30 Days of Photos - Day 3

Day Three - A picture of the cast of your favorite show

Fringe - such a great show!!

30 Days of Photos - Day 2

Day Two - A picture of yourself and someone you've been close with for awhile

Ever since the Backstreet Boys united us sophomore year at Ball State, Michele's been one of my best friends...and living in different states hasn't changed our friendship at all!  

30 Days of Photos - Day 1

I saw this on a friend's Facebook and thought it might be a good way to keep me motivated to update this blog.

Day One - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts

1. I love hiking and climbing mountains. I've summited two 14ers since I've been in Colorado (including Mt. Belford, where the above photo was taken).

2. I love to cook.  One of the things I am most excited about in my new apartment is the lovely kitchen!

3. Authentic Mexican food and margaritas are basically a guaranteed way to cheer me up if I'm having a bad day.

4. I love traveling!  I have a bucket list of places to go all around the world.

5. I cannot wait to get a dog, but I'm not a fan of large dogs...I'm hoping to keep the family puggle tradition alive.

6. Over the seven months I have been in Colorado, my respect for amateur athletes has grown so much...it isn't really possible to put the amount into words. 

7. I'm more than a little obsessed with Starbucks. 

8. If I'm drinking, it's probably wine (or the aforementioned margaritas).  Cheap wine is fine because I rarely notice the difference.

9. I'm alcohol intolerant, so I don't drink that often and when I do, I need to take allergy medicine about an hour before or else I get sick.

10. I form a strong opinion on most things and I love getting in friendly debates about them.  

11. I'm a tree-hugger, pro-choice, pro-immigration, pro-same sex marriage, strongly opposed to Don't Ask Don't Tell...basically, I'm a liberal and quite proud of it.  I'm educated about it, though, and I know there are flaws in every ideology.

12. I'm pretty much always cold.

13. I like to stay active...some of my hobbies include speedskating, hiking, cycling (in the gym for now since I'm bike-less) and going on walks.

14. I was inspired by the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games to apply for internships with the US Olympic Committee.  I got hired eventually by the digital media department.  Coming out to work for the USOC was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

15. I'm one independent study away from a masters degree in political science.  Although I have no intention of working in politics (I used to want to...I clearly changed my mind), I'll have the degree!

Transition

I'm changing this blog a bit.  I haven't updated in awhile, but now that I'm moving out to Colorado for good, it'll be a good way to keep in touch with family about what's going on in my life.

I have two days left at the USOC.  It's been a fantastic, life-changing experience.  I've made amazing friends and professional connections.  I've discovered a passion for two things I didn't really recognize before: amateur sports and digital media.  I finally know what I want to do with my life.

So, to get to that next part of my life, I'm starting a new job on Monday.  I'm going to be an assistant media planner/buyer at Vladimir Jones, an advertising agency in Colorado Springs.  The company sounds fantastic and they really seem to have their stuff together.  It'll be a great chance for me to learn about all kinds of marketing venues while actually working with real clients.

This weekend, I'm going to be moving into a new apartment at Boulder Crescent, right downtown.  I'll be able to walk to work!  It's exciting!

I'm looking forward to some new experiences and sticking around Colorado...after all, I've still got quite a few 14ers to conquer!

Quick Update

Yes, yes, I know...I'm terrible at updating this.  I say that every time I update.  Oh well.

Life has been busy!  The summer class of interns has pretty much gone...the only people left are the people whose internships were extended (there are about six of us).  New interns have started rolling in, too.  Last night, I did the Incline with a group of new interns.  I got my new personal best (43 minutes! Only three minutes to my goal!) and had a chance to chat with some of them.  I wasn't really around much this weekend, so it was the first real opportunity I got to talk to some of them!  I did have to laugh, though, because a couple of them seem a little intimidated by the fact that I hang out with a lot of athletes.  I remember being intimidated by athletes when I first got here, so it's just sort of funny seeing it from where I am now...now, I don't really even think about the fact that they're athletes--to me, they're just my friends!

I'm only working two days this week, then I'm heading back to Indiana for a few days.  Since I didn't plan on staying here until cold weather hit initially, I didn't bring much as far as winter clothes with me.  However, since I'll be here til December now, I have to go get some!  I did buy some wintery stuff at the Warehouse Sale (an AMAZING sale they have at the OTC post-Olympic Games...they sell all of the Olympic apparel for next to nothing...needless to say, I bought quite a lot and now have an extensive collection of official Vancouver clothing), but I still need my coats and boots.  Yay boot season!

And now, I'm back to work...so I'll leave you with some photos of my random things I've done over the past few weeks.

Intern ladies at the Modern Pentathlon Nationals reception

Me at Coors Brewery in Golden, Colo.

