First official, second real Work Day

Lots of fresh snow high in the mountain,made it tough to install B-nets knwing about powder we were missing, but all for the good, molre snow for Michelle!

Men's downhill training starts in just 4 days, so lots of security work. For thoise new to all of this: 3 types of netting to put up: (1) A-Net: this is very high netting suspended from permanently installed pillars, to secure from the top. The bottom edge is held in place by"cookies": about 6x6 in flat plasrtic pieses with rope attached, frozen into/under the snow, with rope used to pull down on net. This by itself works well, but openings in netting is such that a skier can get got if he hits it, meaning part of him keeps going, the other stays behind. Not good if he wants to have children one day. So (2) there is an apron (Kitzbuel net) of plastic netting, much closer weave, that is attached tothe bottom of A-Net. This way the racer will not get caught. The apron is attached to the A-Net with dingleballs. See pic below. the black oop is strethy, it passes through both nettings, then back to the side it started and is looped over the ball. Yesterday, it was noticed they werer all installed backwqards, i.e. with tha ball on the side facing the racer, potentiual for more injury, wso we had to redo all of them. (3) B-Net, which is 2+ m high fencing held in place with polycarbonate poles drilles into the snow. For downhill, often double and triple layers to keep racers who fall from hitting trees, gulleys, etc.

In the picture below, you can see apron covering lower half of A-Net. Note metal post with cords coming down to support A-Net. We spent the morning making sure all the dingle balls were moved to proper side, that the Vancouver 2010 logo had snow eremoved so well visible, while across the hill the camera techs made sure camera angles were correct so logo easily visible when following racer down the course.

This morning, huge tent for breakfast, lots of good food for lunch bags.And right beside the coke  (Major Olympic sponsor) machine, the next most important thing: a charger for cell phone batteries, 15-20 minutes for full charge.

Best part of today was the evening. Michelle and I watched torch runner enter Whistler Village, then stood with thousands of people at base of mountain as torch was skied in by Steve Podborski. And earlier in the day, Michelle actuall got to carry the torch (the flame had been on, bt a gust of wind blew it out, note the darkened top part !!).