Here's my recount of my Apolo Anton Ohno experience from yesterday.

I came, I saw, I wimped out.

So I had to pick up my friend, and we were running a little late, so we got to the shopping center about 1/2 an hour later than I wanted to. The line was ENORMOUS! Dang! The security was telling us at my end of the line that chances were, we wouldn't be getting an autograph or picture, but it was up to us if we wanted to stay. So then we stayed. When he came (we couldn't see him from our vantage point) all the girls started screaming. I went out of line (my friend held our place) and went up to where he was signing autographs to take some pictures. There were tons of people up there trying to take pictures, too. I got a couple pretty good ones. But I really didn't like the shirt he was wearing!

Finally, we got up to where Apolo was going to be and they announced that Apolo would just be handing out pictures of himself. So I thought 'Well, i'll just take a pic of him when I get up there'. But when I actually got up there, the guy was like, sorry, no pictures, and I got all flustered and walked up to him, watched his hand pick up his picture and hand it to me, and I turned around and walked away. I don't even think I made eye contact! Dammit! Didn't even say thank you! I was really out of my element. I'm supposed to be good at this! I'm supposed to say something smart and witty! But I just blanked out. I hardly remember anything. I'm such a loser! But my friends insist that he totally did a double take and watched me walk away. But I'm thinking he was thinking 'What's up with the zombie?'

And when he was leaving, my friend Tina actually intercepted him, grabbed his arm, and said to him 'MissYano says HI'. Yeah, like he knows...what sort of cryptic message is that? The funniest thing is she said that his security guys were totally all over her, saying 'Don't touch him!' She's crazy.

So that's my anticlimactic Apolo experience. I'm a loser.

But really, as I watched him (I took some breaks from the line) I could tell that he was really shy. He was giggling, laughing and blushing the whole time he was up there. They guy is as cute as a button and he was a lot of fun to watch.

So I would definitely love to meet him again and maybe actually say more than two words!

No worries, Dave, you're still my number 1. =P

Posted by Yano at April 28, 2002 09:25 PM