Vancouver Olympics, day 9: Don’t tell my boss…

Vancouver Olympics, day 9: Don’t tell my boss…

Olympic fire outside the MPC/IBC in Vancouver (HDR)

Yes, don’t tell my boss, but I actually took a day off. Went to Vancouver, walked around the city, did some shopping, went to the Aquarium… Yes, the aquarium. That is something I always do when travelling if I have a chance. I have a special relationship with anything connected to the sea (I dive, sail, go canoeing and kayaking when ever I have a chance — I even had a reef aquarium in the house for a long time) . For me, that works better than anything else: others have a beer or two or whatever to kick back, I head to the sea — in one form or another.

Beluga

It was pretty nice aquarium, but I’ve seen a lot of them, so I wasn’t that impressed. But I saw the first beluga of my life and that was interesting — and that alone justified my trip and made it worthwhile. They are a very special breed of cetaceans: in addition of being totally white, they have the ability to turn their necks; i.e. when they peek out of the water, they turn their head around, and it feels really strange seeing them do that.

Anyway, I’ve said before that experience shows in the selection of equipment you carry with you, that you don’t drag anything unnecessary with you, tire yourself out. Same goes with taking time off: you have to understand yourself, when it’s time to do that. Charge the batteries for the days to come. It’s been pretty tough 8 days so far and c. 15 still to go. It was a day well spent.

Click image to see the multimedia

It is evening here in Whistler now and it is cleaning and maintance day: I am doing laundry and cleaning the computer, archiving files to external harddisks.

Due to the timedif­fe­rence I can already see what the papers tomorrow in Finland look like. I notice Aamulehti at least (and Iltalehti will follow now in the morning I’m sure) has published the multi­media I did on skating.

In case you don’t speak Finnish, click the third image on the opening page. It takes you to a second page where A‑P Nurmenkari explains all the six different jumps of figure skating. Yes, the design could be better, more elegant… but it is infor­mative. Finally I think I myself understand something about the diffe­rences between lutz, axel, flip and all the others. At least for a moment.…

8 Replies to “Vancouver Olympics, day 9: Don’t tell my boss…”

  1. Olipa hieno kuva Ahosesta tummalla taustalla! Siihen kuvaan jotenkin tiivistyi miehen suuruus urhei­lijana, ihmisenä ja urhei­lijana, miehenä, joka pystyy tiukan paikan tullen keskit­tymään olennaiseen. Luin myös blogiasi pitkään ja se on harvi­naista nykyi­sessä blogien täyttä­mässä maail­massa — teksti vaan vei mennessään. Mutta missä ovat Kiiran poliisikuvat?

    1. Kiitos — on aina kiva herätä uuteen aamuun ja löytää kommentteja täältä — huomata että joku on nähnyt vaivaa vastata.
      Muuten hyvä, mutta Kiira ei ole vielä luistellut, tänään taitaa harjoi­tella vasta ensmmäisen kerran. Olet varmasti nähnyt, mutta jos et, niin Tallin­nassa kuvasimme tällaisen sarjan Kiirasta:
      http://docimages.org/image-galleries/ec_skating2010_gala/gallery2.html

      Klo 7 aamulla täällä, nyt sprintteihin.…

  2. Thanks for telling which link for us English only folks, very cool. I haven’t seen anything like this on any of the television coverage.

    BTW, we saw those beluga whales some years back and they’re extremely interesting.

    L

    1. Thank you — I have to admit I like it myself.… There is a fence surrounding it but I managed to find a hole just big enough to stick a lens through. Hey, thanks for following the blog.

    1. Hi Valentin — thank you, haven’t heard of you since Berlin, right? Yes, I absolutely agree: no great, pure sports photo­graphy, and there are couple of reasons for that: time diffe­rence (my deadline is around noon, so I have no time to stay lingering around trying to find something special, but have to rush to file my stuff. I only follow Finnish athletes (as my client is Finnish), it’s been pissing rain for a week, and I have been busy with multi­medias, videos etc. — as due to the time diffe­rence we cannot do “straight news” but have to find an angle which is more lasting (anything which happens in the afternoon or evening here makes the paper day after tomorrow back home). In addition I am assigned basically to cover x‑country, skijumping and biathlon — I’ll do women’s slalom and giant slalom later next week and that’s it, basically. No “super visual” sports such as downhill, snowboard, freestyle, hockey.…
      But, I’ll keep trying… Today I am actually thinking of doing a small panoramic tour of the Olympic Park, seems like it is going to be a sunny day.

      Thanks for checking out the blog and commenting.

      k

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