This is the re-posting of an essay that was originally published right after the Winter Olympics of 2018 in South Korea. What’s my main reason for re-posting this? Because I’m planning on doing the exact same instant result knowledge all over again with the up-coming Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Internet is indeed an amazing tool for accessing information, ain’t it?

I’m torn about watching the Olympics in Beijing. Primarily because on a certain level I’m sub-consciously supporting the atrocious human rights record of the Chinese government.

On the other hand, I’m a huge Olympic viewer. From that perspective, I’m really looking forward to watching the games. None of this Tape Delay bullshit though.

Word Count: 1023

Viewing Your Fantasy

 As it “Sort of” Happens

So far, watching the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics has been this strange, other worldly experience. As usual I’m totally enjoying the events, and just in the past week I’m finding myself looking forward to each day with this giddy sense of anticipation not unlike that of your typical teenager getting ready to sneak out of the house to attend a rager. Additionally, I’m not looking forward to the withdrawal symptoms that’ll inevitably kick in two weeks from now when it’s all over with.

The weird thing about this year’s edition? The obsession I previously had with keeping tabs on the latest Olympic highlights (2/21/14 website essay) has taken a new, totally unprecedented, level of wanting to know the results of an event as it happens (immediately).

Part of this has to do with the time gap.  South Korea is almost as far away as one can get from Colorado, and the time difference is sixteen hours. Basically, an entire day in most cases; when you’re just crawling out of bed in the morning, on the other side of the globe the clock is ticking down to the end of the day. Mid-afternoon over here in Colorado, everybody on the opposite end of the rock is fast asleep. Confusing? Of  course it is, and its forced me to modify the best times for going on the web to check results. In case you’re wondering, I’m one of those types who prefers to know the final results long before the event ever gets broadcast on network television here in the states. Tape delay viewing of a sporting contest without knowing the final tabulation before you start watching the event? Give me a break. Life’s too short in this instance.

This brings up another time clock adventure I undertook thirty-five years ago while working as a PCV in Kenya. In February of ’83, myself, and two of my forestry buddies undertook a walking trek through the Chalbi Desert in the northern part of Kenya. Hiring two local guides to lead us, and using their camels to carry our backpacks as we walked from North Horr to the eastern shore of Lake Turkana. Certain events happened during the trip, and some of them really stand out.

The first of these was the fact that it was unbelievably hot during the trek. Not unlike one having to function inside a blast furnace. During a large majority of the trip as I recall. We got around this by doing the trek in stages. Waking up in the morning at 4:00 am, packing everything up, and walking till 8:00 am when we reached our oasis stop for the day. Hanging out during the heat of the day, and then loading everything back up at 4:00 pm and walking to the next set of trees. This usually meant stumbling in the dark till 7:00 or 8:00 that night.

Made for a strange zombie-like five-day trek consisting of all sorts of odd parts. We looked like zombies too I’m sure.

The camels that carried our stuff were notable for their obstinacy, spit-in-your-face refusal to get moving when you were getting ready to begin walking, Their body smell was worse than a living next to a sewer plant, and overall prima donna attitude (am I being too anthropomorphic in this case?-no). This was not a “take your breath away,” memory of the trip. More like a, “gag me with a spoon” memory.

Another memory that stands out, during the course of our trek my buddies and I carried out an endless string of “Hearts” card games. One of them claims I never won a single match. Just as an aside, since he doesn’t have any documented evidence to substantiate his claims, I content this never took place.

Once we’d reached the shores of Lake Turkana, a hasty decision to wash six days of accumulated dirt off had us wading up to our waist in the water. Then one of my buddies noted that he’d read somewhere that Lake Turkana had crocodiles in it (another adventure with the clock). Thus, necessitating a quick exit of the lake. Since you’re reading this and I still have all my digits, I guess I survived.

How does this adventure relate to the Winter Olympics? That’s an easy one actually. At the end of the trek when we were riding back to Nairobi on a country bus, an afternoon lay-over in the dusty little town of Baragoi had me walking down the street to a newsstand and purchasing the most recent editions of “Newsweek” & “Time” magazines. Both periodicals contained stories and accompanying photos of the 1983 Winter Olympic events in Sarajevo, (former country of Yugoslavia). Why does this stand out so much? All those years ago, I read the articles and thought to myself that it might’ve been nice to learn about the results right as they were happening, instead of a week after the actual contest took place. It was unbelievably hot that afternoon too, so the thought of experiencing a little bit of all that snow and ice the competitors were blazing through half a world away, might be very nice at that exact moment.

I’ve kind of figured out a way to keep tabs on things as they happen on the other side of the globe. If an event takes place during the day over in Korea, it gets broadcast over here the next night. Nothing like watching a daytime sporting event on TV the 15 hours later and knowing that technically, the NBC intelligentsia calls this a “live” broadcast. In a strange sort of way, it actually is.

Events that take place at night over there, I can log onto the Internetearly in the morning over here. Just so I can find out what the results are. Whichever way I find out the final outcome, it still has that same fantasy-like feeling to it as the events that transpired thirty-five years ago during the camel trip in northern Kenya. Tape Delayed life has a way of doing that to a person.