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For those of you not in Chicago, you can catch
the opening ceremonies
Streaming live on NBC5.
l
 What
a treat it was to turn around at the media
registration and be met by the late Tom
Waddell's wife and daughter, Sarah and
Jessica
(at right, in green). Jessica, 22, has been
working with media registration at the Gay Games
since June 1. She graduated from UC-Santa Cruz
this past spring and moved to Chicago to help
with the Games and live somewhere outside of
California, where she has lived all her life.
This is Jessica's
fifth Gay Games. The only two she has missed
have been 1982, when she wasn't even born yet,
and 2002, because she had just started school
and the Games were during the school year in
November.
She's too busy
working the event to compete this year, but she
hopes to compete in her first Gay Games in 2010
in Cologne. This is the first Games that her mom
is not participating in; she has been a fixture
to bowling in the past and an injury is keeping
her from the lanes this time around.
After the Games
are closed, Jessica is thinking about staying
Chicago. "In its essence, it's very home-like,"
she says.
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My first introduction to Chicago was the pilot
on my American Airlines flight telling us that
the week ahead will be a "scorcher." Yikes. My
next introduction was chasing my bags in baggage
claim for 45 minutes, and finding them sitting
on the carousel of Baggage Claim 6 instead of
Baggage Claim 8, where they were supposed to be.
The third part of
the introduction was quite nice. While I was
huffing and puffing as I stormed around baggage
claim, Benjamin from Ft. Lauderdale, here
playing volleyball, struck up a quick hello with
me. It was just what I needed, reminding me that
I have some incredibly fun times ahead. - CZ
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A warning to
those of you driving: Watch out for hidden stop
signs and traffic lights. Suburban Chicago, as I
found out twice tonight, is decorated with stop
signs sitting behind trees and stop lights that
are practically around the block. - CZ
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Some of you
may remember
Chuck Martin
from our Games coverage in Sydney four years
ago. He's back with this report on his first day
in Chicago:
Muggy. Sticky.
Practically unbearable. These are just a few of
the ways to describe how these Chicago July days
hit you when you step off a train or walk out
the door. And it's supposed to get even worse.
Four years ago,
Sydney was in the midst of a severe drought, and
temperatures were similar to Chicago now: the
mid to upper 90s. But here, it's also very
humid, which means you can be wet before you
walk a block.
Add that to the
scattered showers and thunderstorms, and I
discovered that this combination will affect
athletes who are competing outdoors on non-grass
surfaces in a interesting--and not good--way.
I went out to the
track and field venue today with some of
my team to do a little stretching and a bit of a
workout. The track surface was wet, thanks to
earlier showers. Even though it was mostly
cloudy, the sun was evaporating the water on the
track, water that wasn't standing puddle-like
water, just making the surface wet. This
evaporation created invisible areas of warm,
super-saturated, rising air over the track
surface, and running through those areas was not
pleasant.
Tennis is
the other sport that may be affected by this
phenomenon. And it will get worse before it gets
better: The high temperature for Monday in
Chicago is predicted to be 98 degrees.
Meanwhile,
someone apparently familiar with the area
described the neighborhood of the track & field
venue as "gang banger turf," warning that a
convenience store just a couple of blocks east
should be avoided if crowds of youth are seen
around.
Registration today seemed to go quite smoothly.
Late in the day, I saw just short lines that
moved quickly. From what I have observed so far,
the many volunteers are well-trained and
efficient. Big props to all the volunteers for
their dedication and hard work. (That said,
Saturday will be the true test.)
- Chuck Martin
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