The View From Wisconsin

The weather up here in Northern Wisconsin has taken a turn for the strange today.

Instead of the usual snow we get when the temps rise, we're starting to see rain. That wouldn't be bad, if it wasn't for a few things:

1. The temperature is hovering right at 32 degrees F.
2. The wind is coming from the East and making that 32 F feel more like 21 F.
3. The surface of many roads are already slightly melted from the minor warmup we had yesterday.

This afternoon, I was heading out to get some groceries we hadn't gotten the last time we'd done the shopping. No real problems getting out of our complex, and it didn't appear that the road that leads out to our "main drag" was that bad.

However: I started to stop for the intersection at the end of the road, and discovered something: black ice. What was worse, the last part of the intersection is an incline down to the main highway. So not only was I sliding, I was picking up speed.

The view to the left is obstructed by a roadhouse-like corner tap that has a small parking lot built into the side of road (something I've discovered is common here in NC Wisconsin). I had two brief thoughts as I was sliding: first, I was gonna get broadsided by some logging truck as it came down the road. Second, I wasn't gonna be able to stop once I got to the main highway, and I was going to slide right across the road.

And through the guard rail, and into the Wisconsin River.

Which, at this intersection, was about a good 30-40 foot drop from the other side of the road.

I think I swerved and threw my car into "Park", which locked up my wheels enough to cause me to stop - at about an 80 degree angle to the direction of travel. Very carefully, after finally breathing again, I reversed out of there and slowly went down to the stop sign, and turned right onto the main highway. There were no cars coming from the west, thankfully, so that wouldn't have been a worry.

Still - I don't know how much longer I can take this weather up here.

Some random things:

• The toughest thing about the shortened NHL season is going to be the 10/6 rule: any sort of benchmark of 10 over 82 games is about the same as 6 over 48. So, it's going to be mid-February before we know whether or not a team is a legit playoff contender, as it's going to be about that point where everyone is going to have 12 games under their belts. That's going to be the hardest part of this whole thing - when do you figure out that it's time to fish or cut bait?
• I am definitely not a big fan of the up-and-down temps in central Wisconsin. ESPECIALLY the "down" temperatures. 27-below wind chills are just crazy. 
• A road-geek moment: There are still some websites and pundits out there that posit that Interstate 39 is "eventually" going to extend to Merrill - or possibly beyond. Anyone who believes that has obviously not driven the section of US 51 north of the Wisconsin 29 East interchange recently. For one thing, the interchanges north of Wausau proper (for example, the K/U/Business 51 exit) are a complete mess. In fact, the freeway between that interchange and Brokaw is in severe need of repair. It also would need a massive overhaul to get up to interstate standards (many of the overpass clearances are too low at the present time). Even the new 29 West/Highway 52 interchange isn't completely interstate "kosher". And, of course, I don't think the AASHTO would want to have an interstate "end" at a county highway - though that would pretty much be the case if it were extended to the end of the existing freeway at Highway K north. There's already a boondoggle over converting the section from Tomahawk and US 8 south to Merrill into a freeway, one which would probably turn Irma into a ghost town. Bottom line: I-39, if it is extended at all, won't go any further north than the Wisconsin 29 West interchange. 
• I am eagerly waiting for Dickey's Barbecue Pit to finally open in Wausau. It's looking like February 1st (or so) will be the grand opening. Last I looked when we drove past, the "real" sign has been put up. Can't wait for some real Texas pit-style BBQ. 
• Speaking of Texas - a certain young lass hailing from Tyler is finally tying the knot this summer! She has the date down, but I don't think I'll be able to attend, sadly. Looks like it's going to be a gorgeous day, though. 
• If anyone would have told you back in August that it'd be Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh in the Super Bowl, they'd have laughed and said, "What, did Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady all get hurt at the same time?" Oh, little would they have known. 
• Over/under on number of misspellings of "Kaepernick" by those in the print media - 500. 
• Sign that you're getting old: the guys who are leading the NHL in scoring, you remember watching when they were rookies. Back in the 1990's.   

