To tired to write my own post so I will start this BLOG using John Stouffers BLOG

to Italy and beyond

Category: Sports

To Italy.

Left on an 8:30 flight from LAX. Met up with Micah Abrams, former editor for Freeze magazine. We used to work together at TransWorld. He lives in LA now and freelances a lot. Hes working on the NBC shows, writing scripts for all the late night programs. Thinks hell be very busy. Also saw Tina Dixon in the airport. Shes one of the commentators for the snowboard events, and an old acquaintance. Former pro snowboarder.

Uneventful flight to JFK in NYC, where NBC had a lounge set up for all of us. We had about a 2 1/2 hour layover. In the lounge, lots of people were talking, drinking free drinks (score!) and checking e-mails for one last time. There, hooked up with Mark Sullivan, who will also be working with us on the snowboarding events. Hes a riot, and always has an opinion on anything. Go ahead, ask him.

Also ran into Pat Parnell, whos going to be another announcer on the snowboard events. Pats from So Cal and he was one of the people who really helped me get the Olympic job, as statistian. Not really sure what Ill be doing, but figure that will be figured out at some point. Just starting to worry about it.

So at 6:45 we all board a big plane to Torino. All the seats had special covers on them saying NBC and Torino Olympics. Looked very official. Felt like they were taking care of us big time.

I was stuck at the back of the plane in row 53, but luckily didnt have anyone between me an the other person in my aisle, plus, I had an aisle seat.

The weather was bad, so all the planes were taking off on one runway, and there were like 30 planes ahead of us, so we sat there for like 25 minutes getting ready to take off. Then we go to take off, and 10 seconds after we start to roll down the runway, the engines power down. Oops! The captain comes on and tells us that theres a sensor on the plane that will shut off the engines if theres bad wind sheer right ahead of us on the take off. So we taxi back around and line up to do it again. Suddenly, I thought that maybe NBC wasnt so smart having all of us fly over on the same plane. Theyd be super screwed if the plane went down and they lost 300 of their staff! Well, luckily we got off the ground and on our way the next time. The flight was pretty bumpy, but we had the best service Ive ever had. Even though we were in the back of the plane, we were all treated like we were in first class. The flight attendants kept refilling our drinks and everyone was very happy.

Some tried to sleep, but others just stayed up, ate, drank, and talked. I had a nice pow wow in the back of the plane with Mark, and we talked to the flight attendants for about 20 minutes, mostly so we could keep refilling our drinks ourselves! Ha. It worked.

So we finally make it to Italy, and right before we land, we can see the Alps from France to Switzerland. They looked beautiful in the crisp sunshine, then I could see down in the valley, gloom, just like in southern California.

The NBC Field
When we land, there were like 400 of us getting off the plane, and four guys checking passports. Needless to say, that took more than a half and hour to get through that. Then we had to get into another line to get our press credentials accredited. Then pick up our bags and figure out where we were going. I asked several people where I was going, and finally got an answer. I was a little concerned about it, but it worked out. The announcers, Pat and Tina, headed into the city for some production meetings, while I headed to the mountains with no clue about what Im going to be working on.

Thee snowboard team also arrived at the same time so we took a couple of minutes to talk with the Team.

Finch could go all the way!

Danny Kass arrives.
Mason is straight up stoked to be here.
Shaun White and Coach Bud Keene happy to be here.

Mark was on the bus with me to Sauze dOulx. He thinks it will be an easy assignment and well have a lot of time to enjoy the local areas.

Before we headed out to the town up in the mountains near where the snowboard events are being held, we had to stop and get our official NBC clothing. So we stopped at some where house 10 minutes from the airport and all got Nike jackets, snowboard pants, turtle necks, first layers, gloves, and matching Elmer Fudd hat. Of course, everything had the NBC and Torino logos on them.
This is Freddy who I met on the MX circuit a few years back. He is on assignment running a 6500 frame per second camera!

Finally took about an hour bus ride up to the mountains. It was very gloomy, and the higher up the mountains we got, the foggier it got. Once we got there, the hotel was very impressive. Four stars all the way! I have a nice room to myself. Stoked about that!

To fight the jet lag, I took a 45 minute walk around the town and its a cool European Alpine village. Lots of people were walking around with skis and snowboards, having just gotten off the slopes. Looks like there are some cool bars to check out, and for the most part, I think were going to have a great time here.

Now Im just trying to stay awake until the superbowl, but its only 6:30 pm now, I havent slept at all in the last 24 hours, and am starting to feel it.

Anyway, just wanted to send this out and let everyone know Im here and doing fine. Still dont know when Ill actually be meeting with some of our co-workers.

More words and answers tomorrow, hopefully.
-John Stouffer
John Stouffer with Tina Dixon. John is the marketing manager and writer for Fuel TV's Weekly Update.