It's literally 30 miles down the road from me. The one thing that got me to thinking was this: There was an exhibit jointly put on by the Utah Children's Museum and NASA... it showed some awesome animated rendering of the Earth as you zoomed in from orbit, all the way down to the Medals Plaza in Salt Lake City, then out, then into PArk City, etc... They did the whole thing in Maya, based on real satellite photos. It was the first time I looked at something that awesome and thought "Damn - I think I can make something like that!" (;course, I need Maya to do it, but... they did mention a Personal Learning Edition free for the download.) I asked the presenter where they made it, and though he wasn't sure, he did mention Goddard Space Center - I'll see what I can turn up, research-wise. Oh yeah, the speed skating was cool, and the medals ceremony was pretty cool, 'cept for that sucky band my wife like so much (n'sync) playing a few songs at the end. I was close enough to the stage to worry 'em (I was prolly the only one up front who wasn't dncing and jumping around :) /P

how so cool of you, I am jelous, someday I will go to the Olympics, just love to watch those great athletes. Sharen

How much does a day at the Olympics cost, may I ask?

Too damned much :/ Most of it was free - You can wander around most of it without paying a dime. The medals ceremony, general admission, cost us $200 for the tickets ($100 each), which the wife bought from a co-worker who couldn't make it. Normally they ran about $150-$200 apiece, depending on where you sat/stood. The speed skating events cost me about $500 for both tickets, which was a steal compared to what they normally go for (the seats we got were originally being auctioned by SLOC for $2,000 each... I was damned lucky to find those particular seats) SLOC (Oh, BTW: SLOC = "Salt Lake Olympic Committee") was hurting for audiences, so they started offering deep last-minute discounts to cops, firemen, doctors, nurses (where the missus comes in), teachers (like me), and their families. All in all, tickets were $700 total to get us to both events, and we got to see the Women's speed-skating; Canada took Bronze, Holland got Silver, and Germany got gold (the German skater would've made one Hell of a nice Poser character, though her facial structure would've been more suited to P4 than Vicky :) Having the tickets did have a huge advantage, though - the free entrances in downtown SLC had a two-to-three hour wait @ 5pm (to get through security - we had just come back from the speed-skate events by then), whereas the ticketed entries only meant a 25-minute wait, tops. /P

I would have to do the wondering around for free....yep that would still be cool. Sharen PS: so you live in Utah....what a beautiful part of the US, love your mountains.

Hey!! Was it you that threw the stone at the British bobsleigh.. causing us to finish in 736th place, instead of our normal expected 1st. (He he.. we're such experts.. some years we have almost 4" of snow!!)

All the best, Gerald.

They are cool to go see. The 88 olympics here in Calgary were alot of fun. Not as expencive as there,probably differentdue to years. I saw a couple of hockey game, and as many of the exebitions as possable, as much beer as possable, we never raised the priceof beer. The city was just nuts for 2 weeks, but not much different from the Calgary Stampede held every year. Glad to hear someone had a good time there. Tashar 59

Yeah but we did win the curling event, Gerald. Comes as a bit of a shock when that happens. Radio 4 the other day, " and New Zealand are doing a great job at defeating England at cricket...." Hey Ho....