Celebrating Seth's 29th birthday (although no Seth in this picture)!

Mountain Climbing Fool

This weekend, I attempted to cross two 14ers off of my list, Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford.  Kim, another intern, and I camped in Buena Vista, Colorado, on Friday night and were up at 4:15am to head to the trailhead.  It was a TOUGH hike!  It was quite steep...especially when we had to climb to Mt. Belford a second time (the only way to get back from Mt. Oxford to the trail is to go back over Mt. Belford).  We didn't summit Mt. Oxford because of weather, but we did get halfway to the summit of it.  We conquered Mt. Belford from both sides, though!  Here are some photos!

Some guys at the top had made signs, so we asked to use it for our summit photo.

Just contemplating life on the summit

There were waterfalls all along the below tree line portion of the trail.

Jordan Malone and Sho Kashima Article

I wanted to share an article I wrote with you all!  I got the chance to interview Jordan Malone, one of my favorite short track speedskaters, a few weeks ago about a really awesome project he took on to help Sho Kashima, a moguls skiier who was injured right before Vancouver, pay off his medical bills.  I'm pretty excited about finally getting to post the article...so check it out here: http://bit.ly/dk8XmF

Keeping Busy!

I apologize for my extended absence...I have been keeping VERY busy!  Even my weekends have been jammed full of hikes and events!

In some pretty exciting news, my internship has been extended to December...this means I will be here during ski season!  I'm pumped!

This past weekend, I worked at USA Modern Pentathlon National Championships as a photographer...it was pretty cool.  I knew very little about modern pentathlon prior to the weekend, so it was quite a learning experience.  For those of you who didn't know, modern pentathlon consists of fencing, a 200m swim, equestrian show jumping, and a combined 3k run/shoot.  Through each event, handicaps are assigned based on points and the combined run/shoot (the final event) has a staggered start based on those handicaps.  Whoever crosses the finish line first is the winner.  It was particularly cool because two athletes who I've become friends with, Margaux Isaksen and Will Brady, won the women's and men's national titles!  So, here are a few photos from that for you...

The last two are Will Brady, a resident athlete/friend of mine here and the national champ!

Eli Bremer, Will Brady, and Dennis Bowsher, the men's medalists

Margaux Isaksen, another resident athlete/friend and national champion

Suzanne Stettinius, Margaux Isaksen, and Samantha Achterberg, women's medalists

Two weekends ago, I climbed Pikes Peak with a couple of other interns.  We opted to take Crags Trail, the shorter (seven miles) trail up the back side of the mountain.  We had quite an interesting hike!  We got to the summit, but it took longer than we expected and we ended up getting there right as a storm started brewing.  The trail we took goes right through Devil's Playground, one of the most active lighting spots in the world, so we weren't too keen on hiking down the same way.  So, we asked an old couple from Kansas for a ride part of the way down and they gladly obliged!  We made it well below tree line before it started storming and everything worked out great!

That's Pikes Peak behind me...it sadly has no snow right now.

The trail intersects the Pikes Peak Highway, then becomes all rocks...

We carried champagne ALL the way up the mountain with us...then forgot about it and had our celebration at the bottom.

Well, that's my update for now...enjoy this and I'll try to be better about updating from now on!

Community Day Picture Post

Lots of Links

I just sent one of my professors an email of everything I've written for the USOC so far, so I thought I'd post it here, too, in case any of you were interested in reading my work!  I'll also be posting some pictures later today!

Here are my blog posts in no particular order:

http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access/posts/2026-surprise-success

http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access/posts/1978-winning-as-a-team

http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access/posts/1931-embracing-the-struggle

http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access/posts/1965-turning-the-tables

http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access/posts/1988-it-s-your-team-too

http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access/posts/2001-trust-your-instincts

They should all be aggregated at http://www.teamusa.org/blogs/all-access but right now that page of the website is down for maintenance.

Here are a couple of other things I've worked on:

http://www.teamusa.org/multimedia/photo_gallery/1706?ngb_id=3 (Community Day photo gallery)

http://www.teamusa.org/news/2010/06/29/community-appreciation-day-at-the-usoc/36888?ngb_id=3 (Community Day story)

http://www.teamusa.org/news/2010/06/24/jones-inspired-o-lympic-path/36785?ngb_id=3 (Christina Jones synchronized swimming story)

http://www.teamusa.org/news/2010/06/15/featured-athlete-lopez-lomong/36561?ngb_id=3 (Lopez Lomong story)

http://www.teamusa.org/multimedia/photo_gallery/1695 (Weekly Olym-pics photo gallery including three photos I took)

I've also been writing the daily "In the News" section, which is located daily on the homepage.

