The lighting of the torch was pretty friggin' cool too, I gotta say.

"Friggin'" is apparently my word of the day.

Today, in advance of my two-week vacation, I spent another 9+ hours tying up some loose ends that I wasn't able to get to last week (because of unforeseen "issues" that arose through no fault of my own). I finally finished everything up around 5:30 and have spent the last few hours today watching yesterday's men's gymnastics qualifying rounds and a few minutes here and there of other sports like beach volleyball and swimming.

I always forget, until they return, just how much I love watching the Olympics. I'm not sure what it is about the Olympics, but watching the world championships for these sports never holds much interest for me. Even figure skating world championships - a sport I practiced for several years and have loved ever since - don't hold my attention for long. But the Olympics - they are somehow different and I set aside time to watch my favorite events every time they come on. Heck, during the Olympics I often watch random sports I don't give a rip about, just because they're on.

To wit: right now synchronized diving is on and, frankly, I just don't get the point of this sport. Yeah, I understand what they're trying to do - I just don't get why they're doing it. (Other than the opportunity to get a medal.) Or why there's an entire discipline built around it. I'm sure it's not easy to coordinate your complex dive with another person but still... why? Is it the thinking that if one-at-a-time is good, two is better? What's next - synchronized uneven parallel bars? Where two gymnasts do the same exact routine at the exact same time on two sets of parallel bars set side-by-side? That makes about as much sense as synchronized diving, in my mind. Now don't get me wrong - the synchronized diving is actually really cool to watch; I'm enjoying it. I just don't understand the point. (I must be missing something.)

(And if you're looking for a point in that previous paragraph you'll likely be here a long time. If you find a point in that last paragraph, share with all of us, will you? :)

As noted above, tomorrow begins two weeks of much-needed time away from work. I've gotten everything taken care of that needs taking care of (at least, I hope I have!) and I'm hoping to spend the next 14 days doing the following things:
1) sleeping
2) writing
3) practicing the piano
4) playing with Rennie
5) more sleeping
6) checking off a number of items that have been on my personal To Do list for the last month or more
7) celebrating my 33rd (coff!) birthday
8) taking Rennie to the coast
9) did I mention sleeping?

Hopefully I will manage to get all the things done that I want to get done without killing myself or rendering myself otherwise incapacitated. Perhaps, if I feel up to it, I'll have a five friends over for dinner on Thursday night to celebrate my birthday and "christen" my new dinette set:

More photos on my flickr page: