And so did the Olympics come to the
Miramichi: In a veritable
shitstorm of chilly rain and blasted wind.
Reporters from the Leader and the Times and the Telegraph all braved the lousy weather to grab the pics of the runners and of the cauldron lighting ceremony at the high school in
Chatham.
Not me, though. No. See the pic below?
I took it from the media van.
The nice, big, shielded, toasty media van. It was pretty much just me and some guy from the Globe and Mail, along with the
VANOC folks with their cameras and suchlike. Only one from the paper to draw that metaphorical straw.
When we got through Newcastle, we rushed over to
Chatham, where the ceremony itself was being held at one of the high schools. Outside, in the freezing bloody rain, although the stage area was dry enough.
When we stopped there, I got out of the marvellously dry media van, and headed to the field. The guys from the Leader, Times and Telegraph were absolutely soaked to the skin, and freezing as all bloody hell. When I turned up, a faint sprinkling of cold drizzle in my hair and on my jacket, I could see the hatred burning like a frozen furnace in their eyes. I laughed. Then I went back to the media van to warm up.
My memory card was filling faster than a PEI
pogey line, but not to worry! With my spectacular super powers, I had looked into the future, and foresaw that would happen, so I got
meself a
brand
spanking
new
4gig card. When I ran out of room, I kept shooting and, soon, my
brand
spanking
new
card was filling with pics of Olympic
drenchedness. The whir of the shutter was my constant companion, until suddenly it was no more, because, you see, my
brand
spanking
new
4 gig card decided to crash on me.
Just crash. No reason. No jostling of the camera, no extreme temperatures, no water seeping in, just your regular, run-of-the-mill, totally fucking inexplicable memory card crash.
I was pissed. Luckily, a nearby freelancer lent me one of his spares, so I could keep shooting, right up until we got to the end of the bridge. Then they politely booted me out of the media van, along with the freelancer, so I trudged through the freezing drizzle to the nearby Tim's, waiting for pickup.
Ah. The magic of the Olympics.
A Llama. You know where I found this thing? In a barn in Black River Bridge, a rural community down the road from the city not far from the south shore of the bay.
On the right is a miniature Donkey. On the left, slightly smaller than a great dane, is a miniature horse. Lords alone know where he got those.
