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Bill Demong is 30 years old and has appeared in four Olympics. The fact that he has continued in an event that rarely gets noticed is only part of the story.

He had never won a medal in Olympic competition.

On Thursday Bill won the Gold Medal in the large hill Nordic combined.

He is the first American to ever win a gold medal in a Nordic combined event.

NORDIC combined events are dominated by Norway, Sweden and those other cold places east of New York.

It can be announced now that the United States is officially competitive in the Nordic events....except of course for ski jumping.

BILL DEMONG

JOHNNY SPILLANE

TODD LODWICK

BRETT COMEROTA

A TEAM FOR THE AGES

in an event that nobody cared about before now. Hopefully they will get to do the talk show circuit and be able to enjoy the rewards of having worked extremely hard for many many years.

Maybe they could do a song on American Idol.

"Climb every mountain.....

Michael Timothy McAlevey

If you ever had a mom

This is easily one of the most emotional moments I've ever witnessed in sport.

The Joannie Rochette story reaches deep into the heart and soul of every human being who has had a mom or a dad or a husband or a wife or a lover or a brother or a sister or a son or a daughter or a very close friend who had one of the above. Some people are lucky enough to have had them all.

Emotional is the absolute best word to describe the performance of Joannie during last night's Olympic figure skating short program.

I'm assuming that you are well aware of what she has gone through in the last five days.

When one thinks about the commitment from family members regarding the success of an ice skater then one can really feel the sorrow watching Ms. Rochette skate last night. I have no idea about her spiritual beliefs but I trust that she took every jump knowing that her mom was not going to let her fall or stumble.

The few shots of her father in the audience were just as emotional.

And please note that I fell asleep before her skate and my tears flowed during a DVR session early this morning. I can't even imagine how drained the audience was after she finished.

And she skates again on Thursday night but I'm sure it won't be quite as emotional.....unless she does a triple quad....or a spin that levitates her off the ice.

The ultimate would be if everybody else fell down and she ended up winning the gold.

I'm pretty sure Kim Yu Na isn't going to let that happen but stranger things have taken place during an Olympic event.

Just ask Sven Kramer the Dutch speedskater.

Talk about bad coaching.....ouch!

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Virtue and beauty equals gold every time

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the Ice Dance competition and fans of beautiful faces got our fix.

Between Tanith, Meryl and Tessa we got to see the beauty queens of the Olympics but when your last name is Virtue and you look like that, you probably have to fall down and get a bloody nose to lose.

It didn't happen and she is Gold.

I personally think Tanith and Ben should have been on the podium but the Russians would have had a stroke if they had finished fourth.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White will win a Gold Medal someday if they stay together.

She is like a Disney character with her grace and high pitched voice.

A night of less crashing and burning and a lot more beauty.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

A Trifecta for Bode

And now we can add a Gold to the Miller legacy...and an end to all the crap he took in Torino.

He is officially the King of United States Alpine Skiing and we will be hard pressed to see anything like him for quite awhile.

The dude abides!

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Mo for Bode and the new kid gets one

Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won the Super G today but Bode got the Silver and ANDREW WEIBRECHT from Lake Placid NY won the Bronze.

The fact that Svindal can levitate ( as he demonstrates in the photo) has to be taken into consideration.

The United States skiers and snowboarders are ripping up the Olympics and there's still more to come.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Evan's work ethic pays off and Johnny gets robbed

Evan Lysacek beat the defending champ Evgeni Plushenko by a very narrow margin

and the next few days will be filled with QUAD debaters. Should a male win the gold

without doing a Quad?

I think if we replay both skaters it will be easier to determine the tiny flaws. I don't have an opinion on the Quad issue because I look for the entire program being as clean as possible.

Evan just looks cooler on the ice......and that's all I got on that matter.

Johnny Weir finished sixth and the fact that he didn't move up after his performance is simply a raw deal.

Plushenko said yesterday that he would be happy with any color medal so we shouldn't feel too bad for the ruskie.

There hasn't been any talk about Evan and Tanith Belbin dating so maybe that cooled down.

I'm sure we will find out in the next few days.

I know you can't wait to find out more about the love life of Evan and Tanith.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Shaun, Shani, Lindsay....Julia and Chad

Big day for hard workers.

Julia Mancuso might have been the biggest surprise by finishing second in the downhill. She won the gold medal in the Giant Slalom at the 2006 Torino Olympics, but wasn't expected to medal in the downhill in Vancouver. Chad Hedrick quietly won his fourth Olympic medal by finishing third in the 1000 meter speedskating.

The other three athletes would have been considered unsuccessful with a silver or bronze medal.

Shani Davis is the first American to win back to back gold in the 1000 meter speedskating event.

Watching Lindsay Vonn cry in her husband's arms was worth the price of admission. The fact that they had it miked was a huge bonus for all of us sappy viewers.

