This won’t be so much a collection of stories as just general observations. We’re now into day 3 and things are starting to mush together, so apologies if this is already incoherent.

We had lunch with the BHOers. A lot of fun! We hadn’t seen a lot of them in a year, so reunions are always great! We went to the Omaha Farmer’s Market and ate at Spaghetti Works (?). It was delicious! Good food and good people! We had storytelling time - which included a couple of fabulous impressions - and it was classic. But that’s for us to know and you to be envious of.

We were much more rested yesterday after staying up entirely too late the night we got into town. We couldn’t help it! We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. The Swim Aids usually only go a couple of months in between meet-ups, but we’ve been in a drought as of late.

We’ve been trying to avoid talking about this, because our hearts are breaking, but we feel we have to. We are soooo sad for the Asian. His 200 Free semi did not go as planned and he’s now on the outside looking in. We called him to the Olympic Team, last year, as a member of the 800 Free Relay. Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen as he’s the 1st alternate for tonight’s final. We have a hard time looking at the pictures of his race.

We are also in shock over Rachel Komisarz not qualifying for the 100 Fly. Didn’t see that one coming! I’m not sure she intended to go out that fast and then not hold on, but that’s what sometimes happens at the Olympics Trials. You just never know! Dreams are both made and crushed.

The security measures are a bit much. I get that this is a HUGE meet, but man! When we go into the media entrance, a drug sniffing dog takes a whiff of our bags. I don’t know, but I feel like if you’ve approved someone for media credentials after that in-depth application process, that you feel comfortable with them being around the athletes. Guess not! We don’t have anything to hide, so the dogs can sniff to their hearts content. I was just amused at it. Peter Bick informed us that the dogs need to do a sniff before you are granted access to the catwalk or some of kind of foolishness. Word on the street is that a lot of the bigger named photogs aren’t happy.

Brendan Hansen’s press conference last night was a treat! He’s great with the media and his personality shines. There were lots of laughs from what we saw and heard, and we weren’t even there the entire time. Props to B-Han.

How about that big-ass Matt Grevers TYR poster of awesomeness? We approve. We approve.

I can’t remember anything else I should share, so I’ll just stop! Here’s to some more World Records!

Day 1 of the 2008 US Olympic Team Trials - Swimming are in the books and all we can say is DAYUMMMMMM!

Night 1 was off the chain!! We could hardly believe it!

The 400 IM, men’s and women’s, featured 2 World Records! It was soooo loud up in the Qwest Center; like you wouldn’t believe!

Phelps out touched the Lochtenator, but both hit under the old WR mark. We’re not sure if that means we owe Ryan another case of Heineken or not. Like he needs anymore from us. We owe him like a milli! We wonder if he brought his grillz. We also wonder if he’s ever going to remember to wear them during a domestic awards ceremony. Not that that mattered tonight because only the top finisher was paraded around the pool.

Speaking of parades, we LOVE that water affect behind the podium. It’s tight!

The strictness of this meet means we’re not going to be roaming freely around like we’re accustomed to. Yea, we know you’re bummed for us too. Thanks!

So, we’ll try to bring you what we can from our little home in the media seating.

We got to say hello to Debs after prelims. For those of you not in know, Debs = Mrs. Phelps. I can’t speak for all of the Swim Aids, but I hadn’t gotten to speak to her since last summer and she was just as wonderful as ever! As if you didn’t know, but she is beyond elated that both Bob and Mike are returning to Baltimore. She also does not like being as close to the pool as she was today. Hopefully she can remedy that and be more comfortable during the sessions! She was a ball of nerves before the 400IM final!

Fast forward to after finals. We stuck around for some press conferences from the top place finishers.
Mike and Bob were first, followed by Larjo, and then Katie and Paul.

The Mike & Bob Show was pretty typical. Bob brought the lolz when he talked about his hair falling out due to the stress of coaching Mike. He (Bob) looked very sunburned, btw.

Larjo’s presser gets a standing O from us. That young man is beyond articulate. Every answer he gave was well delivered and smooth. No uh’s or um’s; we’re talking to you Lochte!! He’s thrilled with his 400 Free when and thinks it sets him up well for the 1500 later in the week. He kept referencing the mile and no mention of the 200 free, so not sure if he’s going to contest it still.

