Pique'n Yer Interest

Admit it: you were expecting Sochi's Winter Olympics to go a lot worse. And it's likely that whatever bar you set for these Games only continued to go lower as they drew near.

It's mid-February, 2014. The Sochi Olympics, a schizophrenic paean to everything both right and wrong with the world, is mid-stride.

Last summer, I was in Vancouver and went to a movie. At the Scotiabank Theatre, above the ticket sales kiosks, were 10 to 12 posters on display.

Maybe you watched an electrifying Seattle Seahawks squad win in thrilling fashion over their fierce rivals, the San Francisco 49ers earlier this month.

This week, the Canadian Olympic Committee will announce from Parliament Hill who will carry the Maple Leaf into the opening ceremonies in Sochi next month.

Before it returned to Whistler, snow came to the rest of B.C., and, like rats from a sinking ship, many of us fled to those locales. For weeks, alluring Facebook face-shots scrolled from dozens of famous B.C. ranges.

The excitement in Yvonne Chui's voice is unmistakable. Chui is the arts and community connections manager for The District of Maple Ridge, east of Vancouver.

Whistler, in many ways, is a land of perpetual youth.

While we're busy at work, our pug has to endure a lot of time alone at home during the week, so we leave the TV on for him while he spends the day on the couch.

Stephen Harper doesn't ski, of that I'm sure. If he did, there'd doubtless be abundant and wince-worthy Conservative Party of Canada visual propaganda of him doing so (very likely poorly) littering the Internet.