The Olympics... and beyond

The Bob Rivers Comedy Group does a great parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas entitled Twelve Pains of Christmas. Included on that wonderful list is "rigging up the lights." If there's ever a year for that to apply to my life, this year is that year. As regular readers of my newspaper columns over the past 15 years know, there's usually a weekend in early December where I head north and put up the Christmas lights at my mother's house in Stark. Usually, this is a weekend project, where I head up on Saturday morning and spend two days getting the lights and decorations up. But, because there are no winter sports going on quite yet, I decided to make the trip last Friday afternoon. I got there in the middle of the afternoon and couldn't really make up my mind how I wanted to get going. My first thought was to tackle the wreaths while I still had some light, but figured it might be better to do the trees and then get the lights on them as darkness descended. It...

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 tha...

 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...

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 o...

 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 sta...

 Yesterday, Monday, Sept. 21, marked a milestone in the Olympic journey, both in the larger sense and in a much more personal sense. Obviously, I've written in this space countless times about my Olympic travels in Russia in 2014, Korea in 2018 and the plans to be in Tokyo next summer when the postponed Olympics take place. But the milestone that passed yesterday was for the Beijing Olympics, coming in 2022. Now, that may seem like a ways away and indeed, yesterday marked 500 days until the start of the next Winter Olympics, which take place in February of 2022. But 500 days, in the grand scheme of things, is not that far away. It's less than two years from now and about six months after the Tokyo 2020 rescheduled Olympics are scheduled to take place. The Beijing 2022 team was all over social media on Monday promoting the 500 days countdown and in China there was a big celebration near the Great Wall, which will likely provide the backdrop for a lot of NBC's extensive Olymp...

As of yesterday, I have been back at work for a month. And things are slowly getting back to normal, or at least as normal as they are going to be for a little while. It started slowly, but it has steadily picked up over the last week and next week promises to be a full-on onslaught of games and contests. The first week back I started making contact with athletic directors around the region, hoping to get their take on how things were shaping up for the fall season. I also wanted to reach out to some of the new athletic directors that I am dealing with this year. For most of my time on the job, I've been covering five schools, Kennett, Kingswood, Prospect Mountain, Newfound and Plymouth. I've had two people working for me who also cover five schools apiece and I would edit their content and get it set for the papers each week. While we were all laid off back in April, at this point, I am the only one who has been brought back, which means that in addition to the five schools I...

 If 2020 had gone as planned (hahahahaha), this past Monday would have been my return trip from the Tokyo Olympics. I would have flown from the Japanese capital through Seattle and then to Boston. It surely would have been an exciting two weeks in Eastern Asia and I am hopeful that next summer offers the same opportunity. But that's a story for another day. On a related note, this coming Monday will mark my return to the job that I held since 2003 before I was temporarily laid off in April. It's been a long few months and over the past few weeks, I've been slowly gearing up for the return to writing, but I have to admit, it is going to take some getting used to. I've actually taken in a few different games over the last couple of weeks in preparation (I've seen you Wolfeboro Wolverines and MWV Eagles softball and Wolfeboro Senior Babe Ruth). Writing is something that I have essentially been doing since I've been out of college. I feel like covering sports is som...

Today is the day. Or more specifically, today was supposed to be the day. July 22, 2020 was the day I was set to board a plane at Logan Airport bound for Seoul, South Korea and then on to Tokyo to cover my first Summer Olympics. Of course, those plans all went out the window, along with just about everything else in the world, back in March when the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would be postponed for a year and will take place in July and August of 2021. Obviously, I've written many times over the past few months about the impact of the postponement of the Olympics. A few days after the announcement, I was temporarily laid off from my job at Salmon Press, meaning the possibility of covering the Olympics next year was also in doubt. As we head toward August, the possibility of getting back to work is down the road a bit and with it, comes the possibility of still getting the chance to go to Tokyo and if all goes as planned, one year from now...

This was supposed to be a good year. There was so much to look forward to, so much to be excited about and things were seemingly looking up. But, here we sit more than halfway through the year and I can't help but wonder if there is anything to look forward to right now. On March 11, I boarded an early morning flight out of Boston heading to Los Angeles. The flights were less than half full and it was obvious that change was coming to the country. I traveled to California for a Rob Has a Podcast live Survivor event in North Hollywood. These live RHAP events have been a great time for me over the past few years. I've been to New York City pretty much at least once a year for these events and have also gone to Chicago, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Toronto and Los Angeles on different occasions over the past few years. I've met a lot of great people at these events and it is always nice to catch up with folks I mostly see online. There's usually other events ...