We've got less than 32 hours to go in 2012. Some thoughts as the clock ticks down:

• I know, I'm getting greedy, given that I've already won my public league title, but dangitall, I wanna WIN my private league championship (the Not Quite Ready For Prime Time Football League, now in its 12th consecutive season). I did win the league title back in '03, but I'm hungry for a second one. Unfortunately, the Packers are not helping at the present time. 
• The arguments over the "fiscal cliff" political discussion is strangely like that of the NHL lockout. I don't have any optimism that either issue will be resolved any time soon. I've got my thoughts on possible endgame scenarios with the NHL/NHLPA battle, but I don't foresee any of them resulting in hockey being played before this time in 2013.
• As much as I would love Wisconsin to win the Rose Bowl under Alvarez, I have no thoughts that it's actually going to happen. Stanford has a team that is just that much better than Monte and the boys. 
• I've said it before, and I'll say it again - all I really want to see in Merrill is an Aldi's, a Starbucks, maybe a Pick 'n Save, and a bank or credit union that has an ATM that accepts deposits. And that'll happen two days after I either retire or leave this county. 
• It'd be a nice change of pace if I went in to work tomorrow night and things were quiet. Just sayin'. 
• I've had my fill of snow for the winter. If it didn't snow any more this winter - or did nothing more than the little "dustings" we've had the last week or so - I think I could live with that. Of course, this being Wisconsin (and this being north central Wisconsin, to boot), it ain't gonna happen. 

It's not like this was a horrible year, but there were a lot moments that I'd really like to just scream about. As in, what in the WORLD were you thinking??? 

Let's go backwards.

• Obviously, the one thing that has made me feel like my heart has been ripped out for the last three and a half months has been the NHL lockout. I'm still rather adamant that the NHL has never actually considered "bargaining" with the PA (of course, that might be colored by one of the other topics on this list). The most recent offer is, in my not so humble opinion, a PR move that intends to make it look like the league is trying to negotiate - where the truth is that they're just moving the cards around on the table, three card monte style. I'm convinced that I'll get a raise before the NHL plays another game. 
• Oh, yeah, that raise thing - in case you didn't hear, the GOP is back and in control of the Wisconsin State Legislature. I look forward into 2013 with trepidation, as I openly wonder what they're going to do to make my continued employment in service to the people of the state of Wisconsin more difficult. (A side note: I usually refer to the current state governor as "my boss", but I realized that I really don't work for the governor. I work for the people of the state of Wisconsin; the governor is just the current CEO assigned the position by stockholders. It's not my fault, entirely, that the current CEO is an idiot.)
• Speaking of which - how is it that a state that sent someone like Tammy Baldwin to Washington to represent the state in the US Senate manage to give the GOP control of the legislature - and basically ensure that Mr. Walker remains in office for his entire four year term (and, at the rate the Dems are going, longer than that)? 
• That lawsuit thing is still hanging over the state in regards to Act 10. The various unions essentially won on a lot of things - except mandatory dues withdrawal. I saw that one coming from a long ways off, but I'm still frustrated as to why WSEU has seemingly sat around and done nothing to try to get back into the business of representing state employees under the new rules. I have seen opinions on what should be bargained for in the public sector (great article here on a Federal union member's POV on the state's labor issues), and I agree that money is something that is essentially out of our control. But work conditions, management relations, non-monetary benefits? We need to talk, Scotty. Whether you like it or not. 
• Should the Seattle Seahawks somehow vault ahead of the Packers in the playoff seeding - which would only happen if the Packers lose, Seattle wins and the 49ers lose - you would hear a howl across the state of Wisconsin that hasn't been heard since that little row that happened last year in the Supreme Court chambers. The NFL wrongly states that the Packers have four losses on the year and Seattle has 10 wins. If it would mean that the Seahawks would end up hosting a playoff game - against the Green Bay Packers - I'm pretty sure the entire state of Wisconsin would want to lynch Roger Goodell. 
• Speaking of Seattle - the guys who do UA draws on pro athletes for mandated random drug testing have really taken a beating this year. First, it was Brewers LF and reigning NL MVP Ryan Braun; now it's the Seahawks DB. You get this vision of the same cops who did the sample-taking and crime scene analysis at the Simpson murder investigation. 
• I won't pile on about the whole Ryan Suter/Zach Parise contract thing, as I suspect Mr. Tightwad Johnson-in-law will do everything in his power to keep from actually having to pay those two the contracts that he signed, but I honestly suspect Suter never had any intention at all to re-sign with Nashville. That may very well have affected his play down the stretch - which is somewhat sad, as that would be even worse than anything the Black Sox could have pulled off 100 years ago. 
• Scandals in sports - I remember vividly where I was when the Freeh report was released. Hearing all the stuff that was mentioned and realizing this was Penn State  we were talking about, it just hit me hard. Now, I don't mind the free berth into the Big Ten title game, but to think that some sicko was using the PSU facilities to commit child sex abuse makes me wanna wretch (and that's more than just because of where I work). 

