TC the Terrible

Lots of things have been going on the past few days.  

As you all know by now, THE SAILOR graduated boot camp earlier this month.  She did so on a pair of hurting knees, but refused to go on sick call for fear of missing the graduation ceremony.  When she did go the news was not good, both knees needed work done.

Her right knee had a ‘pinched and twisted’ nerve that had to be corrected, and her left knee had cartilage floating behind the knee cap.  They shipped her off to her school anyway and did the work there.  Both procedures seem to have gone pretty well, so with some rest and physical therapy she’ll be as good as new in a few weeks.

FDSM reached a milestone yesterday.  She got her driving permit.  The laws are restrictive out here when it comes to teen driving.  Pretty much for the next year she has to have an adult in the car, and no other kids.  She and I are going out for a drive this weekend.

Speaking of driving, this area is only getting worse.  Compared to Memphis, it was never a picnic anyway.  The drivers here don’t understand how to merge into traffic, can’t drive in bad weather, stop in the Interstate for no reason, and do about a dozen other things that really piss me off.

The biggest problem I think is the cost of housing in the District.  With the cost of an 800 square foot loft nearing a half million dollars, people are forced to move further out.  Thus forcing more people to be on the roads making it harder to get in and out of the place that most of us wish we could afford to live in.

So we have more bad drivers on under planned roads.  That’s a real recipe for failure.

Anyway, the pile of things in my Inbox is growing.  I’ve got to take care of some of it.

Back with more later.

It snowed it’s arse off here over the weekend.  I’m talking AlaskaMike type snow.  Our drive had about ten inches yesterday morning.  We all got out and had a blast shoveling the snow.  THE BOY made a couple of pretty good sized downhill runs in the sled before his fever began to climb again.  FDSM got her first lesson in bidding for work, and then sub-contracting it while still making a profit.

Things are going well, but it is time to get some work done.

Back with more later.

Michelle Kwan is a quitter.

There, I said it.  Wanna hear it again?  Michelle Kwan is a quitter.

Peter Ueberroth and the rest of the IOC may be in awe of her record, but Kwan disgraced herself yesterday. Not because she has a legitimate injury and can’t compete in the Olympics, but how she handled it.  If an NFL player had pulled this stunt the week of the Super Bowl he wouldn’t be under contract next year, for any team.  Kwan is being canonized for her ‘bravery’ and the ‘body of her work.’  She should get on the phone to Dan Marino and ask what that ‘body of work’ feels like years later when you never won the big prize.  

All the posturing she did about the Olympics not being about the gold medal, but being about the ‘experience of being there’ was bullshit.  Pure, old fashioned bullshit.  That press conference was nothing more than a quitter trying to rationalize quitting, and making it worse by doing so in public.  An athlete with an Olympic sized heart would have been fighting to stay on the ice.  The coaches or doctors would have had to pull her from the line-up.  That’s what someone that really wanted to win would have done.

If the Olympics weren’t about winning they would give everybody that shows up a gold medal, just like in Pop Warner football.  Come to the games, eat ice cream with the team, get a prize, and go home happy.

The Olympics is all about winning the gold medal.  That’s the reason little kids get up at 0430 to skate three hours before going off to school.  It’s why people from every nation in the world tune in to watch sports they know nothing about.  The gold medal proves that you are better than everyone else, and no one can contest that for four years.  It’s like holding the Super Bowl on during a leap year.  The Olympic gold medal is everything.   And even more so in a pseudo-sport like ice skating.  To say that the experience of being in Turing means more than the medal is marginalizing the meaning of the games.

Kwan should have just stood up and said that she was hurt too badly to compete, and then for good measure, admit it was a mistake to petition for a spot on this Olympic team.  Which is really the proof that Kwan is full of bull shit, because if the games were more about being there than winning a medal; then she would have bought a ticket and watched the games from the stands.

Kwan could have gone home with some dignity intact.  Now, she’s just one more quitter in a long line of quitters who shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the Olympic gold medal.

There, I said it.  Michelle Kwan is a quitter.