. Hockey. Snowboard Cross. A little bit of speed skating. And incorporating Olympic ideas into our regular lives.

FEBRUARY 14

Amanda: Snowboard cross tomorrow!

Lisa: Canada and Great Britain men’s curling – they are yelling their strategies across the ice for everyone to hear. There’s not a lot of privacy during this game.
You need to check out Norway’s curling pants for today.
Also, every curling stone is slightly different from every other one because of the natural material they are made of.

Amanda: Mic’d and yelling. Definitely no privacy.
Who are they playing? I can check it out when I get back from walking the pup.

Lisa: With different languages between teams you at least have that.

Amanda: Neat!
I’ve thought about that.

Lisa: No idea. The NBC guy just showed a tweet that included a photo of the pants.
There are the pants:

The Norway men's curling team was in the #ValentinesDay spirit today. #WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/hnXUksnA5K

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 14, 2018

Apparently they have fun pants for the other days too.

We went LIVE with the Norwegian curling team, @TeamUlsrud, to unveil their pants for #PyeongChang2018! 👖🇳🇴 Check it out: https://t.co/4f4nRxPPwd #norway pic.twitter.com/zeTLzGsKo6

— Olympic Channel (@olympicchannel) February 13, 2018

I’m going to find me a fun fabric print and make some trousers and tell people they are my curling pants.

Amanda: 😍
Those are amazing pants!

Lisa: I’m glad they have fun with their sport.

Amanda: Agreed.

Lisa: I’ve got our commentary from the Opening Ceremonies through Sunday night on my blog now.
I have Monday and Tuesday ready to go but I’ll wait because that was a lot.

Amanda: I did some looking yesterday. There are two major areas of the Olympics. I’ll be in the mountain area, with the stadium and the cauldron and more. I hope I have at least enough time for some photos! If we get dropped at the parking area, there is a shuttle bus to the venue and another to the main Olympic Park. So, fingers crossed. The Mormon Helping Hands is likely in the coastal area, so I doubt I’ll see that.
Good work!
👍🏻

Lisa: Watching the USA vs. Slovenia hockey game, Iddo thinks the fans with green hair cheering for Slovenia (which has blue and green on their jerseys, not sure why the green) look rude and not silly. She doesn’t understand why they don’t just do green clothes instead.

Amanda: Interesting perspective.

Lisa: I think she thinks they are rude because she doesn’t understand it. She was getting frustrated with me while I was explaining it to her.
I realized that I don’t mind Brett asking me questions about curling because he’s surprised if I know the answer. But I get annoyed with Iddo asking me questions sometimes because she expects me to know the answers.

Amanda: Good luck. It’s probably going to get worse there before it gets better, with more kids asking you questions

Lisa: Eventually they’ll stop expecting me to know the answer though.

Amanda: Maybe. 😊

Lisa: I’ll just keep making it up like I know what I’m talking about though. It’s worked so far.

Amanda: I think that’s a good strategy.
Jamaican skeleton competitor!

Lisa: Go Jamaica!

Amanda: Ghana has a great helmet!
Snowboard cross seeding is not nearly as fun to watch as the actual race.

Lisa: That is a great helmet.
Yun S. of South Korea has an Iron Man helmet.
Iddo: Why do they have to do skeleton at the Olympics?
Me: That’s a good question, Iddo.

Amanda: Very cool.
Definitely a good question.

Lisa: How long is a skeleton track?

Amanda: I do not know.

Lisa: Me either.
They’re going 75 or so miles an hour and going for just under a minute.
I could do the math or google.

Amanda: Might be somewhere in here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton_(sport)?wprov=sfti1

Lisa: “Are they going to break one of their skeletons?”
I told her we hope not but they might.

Amanda: Accurate.

Lisa: Hopefully only part of their skeleton and not the whole thing.

Amanda: That would be painful.

Lisa: Brett just wandered in, “What is the length of this track? It’d probably be easy to calculate if they’re going 75 mph. It’d be easier to calculate by going to Google.”
I just laughed.
4,478 feet. 1365 meters.

Amanda: Almost a mile.
One of the Snowboard cross riders fell and basically climbed up the rest of the hill so he could get back up and continue his seeding run.

Lisa: Good for him.
Go to the Olympics to finish, not start.
You know, not really that interested in watching a German figure skater clean out her nose with a Kleenex while the Chinese get their score.

Amanda: Could be worse. There might not be a Kleenex.

Lisa: It was close.
The camera stayed on them expecting some kind of memorable reaction. There was no reaction.
There’s the reaction the camera was waiting for, after the last skaters.

Amanda: I missed it. I’ve got hockey on mute in the background while I work on a test to possibly become a video captioner.
Done with that. Now watching snowboard cross!
I like the Italian boarder’s pants.