That's all I have for now. Let's hope 2013 is a good one - without any fear, as Mr. and Mrs. Lennon once said. 

Okay, enough chit-chat, gentlemen. As a duly self-appointed representative of the one side of this little dispute that has NOT had a say in these negotiations, I REALLY have had enough of all this bovine excrement that has been flowing out of these offices since September.

There IS a deal to be done. Mr. Fehr over there (points at Steve Fehr) has even said that if you guys got the main stuff finished, the rest would be completed in a couple of hours.

Well, it's time to get to those couple of hours.

When I have not been trying to completely ignore you buffoons - especially after last week and that "oh we're so close no we're not" crap - I actually have been paying attention to the three main sticking points in the negotiations.

Mr. Bettman, Mr. Daly, you have said that these three are NOT negotiable. I am here to tell you that if you continue to say that, I will PERSONALLY come over there and Gibbs-slap you. (If you don't know what that is, Google it. I'm not here to help you keep up on popular culture.)

Mr. Fehr and... okay, I'm just gonna call you guys Don and Steve, 'kay? Lot easier. Anyways - there are a LOT of things you guys could do better than just focus on avoiding things. Seven years ago, those morons over there (points at the BOG and Bettman) said that there was GOING to be cost certainty via a Salary Cap. Yeah, you and I both know that was a load of crap. Show me a salary cap and I'll show you 100 ways of getting around it.

And oh BOY, did some of these guys get around it. Take DiPietro for example. (turns to watch Charles Wang wince) Hey, it was your idea, Brooklyn. And Lou (Lamiorello), you tried so hard to work the edges. Then old Liarpold over there went and took your bonus baby.

Still, I know what's going on here - these guys (thumbing at the BOG) want to get more concessions out of your collective hides. Not surprising, considering ol' Liarpold over their is buddy-buddy with Scotty Dubya and the Koch brothers. Never met a union he didn't want to bust. And I've had my suspicions.

Busting a union, though it's kinda de riguer in my neck of the woods at the moment, is not gonna look good on your resume, Gary. And what the 32 of you need to realize is you're going to all sink like a stone if you don't get this thing done.

And to do that, you're gonna have to use that "C" word. You know, the dirtiest word in politics today - compromise.

So here's the deal: I'm gonna lay out how you're going to get there. You're going to actually fill in the blanks, because really? I don't wanna sit down, read the (bleep) books about how much money a rotating dasher board ad brings in quarterly and all that. But we're gonna go over, one at a time, the three things you guys can't seem to figure out on your own.

First: the change in shared Hockey-Related Revenues from 70/30 or whatever it was to 50/50. Don, this is just a fact of life. The pie has been increasing over the last seven years - with no help from ANYONE in this room - you too, Sidney. But there's a limit to the amount of pie out there. And the way you guys are flinging them at each other, there ain't gonna be any pie left.

Dangit, Don, don't give me that look. I saw that look. It was that same look you gave Congress during the PED hearings. That's why you're here instead of in the Caribbean, taking in a winter league ball game.

I really don't care how soon you want to implement it - Gary, you said something early on about a phase-in over a two-three year period. Considering the culture shock it's gonna be, I think that'd be a good idea. Just don't plan to implement it this year. These guys behind you have issues trying to figure out which lear jet to take to work.

Second thing on the docket - contract limitations. Sigh. Can we just admit that 10 year deals are just insane? Don? You saw it happen with Bud and MLB? There is no reason why anyone should be locked up to a contract for that long - unless it happens to be an agreement between you morons. THAT is one thing I'm demanding, right now - you are GOING to have this thing last until September of 2023, no ifs, ands or buts, got it?

All right, contracts: Five years max, with an option for a sixth, at the player's option. Figure out how to do it. Maybe go end of Stanley Cup finals to June 30th for the period of determining it. Say, player makes the offer for the sixth season, team has until July 1st to accept. If team doesn't take the offer for the sixth season, he's a free agent and can be signed by anyone else until October 1st. 

