Well, the races started today, but not until 6pm. We got up bright and early to video the team breakfast. Lanie, Rick's wife, is here with us now so she came along. Since neither of us were taping (it was just Rod and Rick) me and Lanie kinda felt a little out of place there. I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. I was almost gonna leave. But hey, there was a buffet there, and who am I to say no to a buffet? After that, we had a good talk with Paul Marchese, who makes the skates for a lot of the skaters - not just in the US, but internationally. He's a really cool guy.

Once breakfast was done, we hung out in Rusty's room and did some more filming, like his daily diary and him packing up his stuff for the competition. Then we gott suckered into watching this B-movie on HBO called 'Cheats'. It sucked, but it's one of those things that when you start it, you can't stop. Two hours in Salt Lake lost in the black hole known as 'Cheats'.

Once we were done at Rusty's, we went to pick up my cousin Karen from the airport. It's great to have her along. She's definitely an Apolo fan. Lanie, Rick and Rod are pretty much immune to the fannish-ness of it all, and every now and then I get flashbacks, but Karen's a fan. This is her first competition and she's never seen Apolo in person before. It's cool to see the competition through her eyes.

We got to the Oval at around 4:00, and there were already a lot of people there. Luckily, I have a press pass, so I coould go to the press area. At first I thought I was really cool that I got my own section, but I ended up sitting by Lanie and Karen as the races progressed.

The competition was awesome. Unfortunately, Apolo got DQ'd on his semifinal heat. Rusty, however, had a great preliminary heat when for most of the race he sat in the back, but within the last lap or two, passed up the other 4 people in his heat. It was a blast to watch. He made the finals, too, but unfortunately, he got fourth place. But that's cool, though - there's still races tomorrow! And every final he makes counts towards his overall score. The relays were breathless. The crowd was TOTALLY into it, and it was so fun to watch with eveyone.

Afterwards, we went to dinner with some other people that Rusty knows (Rusty had to get some rest - the races were done at 10pm, and racing starts tomorrow at 12pm). Dinner kicked ass. I mean, I've only met Lanie 4 times, and by the afternoon we were saying the same sentences. And we had just met Rusty's friends that night. But at dinner we all just got along so well that we were laughing the whole time. I swear I didn't laugh that hard since I did my dorky dance for Fata and accidentally drooled. But we had a lot of good laughs, and there were even times where we laughed so hard we cried. I'm proud to say that we closed out Chili's. The staff had their coats on already by the time we left.

Ahh....it was a good day. And I'm pooped. Goodnight!

oh, and here's more pictures!

Posted by Yano at February 8, 2003 04:22 AM

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