Who's In?

“She has such long arms, that any ballerina would give her eyeteeth for.”

Ya gotta love sports commentary, especially in something like figure skating, where there’s a contradictory lack of action in between the jumping passes, plus the mysterious subjective element.

So that was Dick Buttons. I wish I’d have kept track of the other bon mots out of Torino.

And here’s an aside: Is it affected to call a place not by its English name (if you’re an English speaker), or is it rude and chauvinistic to impose your language on some other place? I mean, why can’t we be bothered to add another vowel to Turin? And where did we come up with “Leghorn,” for that matter? I don’t know; I’ve always wondered about this.

And while we’re tangentially on Olympic sports here, here’s an admirable website to check out: DFL. Anybody who’s done any racing needs no explanation of the acronym. (For those who haven’t, it’s “dead * last.” And for those who like acronyms, here’s another that I believe originated with MIT rowers: QFB. (“Quite far back.”))

“DFL” you’d think would be tongue in cheek about losers and Eddie the Eagle type longshots. (I love making Eddie the Eagle references! Met him in Lake Placid where we were training. A rare brush with celebrity. (He liked my friend Naomi.)) But, back on topic, DFL actually takes a more respectful approach. They may be last, but… they’re there! And there’s an ethos that DFL is better than DNF (“did not finish”), illustrated by the story of a slalom skier who missed a gate and instead of skiing off the course in resignation, he herringboned back up to the gate and went around it to finish the course. I hope I would do that if it were me.

 

I didn’t go so far as to make any quantitative promises about blog postings, just to be more active in the blogosphere generally. I was recently contacted by someone who said they liked this blog—a chewing gum-fancying park ranger: what doesn’t the blogosphere offer?—which made me feel compelled to revisit my much neglected opus here.

A new year does so often inspire fresh starts or re-starts, new ventures or heightened efforts at old ones. Naturally sports and fitness ranks high among the resolutions. Everybody knows it’s fun and good for you, but changing routines to make time for fun and good-for-you things remains hard in a busy life. For many years, many, many years, I have had a party on New Year’s Day. At the first one so many years ago, someone spontaneously suggested guests write down their New Year’s resolutions, and we have continued to do so. For 2006 alone, when not a lot of people recorded their resolve, the following were among the lot:

• lift weights again
• learn to skate ski better
• bike more
• try a new sport
• run a sub 5:20 mile
• find a way to exercise consistently
• exercise daily, not just 4x week

Best of luck to everyone who made such proclamations as the year began. Or who makes them as the year progresses. And may we help one another with our resolve, and by being healthier and feeling positive about our efforts make the world a nicer place. Whoo-hoo!