Speedskating in Richmond

Just finished watching some speedskating at the Richmond Olympic Oval. U.S. and Canada in the men's finals tomorrow ...go USA!


And just to add body to what I texted to my blog earlier today, I cannot tell you how incredible it was to actually attend a long-track speedskating event.  It's like Nascar on ice.  The events I saw...the team pursuit for the women's quarterfinals and the men's semifinals...were absolutely awesome. Two teams of three skate on opposite sides of the rink.  The time recorded is based on the last skater, so it really was a team event.  An Olympic record was broken by the Canadian team today.  And the U.S. edged out the Dutch to capture the second spot in the finals tomorrow.

If you look closely at the picture above, you can see alot of wood in the structure of the Oval.  The roof is made of a wavy wood pattern, and it really has a unique look.  To make matters even cooler, the Oval's wood was reclaimed from a beetle raid in British Columbia.  Yay for sustainability!

Two more days to go, and the Olympic flame will be out.  I'm going to get some sleep now so those last two days will be awesome.  'Til next time!

We're in the home stretch. :-(

It's hard to believe that there are only four more days in the Winter Olympics! I have been pumped up about these Olympics since Vancouver got them in 2003. Now they're almost a part of history. With that being said, we still have an incredible four days of living the dream participating in the Winter Olympics with Coke.

I just found out this week that I will be helping Coca-Cola with their celebration in Robson Square during the two-day celebration of the Paralympic Torch Relay. Therefore, when I leave Vancouver for Whistler, I know it's only for a short while...that's a relief for sure!

One last thought about this job before I take the Canada Line to work this morning revolves around our uniforms. They are truly works of art, made from recycled Coke bottles, and they are very Canadian. In fact, they are so Canadian that in certain areas of town, we are constantly mistaken for Canada's Olympic team. We then tell them we are the co-ed curling team, and it's amazing how many of those people still believe us. However, these are the same people we saw taking an ice sculpture down a main street, having believed the restaurant owner gave it to them. There's definitely a variety of people in the city right now...that's for sure.

Well...I'm off! 'Til next time!
Brandon

A tour of the Happiness House

Okay, so I have to be at work in 15 minutes, so I cannot blog for long.  However, I would love to show you around our Happiness House.  During our media day nearly two weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to lead Bear, our lovable polar bear from the Northwest Territories, through our pavilion.  The following four videos are the result of that tour, and they are currently being featured on iCoke.ca (Coke's Canadian consumer website).  Hope you enjoy, and I look forward to sharing more with you soon...the internet is back in action!






















Later!
Brandon

So yesterday, I had my one day off during the Olympis, and it was fabulous! My whole family's in town, so we tore up as much of the city as we could in one day. We went to my home on Cambie, and then we took the Olympic Line to Granville Island. Following a delicious lunch there, we took a cab to the downtown area where the external cauldron is located. Though access to the cauldron area is restricted by security fencing all around the premises, it was still extremely cool seeing the external cauldron in person.

Following our Skytrain trip back to Yaletown, we briefly visited USA House where I visited my good friends from Team USA. Finally, we ate dinner on the shore of False Creek. Afterwards, we watched the men's figure skating long program. I had work from 2am to 9am because CTV (Canada's Olympic Network) was filming their AM show at our pavilion. Though I definitely did not become a star overnight, it was a fun (albeit late night) ordeal. I'm back to work in an hour, so I'm out!

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Well, it's been a crazy couple of days to say the least. I owe you pictures of both the Coca-Cola Happiness House and the Happy 2. The Happy 2 is a hybrid vehicle that snaked it's way through Canada during the Olympic Torch Relay. I have been participating in an after dark parade for Coca-Cola, screaming into a mic getting people pumped about the Olympics, Coke, and Canada. I don't have internet access right now, but as soon as I do, we'll catch up!
til then,
brandon

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Day 1 at the Coke Pavilion and Opening Ceremonies

The XXI Olympic Winter Games have begun!  The day began at the Coca-Cola Happiness House, where I served as emcee during the first half of the day.  One of our special guests during my tenure over the microphone happened to be Beijing 2008 gymnast Shawn Johnson...let's just say that was pretty cool, for sure!

Last night, I had the incredible privilege of watching the Opening Ceremony in person.  I had seen the dress rehearsal on Wednesday night as well, but they wanted to keep certain elements, such as the Olympic flagbearers and the half hour surrounding the lighting of the cauldron a secret.  On Friday, each spectator was given a cardboard box filled with tools to help create special effects around the venue.  Each box was specific to that seat, and included a flashlight, battery-powered candle, mallet, and a blue dental robe to cover your entire upper body.  The cardboard box also acted as a drum and assisted in the countdown at the beginning of the ceremony. The ambience created by these special effects truly floored me, as we had not seen these on Wednesday.  Though they hardly ever matched up with the original intentions of the director and producers (we had a instructional workshop an hour before the Opening Ceremony to practice these effects), it still looked really cool regardless!

Before I head back to LiveCity Yaletown (where the Coke Happiness House is located), check out the video below.  I am featured in it talking about the Coca-Cola and the Olympics about three-and-a-half minutes into the video.  Today, the homepage of vancouver2010.com features a picture of the reporter, the Coke Polar Bear, and myself.  If you get a chance, check out the site!

