When we were invited to Adidas Haus in Atlanta to do footbag demonstrations for the officially sponsored Olympic athletes of Adidas, we were thrilled. It turns out that it may have been the experience of a lifetime!
As the Olympics are about to start tonight in Vancouver, I was thinking about our experience back in 1996, before our son was born. Cory Current was a promising freestyler, we picked him up a few hours late in Chilecothe in the middle of a flood. Cory's uncle lived just outside Atlanta and was willing to put us up in his spare room for the 4 nights we were there. We drove a few miles to a subway each day and took the train into the city. We were surprised to see the bomb-sniffing dogs and military with machine guns as we entered from so far away, but that is what it is like at the olympics. We felt our car should be safe, even though we didn't know the neighborhood.
Oh, a side note, we had a blast at this giant bump near Cory's uncles house. Stone Mountain was the catalyst for our obsession of pin-collecting. At the top of this strange bump in the east side of Atlanta, we met a Japanese guy who was 'crazy for pin-trading' and he saw Valeria's 'Kodak Olympic 1992' pin. He traded us the Nagasaki pin for the '98 Winter Olympics which turns out to be a really good trade, especially since we have another of the Kodak pins still in our collection. We have since expanded into Disney pins, and look forward to another shot at Olympic pin trading. It totally sucks that we didn't win the olympics in Chicago 2016, but it would be nice to go to Rio.
When we got downtown we experienced 'hotlanta' at its best. We got settled at Adidas Haus, a large facility maintained by Adidas for use during the NSGA Trade show and the Olympics. I wonder if it is still there? They had rooms for VIP's, party areas, decks, group meeting rooms and a secure area with all the goods for the athletes downstairs. When we were at Adidas Haus, they would have us playing footbag in the areas where the party was going on. We were the entertainment, and the athletes loved us. The Haus provided us with Adidas clothing, all we could eat in the way of food (as food was otherwise very expensive and not-so-good at the vendors) and we really put on a show. It was where we first crossed paths with David Hasselhoff, and where we had previously held the World Cup in our hands, and met soccer greats Alexi Lalos and Hans Mueller, but that is another story.
When we went out to the public areas of the Olympics and shredded, we were met with stares of amazement from onlookers of all cultures. More importantly we were video camera magnets. I estimate we were shown on tv in over 30 countries, because every time we shredded in a public place, the video cameras from around the world would come to us and shoot from all angles, and we could see in their eyes the appreciation for the coordination and athletic prowess we showed in such a unique and unknown sport. One of the places we kicked was in front of the Swatch booth, just a day before the bomb went off.
We drove home and when we got home is when we heard about the bomb going off. What a bummer, because it was the greatest experience until then. I bet after we left, the whole vibe of international coolness was gone, not because we left but because of the unknown bomber and the thoughts that maybe it wasn't an isolated incident.
Thanks to my wife Valeria for encouraging me for all these years, to Cory Current for coming with us, to Cory's uncle for housing us, and to John Stalberger for making the Adidas contact for us in the first place.
Shred notes: 2/12/10
Tons of swirls and butterfly swirls today. Strange how some tricks are sooooo much harder than others of lower add value. Case in point, 'spinning cross body rake' is 4 adds, but soooo much harder than the 'spinning butterfly rake' which is 5 adds. A strong argument for giving add values in the tenths so we can have a 4.9 up against a 5.0 (a difficult 4 would balance better against an easy 5).
No comments:
Post a Comment