Only one catch to all this - that sixth season will have to be at the same salary as the lowest salary year in the previous five. You have a guy signed to a $1.1, $1.2, $1.4, $1.6, $1.8 million deal? Guess what: if the player opts for year six, that salary goes down to $1.1 million. Only exception is if it's below the league minimum, then it gets bumped up to league minimum.

See, Gary, that gives your guys an option in a bad deal. They don't have to take the offer. And Don - if your guys sign a five-year deal, they need to keep an eye on that low year.

Look, I know this isn't like figuring out a salary cap and a salary floor and midpoints and what not, but it's got possibilities.

Now, let's tackle the one thing that I really think is what is keeping you idiots from dropping the puck - Don would call it "making whole" while I think Mr. Liarpold over there would call it "market adjustment".

I would just call it "breach of contract", myself.

See, that's what really burns me, Craig. You went out and signed Suter and Parise to those huge deals with absolutely no intention of actually paying those huge salaries. And YOU, Mister Snider. YOU intentionally poison-pilled that contract for Shea Weber by making it damn near impossible for the Predators to match. Well, as much as I feel for Mr. Cigarran over there, I suspect both of you felt exactly the same way that old Johnson-In-Law over there felt: "I ain't gonna pay that."

I would really suggest that the Board of Governors consider the legal ground they would be standing on if they demanded returns on salaries. I think Donny boy over there is smart enough that he would sue the NHL over pulling the biggest Hostess Twinkie switcheroo in sports history.

So the bottom line? You guys made your bed, now you sleep in it. No salary rollbacks, no "escrow" payments, none of that. You are going to pay out those salaries.

Now, don't get so smug over there, Don. These idiots gotta have an out, or ol' Charlie Brooklyn over there is going to have a conniption fit. So here's the carrot on a stick: No current contracts can extend beyond the last year of this CBA. Since we're already going to make this a 10-year deal, it means contracts that go beyond that get terminated after the 2023 season.

Since that just made Tom and ol' Jeremy Jacobs start to hyperventilate, I think it's time for them to get an out. Here's the deal: If you have a DiPietro situation (would you PLEASE stop that, Mister Wang?) where a guy loses 80 consecutive games in a season due to injury on one of these long-term contracts, or if he loses a combined consecutive total of over 100 games at any point before 2017, then the team has the ability to walk away from that contract at that point. If a guy gets hurt in the 2017 season, but the consecutive total wouldn't hit 100 if he was out the rest of 2017 and all of 2018, the team can - after reaching game 100 - walk away from the contract. But ONLY for the rest of the contract (2019 and beyond). A guy gets hurt in 2018 - well, them's the breaks.

Oh, and so the players don't have to worry about things - anyone who has one of these contracts that extend beyond 2018 will have right of refusal on any trades for the first two years of the contract.

Unfortunately, as a Gibbs-smack for not getting this season started on time, that will get extended through the end of the 2015 season, not the 2014 season. Oh, look, Rocky finally figured it out. How neat.

And to appease Mr. Wang - if a player is already over the 100-game total after you idiots finally drop the puck? You can notify the player that you're walking away from their contract at season's end. Like that a bit better, Charlie? Good.

All right. Sit down and figure out how you're gonna implement this. If you don't, I'll come back in here and Gibbs-smack the lot of you.

Especially you, Craig. Thanks for nothing.

Oh, and Tom? I'll see you sometime next year, hopefully.

First of all: Old Main - A Story In Time is the name of my latest attempt at telling a story. This blog post is more or less a "Behind The Scenes" look at the story - the making of the novel, so to speak.

So - What is this all about, then?

Way back when I was an undergrad at UW-Whitewater, I was slightly infatuated with a building that I had never set foot in. Old Main was the name of the building that was, for over a 100 years that the school existed, the building of the Normal School/State Teacher's College/Wisconsin State University at Whitewater.

Years before I had even entertained thoughts about attending Whitewater, that building was burned to the ground by arsonists. There was obviously more to it, of course - the Vietnam war was still going on, and racial tensions were high, especially on the campus.

The first building I ever remember entering when I first visited Whitewater was Hyer Hall. Hyer was the last remaining wing of Old Main - the newest of the many sections of the building, and the only one to survive the fire, since it had fire doors that kept the inferno from spreading. Over the years I spent on campus, I always saw it as this building that looked out of place, compared to the rest of the relatively empty hillside.