Shaun White seems to be in his own league.....and it has huge air and hair.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Torino is history

After failing to get a medal four years ago in Italy BODE MILLER finished 3rd in the Downhill.

He lost the gold by 9 1/100 of a second and the silver by 2 1/100 of a sec.

Bode takes more flack than any skier in history and he just happens to be the greatest alpine skier that America has ever produced. The record speaks for itself. His wins on the World Cup circuit are legendary.

The coverage of the downhill competition was horrible. NBC showed 7 skiers out of the 64 entrants. The very least they could have done was show each American's run. They showed 2 of the four.

I simply can't figure out why they don't televise certain competitions live and then do a replay later. Considering that the downhill is a two and one half hour event and NBC showed us 15 minutes speaks volumes for the poor coverage.

But it's still the Olympics and it's the only game in town.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

75 Years of Work

For an American to win a medal in Nordic Combined is the culmination of 75 years of work.

Mickey Spillane's grandson won a silver medal in the grueling event where a person has to ski, shoot a rifle, launch off a ski jump, compete in figure skating, free fall off a mountain and then complete a cross country course while eating a large size pepperoni pizza.

Ok, maybe not all that stuff...but even two seems rather hard.

Of course I have no idea if Johnny Spillane is related to Mickey but it sure sounds good.

Americans finished 2nd, 4th and 6th and although there was no gold this might turn out to be one of the greatest achievements at the Vancouver Olympics for the United States team.

A tremendous accomplishment.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

GOLD and more medals

Hannah Kearney has the honor of winning the first Gold Medal for the United States.

Her event is Moguls and I can't imagine what her knees will look like in a few years.

Apollo Ono, the famous dancer, became the first man in Winter Olympic history to win six total medals with a second place finish in the 1500 meter short track speed skating event. One more medal and he becomes the only person in history with seven.

The dancing gods were definitely on his side in the finals.

The Luge has been slightly reduced in distance and thus speeds will be a little less.....from 92 to 90. It's still an insane event and the only thing weirder would be doing it face first....

.....oh yeah I forget, that's later in the week.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Nodar Kumaritashvili

So sad and so tragic but.........

The Luge is insane and everybody knows it including the daredevils that do it.

Nodar Kumaritashvili might be the first Olympic athlete to die in a practice run.....

He might be the first Olympic athlete to die other than by the hands of terrorists.

There are some media people saying the Luge should be eliminated.

Three teachers were shot today at an Alabama college and nobody is saying that education should be halted.

This a horrible start to the Vancouver Olympics.....but once again the Luge is insane.

My guess is that the ratings for the Luge will increase by a 1000%.

A sign of the times.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Eyes to the north

Mike Martin created this LOGO

The opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics is on Friday February 12 and it takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia. The skiing takes place in Whistler and there is currently a problem with lack of snow. Hopefully over the next 24 hours a snow storm will roll in and save the day.

Those of us on the West Coast get screwed once more by the broadcasting agenda. All the main events will be delayed three hours for us. The East Coast gets them live.

The reasoning behind this is because the viewing public for the Olympics is much larger on the West Coast....and NBC has stated that West Coast viewers want Prime Time viewing instead of live viewing.

Of course my reaction is

BULLSHIT

I now have to play the avoidance game.

I have to avoid results that get reported by radio and television if I want to have the optimum Olympic experience.

I absolutely love the Olympic experience. I'm fairly certain it's my favorite sporting venue except for having watched my son play baseball and my daughter ice-skate.

Of course the Dodgers in the World Series might at the top of the list, but that doesn't happen often enough to get excited. 1988 is a long time ago.

The Olympics happen every two years thanks to the Olympic committee that decided about 12 years ago to split the summer and winter games.

Each one of the athletes participating in the Winter Games has worked their asses off for the chance to compete. One little tiny mistake and no medal. One little bigger mistake and their bodies can be splattered all over the snow or ice.

I was watching a replay of Shawn White's accident a few weeks ago on the Half-Pipe, and I'm stunned that he's ok. He actually won the event on his next run. If you haven't seen the video YouTube it. You will appreciate the fact that he's still alive, let alone competing for a Gold Medal.

I can start to feel the tension in the cold northern landscape of Vancouver. I can hear the wind blowing off the Pacific Ocean and landing in the Coast Mountains. I actually think that those are part of the Rocky Mountains but they've somehow obtained their own name.

We share the Rocky Mountains with Canada...along with a million other things. Our neighbors to the north are more than just neighbors. We share a love of freedom and a passion for outdoor activities.

I look forward to learning a lot more about Western Canada over the next two weeks.

I was in Vancouver about ten years ago and have always said that I think it's the prettiest city in the western hemisphere. The location is stunning and the city has been constructed with a passion for design.

I've actually never meant a Canadian that I didn't like....but that's just me...hey!

Hopefully Mother Nature will answer all climate prayers and snow will arrive just in a nick of time. Of course man-made snow will work but it would be nicer if the real "stuff" started falling.