Weekend Update

Okay, I'm terrible at updating this thing.

I blame the fact that I'm blogging for TeamUSA.org, keeping a daily journal for internship credit, and keeping my usual personal journal on top of all that.  Good thing I like to write, eh?

This weekend, I headed up to Denver for the second time since I came to Colorado.  I went to a Rockies game with some of the other interns and my friends from Ball State, Steven and Josh.  Coors Field was amazing!  The view was incredible...you can see the mountains from just about everywhere!  It was a good game, too.  The Rockies ended up beating the Brewers 8-7, but it really came down to the last inning.  Everyone was on their feet at the end...the last at-bat took FOREVER because of four foul balls.  After the game, I walked around downtown Denver with Steven, Josh, and Jon (an intern), then Jon and I came back to Colorado Springs late.

Last week was a busy one at work.  Our cable wasn't working in the office, so I found feeds online for everyone to watch the USA vs. Slovenia World Cup game on Friday.  I updated the website all during the game so that people could get live updates, so it was a fun morning at work.  I'm still slightly bitter about the goal that the USA scored but the ref didn't count...

Last Thursday, a bunch of the interns had a random toga party.  It's a fun bunch of people, so we tend to do random things like that!  I've also made friends with a couple of athletes and they've been hanging out with us, too!  So, here are some pictures for you all...

Me (in a toga) and Alexy, one of the gymnasts

5th trip to the Incline...down to 52 minutes!

Interns at the Finish Line, a bar across the street from the OTC

Mail

I forgot to mention this the other day, but if you're interested in sending me mail of any sort, here's the address:

Riley Steinmetz
Intern, New Media
1 Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, CO 80909

Now start planning some awesome care packages to send to me!! =)

Mmm...Success!

I apologize for the lack of constant updates!  I've been keeping busy with work and new friends, so I haven't had much time for blogging here!  I am, however, keeping another blog for the USOC...it's called the All Access Blog.  Technically, there are four or five people who have the ability to post to it, but so far it's mainly been me posting to it because I really enjoy writing the entries.  You can click here to read my latest entry...click on the title at that page and it will take you to a list of the rest of the entries.

Thursday and Friday were both very exciting days at work for me.  On Thursday, my blog entry that I posted above ended up getting nearly 3,000 hits!  Apolo Ohno posted a link to it on his Twitter account, and Travis Jayner (another speedskater that I admire) and US Speedskating also retweeted the post (for those of you who don't speak Twitter, "retweeting" is basically reposting another person's post so that more people can see it).  Needless to say, I was pretty pleased.  It's been awhile since I've really gotten to write freely and creatively, and it appears that I didn't lose my knack for it!

On Friday, one of my supervisors took me to the downtown headquarters to some meetings.  I met with a person from Development because I rewrote a donor letter for them.  They LOVED it!  That one was about Lopez Lomong, a runner for Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  It's really awesome that I'm getting these opportunities this early in my internship!  Hopefully, that means that someday I can get a job in this field!

Last night, I went out with some of the other interns.  Today's kind of a cold, rainy day here, so we're probably just going to hang out, watch the World Cup (Go USA!), maybe go outlet shopping and relax!

Around the OTC

It's been a busy couple of days...I've worked two days, spent one day at Intern Assimilation, did the Incline again (cut my time down to an hour...and I ran all four miles down the Barr Trail to the bottom!), made friends with athletes and interns, and got my first taste of Colorado Springs nightlife.  I also managed to take a couple of pictures of the OTC for you guys!

The outside of my dorm...it's one of the older dorms

Courtyard where we spent a lot of today laying out

Back entrance of the Athlete Center...I ran into Michael Phelps right here yesterday!

The view...not bad, eh?

Me in my dorm room on move-in day

Life in the dorms is fine...everyone wants to be here, so they all take pretty good care of everything.  My roommate, Emily, is nice and we have pretty compatible sleep schedules fortunately.  Every night, there's usually a group of interns watching TV in the lounge...most of the time, they're watching sporting events but sometimes it's a movie.  The food in the Athlete Center is healthy and good...some of the other interns aren't big fans of it, but I like it.  

This weekend, I went out to two bars with most of the interns, the Thirsty Parrot and Cowboys.  The Thirsty Parrot is a pretty standard bar...Cowboys, on the other hand, is a three-story country bar with line dancing, a mechanical bull, and karaoke among other things.  It was certainly an interesting experience.

Now, I've got to get to bed cause I've got a long work week ahead of me!!

Somebody Pinch Me

I'm all moved into my room in the US Olympic Training Center!