Tuesdays and Wednesdays have been my days off from my "new normal" job at the Yum Yum Shop in Wolfeboro. That was scheduled to change this week, moving to Thursday and Friday, but I had already scheduled something this morning, so this week, I am off Tuesday and Thursday. The scheduled thing I had on the docket this morning was a visit with the HVAC representative doing some work on the air handling units at the Village Players Theater in Wolfeboro. This was the second visit I've overseen in the past month or so, as a large piece was taken out to be worked on and new parts were ordered. Today was the day that they got installed again. I decided to also use the time while I was waiting for the HVAC technician to do his thing to work on getting my money back for my flight to Tokyo, which was set to happen in just more than a month. I purchased the flights through Expedia, one on Korean Air and the other on Delta. I had also purchased the insurance on the flight offered by...

The term "the new normal" has been thrown out a lot in the past few months as people make adjustments to the conditions presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, including social distancing and the wearing of masks. In my case, there was a pretty large shakeup in life, with the temporary layoff taking place on April 1, which I have to admit was completely unexpected. Two days later, I applied for unemployment through the New Hampshire state web site. The good news was that I was paid for the week I was laid off and also received a week of pay for the personal time I had accrued through the first three months of the year. Each week, I went back to the unemployment web site and filed my claim, but the weeks went on with no money deposited in my account. Eventually, as it went out to more than a month without anything coming in, it became obvious I was either going to have to find a job or move out of my apartment if I wanted to keep paying my health insurance bill (Affordable Care ...

Over the last few weeks, living without sports has been an interesting experience. Networks have done a good job of bringing back old sporting events to our televisions and I spent a lot of time over the last two weeks watching old Olympic events from the Summer Games in Beijing in 2008, London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 along with a few highlights from Games even further back, including Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004, Atlanta in 1996 and even the gold medal game for the original Dream Team in Barcelona in 1992. That was a lot of fun, and usually, in a normal world, I'd be writing about sports all the time, covering the local high school teams and other events going on throughout the community. Of course, I'd probably also be complaining about all this rain that would certainly be wreaking havoc on our spring schedule. But, with no high school sports or community activities and with no longer being employed, I have had a lack of sports interaction (or really, interaction in gene...

Last week I spent a good deal of time discussing the Olympic rabbit hole that I went down, reading tons of information on Olympic bids from various cities, including winning hosts Beijing, Milan-Cortina, Paris and Los Angeles. It was a great way to kill time, but unfortunately got me thinking about some deeper questions like whether or not I'd even have my job back next summer when the Tokyo Olympics take place or whether the Olympics would even be able to take place as planned in Tokyo next summer. Of course, in case you didn't know, I'm bored out of my mind. I've watched a lot of television and most of it is just rewatching shows I've seen before. However, I was online last week and noticed a schedule from NBC Sports Network that noted they would be running highlights from the Summer Olympics over the course of the next few weeks. I promptly went into my DVR and set it to record as many of the episodes as I could. Most of the first week was dedicated to recaps...

The late great Kenny Rogers once sang, "the boredom overtook us, and he began to speak." The boredom is real in this time of quarantines, self-isolation and pandemics. Add to all of that, the fact that I am not working, and things can get really boring, really quickly, as I've mentioned more than once. This morning, sitting on my couch listening to the radio as is my (new) normal routine following my morning walk, I finished checking e-mail, reading the Union Leader and the sports section of the Boston Globe (online), I found myself looking for something to keep me occupied for a little while. I listen to the local radio show until 10 a.m. and then I listen to a satellite radio show from 10 a.m. to noon, so I don't have to turn on the television before noon. But while I'm listening, I like to have something to do. Back in the "olden days," I would listen to these shows in my office, but since that is no longer an option, I sat on my computer looking f...

This is traditionally a blog about preparing for the Olympics and eventually covering the Olympics, but occasionally it veers into different territory. With the (hopefully) temporary layoff now a week old, I've been searching for a way to at least write once in a while and get stuff out there, so this is the space. To someone who is a creature of habit, used to working more than 50 hours a week, creating a routine that is timed to perfection every morning, throwing the wrench of no work, no gym, really no anything, into the mix is just a gut-punch. I've been doing my best to try not to think about it too much, but I obviously miss sports. Of course, my livelihood depends on sports, but there's also the professional sports that I would watch on a regular basis. This would be the first month of baseball season, which is such a harbinger of spring. And as my favorite sport, baseball is badly missed in this corner of the world. But high school sports play a big part of my l...

