I'm a TOTAL whiner!!!!

okay - sometimes life just slaps you upside the head and says - Shut The F%@K Up - you are being a total whiner! Stop it!

Did you seen any of the paralympics? Or should I say the REAL Olympics?

Unfortunately the para-version was treated like some kinda stepchild, maybe because we have a culture, a media culture, that just doesn't like to deal with folks that are not American Idol-types, but the paralympics totally blow the other Olympics out of the water.

I'll be honest I heard these games were going on, but they weren't even a blip on my sporting radar. But then I flipped on Universal Sports to see if they were rerunning Milan SanRemo (of course they weren't) and I see these guys scooting around an ice rink on the arses and stare in stupefied amazement... "what?" Then realize HOLY S&@T! they have no legs, or only one leg, and then OMG this guy gets pasted from the side by another player in a sledge (see photo above) and dumped on his... well... umm? ... if he had one it would be his arse, but at that point I'm lost, I have no clue what I'm looking at - the guy has NO ANYTHING from the waist area down - my mouth is agape and once again I turn to Jenn and exclaim, "this is amazingly insane! These people have no bodies! What the hell are we watching?"

Jenn and I were watching the USA ice sledge hockey team competing in Vancouver BC - the same place all those other primadonnas performed and the media covered it like a group of star struck teenagers at their first rock concert. First of all, it's so amazing what these guys are doing that you sit there staring at the screen like a idiot, with you mouth open like Koi fish in disbelief - and then, EVERY single one of them is like THEEE story of the other 'lympics - ya know, those up close and personal bullshit stories that NBC tried to feed everyone - sorry, but these guys are the real deal. These athletes didn't just get injured and make a comeback, they ARE still injured - beyond what most of us ever face and then deal with it to go forward. What they have been through is so over the top astonishing it somehow doesn't seem possible - here's a couple - 'oh, he was hit by a train when 16 and lost his legs', or 'his mother lived in Chernobyl during 1986 and he was born without legs'. Then on top of that they learned to play this hockey and do it at this incredible level. Man, I have been such a total looser to whine about a little lung infection I've had over the last couple week!! All I want to do is get out on my bike and ride - ride until it hurts - and be thankful I have legs!

I'm still mystified about the paralympics - why are they so hidden? Why aren't we watching and celebrating with ten fold the excitement and fervor of those other 'lympics? Frankly, why do we even bother with those other 'lympics????

Oh, BTW, the USA ice hockey sledge team won the gold. Team USA did not surrender a goal in all five of its games at the tournament, outscoring its opponents, 19-0.