6. Less than one month to go!

A couple of days ago, it was one month to go to the start of the Games.  A giant set of Olympic Rings is set up on Tower Bridge (25 metres wide, 11.5 metres tall and weighing three tonnes!)  The Rings will be in place all the way through to the end of the Olympic Games and will be a major feature in the way that London promotes itself to the rest of the world as an Olympic Host City.

For those of you in London, you should definitely make some time to go down to the Thames, set up a nice picnic/drinks somewhere with a good view of Tower Bridge, and watch the light show.  Every night, there will be a 60-minute light show to illuminate the Rings and the bridge.

Show start: 9:15pm

Light show start: 9:45pm

Rings Light Show: 10:00 – 10:03pm. 

Here is a bit of a preview (especially for those of you not in London), and here is a nicer one but with no music.

I might try and get down to see the light show some time next week - as I only have a couple of weeks till my team goes on venue and some of our transport systems become operational, as athletes begin training at ExCeL.  It's all on from 14 July - training our staff and then a "lite" operation of 7am - 11pm until Games start on 28 July, from which time it's 5am - 1:30am!  I'll be doing an 11-hour shift each day, with one day off each week - I'm lucky, some different functional areas are working straight through each set of Games.  

It's sort of starting to hit home what a commitment it will be - between 14 July and 8 September, I will pretty much not have any social life - it will be work and sleep, work and sleep.  There are tons of amazing concerts, shows, gigs and exhibitions etc. going on in London this summer, largely due to the Olympics being in town and the London 2012 festival.  That's not to count all the normal goings on, the festivals, parties, picnics, etc. that normally happen of a summer in this amazing city.  I'll be missing out on all of these, but on the plus side I guess I'll be saving some money!  And of course, I'm part of the Olympics - that easily tops all the rest.  

The job is going really well, I feel like I'm really settled in the team and still (!) learning heaps every day.  There is still a mix of planning and preparation, we are not quite ready with everything in place for the start of our operations yet.  I'm involved in all sorts of things, from scheduling shifts on an online system, to helping to figure out how we will feed staff that are stationed too far away from the workforce break area.  I'm feeling more confident that I understand how our systems operate and what we can do in the event of a contingency.  

A new word I learnt last week - "Invacuation" - means to stay put indoors in the case of an emergency, if appropriate.  I also learnt about radio protocol - you're supposed to say their call sign first, twice, to make sure they pay attention and realise they are being spoken to, and then your call sign so they know who you are - e.g., "Sport 1, Sport 1, this is Transport 4, over."  It's a bit exciting as I haven't used radios before, but I am aware that the novelty will probably soon wear off; especially as I'll be carrying two radios and have to listen to two different channels of chatter, and also have my cellphone.  If somebody calls me on my mobile, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to listen to the two radio channels as well at the same time... 

News just in!  Just saw that Nadal lost in the second round at Wimbledon to the currently ranked 100th Rosol.  Just goes to show, upsets do happen, and I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about at the Olympics! I'm going to try to find out about some of the less well known sports and research athletes to support, to get into it more and get excited about the Games as well as my job.  If you're interested in doing the same, Handball and Wheelchair Rugby are good places to start.

In my view, however, the most crazy Olympic "sport" has to be the Modern Pentathlon: "The competition starts with fencing in the Copper Box followed by a 200m swim in the Aquatics Centre. The athletes then leave the Olympic Park for Greenwich Park, where they will complete a show jumping course on an unfamiliar horse. The day concludes with the combined event, in which competitors complete a 3km run, including stop-offs at shooting points where they must hit five targets."  Mental!