I'm a Lenovo Olympic Blogger!!!!

I was recently asked to be a part of the Lenovo Olympic Blogger Program. What is that you ask? 

Well, Lenovo (a Chinese company, based in Beijing, that mainly manufactures personal computers) has asked athletes from all over the world to blog about their experiences leading up to the Olympics. They will feature our posts on their "Voices of the Summer Games" site. So, everything I post here will automatically be posted there as well, allowing people from all over the world to read about my life leading to the Olympics! You can find athletes of many different countries and sports on the site as well. Giving everyone an unfiltered, real life account of what it is like to be an Olympic athlete. 

You can easily find the website by going to the right hand side of my blog and clicking on Summer Games Blogger in the blue box, underneath the Olympic rings. (I also included the link in this post. But for future reference.....) Lenovo also sponsored a web page of all things Olympic. You can find that by clicking 2008.lenovo.com in the bottom of that same blue box. 

I am really excited that my blog may be getting a little bit more traffic....thank all you family and friends who have been faithful readers of my randomness....and, WELCOME NEW FOLKS!!!!!  To get ready for this I decided to enlist my good friend and computer/photo shop extraordinaire, Darcy Couch, to help me spruce up the look of my blog. She helped me....ok, she pretty much did it all...make a new header that looks AWESOME. All I did was offer a few creative ideas and send her the photos. In an hour or so she produced the masterpiece up see at the top of the page. Props to you my friend!!! She is Sports Information Director at USC and let me tell you she is the reason their media guide, websites and all things media are so FABULOUS. They are lucky to have her! 

Thanks to Lenovo for letting me be a part of this! Happy reading to all of you! 

Hello Conor!

Hey there little man! Isn't he just adorably red and squishy! :)
This picture was just after he was born. Sleeping off the exhausting travel he made into this world from that warm and comfy water bed he inhabited for 9 months. I am heading to Seattle to hang out with him and his proud parents this weekend. Meaning there will be many more photos to follow!!! He is definitely a Petri.....look at the size of those feet!!!!!

IT'S A BOY!!!!

My brother, Brandon and his wife, Susanne have welcomed a baby boy into the Petri family today!

Conor Brandon Petri
born at 4:20pm
8 lb 3 oz.
21 inches long
Big hands and feet!
Reddish hair!!!!

I can't wait to see the little guy! And I will post pictures as soon as they come in. I'm an AUNT!!!! I am going to spoil him rotten. It is my job. I HAVE to be the cool Aunt. :)

The Year Of The RAT

It is a RARE occasion when a normally scheduled practice is cancelled. So you can imagine my surprise when i get a phone call on my way to practice. Caller ID says it is my coach.....what does he want, mear minutes before I am to arrive at the pool?

Coach- "Hi Pete, There was a rat found in the pool today. They shocked the pool(super chlorinated it) and the health department is here to inspectl, so they have officially closed the pool. Practice is cancelled. Will you call all the girls and let them know. So they don't show up."

Me-"Oh yes, sure. No problem. See you tomorrow then."

I hung up and started screaming. As did my two teammates(we car pool- saving the earth one trip to the pool at a time), yet they didn't know WHY yet. No practice. No practice! A mad dash to grab phone from purses, screams, three conversations at once, a rush of adrenaline- that certainly was not there as were headed back to the pool for practice #2, at the end of the week, of arguable the hardest week in training thus far. A whole three extra hours in our day, where we were not required to do any physical activity! This was a gift. A sign from the spirits.....and hey, maybe the Chinese are trying to tell us something. 2008 is the year of the Rat in the Chinese Zodiac. We needed a rest and the Rat gave us one!

How did I celebrate this monumental occasion? Got a large Pinkberry (green tea with mochi, strawberries and blueberries) and then went home to sit on the couch for a while. Followed by three loads of laundry, a vacum and dusting of my room. Finally, finishing off the day with an episode of Survivor. Exciting I know. :)

P.S. may there be no more rats in the pool because all the chlorine has now burned all the hair off my arms, given my skin a chemical peel and dyed my hair more blonde. i am scared of long term effects.

SoCal Sunsets

100 degrees in April makes me want to move! Then I see one of these.....

The Bean

Prior to my recent trip to Chicago when someone said "The Bean", I assumed they were referring to the glorious coffee chain The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf that sells those delicious things called "Ultimate Ice Blended Drinks". 

I went to Chicago to attend an Olympic Media Summit where we spent 12 hours answering questions for journalists, filming short bits for the NBC Olympic telecast to be aired in August, doing still shots for the media and a few on-camera interviews. I have never done anything like this before and it made my head spin. We had our day scheduled from 7am to 9pm. Which room to be in and how many minutes for each interview/shoot. After fielding the same question (ie. What do you feel about the situation in China and the recent protests surrounding the Torch Relay?) multiple times, I realized that everyone wants you to slip and say something controversial or catch you in an awkward statement they can edit to use as they will. Meaning you had to be on it and focused the whole time. Exhausting! 

