A Monday morning rabbit hole

Sometimes, now that the busy fall season has drawn to a close, I find myself with a little free time in the office on a Monday or Tuesday and I tend to get drawn down rabbit holes. Mostly, my rabbit holes involve the Olympics, in one form or another.

This probably isn't much of a surprise, but given the postponement of the 2020 Summer Games until next summer as well as the next Winter Olympics, which will take place in 2022 in Beijing, China, I spend a lot of time reading updates and checking in on any new information coming out from the International Olympic Committee or any of the host organizations. For whatever reason, I like to read many of the documents that were presented when the different cities were making their bids for the Olympics. It's interesting to see what the cities were proposing when they made their bids and how they envisioned the Olympics playing out in their city.

What's even more interesting about these documents are the proposals from the cities that were not selected. The most interesting ones I've seen have been for Almaty, Kazakhstan and Stockholm-Are, Sweden. Almaty made a bid to host the 2022 Games, which went to Beijing and Stockholm-Are made a bid to host the 2026 Games, which were awarded to Milan-Cortina, Italy. While there is no guarantee that I am going to get to any of the future Olympics, it's cool to check out where I might be going but it's even more interesting to look at places that won't be hosting. And then, The Amazing Race did an episode in Almaty a few weeks ago, which sparked my interest in that city again.

This morning, my rabbit hole was the Milan-Cortina web site, looking at some of the plans they have in place for those Games. This truly looks like it will be one of the most photogenic Olympics in recent years. Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing aren't exactly hot beds of winter sports, so while it was incredible to see those parts of Russia and Korea, it didn't feel like a real winter sports atmosphere. Milan-Cortina will be using the famous ski courses of the Alps to host alpine, Nordic, biathlon and other snow-based events. To me, there isn't much more of a classic winter setting than the Alps and I anticipate some incredible shots on NBC in six years.

What's also different about the Milan-Cortina location is the fact that the mountain venues and the indoor city venues are not terribly close. In Sochi and PyeongChang, much was made about them being some of the most compact Winter Olympics ever. Most of the venues were within two hours of each other, at the most. Beijing has announced a high speed rail that will connect the downtown venues with the snow-based venues in the mountains outside the city, making the travel time fairly similar to Sochi and PyeongChang. However, a simple look at Milan and Cortina, two of the main areas for the 2026 Games, shows that they are more than four hours apart. And, there are two other venue areas that are a few hours outside of Milan, where the indoor venues are mostly located. I believe there will be some updates in the next six years to possibly cut the travel time down.

Anyways, Monday's rabbit hole was fun. Who knows what tomorrow's might bring.

This is one of my favorite pictures from PyeongChang, showing just how close the sliding center (in the foreground) is to the ski jumping center (in the background).

Just another hit

 Another month, another gut punch from the spectacular pile of crap that has been 2020.

It's the day before Thanksgiving. Normally, I would be traveling to upstate New York to visit family for the holiday. This is traditionally one of the few "vacations" I take during the year. I love to visit the farm and spend a few days away from work and just relaxing.

But like everything else in 2020, that has gone down the drain. First it was the end of the high school winter sports season, with a number of local teams still in contention for championships. The complete loss of the spring sports season followed, leaving a large group of athletes without a chance to compete for one final time for their school and their community. There was a trip to New York and another to Atlanta, both for Survivor - RHAP events, both cancelled due to 2020 being a shit show. There was the St. Patrick's Day trip to Dublin, Ireland with the University of New Hampshire Marching Band that got called off at the last minute. And of course, there was the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were going to be my first shot at covering the Summer Games after two previous Winter Games experiences. But in late March, they were called off as well.

Just for good measure, there was the temporary layoff that lasted from April until mid-August and seeing a number of my co-workers laid off as well as COVID wreaked its havoc on the newspaper industry.

But now, it's messing with my holidays. And that kind of sucks. I know not traveling to New York is the right thing to do, but it still sucks. Instead of four days of relaxing on the farm, I'll spend a good chunk of the time making donuts, pies and other baked goods at the Yum Yum Shop.

And I guess they'll be some stories to write in that time too.

Hopefully next year we can go back to the family gathering together for Thanksgiving in New York.

The side hustle

For almost all of the last 18-plus years, covering sports is how I made my living, mostly. Starting in January of 2003, I have been full-time with Salmon Press, with the lone exception of the few months this past summer where I was laid off.

But over the course of that time, I have also held numerous jobs on the side, helping to pay the credit card bills that I built up during my college years. The good news is that one of those was completely paid off late last year and the other is ticking downward every month. And it's because of those side jobs that I've been able to pay the bills a bit quicker than if I just worked the one job.

