Here it is another night when I’ll be up until the last dog howls. Fortunately, the Beijing Olympics will be over in a five more days and life can return to a more normal pace. This has been a fantastic Olympics. For the first time ever, just about every event in the Olympics is available online. Microsoft’s Silverlight video player has worked very well, even on my Macbook laptop. Considering that the first time the Olympics were on TV was in 1960, where over a two week period fewer than 20 hours were broadcast, we’ve sure come a long ways. Some analysts have been predicted that the viewership will tail off this second week with Michael Phelps no longer dominating the screen. I certainly hope not. I’d like for NBC to finish up the series feeling very good about what they’ve produced.

Meanwhile, both Nina and I are really enjoying our iPhones. The capability is simply amazing. We were in a (incredibly dirty) Wendy’s Hamburger Joint in Idaho Falls yesterday, surfing the net, watching Associated Press videos, and checking out different iPhone applications. The phone has a GPS with Google Maps as a standard application. I’ve also installed an application called “gpsCompass” which provides a nice readout of the data available from the phone’s GPS data. It also has the ability to email my current location. So, while we were driving to Idaho Falls, I emailed my current location to my blog (it’s in the entry before this). Unfortunately, it doesn’t come through as a link (you have to cut and paste into the browser). I’ll try to work on that as it’d be fun to be able to click on the link and get a Google map with my precise location.

Another capability is to take a photo and send it directly to Flickr. I’m using an application called “AirMe” which tags the photo with excellent location data from the GPS and sends it to Flickr. I took four pictures at the mall in Idaho Falls while Nina was shopping for shoes.

I’m watching the women’s individual balance beam medal award ceremony where the US took Gold and Silver. The US women have done incredibly well in gymnastics. Visa has been one of the sponsors of the games with a lot of very good commercials. For instance, within minutes of Michael Phelps winning his eighth gold medal, Visa showed a commercial congratulating him on eight wins. They must have put a couple dozen versions of these commercials in their pocket for the games and they’re worth watching. One talks about going into the family business … winning gold medals in the Olympics, referring specifically to Nastia Liukin, whose father was an Olympic gymnastic medal winner for the Soviet Union. In the individual balance beam, Nastia took the Silver and surpassed her father in Olympic medals. She’s done well in the family business … particularly considering that her father, after immigrating to the United States, built a gymnasium so his daughter had a place to prepare.

Oh, I love the Olympics!