Olympic Hangover - Goodbye To the 5-ring Circus

Well, this mornings traffic on Hwy 1 was just as shitty as a month ago. Back to the same old same old of single passenger vehicles clogging up the road.

(full disclosure - we drive the HOV lane every day)

I heard on the radio they're being sold up here

Well, this mornings traffic on Hwy 1 was just as shitty as a month ago. Back to the same old same old of single passenger vehicles clogging up the road.

(full disclosure - we drive the HOV lane every day)

I don't know what you're talking about, it was smooth sailing on Highway 1 this morning, just like every morning.

Between Abbotsford and Chilliwack, that is.

I heard on the radio they're being sold up here

What about all those Norco bikes the police where using to pedal about on?

yup, that was a pretty amazing experience.
I was totally against the olympics up until the torch relay came through town and I saw what it meant to people on the street.
sure there was elitism, a big public price-tag and limited ticket availability for some major events, etc.
but there was also a lot of effort in making this accessible, relevant and local for the everyman.
oh yeah and we kicked ass.

my highlights are:
VECTORAL ELEVATION - those lights, even if they weren't olympic related, were the best and most beautiful thing that ever happened to our winter night sky. screw symphony of fire, bring those back for four weeks every February and give us something to cheer our dreary evenings.

Transit - Translink gave us tons of busses, dedicated lanes and seamless connections and waddya know? we all took the bus and traffic was minimal. Give us a real transit system and people will use it.

Pedestrian ways - as mentioned above, blocking off a few streets downtown for foot-traffic really made people connect. This needs to happen for Vancouver to become a "world-class" city.

Overall, this event demonstrated that Vancouver is hungry for big events that will bring us together. We are only no-funcouver because we have been brainwashed into thinking that serious day-to-day activities are the way to fly. hopefully the long-term change we see is the acceptance that letting the hair down once in a while has a huge cultural value for the citizens and visitors to our city.

Good bye Olympics, we will think of you fondly…

I heard on the radio they're being sold up here

GM is shipping 3300 of the 4600 vehicles back to the US:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gYdswczCm9ALIOYrJsRk_6RW7rvA

Apparently the volunteers can put in an order for a vehicle now if they want.

All I can say is:

Loved the Olympics, everything about it.

Miss it…saving money for 2014.

Best bits

Being mistaken for an athlete by this little six year old, when I was waiting at the bus stop with my skates after the short track event one night.

Seoung-il Kim letting me wear his silver medal (what a nice kid).

The soup they fed us, hmmmmmmm

Worst bits

Having an all you can ride bus pass, and being too busy to use it to shuttle up the mountain… :cry:

GM is shipping 3300 of the 4600 vehicles back to the US:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gYdswczCm9ALIOYrJsRk_6RW7rvA

Apparently the volunteers can put in an order for a vehicle now if they want.

Except for the 1.3 million vehicles GM is recalling for power steering failures. Oops!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gm_recall
Quite the coincidence this announcement wasn't made until after the olympics.
:)

man everytime i see an olympic related poster downtown i get all nostalgic now, didnt think i would get so attached to the whole thing.

hard to believe that yesterday was the one month anniversary of our gold in hockey too.

id be lying if i said i wasnt a bit sad that its all over, but i mainly feel this way when walkign throught he downtown core and surroundign areas, what was once a place buzzing with anticipation for a few months prior and then turned into a mad 24 hr festival for close to a month with unlimitied options for activities…..now seems like a dead ghosttown. I thought that the games would leave the city and its people feeling a bit more open since i struck many random conversations with people during the games, but now it seems worse than before, but im sure it was wishful thinking on my behalf.

hopefully the auto show this week will bring back a bit of buzz cause im not digging this post-olympic lameness