Olympic memories

The other day, my friend Brian asked a bunch of us whether we cheered more for the winter Olympics or the summer Olympics ...To Brian's complete surprise we all answered: the winter Olympics. (Course, he's a huge volleyball fan, so it's no surprise he's a close summer games watcher.)

Ask me about the summer Olympics and it's hard for me to come up with anything outside of the Dream Team in Barcelona in 1992, and some vague memories of the Atlanta games in '96 (I was too busy enjoying one of the greatest summers of my life, I guess ...).

But the winter games...

That conjures up memories of watching the '84 games on a tiny black and white TV set that sat on a chair in the corner of our dining room during supper ...

I remember the '88 games in Calgary, and Dan Jansen and Bonnie Blair, Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas, Brian Boitano and Brian Orser, my mom video taping virtually every classic minute ... (and that instrumental Olympic theme that I fell in love with the moment I heard it for the first time, and have since burned on to a CD.)

I remember the '98 games and Tara Lipinski ...

I remember the amazing Salt Lake games of 2002, with Apolo Anton Ono and Jamie Sale and David Pelletier and, of course, Sarah Huges, which might stand, arguably, as my favorite Olympic moment of all time ...

So let the memories of 2006 begin. My favorite images from tonight's opening ceremony (although the heart configuration is pictured below, I couldn't find a shot of my most favorite moment of the night -- when all the human artists formed a skier AND moved as if the skier was actually in motion! VERY cool...)