On Monday morning, word came down that the Tokyo Olympics had a new start date. On Wednesday morning, word came down that impacted life in a more personal and much more impactful way. The organizers of the Tokyo Games came out on Monday morning with an announcement that the Olympics would start on July 23, 2021. That date was one day less than one year from the original planned starting date. This is good news in many ways, since that time of year is best in my schedule as far as having some free time. This also gives the world a lot of time to rebound from this pandemic that has caused all the problems. Media members received an e-mail on Wednesday morning from the people handling the accommodations that they would be in communication with the hotels that were housing the media and would let us know if it was possible to keep all our planned nights in the media housing. This was all good news, but it was later Wednesday morning that the news that wasn't so good came along. Wi...

It's been a tough week in the Olympic world, with the announcement that the 2020 Summer Games have been postponed, with the July start pushed ahead into the next calendar year. With the social distancing still in place and working from home a thing, I've had a lot of time to think about all this stuff, which probably isn't good. I should probably be focusing on something else, something on the positive side. As I sit here now in my apartment, NBC Sports Network is airing a special Olympic event with interviews with lots of different athletes who are impacted by the postponement and with an opening interview with Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee discussing the situation.  As I've spent hours being bummed out about not being able to go to Tokyo (never mind the three other trips I had planned between now and then), I've been seeing lots of social media posts from athletes who have been impacted by this and it got me thinking that t...

The word is out that yes, the Summer Olympics are going to be postponed. Scheduled to start on July 24, it became increasingly obvious over the last few weeks that the coronavirus pandemic was going to be an issue when it comes to the Olympics. The IOC held firm for a few weeks, stating they were hopeful that they wouldn't have to change things, but as more and more countries and/or athletes spoke up, it became obvious that a change was going to be needed. First and foremost, bringing together thousands of people from around the world into one location certainly was not the ideal move. Secondly, with the virus forcing the causing many places to close and events to be cancelled, the chance that athletes had to qualify for the Olympics were being called off, meaning they would have to be rescheduled before the Olympics and that was looking less and less likely to happen. It just wasn't going to work out and that became pretty obvious to everyone on Sunday. While I was not com...

As I write this on Thursday, Feb. 20, it’s been almost six years to the day since my first Olympic experience drew to a close. That was in Sochi in February of 2014 and it was an experience that I will always remember. It was my first time covering such a huge event and in many ways, it was overwhelming. However, I learned a lot in that first time out and when it came time to head to PyeongChang four years later, I had a much better idea of what to expect and it made the great experience I had the first time even better. Now, as I prepare for my first Summer Olympics experience, I am concerned a bit about the sheer massiveness of the summer games compared to the winter games. However, that’s a story for another day. What has been on my mind lately has been the whole threat of the coronavirus and how it might impact my Olympic trip. Going back to 2014 before I traveled to Russia, there was a lot of talk about security concerns and what Russia was doing to prepare. There wer...

This past Monday marked 200 days until Tokyo 2020, which meant that it was 198 days until it's time to head around the world. As the number continued to tick down, I realized that it was time to do a little more planning in regards to the Olympic experience, so after I made all my newspaper deadlines, I spent some time online researching the cheapest flights to get to Tokyo in July. There are a lot of ways to get to Japan, but none of the flights were terribly inexpensive. Being as this is a self-funded trip (along with donations from some great people), my most important search function for the flight was to find the cheapest way to get there.  In this regard, there were a few flights that were right around the same price. The one that intrigued me the most was a flight on Hawaiian Airlines that went from Boston to Honolulu then on to Tokyo. Having never been to Hawaii, I thought this would be a great pit stop along the way. However, the layover was almost an entire day a...

This week, as the calendar turns to 2020, it’s time to look ahead and see just what a busy 2020 has in store. An exciting development that popped up last year was the chance to travel to Ireland with the University of New Hampshire Marching Band. This coming year marks the band’s 100 th anniversary and the director, who was a freshman during my senior year in the band, decided to plan a trip to Ireland and invited alumni to come along if they were interested. The first international trip (not counting Canada) I took in my life was also with the UNH Marching Band, when we traveled to Europe in late 2001-early 2002. I was also an alum at that point, but that trip was a blast and I am hoping the Ireland trip is much of the same. I’ll be making that trip in mid-March and will be in Ireland for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin. A few weeks later, I will make a shorter trip, this time to Florida for a little spring training baseball. The Kingswood baseball team has made a n...