Friday, October 2, 2009

Why We're in Scandinavia

Simple answer: I'm in a hotel room in Malmo, Sweden because Copenhagen is just about fully booked and Randy and I wanted the girls to see their great-great-grandparents' homeland while we were in this corner of the world.

More complicated answer: We're in Scandinavia for Randy's work. His company, Optimus, has been working a grueling schedule for weeks with an ad agency and the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid committee to create video pieces for the final Copenhagen presentations that occurred before the IOC today.

Weeks of work, 100,000 feet of film, false starts, dead ends, progress, overhauls, plans changed again and again and again, all down to the final product this morning.

The two videos that were created and cut by hard-working teams in Chicago, then recut over and again during a marathon of four sleepless days and nights in Copenhagen played around 8 a.m. local time, one after Mayor Daley's speech and the other immediately before Michelle Obama's introduction.

I'm so proud of my husband's work. I'm so proud of Tex, who worked with humor and diligence alongside Randy in Copenhagen. I'm so proud of the whole crew behind them.

And despite the vote, the work stands alone. "Together We Can," parts one and two, are beautiful, moving films. Children read letters to the international committee. A teacher tells the story of a student transformed by joining the wrestling team. The films are about the strength and beauty of our city and about the best parts of sport, the parts beyond personal honor, where community and understanding are created.

We may not have an Olympics to call our own, but we do have our hometown, the beautiful city by the lake.

1 comment:

Susan Bearman said...

Will the films ever be posted or shown to the general public? Hope your trip is wonderfu.