Olympics!!!!!!

[89Hen]

It's all about ratings, you know.

69.3 hours of televised men's and women's handball would beg to differ.

[89Hen]

That's great, but seems to be related to media coverage. I'm more curious to know if Rio pulled off a good show despite the issues?

It looked like every other Summer Olympics, so yes, they did pull it off (except the green pool).

[Ivytalk]

It's all about ratings, you know.

69.3 hours of televised men's and women's handball would beg to differ.

How did I miss that?

[YoUDeeMan]

I saw about 5 minutes of equestrian (I was at a cafe with my family). A girl for Puerto Rico wasn't good enough for the US team, but her grandmother lived in Puerto Rico. So, the girl lives in the US, trains in California, and competed for Puerto Rico.

Unfortunately, that is how fvcked up and fake the Olympics are.

Watched about 15 minutes of the opening ceremony (the part where they, the rich people, thanked all the poor for giving Brazil culture ), the bike race...saw the crash (lucky me...it was everything a NASCAR fan could hope for), some of a soccer game, and watched some swimming before we went on our trip.

Didn't have TV on our trip, and very limited internet. Exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcellent!

Managed one post from a WiFi spot...RANSOM is the word you are all looking for.

While getting breakfast in Naubinway, I saw a headline that our girls lost to Sweeden, so I read the article about Hopeless Psycho crying like a baby about the Swedes. That made my day!! On the way back, read the online article about the Green Lochte 'roid rage at the gas station... .

Anyway, that was it for the Olympics for Team Cluck. Thought this thread would provide some fun details, but apparently the Olympic ennui was almost as strong amongst CS.com folks as it was for most folks up in the U.P.

[GannonFan]

My wife has been going on and on about how great the UP is from a blog of a person she follows who goes there every summer. So I take it you'd recommend it?

[Ivytalk]

My wife has been going on and on about how great the UP is from a blog of a person she follows who goes there every summer. So I take it you'd recommend it?

To capture the essence of the Youpee, watch Escanaba in da Moonlight with Jeff Daniels and Harve Presnell. Hi-fvcking-larious! In your case, hi-hecking-larious.

[YoUDeeMan]

My wife has been going on and on about how great the UP is from a blog of a person she follows who goes there every summer. So I take it you'd recommend it?

Absolutely.

Uh, at least in the summer. Hey, winters are probably awesome if you like snowmobiling.

But, what you want to do determines where you want to go. Lots of clean lakes, rivers, camp grounds.

Keep in mind, the Mackinac Bridge, the starting point of the UP, is a 12.5 hour drive for us (including stops) from Newark. Once you get on the UP, it is big, so there is a lot to do if you are up for the drive.

Mackinac Island(right after the bridge) is always a good place to start (or end) your visit. You have to take the ferry (no cars allowed on the island). Once there, definitely take the bike ride along the coast (relaxing ride in the hills with beautiful views of Lake Huron)...it gets you away from most of the tourists.

Tahquamenon Falls is a beautiful area...several different sections of falls, and you can go under some of the falls in the lower section (Lil' Cluck loved that experience). Great family hiking...take several hours to enjoy the different falls (wear your bathing suits). It helps to have a brew pub at the upper section (the falls there are 200 feet across and 50 feet high), although they only had two of their four brews available (http://www.tahquamenonfallsbrewery.com/).

The Soo Locks are a fun experience. The visitor's center is very well done...LOTS of fun information and things that will interest kids and adults. Fascinating relief map/model of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seeway (I could look at that thing for hours). There is a deck where you can watch the large freighters come and go through the locks. They have their approximate lock times posted on the website so you can walk in town until the ships come in. http://www.saultstemarie.com/attractions/soo-locks/

If you want to go inside the locks, the last Friday in June they open up the locks and buildings for visitors.

Stop by Superior Cafe and Bird's Eye Outfitters...two separate businesses...the cafe leases space from the outfitters...and the outfitters has a bar serving beer and liquor that is connected to the cafe (non-alcohol) bar, a couple blocks down from the Soo Locks. High end outfitter place (they also do kayak tours...take the one through the islands). Shop while you eat and drink. Great beer selection (Dogfish Head and Lagunitas, along with an impressive selection from the country and an even more impressive selection from Michigan) and simply one of the best pulled pork/brisket sandwiches I've had in my life. The owner is ther and he cooks it for over 8 hours and makes his own sauce. Get the spicy sauce. The cafe itself had roman style bagels (can't find that in Google, but my wife was familiar with the term and says it involves water). Whatever the way they are prepared, the bagels had a croissant texture to them and were delicious, and they had some ridiculously good, moist, blueberry muffins. Toss in some really unique bottled soft drinks (Fentiman's Dandelion and Burdock and their Rose Lemonade) and it was a fun place for Lil' Cluck and the whole family.

Bring your passports and go over to the Canadian side of Sault Ste. Marie for a day. Awesome train ride. http://www.agawatrain.com/

Whitefish point is another place to visit (shipwreck museum...near where the Edmond Fitzgerald went down). Nice beach. There is a not well known state campground (no signs off the main road) a couple miles from the point that is on a lake...quiet place.

I could go on all day...an that stuff was just the eastern part of the UP. The UP is a huge area with a large variation of terrain and population. We're hitting the Keneewah area next year. Interested in Isle Royale (with cheese) also.