One time, as I was hiking back from a class at Hyer, I had a "what if" thought - what if the fire at Old Main had been set accidentally? By someone who was actually trying to stop the building from burning down? And thus the concept for Old Main was born.

Wait - you graduated from Whitewater back in 1989! How long have you been working on this thing, anyways?
Years. The file for the story is actually older than most of my computer systems. I had a few problems with the story as time went by:

• First, I didn't have anything more than an idea, and without any experience in writing a fictional story, that didn't carry things very far. 
• Second, I was a little busy trying to get a career started and a family together. Whitewater and its Old Main building were far from my mind as I tried to accomplish those things.
• Third, I was having trouble figuring how to get everything to work.

What were some of your original ideas?
 The original story was that a Whitewater student from years in the future - I vacillated between 10 to 20 years into the future - somehow ended up in Old Main the night the building burnt down. In an attempt to stop the building from burning, he ended up causing the fire.

That morphed into an idea where a student got caught up in a plan by his roommate to stop the fire, but in the process of traveling back through time, they inadvertently caused the fire. That was where the story stood for the longest time. My issue, as you can guess, is the opening/closing of a time loop. I'd gotten to where the roommate had managed to convince the student to help him, and in so doing they got split up, which resulted in missed communications, a chase, and then getting trapped in the wrong time period. And, unfortunately, Old Main was still gone. Basically, everything up to where they found themselves in the parking lot with a dead car, a dead time machine, and nothing to show for it.

There were some more things I'd added to the story as time went on, of course - I actually went into a lot more detail about the chase through Old Main, and how the two protagonists had run through the halls of the building, trying to stop the fire by dousing some futuristic flame retardant on the gasoline that had supposedly fueled the fire.

The idea of putting the time machine in a VW Beetle just made sense to me. The car wouldn't surprise many people if they saw it driving around in the 70 year span before Terry "purchased" it. A Delorean just wouldn't look right in the middle of Whitewater in February of 1970.

Oh, and the name of the school went through a few changes from my first draft to present. I did foresee the possibility that the school would drop the UW name at some point, but the why part didn't come about until... Well, let's just say the incidents of the last couple of years here in the state played a part.


How did the character of Cassie come about?
You'd have to ask Thomas Overbeck about that one. I just borrowed her for the story.

Originally, I only had Cassie and Agent Scott confronting Terry about his time use, but not figuring into the final story. There was a scene where I had Jamie using the time machine to avoid being "zapped" by Agent Scott - and landing on the roof of an old apartment building where their residence hall was located.

There was some Marty McFly-like sneaking around in the background, like in BTTF2, but I never got the story to the point where I could end it. So the story just sat there, with the basic dates and locations as the framework, but nothing more to it.

So how did you finally manage to complete the story?
This is where Mr. Overbeck's story came into play. Earlier this year (2012), he related in the back story about Cassie's time machine that she had experienced issues with the battery of the machine getting drained after only one or two uses. This helped a bit with some of the fleshing out of the story, but not enough that I could come to some sort of a conclusion.

Cassie had done a couple of "rescues" of people in the past - and she had the ace up her sleeve in knowing that she would live to a ripe old age. However, I still hadn't figured out how I could "wrap things up" using her, or Agent Scott, or anything else.

And then, it finally came to me: the time machine itself. The window that the machine projects always appears to be "burning" or "glowing" when it's activated. And it was that aspect of the machine that gave me the idea for the "fight the big bad" scene.

I figured that, since Cassie had been dealing with the FBI and Agent Scott for some time, at some point she had been given lessons on self-defense. Cassie, being a relatively smart cookie, probably figured out she could disable an attacker by using the time machine's "edges" against him or her - and incapacitating the person by then summarily zapping them with her neuralyzer. (By the way - most online dictionaries, especially the ones used by Firefox and MS Word, don't like the word "neuralyzer". Just an observation.)

With that scene in place, the rest of the story just fell in line.

What about some of the loose ends in the story, like that girl who was detained in the "prologue"?
I admit that there were some parts that I wanted to explore, like that girl. I initially had a thought that she was the barista (before they even had that term, of course) at the coffee shop where the pair went. I just decided as I was writing the story that I didn't want to make the story any longer than it already was.

