I shall be blogging sporadically at best for the next week as I am off to Italy for the Olympics. I know, I know - my life is tough.

"You're starting a new venture," asks my old real estate attorney from L.A, "how do you have time to go to the Olympics?"

Well, I sometimes ask myself such questions. Like: "What are you doing moving to a country where you don't understand the business culture, speak the language, or have any contacts?" Or: "Why are you leaving all you know behind for an untested, purely speculative business plan?"

My answer to these, and myriad other questions, rests on the immortal words of this great 20th century philosopher:













What, me worry? Pfffft. . .

Joining me in Torino will be Ace* (the Original Swine), ZMama and Semirabai - some of my favourite people in the world. I have already informed them that I shall be spending a solid hour at mealtime engaged in what Bertie Wooster would call some "serious knife and fork work".

Here is a rather lengthy summary of what happened the last time Ace and I saw an Olympic game. One of the more memorable days of my life.


*Pretty much everyone who reads this blog knows my partner in crime "Ace", but you probably don't know why I use that pseudonym. Back in 2001, we took a now-legendary trip to Vegas, during the course of which he refused to remove his sunglasses for the entire weekend. These sunglasses evoked Bobby Deniro's character Sam "Ace" Rothstein in Casino. That trip, I had every dealer, player and cocktail waitress calling him Ace.