 

More plants today! (I'm testing out the feasibility of MMSing little tweet-blogs for cool things during the Games). Be sure to watch everything kick off Friday night...I have a feeling you'll love it! :-)

Two days out...

It's up and running!  The Coca-Cola Pavilion is finished minus a couple of finishing touches.  We had on-site training this past weekend, as well as a fully-operational shift today tailored specifically towards media outlets of all kinds.  It was so fun!  I've gotten to see some of my good friends from the U.S. Olympic Committee here in Vancouver, both at our Coke Pavilion and at Home Depot.  The Home Depot run-in was bound to happen eventually, since I have been spending 90% of my life there seemingly!  With a recent influx in the number of Olympic-specific jackets worn around town, people have stopped confusing me for store employees and now sometimes get to the point where I feel like a celebrity!  Well, not celebrity, as in Brad Pitt, but celebrity, as in that Shamwow guy.  People love the fact that our entire uniform (minus the shoes) is made out of recycled Coke bottles.  And I do too!

My errands have shifted in scope from big, bulky items like wood, drill bits (I know those aren't bulky...just work with me!), and paint to aesthetic gems such as vases, stools, and plants.  Yes, I did say plants.  Without ruining the integrity of the Happiness House (which opens in two days, so expect more details in my next post), I would like to brag to you about these plants.  28 IKEA plants.  One Dodge Grand Caravan.  And one trip from Richmond to Vancouver (about a 20 minute drive).  Words can't do justice to this, so I took some pictures of the experience.

Needless to say, I was very relieved when all 28 of these plants looked vibrant and lively following their crowded journey to their new home.  I've also been putting the Organic Gardening tips I learned from Dr. James Brown at Auburn University to good use.  Equipped with simply the desire for a green thumb and the knowledge from a terrific semester course at Auburn, I hope my babies (the plants, that is) will look better February 28th than they do now.  And with a Coke red watering pot and a little bit of Miracle Grow, I wouldn't put it past them. 

Tomorrow, I will be attending the dress rehearsal for the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony!  I'm not allowed to take pictures or even talk about (other than admitting I'll be going), but suffice it to say...I'm completely pumped to be going! 

One last quick note that takes us back to the weekend before last (an apology goes out specifically to Jeffrey for my lack of frequent blog posts...could some donuts in July possibly make up for that?!?)...there's an awesome Olympic exhibition on public transportation called the Olympic Line that a friend and I got to try out.  It's a streetcar that the city is borrowing from Brussels, Belgium to showcase the sustainability benefits of having such a system in place.  It is a being showcased in a sixty day window, but the city hopes to eventually create a full street car fleet that connects the different Skyrails (think subway meets train meets monorail...that's the Skyrail system) throughout downtown Vancouver.  Maybe I just love free things (the transit fare is free dollars and free cents to quote a friend), but it really did help put me in an Olympic state of mind!  (Though the picture below is not necessarily flattering of me, it does give a better shot of the streetcar than the "good shot," so enjoy my un-photogenicness!  And yes, I also know un-photogenicness is not a word...give me a break here...the Olympics are just days away...woo hoo!

On the road again

With less than two weeks to go before the Opening Ceremony here in Vancouver, Coca-Cola has entered the final sprint of preparation.  On Tuesday, I worked 18 hours...a new record for me!

What do I even do, you might be wondering, as one of Coca-Cola's interns.  Well, my duties seem to evolve over time, but for the time being, I consider myself the official courier of Coke's Olympic Pavilion Team.  In the past couple of weeks, I have driven all around Metro Vancouver picking up supplies for the Pavilion, then dropping them off at LiveCity Yaletown (where our Pavilion is located).  Here is a list of most of the places I've visited, with a map below with red asteriks in those designated regions.  Though there is no scale, the longest trip was between LiveCity Yaletown (near the top left side of the map, just south of North Vancouver), and Port Coquitlam, clocking in at about an hour's drive with traffic.

North Vancouver - Wal-Mart, Michael's

Richmond - Coke's Olympic office headquarters, Micheal's, Ikea, Home Depot

Burnaby - Metal Supermarkets, Home Depot

New Westminister - A timely errand
Port Coquitlam - ditto, Home Depot
Delta - Plastic processing plant

As you can see, Home Depot has made the list multiple times.  I feel like it's my second home now.  Though the feeling of overwhelmed emotions overtakes me each time I enter Home Depot (there's so much stuff to find your way through...it's intimidating, quite frankly!), I persevere nonetheless.  And, in my humbled opinion, I'm becoming a bit of a handyman myself!

The true wonder of the week occurred on Friday, when I partook in errands without a GPS.  Just me and good ol' Mapquest.  I definitely fell into a flurry of frustration as I tried to find my favorite Vancouver-based Home Depot amidst a plethora of new street closings and no GPS simply saying "recalculating" and figuring out a different route.

However, I do think the experience strengthened my overall knowledge of the city of Vancouver, and I definitely had that euphoric feeling similar to winning a race when that giant orange-colored superstore came into view.

As the Pavilion gets closer to completion, I begin to embark on the next chapter of this experience: being a promotional representative for Coca-Cola's Pavilion.  We had staff training on Sunday, and let me just tell you...it was awesome!  We have people from around the world and of all backgrounds that will be working together to put this amazing event on, and I can honestly say that I am absolutely pumped to be living positively and opening some happiness with these people.

I'm out,
bodie