I also didn't explore the possibility of someone (other than Gortovsky) mistaking Terry for his grandfather - especially not his grandmother, who he likely met on the Whitewater campus. I wasn't looking to turn this into BTTF.

I couldn't do as much description about the inside of Old Main, of course, since I had never actually entered the building. However, going from the photos from the UWW archives, I pieced together how things were put together, and where the lab was located, and all that.

There was one thought on my mind as I wrote the ending, though - the loss of Old Main was actually the impetus towards the construction of most of the classroom buildings and facilities of what Whitewater is today.

For example, Winther, Carlson and the COTA were built in direct response to the loss of classroom space at Old Main. If Old Main had survived in any form, it's possible that any of those buildings - or even all of them - would never have been built. I did speculate a bit about this in the story; the old North Wing was in disrepair, and would have probably been replaced within a few years, anyways.

The description of what happened to the Central Wing after the fire actually made the most sense. If the fire was essentially prevented from destroying the structure of the building, it was conceivable that it could be drastically renovated - if someone would have come forward with a donation to do so. That's where the "anonymous donor" came in - I figured that Cassie would come up with the money to renovate the building, and then Terry's grandfather could pay for renovations later on, akin to what actually happened to Hyer Hall in the 1990's.
 
What about the actual fire?
For most of my life, I honestly believed that the fire was just set by some random protesters, and the condition of the buildings (and the limited resources of the various fire departments that responded to the blaze) caused the destruction. However, in my research into the actual fire, I'm pretty certain that the fire was set by someone that was not from Whitewater. In fact, the assertion that Terry made in the story as to who the suspects were? I actually believe that statement to be false.

I'm not going to accuse anyone after the fact, but I believe that the group behind the bombing of Sterling Hall in Madison may have had a hand in the fire at Whitewater. The idea that the blaze might have been motivated by some sort of Army presence on the then-Wisconsin State University campus was intriguing, but I really didn't have any sort of proof of this.

I am still somewhat surprised that the demolition of the three wings of the Old Main were carried out so quickly, and without any discussion or attempts to salvage any of the buildings. I strongly suspect that insurance and state regulations may have played into it. Essentially, before they could work on building replacements to the buildings, they had to tear the old one down.

Oh, and the observatory that was mentioned briefly at the end of the story? It was originally built right in the middle of where the old North Wing was located. The idea that it could have been still built, further up on the hill, made it easier to explain that little had changed on the Whitewater campus, even with Old Main's central wing still standing.

A few little things about Friday's opening ceremony in London:

• Yes, count me in on the chorus of haters that the ceremony wasn't covered live in some form, at least online, by NBC. There are actually people who wanted to see what was going on as it was being tweeted/blogged about live. Five hours is NOT that big of a difference (just ask anyone on the West Coast). 
• And here I thought Sir Kenneth Brannagh was playing a version of old John Bull as he quoted The Tempest in the opening segment of the ceremony. Turns out he was playing Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the leading man of the Industrial Revolution in the UK.
• Oh, and quotation:
  Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
  Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
  Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
  Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
  That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
  Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
  The clouds methought would open and show riches
  Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
  I cried to dream again.
• I loved the whole Bond and Queen bit. The waving fans across Britain thing was a bit much, but you'd expect that. 
• I guess I was half expecting Sir Paul to break out into a brief version of "Her Majesty" after singing "The End". I also understand how Paul had some issues with the start of "Hey Jude". I mean, the key change between the two songs is noticeable, and I'd have problems switching between the two as well. He's also sung the dimmed thing thousands of times over the years, so I suspect he's allowed to mess up now and again. 
• Has anyone explained why Emile's version of "Abide With Me" wasn't shown to US viewers? Yes, I get it - the performance would be the equivalent of say Jordin Sparks singing the "Batlle Hymn of the Republic." Still. 
• Someone please get the Kazakhstan Olympic delegation some iPhones so they don't have to use their iPads as they're walking into the stadium next time? 
• It would not surprise me if Michael Phelps didn't win a medal in these Olympics. Phelps has had the huge target on him since Beijing, and it's looking like he's not even the best swimmer in the pool right now. I doubt that a starting position on the outside lane is going to help him in the 400m final.
• Am I the only one who would like to see the US finally qualify for Olympic handball? Of course, to do that, the US would actually need to have a quality handball squad.