First of all, let me say that I am a HUGE 2010 Olympics supporter. I love the Olympics. I’m stoked that they are coming to Vancouver. I’m excited about the infrastructure the city is finally getting that it has needed for a long time. I’ve been a proud Canadian my whole life and I’ve never been so proud as a West Coast girl before to have the world see our beautiful city, our spectacular mountains and ocean… and watch Canadians compete in my favourite sports.

Now, I’m very much aware that I wouldn’t be writing this post if I got tickets. I would be writing about how much I love the Olympic ticketing system. So yes — this post is entirely hypocritical, bitter, and jealous. Don’t say I didn’t warn you

I don’t need to explain that I’m a huge hockey fan. You all know that. As for the Olympics — I’ve been watching the Olympics for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been mesmerized by the skiers, and then the snowboarders when boarding got introduced in 1998 in Nagano, Japan (despite the Ross R. debacle). I went to GM Place during the 2002 Olympics and cried and sang the National Anthem along with the rest of the crowd as the seconds ticked down and the Canadian Men’s Hockey team won their much deserved Gold Medal. I cried when I found out that the Olympics were coming to Vancouver. I signed up to the 2010 mailing list as soon as the website went live. I watched the days and seconds count down eagerly every single day as we drove by that overpriced Olympic clock at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I even convinced my boss to bring stuffed Olympic mascots with us as presents for our coworkers-hosts in Korea. I marked the day tickets went on sale on my calendar as soon as I found out and set my phone, Blackberry, and computer alarms to remind me not to miss it. I signed on and dutifully bought my tickets just like everyone else in Canada. And then I waited with baited breath every day, checking my credit cards and hoping I got a pair of tickets to the Gold Medal Hockey game.

So I couldn’t help but be disappointed today when I find out that all tickets in the lottery had been allocated and my ticket request was not fulfilled. My heart sank and I teared up at work. I was so upset. I should have known, and I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up… but I thought that somewhere out there I’d get a lucky break.

Meanwhile, I hear on the radio about people who maxed out their ticket requests and requested 40 tickets. I log onto eBay and Craigslist and see people trying to sell their tickets right away. No surprise there. So I e-mail someone on Craigslist and he tells me he wants $7500 for each ticket. I replied saying that was unfair, and he responded by saying, “Well, I have the chance to pay back $30-50k on my mortgage, wouldn’t you?”.

Wow.

I don’t know whether I’m more upset or jealous. There will be some lucky people making enough money to pay for a new car or pay off all their debt. But there are also thousands and thousands of people out there, like me, who just wanted to go to the game. We didn’t want to sell our tickets. We just wanted to proudly cheer on our Canadian boys and have a memory to last a lifetime. Couldn’t they have capped it at 2 per person? Or made it so the tickets weren’t resaleable somehow?

*sigh*

Well such is life. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. If you got tickets out there, I’m really happy for you! And jealous! I hope you keep them and go partake in history. I’m hoping I can find some out there for a reasonable price.

Life goes on. If I can’t get tickets, i will DEFINITELY be glued to my TV watching all of our amazing Canadian athletes compete in possibly the most meaningful sporting event of all time — at least to me.

Did any lucky buggers get tickets?

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On another note, tomorrow night I start my long-anticipated AST-1 Avalanche course. It’s just an evening theory 3 hour classroom course to start, but then the following weekend we’ll do 2 field days (Seymour and then Whistler) for a total of 21 hours of instruction! We will be learning about technical snowpack, terrain observation skills, rescue techniques, and safe route finding skills. We’ll also learn how to use essential avalanche equipment. I’m so excited! I’ll definitely have videos and photos from the field days the following weekend to post and I’m sure it will be an experience to remember.

It’s Friday, it’s the end of a crazy week at work for me. And it turns out my work trip is getting moved back up, so I’ll be leaving for Korea and Japan in 12 days.  Wow, lots of preparation to do.

Photo from GoProCamera.com

A quick update to yesterday’s post. I ordered my GoPro camera from NeedfulToyz.com, and received a surprising e-mail in my inbox today. Kimberly from NeedfulToyz let me know that she could possibly make it work to ship me the Helmet cam before my surfing trip next weekend. I have never received this level of customer support and professionalism from anyone before. She actually e-mailed me to tell me that if I order another version of the GoPro 5, then she can ship it to me before Tofino. AND, she’s going to exchange my parts with another customer’s parts (who happens to live nearby), and give him the parts that mine was going to have, and get the parts that he had, which are the parts I need. (He has the Helmet cam and I am getting the Motorsports one, and Kimberly is going to swap the mounting systems so that we both get the one we want). Wow! Talk about an amazing level of service. I would definitely order from them again and I highly recommend them. So hurray! I’ll get my camera before the trip if all goes well. Thanks Kimberly!

© VANOC/COVAN

Now, I probably shouldn’t be writing about this, but the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic tickets went on sale today. I really don’t want anyone to buy tickets because I want the best chance at ‘em, but hey, I guess I’ll share . It’s a lottery system, so it doesn’t matter whether you order today, or on the last day November 7th. They’re all selling Olympic Experience Packages (OEP) which increase your chance of getting the tickets that you want. I’m going to hold off, because although I want hockey tickets, I’m not sure I’m prepared to pay the $1100+ for the OEP, and even the single session hockey tickets seem expensive. Not to mention you’re buying a year in advance. But still… if you want tix for the Olympics, make sure you order within today and November 7th.

Photo Credit: Canucks.com

In other FANTASTIC news, the Canucks are offering HD Pay-Per-View this year. This is the first year ever that they have offered in HD, after angry fans (including myself) complained about paying good money for a PPV game that is actually worse quality than standard TV. Well, this year, Vancouver Canucks fan everywhere with HDTVs can rejoice, because PPV is HD this year. w00t! There’s an additional cost though — regular SD PPV games will be $12.95 and HD PPV will be $15.95. I can’t resist; I’m in!

And lastly, I want to quickly talk about some features of my blog. Some of you may have noticed the fancy little avatars/pictures beside our names in the comments. To get one, simply go to Gravatar.com. The Gravatar will work with most major blogs (WordPress, Blogger, etc), and all you need to do is use the same e-mail in the comments. Easy! Also, you may have noticed the new image upload feature for the comments. I’ve had a few people request this. So if you want to post your snowboard or any other image, just click “Browse” to select a photo from your computer and upload it. Don’t abuse it. Or else

By the way, if you’re interested in keeping track of my blog, or anyone else’s blog for that matter, I highly recommend Bloglines. It’s a great way to subscribe to RSS feeds and see all relevant posts!