Singles luge has always been one of my favorite Winter Olympic sports to watch. I’ve also always thought it would be fun to try. Not that I’d probably ever have that chance, but if I had to try one Olympic sport, I’d pick the luge.

After watching the women’s singles luge yesterday my opinions changed slightly. It’s still loads of fun to watch. But I’m not so sure about wanting to try it now! There were a few pretty fierce crashes, but the worst was Samantha Retrosi an American girl who got knocked out and slid down half the course unconcious. Read the details here.

Oh well, maybe trying the skeleton would be safer. What? Face first? Oh…

Day one of the Torino Olympic Games is over. I just remembered what one of my favorite parts of NBC’s Olympic coverage is. It’s the late night coverage that begins at midnight. Maybe it’s the cozy set with the leather chairs and fake video fire; maybe it’s the fact that watching Bob Costas late at night brings back fond memories of watching Later with Bob Costas; maybe it’s the fact that they do more in-depth stories and summarize the day’s events.

Speaking of summarizing the day’s events, the US team came out of day one with their first gold medal. It’s their only medal at the moment. It was won by Chad Hedrick in 5000m speed skating.

Some evenings are better than others, but at the moment I can’t think of a better evening than sitting here watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in high definition with a fire roaring in the fireplace. This is the first year that the Olympics are being broadcast in HD. Very cool!

As the Winter Olymics in Torino get ready to get underway, I have to point out that there’s a connection between the games and my genealogy research.

The Gatti family is originally from Casrozo, Italy. Casorzo is a tiny village very near to Torino where the games are being held. I haven’t resarched it, but I’m sure there are some distant cousins of mine helping out with the games. Visit my family tree site for more info about my family’s history. (It’s a little sparse now due to some family problems, but a great new one is coming soon.)

I’ve told you a few ways that you can get all the Olympic info that you want, but what if you don’t have time to go the those sites. Well, then you should have your info delivered right to you!

NBC provides this service via e-mail or your cell phone. Just go sign up because it’s free!

The medals that will be given out at this year’s Olympics have a different look to them HTey are round like a doughnut with a hole in the center. I think the reasoning behind this is pretty cool. It’s represents the Italian tradition of having a piazza (or town square) in the center of each town.

You can see the design here and read an USA Today article about it as well.

There are always a few websites that I stick on my dock during the duration of the Olympics. One of course is the official site for that year’s Olympics.

The other big one that I visit constantly during the games is www.nbcolympics.com. We all know that the Olympics are carried on NBC and all of its various networks, but the website is more than an advertisement for their coverage. It includes tons of great information including running medal counts, athlete info, sport info, venue info and much more. It’s an invaluable resource.

You never really see me posting anything about sports in my blog, but it’s that time again. Sure, there’s some football game being played this weekend, but more importantly, the 2006 Winter Olympic Games start in a week. You probably already know that I have no particular interest in or use for sports, but the Olympics are different. First of all, they suport world unity, etc., which is always a good thing. Additionally, they are entertaining. You get to see those sports that you usually never get to see and they are fun sports to watch. They aren’t team sports, but instead more individual sports such as the luge, etc.

This will be the first of several posts over the coming weeks about this topic. Watch for more to come!

Check out the official site at www.torino2006.org.

You don’t need to get out paper and scissors to make paper snowflakes anymore. Just head on over to Make-a-Flake and you can do it digitally now. When you’re done, you can download it, e-mail it, or anything else you want to do with it. Pretty cool!

If you make a really good one, put it in the comments even.

Everyone knows that my favorite time of the year is Fall and Winter. I just saw this article about a new “Ice Bar” in London. It’s a bar made entirely of ice. It’s an offshoot of a really cool (no pun intended) Ice Hotel in Lapland, Sweden.

I saw the hotel on a Discovery Channel show last year. I’d love to visit it someday! BTW, I just noticed that the show is going to be on again this year on 18 October at 1pm EST.

You’ll be seeing more posts in the coming days that go on about fall and winter things since I’m so happy that the cool weather season is beginning.