olympics, day nine

Day Nine: Started the day out with photographer Chris at Bonneville Elementary School here in SLC, for the schools story linked below. Six Chinese figure skaters were there for an assembly. Chatted a bit with Zhao Hongbo, one of the bronze-medalist pair that finished behind everyone’s favorite Canadians. He’s clearly the guy in charge of the team: I tried asking questions of the other folks, but no matter who I asked, he’d do the answering.
Stayed much longer at Bonneville than I’d wanted, thanks to a hard-of-hearing cab dispatcher who sent our cab to Bountiful Elementary in Bountiful, Utah, half an hour and four towns away. Finally got back downtown in time to see the pairs gold medal press conference. Spent the day writing my schools story and doing more Mormon history research, including reading a really interesting master’s thesis on the hitherto unknown connections between Sam Houston and Joseph Smith.
Here at Media HQ, there are a bunch of volunteer massage therapists available to give free massages to us hunched-over journalist types. They also are available for the athletes, but it’s kind of silly — they’re available to us from noon to 10 p.m., but to the athletes from only 1 to 9 p.m. I know we writers are working hard, but I somehow suspect that jocks need massages more than we do. Anyway, after feeling a little bit guilty about the whole thing for the last week, I broke down and got a massage. Mmmmmmm. I could feel the evil spirits leaving my body. Closed the evening at the Denny’s near the hotel with Juliet, getting the standard awful service. It was the only place still open when we were done working, alas; the Apollo Burger, which has gotten good reviews from my colleagues and has a great name to boot, shut at 10.
Since I have to finish this Tuesday page 1 story today, there’ll be no story by me in tomorrow’s paper, which is an awful strange feeling. Not a bad feeling, mind you — just strange. But eagle-eyed readers will find a short biography of yours truly in the sports section, on page 2, I think. Please do not be alarmed by the photo, which should be burned in all its forms, digital or meatspace.