Which is why I figured a little adventure outside the walls of our hotel was just what we needed. I googled the area and saw The Bean printed smack in the middle of the park two blocks from the hotel. I was curious. If it wasn't coffee, then what? This is what it is.......

It is a huge metallic structure made of highly polished stainless steel plates and it weighs 110 tons!

I went directly underneath the arch in the Bean and laid on my back, placing my camera on my stomach on timer. This is the result. See me- that tiny star fish shaped thing on the left. Find my reflections on the right. A hand here. Leg there. 

WHO LIKES ICE-CREAM????

I DO! And I am thinking you do too. So get yourself to a Baskin Robbins tomorrow, from 5-10pm for 31 cent scoops!!!!!! AND eating ice-cream is for a good cause tomorrow.....they are lowering prices to honor America's Firefighters! 

This will rival the price of a Thrifty(or Rite-Aide now, i think) ice cream cones when I was little. We would go down to get triple scoops for less than a dollar every sunday night. Those were the days! And lets revist them. :)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Here I Come!!!!

China Slideshow

China Recap

Here is a belated picture montage of our trip to China last month. We went to Beijing to play in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament held in the Olympic venue we will use in a few months. The Chinese people were conducting a trial run of how the Games will be run. To work out the glitches. And we used it as a way to aquaint ourselves with the pool, and routine that we will use come competition time. Plus on days off we got to do some touristy things. We saw the Great Wall and then went on a scavenger hunt which encompassed almost all the rest of the major monuments.

Scavenger Hunt Highlights:
1. Taking out a person on a bike when our taxi pulled over in a bike lane. Opened the door to get out.....oops.
2. The Temple of Heaven is massive. (look for me in the bottom right of the picture....i look like a miniture.)
3. Playing a version of hacky-sac with some Chinese people in the gardens surrounding the Temple.
4. Going in a rickshaw through the Chinese "ghetto".
5. Bartering at the Pearl Street market.

I added a couple pictures of typical chinese things we saw while there.... the potty is just a hole ....the "Bird's Nest" is the stadium built for Track and Field and the Opening Ceremonies.......and does that guy not look like he and his pile of sticks are about to get strewn all over the highway?

An hour of darkness.

Sydney started this trend a year ago. Trying to spark some interest in the green movement this city, in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, turned off their lights for just an hour. Resulting in a 10.2% energy reduction. Maybe numbers do nothing for you. This picture might make a bigger impact.
I have been to Sydney a few times and think the city has a magical charm. It may be because I experienced my first Olympic Games there. Those two weeks, in 2000, I was riding a natural sport-induced high that made everything sparkle....but it could have just been the lights! Look at the way the lights reflect off the cloud cover illuminating the whole area!

This year cities across the globe participated along with Sydney. Creating a tidal wave of darkness that crept across the world for a day. I wish I had been up north to see them turn the lights off on the Golden Gate Bridge. Hopefully I can catch it next year. :)

Here in Long Beach, my apartment remained dark. No lights. Not even for my roommate's boyfriend who wanted to take a shower after getting to our house after work. Hee hee.

After spending time in the dark for an hour, I am far more conscious of extraneous lights than I was before. You really don't need many. My parents have been aware of light usage since I was little. They would go around reprimanding us for leaving lights on. Even now when I go home, I often I think they are not home, only to find them watching TV with not a single light on in the house. I think they mainly wanted to save some cash for the family when I was a kid, but they were also ingraining in me the hippie vibe I carry around now as an adult.

I have jumped on the Green Train. I have bought a Prius, which was expensive but I believe worth it. My team and I recycle the plastic water bottles we use at practice. And now I use a lot less light at home. Leaving fewer carbon footprints every day......

Earth Hour

Help save our earth! Participate in Earth Hour tonight. Just sixty minutes. Turn off your lights.

It is easy and free.

Click here for more info.

CHINA

There were two things I was hoping to see on our trip to China this week. And I have seen them both!

1.Blue sky.

It does exist here! The day we flew in I was expecting haze, and smog far worse than LA. We exited the airport to find a light breeze, blue sky with little fluffy white clouds, and a clear view of the surrounding city scape. As far as first immpressions go this was first rate. 

First observations from the bus were that while things are definetly still under construction here, it looks like the Chinese are well on their way to getting things in order for the Games. There are so many freshly potted trees and plants lining the higway and streets on the route from the airport. Thousands of baby plants are being protected and reinforced by sticks and netting. Just to make sure they make it through their first few months and are still growing come August. Could this be the reason the sky was so clear? All those plants pumping oxygen into the Beijing air has to help....but not enough to make it this nice. 

It has been two days since we got here and the air quality has not stayed as pristine as the day we flew in. :( Today in the bus on the way to practice there was 10 times the traffice we experienced yesterday.....Ah! Today is a Monday. Back to work for everyone. Which means the factories were closed two days ago for the weekend and no one was driving. That definetely made a difference in the air. Some are now taking pictures everyday to mark how much worse the air gets every day. I have a feeling by Friday we will not be able to see the building across the street.

