What lies ahead

The coming months are starting to look pretty busy and that's not even considering the busy spring schedule for the local high school teams, which will start in early April. There are a bunch of trips on the docket in the next few months leading up to the big one this coming summer.

The first trip on the schedule is one that has become a pretty regular tradition. At the end of March I will be flying to Orlando and traveling on to Vero Beach to cover one of our local teams getting in some spring training action. Most of the trips I've made to Florida with local teams have been with Kingswood baseball and last year, Kennett baseball was also there at the same time, which was perfectly convenient for me. This year, Kingswood softball is making its maiden voyage to the Jackie Robinson Training Complex for a few days. I am flying down the night before the team and leaving the day after they do. I am currently looking into something to do for the day on Friday before the team arrives and I am sure I will find something exciting.

The next trip is just a few weeks later and is a bit shorter of a journey. I registered for media credentials for the Team USA Media Summit ahead of the Paris Olympics and received notice yesterday that my credential request had been approved. This is the first in-person media summit Team USA has done since prior to the PyeongChang Olympics and this will be the first one that I have attended. It is timed to coincide with the 100 days to go countdown for the Paris Olympics. I booked a room at the hotel where the event is based, right in the middle of New York, which was probably the most expensive hotel room I have ever booked, even with our discount. I am taking the train from Boston to New York on that Sunday and returning on the Wednesday evening train. This is one I am definitely looking forward to.

In May, I will be making a return trip to Chicago for a Rob Has a Podcast Survivor event. For those that don't know, I am an avid listener to Rob Has a Podcast, hosted by former Survivor contestant Rob Cesternino. I make it a point to try and make his live shows (last season I went to one in New York and another in New Orleans). This season the location is Chicago and while there, I am going to cross another baseball stadium off the bucket list and see a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. This will be a couple of days in early May.

Speaking of checking stadiums off the list, I will be driving to Toronto in early June to see the Red Sox play the Blue Jays at the stadium formerly known as SkyDome. I have been to the stadium before but have never seen a game, so it will be cool to check another MLB park off the list and see the Red Sox play as well.

Then of course, there's the big trip, the three-week journey to Paris at the end of July. There is still plenty of work to be done on that front, but there is evidently plenty to keep me busy between now and then.

Tokyo's Olympics were pretty quiet, given the COVID and all, but this summer promises to bring a little more excitement. And in the months leading up to that, there's still plenty to do too.

Milestones looking back and forward

The last couple of days have provided some milestones in the road ahead and in the road that I have traveled over the years.

As I mentioned in the last blog post, at this time two years ago, I was in Beijing for the Winter Olympics, my third Winter Olympics experience and my fourth Olympics overall. Without a question, it was one of the most unique experiences of my life, covering another Olympics during the midst of the pandemic.

My Facebook memories informed me that two years ago on this day, I was at one of the most unusual venues I've ever covered an Olympics at, the Shougang Big Air facility in Beijing. This was the only outdoor venue in the city limits of Beijing, with the rest of the outdoor events in the mountain villages outside of the city. What made this venue unique was not just the fact that it was an outdoor venue in the city limits, but rather where it was built. It was built in an industrial area of the city that the government was working to revitalize. Driving to the venue we drove past numerous old factories and arriving at the venue we were greeted by four huge cooling towers, the kind of things usually seen at nuclear power plants. Without a question, this will be one of the most unique venues I ever see, though I'm excited to cover some beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower and equestrian at Versailles this summer.

My Facebook memories also reminded me that 10 years ago today I made my original foray into the Olympics, landing in Sochi, Russia. Without a question, that was one of the more nerve-wracking adventures of my life. I was so concerned about the ability to find my way through the airport in Moscow to get on my flight to Sochi and what I would do once I landed in the Olympic city. All my concerns were calmed and it turned out to be a great experience in a place that I would never have traveled to without the Olympics making an appearance there. Sochi was a unique location in that the indoor venues were located next to the Black Sea in a pretty temperate environment, complete with palm trees, which took me by surprise to say the least.  The Media Center in Sochi remains one of the coolest places I've had the chance to work in. And I will forever remain grateful to all the people who helped me fundraise for that trip, making it possible for me to start on this incredible journey that has lasted close to a dozen years.

Looking back, yesterday marked two years to go until the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which I have to admit, is one of the locations I am really excited to see. As I've mentioned before, one of the best things about the first four Olympic experiences was that they were all in places I had never been before. I have been to Paris and to Italy (including Milan), but I have never really had the chance to cover the Winter Olympics in a true winter environment and the Alps will definitely be that.

I also officially booked my flight to Paris for this summer. The plan is to fly out of Boston early on Tuesday, July 23, with a stop in New York City before traversing the Atlantic Ocean and arriving in Paris just before 10 p.m. local time. The return flight will be on Monday, Aug. 12, leaving in the afternoon and with the time change, arriving back in Boston on a direct flight at 6 p.m. Flying to Paris in the summer is not a cheap venture, but it's something else checked off the list in preparation for this summer.

The Shougang Big Air facility in Beijing will forever be one of the most unique venues I have covered an event at.

Going back in time

Facebook memories have become an easy way to look back on what you were doing a year ago, or three years ago, or 10-plus years ago. They might jog your memory and bring some things back to the forefront for a bit.

That happened today when I looked at some of my memories from two years ago. It was on this day, Feb. 2, back in 2022 that I landed in Beijing for my third Winter Olympics experience. That in and of itself is just another trip on the Olympic list, but that particular experience, that particular day, remains to this day one of the most surreal things I've ever been a part of and it made me want to retell the story.

With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full force, the Beijing Olympics used a number of different protocols to help keep everyone safe, including media members who were traveling to China to cover the Games. One of the protocols, which proved to be a giant pain in the butt due to airline travel problems, was having all games-related personnel arrive in Beijing on special flights, meaning we had to book certain flights from one of a select group of cities.

My flight came from Paris and for the most part was pretty normal, but when we landed, it was far from normal.

I remember walking down the jetway into the terminal to find a completely empty building. The terminal had been cleared of people and only Olympic-related persons were permitted in this one terminal. It was incredibly spooky, much like you were emerging from your bunker after the apocalypse (or I would suspect anyway). We moved through the terminal behind a couple of volunteers/employees who were dressed head to toe in hazmat suits. We got to one waiting area and we sat and waited as they processed our papers, one at a time. We moved on to another area, where again, hazmat suits greeted us as they went through more of our paperwork. And finally they led us all to a room where we had to sit and wait for our transportation to take us to the specific hotels where we were staying.

I know that the main reason for all of the precaution was to keep us, and thus, everyone else associated with the Olympics, safe, but looking back on that day, it's still weird to remember that empty airport terminal, the hazmat suits and the fact that I was on the other side of the world about to cover my second Olympics in a pandemic.

I'm glad I glanced at those Facebook memories this morning, it brought back an interesting time in my life and has me looking forward to July, when hopefully I will not be in an empty airport with people in hazmat suits leading us around.

Incidentally, in that short, weird voyage through the airport, I first left my passport at one counter and had to go back through a checkpoint to pick it up, then left my vaccine card at another checkpoint, which was eventually brought to the room where we were waiting for our buses. Maybe the surrealness of it all just got to me.

Flying in to Beijing two years ago for the Winter Olympics, not yet aware of the surreal scene that was about to unfold in the airport.