Bits and Olympic Musings

I like to start out by saying that I appreciate your comments to my last post.  Not that I have protested about a “lurker problem” like some bloggers do, but I appreciate that folks acknowledge their appreciation that I have something interesting to say.   Keep the comments and questions coming.

A few of the comments stated that I do not post enough photos on the blog.  I will say that I do post photos on this blog, but not every blog since I am not much of a picture taker.  Like my mother says, I’m a pretty boring guy in many ways in that my hobbies are pretty limited.  When I think about it, do I have a natural hobby?  I’ll have to think about that.

Oh, I do recall that one commenter talked about a portrait of me.  There is actually one out there, hanging in my living room.  Here’s a photo of it:

I don’t know how close a resemblance to me this is.  But hey, I’ve become much older since I was 17 years old.

I know many are watching and following the Olympic games.  Outside of background pictures in the office (it’s streaming on a large plasma screen near my cube), I have not been following the Olympics much at all.  In fact, I’m of the myopic opinion that much of the Olympics are truly a government-sponsored public works and community-organizing project.  Just think about all the billions of dollars different Olympic sites have spent to build up Olympic physical and intangible infrastructure as well as security.  Here’s a list of the amount of public funding for the current and past Olympic games:

-       London: $10 billion

-       Vancouver: $2 billion

-       Beijing: $40 billion

-       Turin, Italy: $1.6 billion

-       Athens: $15 billion

-       Salt Lake City: $2 billion

All I say is that is a whole lot of money for about two weeks of sporting events.  Does the spending bring in enough tourism and economic activity to justify this spending?  I would say more likely no.  I’ve seen multiple pictures of some of the abandoned buildings post-Olympics, particularly from Athens and Bejing.

Bejing Track after 2008 Olympics

Panathinaiko Stadium after the 2004 Olympics

    

The "Bird's Nest" in Bejing since the 2008 games

So while I appreciate the competition of the Olympics, I’m also well aware that it’s quite the spendthrift operation that many “fiscal conservatives” often ignore.

I’ll hold back on my Mitt Romney commentary till next time.  Until then, keep the comments coming.