2.The Great Wall of China

Is truely impressive. The section we saw was in the Juyongguan Pass. It was about an hour outside of Beijing. We had an hour to climb as far up the steps as we wanted and explore the watch towers situated every so often along the wall. I think a really cool trip would be to back pack and hike the entire length of the wall. But I think the Chinese governement may throw you in jail for such things.

Pictures to follow....I didn't bring the cord to upload them to my computer!

Its WAR!

In Novemeber, during a spectacular session of retail therapy at Target I brought home a beautiful $12 piece of floral flare for the front porch. Coming home to a drab cement wall was not boding well for the chi and I though this little number was just what we needed.

It was dark when I got home. I put the plant on the cement wall just outside our door while I took all the rest, of my probably unnessesary (you know how that $1 ailse can suck you in) purchases, inside. I came back out and saw there was a tag sticking out of the side of the plastic pot which was totally unsightly. Thinking the pot would be more substantial than it was, I tugged hard on the tag to break it off. Being that the pot turned out to be very flimsy plastic and I am SO strong, the backlash force as the tag broke free sent the pot over the cement wall falling 5 ft to the grass below. OOOPS! Looking down on it from above all I could see was dirt everywhere, plant parts in dissaray, and the stupid plastic pot sitting on top of it all. 

In my training induced brain retardation it had taken me a good 20 minutes to pick out just that plant from all its friends in the garden center. I had picked it because it had the biggest and brightest red flower in the center of the pot. And that was now at the bottom of a big ol mess. I ran down there, and in the dark, scooped up the dirt and shoved the plant parts back in the pot. The next morning when I could see my hurried handywork, I realized that I hadn't done that bad a job at repotting the plant....but that beautiful big red flower in the center......was broken off where the stem met the plant. I vowed that this poor plant had had enough trama in its short stay at my house and I would do whatever I needed to help it flourish.

With regular grooming and lots of water it has done just that.....thus becoming a healthy plant beacon in our front yard. Which has attracted EVERY snail in the Long Beach area. They have taken up residence in my plant, feasting on it at will. Every morning I will check underneath all those pretty flowers and find at least six! At first I was nice to them, simply taking them out and dropping them the five feet to the grass below. I naively thought it would take them a long time to make their way back to the pot. HA! The next morning they would be back! Little poopers! Now I throw them into the yard next door. And one bounced off the neighbor's steps and bounced into the street. Maybe that will teach the darn gastropods to invade my plant.

I think I felt bad for the snails at first because I thought they did something good. If they had at least ONE redeeming quality, I still may. But no. I read up on them and they are just slimey, eat plants, and destroy gardens. 

If there are a few casulaties of war as I throw them FAR away from my plants....well, it happens. Anyone have any other good strategies for ridding plants of snails....that aren't poisonous chemicals? Do tell green thumbs out there. 

 

The Day of the LEAP

It only occured to me this morning that while this day happens every four years, it happens to fall in every summer Olympic year. That will make it easier to remember in the future. Why in my 29 years, have I not noticed this before OR celebrated it earlier!

It was decided after this rediculously hard week that it was time to have some mexican food, a coronita or three and play some shuffle board to some spectaularly choosen juke box music. Here is to friends and 24 extra hours in our life every four years!

(the first photo was a 10 sec. timer shot we did on the corner of the street. it took us a few tries to get a majority jumping at the same time) :)

Random Acts of Kindness

First off, I should apoligize for falling of the face of the earth for a month and a half. How did it get to be February 14th already?!?

Second, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!
I hope that you all have spread some love around and ate some chocolate today. :)

Because today is so centered on love I found myself thinking about those people in your life that just do incredibly generous and kind things for you just because they want to. For example, almost 5 years ago I met a chiropractor in the bar at the restaurant we went to for my birthday. He could tell we were athletes. Ten tall, muscular, extremely sunburned girls was not a tip off at all. When he found out we were Olympic water polo players training at the Armed Reserve Base in Los Alamitos, he said if we ever needed chiropractic work to come to his office which was right around the corner from the pool. He gave me the number to his office and told me to call and make an appointment.

So, he seemed like a really nice person....but I was still wary. I never called. A week later I stopped at 7-11 to grab a Gatorade before practice and who was in there?? The chiropractor! This was too much of a coincidence to ignore. I told him would come into the office the next day. I had been having problems with my back at the time and no amount of therapy had been working.

After the first visit my back felt better and he had me come in every day that week to keep working on things. After that I went in once a week for a while and then whenever I felt I needed a tune up. What he does has an incredible effect of how I feel physically during training. I can not imagine the last five years without his help. He has never asked us to pay for the treatments. Only a photo to hang in his office, next to the other athletes he helps. Plus he offered to help any of my teammates that may be hurting. Now at least six of us go in and see him on a regular basis. I never know how to thank him enough when I leave his office. I wish there was something more I could do or say. He makes a huge impact on my life and is so happy to help.

His name is Randall Stark. I would recomend him to anyone looking for a chiropractor in the Southern California area.
I just love him!