BLOG SHUT DOWN

I just want to apologize to the people that were following my blog...once I got to China my blog was shut down and blocked by security people in China. They somehow put a block on my blog so that I could not make any posts during the games. This was a problem with a lot of people that had blogs.
But anyways my time in china was bitter sweet. The bitter part was the fact that I feel short of my goals of swimming best times and medaling. Instead I swam average swims and found myself having a hard time finishing races...perhaps due to the minimal amount of training that I had following my appendicitis and surgery but I'm not going to make excuses. The sweet part was the fact that I swam in the water cube in front of 14,000 spectators and my parents, brother and cousin and his wife. The most people that I have ever had the pleasure of competing in front of.
In the morning of the 100 butterfly I wore an blue 70 and in the ready room before my race the suit ripped in two places as I was stretching before my race...not the best way to start the meet. The entire race I was thinking about my suit and not the race my turn suffered from this mental block. The result was that I swam .50 of a second slower than my best time and made finals in 8th place beating out the 9th place person by .06 of a second. I ended up swimming the same time in finals and remained in 8th place.
The 100 free went about the same, as I swam a mediocre time at about .30 slower than my best and missing finals. In the 400 free I was able to drop 2 seconds off of my best time placing ninth and missing finals by only hundredths of a second. Then in the 50, my worst event, I was able to improve my time by a couple hundredths but missed finals. So as the meet moved on, my swims gradually got better.
I also competed on both the 400 free and medley relays which we set american records on both relays but still falling short of the medal stand.
All in all the memories that I take away from my competitions themselves are not the best but looking back I am fortunate that I can say that I competed in the 08 paralympics and that I gave it 100% in the water cube while representing my country in front of 14,000.
Thanks to everyone that has followed my blog and supported me through my travels to japan and china!! and sorry again that my blog was shut down.

WATER CUBE!!!!!!!!!

I DON'T HAVE A VOCABULARY TO DESCRIBE THE FEELING YOU GET WHEN YOUR WITHIN A BLOCK OF THIS VENUE, LET ALONE NEXT TO IT OR INSIDE IT!! AS we approach the water cube, everyone on our buses jaw was dropped at the size and structure of it. We had to take a minute to stare before even taking pictures of it. And on top of this across the street was a building that had tv screens that were monstrous, not just one but several. i would say that the biggest one was probably 6-8 stories high and probably the same width. As we got out of the bus and walked along side the mote that surrounds the outside of the cube everyone was still at a loss of words. Even though we did not have training time in the competition pool, just the warm up pool, we all walked in to see what it looked like. It looked like a college football stadium. The size of the building makes the pool look like a 25 meter pool rather than a 50 meter pool. The stands that i counted are very steep and go up the the ceiling. The pool itself holds 14,000 people which is expected to be sold out!!! Everything about the facility is first class, a swimmers paradise for sure.
After we practiced it was dark out and the cube was lite up on the outside. Just when i thought that i had seen it all, they added this amazing light show to top it. The entire shell of the cube alternates colors starting with blue to purple to red. Next to the cube is the birds nest which is also lite up and looking amazing. After taking a look at the birds nest, i decided i would have to be mental to not attend opening ceremonies there. I can't wait until tomorrow when we get to train in the competition pool!!

To beijing

Tuesday morning we woke up early to get a practice in before departing to beijing. As we were taxiing on the runway F-15's were taking off before us and practicing touch and go's, one last chance to experience the power of the F-15's. The entire flight line crew lined up and soluted our plane as we taxied the runway as a final goodbye.
Finally arriving in Beijing, as we exited the plane we were happily received by Chinese paparazzi and dozens of photographers taking pictures of us. Then again we were photographed when we passed through the immigrations. We got to our bus and started the 30 minute drive to the village. You could tell that we were getting close to the village when you began seeing Chinese military standing every 20 meters from each other along the chain linked fence as security for the games. Very impressive as they stand their for hours on end without moving . I got a picture of one of them as we passed through the gate into the village bus parking area. He saw me taking the picture and actually smiled a little bit, everyone on the bus joked that he was going to get fired for smiling.
The village here is 10 times nicer than the one in athens. The rooms are bigger and the bathrooms have a 5 star hotel feel to them. They even have full grown trees and ponds that all make for a calming atmosphere. As you walk around the village you see different countries interacting with each other and trading pins, my favorite thing to do. After we dumped our stuff off at our rooms it was off to the water cube for practice. this needs its own blog...

long time...no blog

hey everyone, we were having alot of trouble getting online in okinawa because of the wi-fi connection. ill try to write a little bit about what happened each day.
Saturday- Our bus driver who works on with large trucks and hum v's took us to the hum v yard to go for a spin. AMAZING! he dressed us up with the whole nine yards, ammo hats and vests so that we could get the feel for what it really feels like to ride in the desert. The vests were 30 to 50 lbs each and i posed for some g.i joe pictures. Then we had the option to go to one of the beaches on okinawa and hang out but i decided to stay back and rest.

Sunday-We were finally aloud to go off base with our sponsors for 6 hours. I joined up with some people and we got a bus and traveled an hour to a pineapple plantation, which had everything pineapple that you could imagine and more. it was seriously like bubba gump shrimp from the movie forrest gump, because there were rooms filled with pineapple product for us to try. To bad i am here for a meet because they had pineapple wines that I guess are the main attraction.
Then we went to one of the worlds largest aquarium. This aquarium had tanks so massive that they could comfortably hold whales and massive manta rays. i got some great pictures and video to show .
Then after this we went to the famous sushi restaurant on okinawa where several celebrities have been and had their picture taken with the head sushi chef there, so we did the same thing. For the picture the sushi chef brings out a samurai sword and poses in front of you with it, kind of intimidating but made for a sweet picture.

Monday-after the night practice we got dressed up for the fairwell dinner that the base was putting on for us. This was a classy formal dinner that we all dressed up in the same uniform for. All of our sponsors and other important people on base accompanied us to the dinner to experience the Japanese isa dancers put on a 20 minute show during dinner. They also had the japanese dragon dancing around the room. The dinner and afterwards the paralymic track and swimming team presented about 20 framed posters that we had signed to show our appreciation of all the hard work that the base had graciously done on our behalf.