Gold Medal Aspirations

Casey is mourning the closing of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. During the Games, he was particularly drawn to the speed skating events and is now trying to figure out how he can become a speed skating gold medal champion while living in Tampa, Florida. He's already asked me if he could move to Minnesota for training and live in a dormitory like the Chinese athletes.

Flamingo Joe brought home some in-line skates on Sunday that someone from the church had thrown in with the Relay for Life stuff (along with a few other choice items on which he exercised first dibs and went ahead and wrote his check -- Mace is now the proud owner of a lovely neon green makeup bag that he insisted on taking to school with him today -- Flamingo Joe keeps trying to tell us it's a lunch box, but lunch boxes don't have mirrors glued inside).

Even though the skates are size 8s and Casey is a size 1 (or he may be a size 3 by now -- all I know is that the last pair of shoes I bought him were a size 1), Casey saw his gold-medal opportunity and seized it. For the past two days, he has spent no less than 6 hours on those skates. Here he is in starting position:

No -- he did not just land a graceful triple lutz (why would you even say that?)-- he just has a very dramatic starting position. He worked all afternoon on proper skating form -- in fact, he was so focused on commencing his training that he forgot to wear pants and was skating around on the front porch in his underwear. I finally had to make him put on pants for the pictures and video so that he could review his technique with his coaches and staff later in the week (you can thank me later). So here he is zooming up and down the porch (watch carefully now or you may miss him flying by in your screen):

Given that he basically just scooted himself across the floor on his behind yesterday while wearing the skates, I think we're making great progress. Watch for him in 2014. He'll be the one with no pants.