Clean water, lots of forests, low mosquito activity (usually only at dusk and dawn - like it used to be in Delaware before the Asian Tiger mosquito came).

Oh, and Michigan allows the sale of awesome fireworks (the big, airborne kind) at ridiculously low prices.

[GannonFan]

Cool, thanks, it does sound good. We're not scared away from drives, we drove all the way to Prince Edward Island (PEI) last summer and drove down to Disney the summer before that. And I like the hiking and biking options, not to mention kayaks as well, sounds like our kind of vacation. My wife will be interested in the low bug activity as well, she's a marked woman by the bugs in our part of the country. We did Stowe, VT this year and loved it, so we might need to add this one.

[BDKJMU]

They pretty much sucked... as summer ones usually do. A couple viewing notes:

I had 4-6 channels of coverage every day. I would say that on average, one out of the 4-6 at any given time had an accurate description on the channel guide of what was actually airing. It would say volleyball and it would be field hockey. Maybe it was my cable company, but I found that very frustrating (I know, first world problem). Golf had it's own channel, which I thought was great.

It seemed like every single match of volleyball (beach or court) and handball was on TV, but I didn't once see: javelin, discus, high jump, long jump, pole vault, shooting, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, equestrian, cycling, rugby, juco, taekwando, trampoline... not even for one second.

And that's why I don't watch the Olympics. I have zero interest in what they tend to show most of- gymnastics, swimming, diving, soccer, volleyball (small tits don't do anything for me, and for some reason, most elite women athletes seem to have them), etc, etc..

I'm only interested in 3 summer Oly sports: weightlifting, shot & discus and wrasslin. Now I know they probably showed bits and pieces here and there, but I'm I'm not going to bother to search for them or have to scroll through hours of recordings to find them. Now if they had a dedicated meathead channel that only showed sports like weightlifting, shot & discus, & wrasslin, then I'd probably watch..

[bandl]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have DirecTV. I can't tell you how inconvenient it was for me to press the red button and then have to scroll through the daily listings to see what was currently on or, if I wanted to choose a particular sport, what was going to be on later. Sometimes took me up to 30 seconds to find the sport I wanted to watch and change the channel. It was such a pain in the ass.

[89Hen]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have DirecTV. I can't tell you how inconvenient it was for me to press the red button and then have to scroll through the daily listings to see what was currently on or, if I wanted to choose a particular sport, what was going to be on later. Sometimes took me up to 30 seconds to find the sport I wanted to watch and change the channel. It was such a pain in the ass.

Yeah, I guess you missed the part where I said the listings on the guide were WRONG 80% of the time.

[bandl]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have DirecTV. I can't tell you how inconvenient it was for me to press the red button and then have to scroll through the daily listings to see what was currently on or, if I wanted to choose a particular sport, what was going to be on later. Sometimes took me up to 30 seconds to find the sport I wanted to watch and change the channel. It was such a pain in the ass.

Yeah, I guess you missed the part where I said the listings on the guide were WRONG 80% of the time.

I guess I missed your entire post

[Ibanez]

I saw about 5 minutes of equestrian

[Ibanez]

They pretty much sucked... as summer ones usually do. A couple viewing notes:

I had 4-6 channels of coverage every day. I would say that on average, one out of the 4-6 at any given time had an accurate description on the channel guide of what was actually airing. It would say volleyball and it would be field hockey. Maybe it was my cable company, but I found that very frustrating (I know, first world problem). Golf had it's own channel, which I thought was great.

It seemed like every single match of volleyball (beach or court) and handball was on TV, but I didn't once see: javelin, discus, high jump, long jump, pole vault, shooting, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, equestrian, cycling, rugby, juco, taekwando, trampoline... not even for one second.

And that's why I don't watch the Olympics. I have zero interest in what they tend to show most of- gymnastics, swimming, diving, soccer, volleyball (small tits don't do anything for me, and for some reason, most elite women athletes seem to have them), etc, etc..

I'm only interested in 3 summer Oly sports: weightlifting, shot & discus and wrasslin. Now I know they probably showed bits and pieces here and there, but I'm I'm not going to bother to search for them or have to scroll through hours of recordings to find them. Now if they had a dedicated meathead channel that only showed sports like weightlifting, shot & discus, & wrasslin, then I'd probably watch..

I bet you and dback were just in a fit over this!

[Skjellyfetti]

I know there are a lot of silly sports in the Olympics, but I've had it with swimming. Do we really need 73 different events ? Why not have a backwards 200m in track? Or a 400 where you have to hop on both feet? Why not? Because it would be stupid to have a race where you are forced to do a motion that is not the fastest way to the finish line.

Today I learned that Michael Phelps has a world record in golf.

Longest televised put.

[89Hen]

I like this one better.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wylmOGotyvY[/youtube]

[Ivytalk]

I know there are a lot of silly sports in the Olympics, but I've had it with swimming. Do we really need 73 different events ? Why not have a backwards 200m in track? Or a 400 where you have to hop on both feet? Why not? Because it would be stupid to have a race where you are forced to do a motion that is not the fastest way to the finish line.

Today I learned that Michael Phelps has a world record in golf.

Longest televised put.

Putt.