Update: Alex Hermann’s perfect bracket ended in the third round when Butler upset Syracuse. He got the other three games right. Still pretty amazing! Congratulations to Alex Hermann of Chicago, an autistic 17 year old, who is the only person in the country with a perfect bracket after the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. Quite the feat in a contest full of … Continue reading Autistic Kid with Perfect NCAA Bracket
The debate over health care reform is not over. Even with the House vote and significant legislation approved, the merits and process will be hashed and rehashed for years, and certainly, vociferously, until November when mid-term elections decide the fate of many in Congress who went one way or the other. We haven’t heard the last of the Tea Party and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck but I think that when people … Continue reading Health Care Reform and Leadership
I’m a fair weather fan. I admit it. I don’t follow a team or watch ESPN or read the agate or particularly care about the drama in sports. When a team goes down I shrug and get on with my life. I can’t understand why people get depressed or beat their wives. It’s a game. Hello! I skim over the sports pages and stop to read stories … Continue reading March Madness
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who is one of the great advocates for women and the eradication of extreme poverty in the world, has written an article about BeadforLife and how people can get involved in the fight against global poverty. It is so exciting to have him as part of the bead circle. Hosting a bead party is a wonderful way to make a … Continue reading BeadforLife in New York Times
This month’s “More” magazine has a series of essays, by influential women authors, about the meaning of home. “A Wanderer’s Retreat” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni really speaks to me. Her writing is flavorful and evocative as chai. Her story about first loving her grandfather’s home, connecting with landscapes after his loss, then finally finding home in her own heart resonates with the wanderer in me and perhaps would even … Continue reading Some Thoughts on Home
Just another couple of days and I’ll be heading home from Vancouver. Didn’t want to leave the Olympic city without sharing this commercial with you. Over the course of the games, out of the corner of my eye, I kept joining this television ad in progress. I never quite grasped what it was about because I didn’t see it in its entirety until tonight. It … Continue reading Tim Horton’s Coffee Commercial
It’s hard to believe that the Olympics are almost at an end. It is already Day 15. Soon the closing ceremony will be here and the torch will be extinguished and it’s all over. Vancouver will be back to its old self with perhaps a wicked Olympic hangover. It happens every time a city returns to normal after being the center of the sporting universe. … Continue reading Olympic Moments
I was in a beer garden in Vancouver’s Yaletown when a guy draped in an American flag strutted in. He was carrying on like Superman, all layered up in red, white and blue and making lots of noise. Boy, did he rile up the Canadians. After all today is the Canada versus USA men’s hockey match and as friendly as we are with our neighbors to the north, this … Continue reading Hockey Night in Canada
Immediately after the opening ceremony people began to run. They hoofed it to the International Broadcast Centre to see the after party. Wayne Gretzky rode in a flatebed truck with the Olympic torch aloft to light an external flame outside the building. The crowd went wild, shouting “Gretzky, Gretzky, Gretzky.” Amazing to see how Canadians adore The Great One. A Shaun White look alike and his sidekicks led the crowd in the … Continue reading Gretzky Lights the Flame
My 16 year old son is mad at me. When I call home his anger is palpable. He does not understand why I leave home for extended periods of time every couple of years to work at the Olympics. He won’t listen when I try to explain so I’m putting it out to the world. Being part of a production team at the Olympics is, … Continue reading Why I Work at the Olympics
Vicky Collins Online 