When I started this job, I had been working at Mountain View Nursing Home in Ossipee full-time in the kitchen. I went down to two days a week when I started full-time at the paper and worked there for a number of years. After leaving that job, I went to work part-time at Pronto Market in Wolfeboro, which was conveniently located right next door to our office in Clarke Plaza. The owners, Paul and Louise Labbe, gave me whatever hours I could handle and also allowed me some flexible hours, mostly mornings, but also some evenings when I could.

When Pronto closed, I went with just one job for a while, but some other bills started to pop up and I realized it was time to start looking for another side hustle. I found a job working four nights a week for AfterDark Commercial Cleaning in Wolfeboro, doing the floors in the kitchen and dining room at Brewster Academy. In many ways, this job was good, as it allowed me to work after games and pretty much make up my own hours. However, after a few years, it started to wear me down and after I fell asleep at the wheel and totaled my car on Route 109A in Tuftonboro, I realized it was time to call it quits.

Then came this past April, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced Salmon Press to make some drastic changes and with sports cancelled at the local high schools, I was among those laid off. After collecting unemployment for a month, I realized that I needed to have something to do. Peter Kelly, the girls' hockey coach at Kingswood, runs the Yum Yum Shop in Wolfeboro and offered me a full-time job for the summer working in the kitchen. I spent all summer long learning the ins and outs of baking and making lots and lots and lots of donuts. It was nice to be able to pick up some overtime along the way and without a question, the job helped me get through what was a difficult time.

When I got called back to the paper, I offered to stay on a couple days a week to help as long as I was needed. So, while I've been back at the paper since mid-August, I have been working Wednesday and Thursday mornings at the Yum Yum Shop. The extra money comes in handy and I work with a good group of people, which is always a plus. I've learned a lot from the experienced bakers and have hopefully gotten better as the year has rolled along.

However, the pandemic combined with working in a bakery has virtually killed any hopes I had of keeping the weight off that I lost a few years back. Let's just say it's been a rough few months.

I spend Wednesday and Thursday mornings cranking out donuts and other delicious things at the Yum Yum Shop in Wolfeboro.

Unique times in the land of high school sports

 Since I started back to work in mid-August, things have been going a mile a minute and there's barely been time to slow down and breathe.

Now that the high school season is slowly drawing to a close, time has become more readily available and it was time to look back on what has been the strangest season of high school sports I have ever been a part of.

If you had asked me, while I was making hundreds of donuts a day back in mid-June, if there would even be a high school season this fall, I would've told you that I was not optimistic. I also would have said that they may start a season but there's no way it's reaching the playoffs. Thankfully, I was wrong on both counts.

Practices started in early September and the first official games of the fall season started shortly after that. The schedule was regionalized, meaning there were very few games on my schedule that did not involve two teams that I cover. Of course, there were 10 schools added to my coverage area to start this year, so in addition to the five that I had covered the last number of years, there was more on my plate.

The sad part about that is that there were teams I never got to see this season. The Inter-Lakes volleyball team, the Moultonborough boys' soccer team and volleyball team and the Lisbon girls' soccer team all fell victim to a tough schedule. Inter-Lakes called off their season early, which eliminated the chance I had circled on my calendar to see three of the teams on that list. The Lisbon soccer boys, Kingswood and Newfound football and Moultonborough cross country teams I didn't see until the playoffs (or the play-in games).

And things were different. Limited amounts of fans were allowed to view the contests, there were checklists at the doors of indoor venues (and in some cases, outdoor venues as well). Each school had its own way of keeping its students safe. It wasn't fun wearing a mask while covering any of the events this fall, but it was better than the other option of not seeing any sports. It's easy enough to put a mask on for a few hours if that is what the school asks.

Perhaps the most unusual site this fall was this past weekend at the cross country championships at Derryfield Park in Manchester. Traditionally, all divisions run fairly close together and the schools are all bunched around the park. This year, to promote social distancing, the race times were separated more, each division's schools had to vacate the park as soon as the race was over to allow the next division in. And no spectators were allowed. Having attended more than 15 of these championships, it was weird looking out over the park from my traditional photo spot and not seeing hundreds of kids and spectators. However, it did make keeping my photo spot easier, since nobody was getting in the way.

There have been a few hiccups in the road, with most of the schools in my coverage area losing a game or two to COVID concerns. Inter-Lakes stopped their season early and Berlin missed out on the field hockey championships and cross country championships thanks to a COVID uptick in the community. But all in all, the season was completed without too many issues.

There have been a number of successes to date and there's still 11 teams left playing as of this writing (Gilford and Newfound volleyball, Belmont, Moultonborough and Littleton girls' soccer, Littleton, Profile and Gilford boys' soccer and Kennett, Plymouth and Winnisquam football). 

Here's hoping the rest of the season goes as well as it can and we can bring a healthy conclusion to the fall sports season instead of the rough ending last winter season saw.

The Kennett field hockey team's Division II championship is one highlight in this unusual fall sports season.