Seriously, this place is like living in a dream.  The dorms are dorms, but they really provide everything we need.  We have a TV lounge (which is sponsored by AT&T...yes, really, we have a sponsored lounge) with really nice sofas, computer stations, a large flat screen TV, and a brand new poker table.  There are a couple of free washers and dryers.  My dorm room has a sink and vanity in it, as well as a decently-sized closet, fully-made beds (they provide all of the bedding), a small flat screen HD TV and DVD player, a refrigerator, a desk, a dresser, and plenty of room.  I have a roommate, Emily, who I get along with great (she and I are actually watching Toddlers and Tiaras in our room right now).  All of the interns tend to congregate in the TV lounge in the evenings and hang out...last night some of us watched Invictus (we can rent new release DVDs for $1.99 in the Athlete Center).  I'll post some pictures whenever I get around to taking them!

The Athlete Center is where we eat our meals...and it is AMAZING!  Today at lunch, Michael Phelps walked about a foot behind me, fresh from the pool.  Visitors aren't allowed in the Athlete Center, so it's kind of a place where everyone can just hang out...no one cares who's an elite athlete or intern or coach or employee.  There's a great variety of food (even for vegetarians like me!)...there's even a soft-serve ice cream machine (which will be the death of me) and an espresso machine.

And finally...today was day one of my actual work in the New Media department!  The people who I met today at work were really cool and I think I'll work quite well with them.  Brandon and I actually went to lunch with Scott, one of the guys who works on the website and taught us how to add content to it.  Kyle, the assistant director of New Media, also seems pretty cool.  We got some work done today uploading news stories to the website and I tracked some athletes' Twitter accounts to follow an event in California.  Today was mainly a lot of orientation and learning, though...tomorrow, though, it's all work!  My department is moving offices over the next few days, too, so some of that work may be manual labor!

That's all I've got for now...I'll try to get some pictures posted whenever I take some, and I'll keep you all posted on my internship!

Calm Before the Storm

I'm moving into the US Olympic Training Center tomorrow!

Ruth and I are moving me in sometime in the morning...hopefully it all goes well!  I will, of course, post pictures of my room and the OTC once I'm settled in.

In the mean time, if anyone has any questions to ask me, you can ask them here.  I'll post the answers in my next blog update!

Also...if you want to keep posted on my internship with more immediate updates than you get here, follow me on Twitter!

OTC and Manitou Incline

Today is my brother Jordan's last day in Colorado Springs...so he got to decide what we were doing today.  His decision?  The Manitou Incline.

Now, ever since I found out I would be spending my summer in Colorado Springs, I knew I wanted to tackle "The Incline" at some point.  However, I figured "at some point" would be after I'd had a few weeks to adjust to the altitude and get into a regular exercise routine...I certainly wasn't expecting to climb it on my second full day here!  But Jordan wanted to go for it, and Steven enthusiastically encouraged it.  Ruth and I were a little less optimistic but we still went for it...even though it meant waking up at 5:45am.

A little background on the Incline for those of you not familiar with it...it consists of the remnants of an old cog railway that closed in 1990.  Following the railway's close, hikers, athletes, and people looking for a unique workout took over, turning it into an unofficial hiking trail.  It is technically illegal to climb because it's private property (so hiking the Incline is trespassing), but you'd never know that by looking at it.  On any given day, there are plenty of people climbing up and down it.  The Barr Trail to Pikes Peak meets it twice, once about halfway up (providing the "bailout trail" for people who don't think they can make it up to the top) and then again at the top (so most people take the Incline up and the Barr Trail down).  The Incline ascends over 2,000ft in a mile and a half...so it's a very challenging workout but gives you a lot of personal satisfaction when you've reached the summit!

The Manitou Incline...and me regretting my decision to climb it

Believe it or not, this is the easy part.

Made it to the top!

Jordan, Ruth, and I made it to the top in just under an hour and a half, which surprised all of us, I think (we were half-expecting to have to use the bailout trail).  I'm already anxious for my next trip to the Incline...climbing stairs up the side of a mountain has to be a good workout for speedskating!

And, as promised...here are a a few pictures from our trip to the US Olympic Training Center yesterday!

Ruth and I imitating the short track speedskater statues behind us

Jordan hurt himself trying to imitate the above karate pose

This is for you, Hillary!

We mainly just goofed around with the statues, obviously...we drove back by the dorm that I'll be living in, but we weren't really sure if we were allowed back there or not.  So, after our exploratory drive and our goofing around, we headed back to Ruth and Steven's apartment!  

We ate dinner at Trinity Brewing Company, which was excellent...I unfortunately didn't take my camera, though.  We had cheesecake made with beer!  And more surprisingly...it was really good!  Jordan and Steven were more interested in the beer that Trinity brews themselves, though.

That's it for now...tomorrow probably won't be too interesting because I'll be recovering from the Incline!