My eyes will be turned to the north for the next few weeks and I will keep a running journal on how many times these baby blues start to moisten up.

I'm predicting 10 times....and hoping for 20.

Let the games begin.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Lay off the legends

There seems to be a lot of complaining about The Who.......

It's a hostile world when legendary music icons get blasted for aging.

Not only were they quite entertaining, for the 12 minutes, but the stage was a remarkable layout of futuristic LED lights.

It is remarkable to think that younger generations only know The Who from CSI intro's.

I guess next year Led Zeppelin can reunite and take some flak.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Big Game

PICTURE ALBUM View an expansive collection of Hubble images: planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies and more. Picture Album spreads the universe out before you in all its dazzling complexity.

Figured you might like to spend a little time on a much bigger game....but then again

like lots of things

I

might

have

figured

wrong.

Batter up!

By the way, this is a great day to go to the zoo.

Who is playing at halftime and that is worth the price of admission.

It's about time they played to an audience of 2 Billion.

"No one knows what's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man behind

blue eyes"

If they want everybody to dance they will play that silly Squeeze Box song.

"Momma's got a squeeze box she wears on her chest....daddy comes home he never gets no rest...playing all night......"

Dance MF dance.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

TWO REALITIES

The fact that he's been gone longer than he was here is an absolute physical reality.

Today marks 16 years since that horrible day in Feb of 1994

Physically he would have been 16 on April 25, 1994.

And once again I am debating the physical vs non-physical reality.

I use the word debate because every time I start bringing up non-physical reality I seriously hear disconnects. Perhaps the disconnects are inside my own head but nevertheless they are present. It is abstracts of this nature that create questions. It's pattern recognition that grants answers. The answers that are granted seem so personal that I often wonder if the ability to recognize patterns varies with each and every person. I would assume that if one is seeking non-physical reality object-orientated results, then the variations would exist on a unique basis.

It seems fundamentally important to me that each and everyone of us create our own path to travel when searching for answers within the realm of non-physical reality.

ALL SPIRITUAL QUESTS could be defined as fuzzy logic because precise becomes vague.

Trying to explain an awareness that results from advanced corridors of investigating non-physical reality can be rather tricky.

There's a certain point where one can be considered slightly "off " if the explanations of non-physical reality become too personal.

I can't make you believe anything I've learned.

If indeed there is a parallel universe then it stands to reason that multiple parallel universes could exist.

A PARALLEL UNIVERSE falls into the non-physical reality category.

MULTIPLE PARALLEL UNIVERSES are so far into that category that it seems silly to even mention it.

Sean Maximilian McAlevey

is doing quite well in one of those parallel universes.

He just signed a new contract with his ball club and three of the buildings he designed are almost finished.

He has two great kids and his wife is smoking hot and good natured.

He is a scratch golfer and is thinking about joining the PGA after his baseball career is over.

He drives a little too fast but accidents are very rare.

He plays the piano and loves writing new melodies.

He believes in parallel universes and that works extremely well for both of us.

He dabbles with intelligent software and knows how to write algorithms and is working on something that will allow us to link and build objects between different universes.

That's a huge responsibility but he treats it as his hobby so that it doesn't distract him from having fun with his family and friends.

HE IS PERFECT

and

so are

you

PHYSICAL REALITY and NON-PHYSICAL REALITY

We get to experience both of them....eventually.

But sometimes the experience crosses over

and

everything

gets

brighter.

I refuse to let February 3 depress me.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

THE SMILE

The smile blows my mind.

Bill and his wife have the same smile.

wow

Money where the mouth is........

Davos, Switzerland (CNN) -- Bill and Melinda Gates announced plans Friday to invest $10 billion in the fight against a number of illnesses including AIDS and said the record donation could save nearly nine million lives.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, they said the 10-year program will focus on vaccines for AIDS, tuberculosis, rota virus and pneumonia.

"We must make this the decade of vaccines," said Bill Gates.

"Vaccines are a miracle," added Melinda Gates. "With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime. We've made vaccines our priority at the Gates Foundation because we've seen firsthand their incredible impact on children's lives."

Since stepping down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in mid-2008, Bill Gates has devoted most of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization he set up with his wife Melinda. He remains part-time chairman of the software giant.

The foundation directs most of its attention to global health, education and agriculture in the third world and has committed more than $21 billion since it was established in 1994.

The $10 billion commitment is the largest pledge ever made by a charitable foundation to a single cause, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper covering nonprofit organizations.

The couple told delegates at Davos that they used a model developed by a consortium at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States to project the potential impact of vaccines on childhood deaths over the next decade.

Watch interview with Bill and Melinda Gates

IT'S NICE WHEN YOU SEE THAT INSTEAD OF DECIDING TO BUY A FOOTBALL TEAM.....THEY DECIDE TO SAVE MILLIONS OF CHILDREN.

By the way....there is still plenty left to buy a team. Rams are available!