Lisa: They still haven’t shown us that.

Amanda: It’s in quarterfinals now. So, maybe when it gets to semis or final?

Lisa: The schedule says they’re supposed to be showing alpine and snowboarding right now. So far it’s been just alpine.

Amanda: And my Roku app has disconnected me. Super.

Lisa: 🙁

Amanda: I can watch the broadcast on AFN. But I was enjoying the 🏂
My computer is being slow too. I’m guessing it’s the internet. It’s lame sometimes.
Got it set back up. I have not missed the final.

Lisa: Snowboard cross coming up. Alpine finally finished.

Amanda: It’s delayed. Downloaded the official Pyeongchang Olympics app last night. It comes in handy.

Lisa: Ah.

Amanda: Almost ready.

Lisa: Just saw the semis
“It is like Nascar, except in Nascar you don’t get out and start running with the tire.”

Amanda: Just watched the finals.
🤔

Lisa: That was the commentator making a comparison when the US guy got up after the crash, hopped up the hill, and finished.
Finals are starting.

Amanda: Gotcha.

Lisa: It starts with a drop into the air, not actually on the hill. Interesting.

Amanda: I think that would frighten me.

Lisa: It’s like the race starts mid-jump.
That is an exciting sport.

Amanda: Quite!
I’ll miss the women’s tomorrow, so I’m glad my devices started working again in time to see today’s final.

Lisa: I’ll have to see what’s on when. We’ll be gone in the morning but will have it on the rest of the day.

Amanda: I think it’s on the same times tomorrow. 

FEBRUARY 15

Lisa: Question: Why the neon green for Slovenia?
Watching the USA vs Italy men’s curling match. But Norway is right next to them so I’m checking out their pants.

Amanda: We turned this on while we ate breakfast and I was able to tell Blake about Norway’s pants Blake just left, so I’ll finish this end. USA’s last stone in End 9 was so good.
I do not know.

Lisa: Look at you being all knowledgeable about curling!

Amanda: Thanks!

Lisa: Canada’s long-track speed skater has a really cool ear-warmer headband thing. Red and black flag with a red maple leaf on the black squares. I like it.

Amanda: Nice!

Lisa: South Korean skeleton – There are three important skills in skeleton, first speed, second more speed, and finally speed.

Lisa: Canada women’s hockey goalie has a cartoon beaver on her helmet.
American goalie has a bald eagle.

Amanda: Ha!
Non-cool helmets are a waste.

Lisa: Only goalies get cool helmets.

Amanda: In hockey. I’m also speaking generally. You can have a cool helmet in an individual sport, but a lot don’t.

Lisa: That’s definitely a waste.

Amanda: In hockey or any sport with a goal (soccer, for example), it’s important to visually set the goalies apart, because they can do different things.

Lisa: Yes.

Lisa: Our girls have cool bike helmets. Shimei’s is plain blue though. I should make it fancy.

Amanda: You can do vinyl stickers.

Lisa: Definitely. Currently only in black or rose gold though.
{photo of Izri being happy} Izri bouncing to the chicken dance being played during stoppage of the hockey game.

Amanda: Rose gold would be cool with blue.
Yay!

Lisa: He’s supposed to be napping.

Amanda: Well, less yay then. But at least he is happy.

Lisa: {photo of Izri crying} This was half an hour ago.

Amanda: Oh baby. I hope you both feel better soon.
I’ve been on this train for 20 minutes and I just noticed that one of the screens is showing the Olympics and I’m getting off at the next stop. Lame.
Oh. Maybe it’s an app or something and Olympics are related. It’s okay.

Lisa: The side-by-side skiing comparisons are a bit weird.
I want to be a water girl at the top of the mountain for skiing.
Missed women’s snowboard cross. Time to look it up on the replay.
I figure it has to be a computer switching cameras at the sliding track because it would be tough to have a person do that.
I kind of wish I had enough time to knit you an awesome hat to wear when you go to the Olympics next week.

Amanda: I’m going to wear my panda hat!
Most likely yes.
But also, thank you.

Lisa: I totally approve.

Amanda: Thanks! I had the idea while Blake and I were watching aerial skiing.
“Should I wear my panda hat so friends and family can watch for me at home?”
“Yes!!”

Lisa: Going back to sports I missed while getting kids in bed… Iron Man Won!!!
Izri, who just woke up in my arms for the first time, doesn’t seem impressed.

Amanda: Fun! I’m missing everything today. Playing in Tokyo with my best friend from third grade and her husband and daughter.
Silly boy.

Lisa: Dukurs brothers got 4th and 5th in skeleton.

Amanda: Nice!

Lisa: Need to watch SBX and then I can go to bed.

Amanda: Good plan.