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What an amazing day for the United States at the Olympics.  Gold after gold, it’s non-stop.  I decided to take a break and watch the whole swimming & gymnastics competitions and was it ever worth it.  Phelps of course is on fire and now the most decorated athlete of all time. Probably the greatest win of all today was watching these two American girls just dominate in gymnastics.  Shawn (on the left) took silver from China by 0.05 points and her friend Nastia took gold, and seriously deserved it.  As of tonight, USA medal count 43 and leading!

I love the games.

What an amazing opening ceremony. For anyone who watched any part of it, I don’t need to say much. All I do want to say, is I know that by the time all this China talk is through, I know I’ll have the inspiration I need to finish up my photos from my trip.

What a great show. My goal is to make it to London 2012 with Val to be there in person and watch how they plan on topping this.

So I have to admit, I’m so ridiculously excited for the Olympics to start in 5 days I can’t even express it. I remember watching them as a kid, every few years when they came on and it’s just awesome times.

If anyone has seen the VISA TV spots they’ve been showing with Morgan Freedman doing the announcing, I think you’ll see my point. The campaign is “Go World” and it’s just touching in a lot of ways. The fact is for the course of the Olympics, you have this overwhelming respect from everyone in every country. When it comes to the Olympics, no one cares about policies and politics. And it’s amazing. You literally want the best possible for everyone that you’re competing against in the respect that everyone is there for the same reason.

I’ve never been a big athlete, my life revolved around Scouting which I’m mighty proud of. But I can only imagine the feeling these athleets feel when they get up there and know that they’re the best of the best, all waiting for their turn to hear their national anthem sung, for them. It’s got to be one of the most emotional and humbling things a person could ask for. It’s just nice to realize that for a while I can turn on the TV and watch something great, and not have to listen to how many murders and horrible things are going on every night on the news.

I think one of the most exciting things I’m looking forward to is to watch it on High Def knowing that a handfull of the places they show in TV, I got to see in person. Driving by some of the spots while I was in Beijing and actually seeing these enormous buildings that looked so good first hand, I can’t wait to see that again fully glorified with the token theme song blaring.

China is definitely an under-rated place with a lot of connotation they don’t deserve anymore. I’m fortunate being lucky enough to experience and learn from it myself, and I do look forward to going back one day. I really hope that for the 16 days the world is showing off the best they have, we can enjoy a little peace and appreciation for those who dedicate their lives to the sport and deserve our appreciation of the game. I truly feel that no one deserves the spotlight more then they do, “go world!”

This is too awesome, yesterday the moon’s shadow fell on parts of Canada, Mongolia and China for a full solar eclipse. The team filming the event had multiple telescopes setup to grab all the best parts of it and did a live broadcast from China.

This is the kind of stuff that’s just awesome to hear about and especially watch happening live. I just wish I knew to watch it. Of course once I finished writing this post with images I realized that the video was stretched when I took screengrabs, but you get the point.

In the midst of this site re-development, I’ve been spending enough time with the google maps API where I feel like I should write a book on it.  Sadily I can’t find the time to make a photobook, so of course I’m kidding *cries*  In any case, I noticed that street view is finally coming to Europe. The google van toured the Tour de France and you can take a journey sitting infront of your computer down the route.  

 

A couple of my favorite images:

It’s about 2:30am here in Shanghai and I’m exhausted but still really pumped. It’s been such a wild ride with this earthquake and the impact it’s had on this country.  I’m really lucky to be alive and in the right place at the right time.  On top of that I’ve seen firsthand what this disaster has done to the people of China and I feel for them more then anyone will ever know.  At the end of the day the death toll keeps rising and everyday is one more that people are loosing their homes, businesses and lives from the tragedy.  There’s really not much more that I can say other then I’m taken back by what happened to this poor country and I only wish them the best as I’m about to leave back for the States.

 

I’ve learned a lot this trip, all of which I plan on writing out in full soon enough.  I’m trying to let it all sink in and really understand everything I’ve experienced in these two weeks of culture shock.  I head home Sunday afternoon China time and arrive back home sunday night America time and can’t wait to kiss val, play with the puppy and sleep in my own bed again. Of course a Del Taco run and a coffee from my Espresso machine will find their way in the mix of that.

 

Before I sign off for the next few days I really, really want to thank all my friends and family for reaching out about my safety after the earthquake.  It meant so much to me to hear from all of you while over here I can’t thank you enough for the love and concern you’ve shown.  This has been an unforgettable trip, thats for sure, however knowing I have so many caring friends and family really makes me appreicate what I have when I get back that much more.

 

Love you all, be back soon with photos, many of which I’m seriously proud of and can’t wait to share.

Hey everyone.  So I’m running on 28hours with little sleep but we made it and all is well.  Battery is dying so I don’t have much time to type and give updates, but tomorrow morning we’re starting our tour.  For now I need to get some shut-eye.  I was trying to do a YouTube quick capture to say hi but it just stalls at connecting to the server.  We have free wifi in the lounge of this hotel but it may not have the balls to carry video.  In any case I’m out for the night, hope to shoot up a few more pics tomorrow.

Thanks for all your good wishes, it’s both beautiful and surreal here seeing as its so much more different than I expected.  Im really hoping this is a great chance for me to find some awesome memories to capture and bring home.  If they’re good enough you’ll be looking at them here first. For now tho, I must sleep, I can’t take another version of this lounge singer’s version of the girl from iponema.  Seriously, we’re no-where close to brazil.

Miss you all, see you in a few weeks.