2000 Olympics – One week down – Four weeks to go.
For me, one week down, 4 weeks to go… For the general public 14 days to go… Until the Olympics come to town. Or should I say until the Olympics start in ernest, since the Olympics are definitely here…
The work I am doing is setting up a network of equipment to track the location of our video camera vehicle, 4 motorcycles, 6 helicopters, fixed wing plane, and a Manly Ferry. If I we are lucky we will get this data onto the net… So that the actual position of these can be placed onto a digital map…
I am working directly for a company called Winemiller Communications Inc, of Carlisle, PA in the USA. They are the largest RF contractor to SOBO, the Sydney Olympic Broadcast Organisation…
As of today I have even managed to secure off street parking a few blocks from the Olympic Stadium in the SOBO compound.
I have also been working on wiring up the Marathon/Triathlon/Cycling/etc control room for video and audio, which has been interesting… The room is small, but it is filled with everything we need… It looks a bit different from the last time I was there. I will put some photos of the room onto my WWW site in the next week or two… There are some on the Winemiller WWW site, but none of me [ http://www.winemiller.com ]
On Wednesday I got to visit the NBC field workshop near Smithfield. That was interesting… The car I was driving was an Olympic one with 22 Km on the clock… I joked that we change the car rather than fill it up with petrol, which is almost the case :-). The NBC site was amazing… I was asked if I wanted lunch, which I got… Salads, pasta, bread rolls, bread etc… smorgasbord style… Well packed fridge[or 8 of them], Starbucks coffee etc… All free… They said they also serve breakfast there which would be amazing if lunch is anything to go by.
The motorcycles, and a van we are using were shipped from the USA, and have USA plates on them… On of the things i needed to do was get a copy of a NSW police report about how some plates were stolen from the van… so that they can get replaced and sent back to Australia… These vehicles are being driven on Australian roads with USA plates… Bizzare… Someone else’s job now to get the police report as I was unable to get it…
I still have not got my official olympic clothing, but have got my unofficial company clothing, that I am not allowed to wear at any venue… Seems the clothing contains the words “Sydney 2000” and this does not refer to the post code.. This is not legal in australia but is in the USA…
A bit of gossip… the ID tags that all the poor security people are going to have to swipe with a bar code reader are unfortunately unreadable much of the time thanks to the built in holograms.. and certainly will not work unless it is very clean… Also the ID tags are coming apart at the edges… But you will destroy them if you try a repair with an iron… A member of our team has tried.
At the moment I am based at Lidcome in a warehouse… Interesting place… All the ‘Camera Corps’ have just set up their equipment there.. Stuff like grips, etc… I saw a few loads go off to the Entertainment centre on friday.
Speaking of ID’s, I have picked up a few more… I can go to any Olympic venue before the games start and get in… I will also be getting games time accreditation to Sailing, Equestrian and a few others.. I wear 2 id passes at the moment, as well as the phone book [100 names], cell phone and mobile radio… Sometimes I also wear the laptop too… I purchased a LAPTOP backpack so I can actually carry it with gear without breaking my back.
I am working with some interesting people… The person who I was working with friday should have been in the USA this weekend… His company [he owns it] is covering a major golf thing this weekend, and they were having a few problems…
Anyway I need to get going… I have some more work to do…