While we were fully expecting a PVK win, we simply can’t imagine him having to do that victory walk. That would have been the most awkward and uncomfortable thing for him. If you know him, you feel me on this. No one wants to lose, but the goal is making the team and PVK did that. He is no longer a “relay swimmer” and we couldn’t be more proud!

And how cool is it that all the boys are competing together here? We’re big VK family supporters, so we’re happy for them. And because we know they’ll see this, yes, we got pictures today. Check your email, facebook, or talk to your mom. We’ll hook y’all up. Just don’t be haters. You’ll regret it later on

Katie & Paul were great and theirpress conference. They both walked in and waved at us. The rest of the room was probably wondering why we got the shout-out, but they aint got it like us. Katie and Paul are our peoples and have been since 2005 yo. Paul’s calm alter-ego made an appearance at their presser. In direct contrast to the Paul we’re used to seeing bouncing all over the deck.

We got to catch up with both of them after the presser, so we were able to properly congratulate Katie on her World Record. She really wasn’t expecting one, but we were. We were running our mouths all day about how we just KNEW Katie was going to do the damn thing. We shared this with her and she appreciated our swagger on her behalf. We’re gonna order her some, so she can strut too.

Oh, and Paul, come sit with us for real! We’ll save you a seat!

We’ll have more stories as the week continues. We have to kidnap Felicia Lee and Megan Romano, plus we have to catch up with other swim moms and swimmers as lord only knows when we’ll see them again after this week!

And thus I close the longest Swim Aids post ever? Actually it may not be the longest. It just feels that way because I did it all on my Sidekick again. Yes, all of this. I’m hardcore.

If you want to keep up with the action from the Qwest Center, visit Swim Stars Live. I update after every event is completed!

I’m looking forward to a long night of sleep tonight, but before I do that it’s update time suckas!

1. Keep an eye on SwimNetwork.com in the near future. You’ll be able to get to know yours truly a little better. That includes a little more insight on my work at SwimStars.org

2. Because of the previous line, and a couple of other events this weekend, I’m beginning to realize that my so-called anonymity is disappearing in the swim community. Not sure if that will ultimately be a good or bad thing! I guess I’ll have to wait and see!

3. Everyone send good thoughts to dear ol’ T-DUB (Davis Tarwater, for those of you who are new around here). He’s sick and shouldn’t have even made the trip down to Columbus for the Grand Prix. Get better, playa! Pimpin’ aint easy, and you can’t do it when you’re sick.

4a. I am personally taking credit for “breaking” PVK. It’s taken a while, but I finally have him trained very well. Not only does he look more comfortable on the awards podium, but he poses for my camera too. Another thing we Swim Aids have been chomping at the bit to witness was a show of any kind of emotion out of him after a race. Well, I got to see first-hand, the Vander-fist-pumpâ„¢. It was well worth the wait and I successfully captured it for all to see. No, not right now. Later. Although I will be sending his mama the first picture. She couldn’t be here this weekend and I know she’d love to see it!

4b. BTW, props, again, to PVK for his 400 & 1500 Free swims. Holy cow!

5. Felicia Lee swam 5746726094 races his weekend and still had a smile on her face at the end of the night. She’s too cute. Unfortunately, I was unable to fold her up and put her in my pocket. There’s always next time!

6. I got caught in the crush of young fans/volunteers trying to get autographs from PVK, Phelps, and Kaitlin. They told me they were leaving immediately after the session to head back up to Ann Arbor, so I was getting in my social time then. I wasn’t planning on sticking around that long, but before I knew it, I was surrounded. So I just went with the flow, helping fans get their autographs and taking pictures for them as they posed with the CWers. I always enjoy seeing the swimmers interact with their fans. I can almost picture them, when they were younger, doing the same thing. There were so many fans that wanted autographs, but they had to leave and hit the road, so the informal signing was cut short. I got a couple of shots of Phelps, but couldn’t take any of PVK and Kaitlin since they were signing right next to me. I don’t make a habit of sticking Bertha right in the face of someone standing inches from me. Talk about awkward!

7. It’s been a while since I’ve covered a full meet. Now I’m itching for another. Could it be Santa Clara? We’ll see!

8. My SPA groupies wanted to go out after their coach went to sleep, but there aren’t any places near campus or downtown that don’t card, so they were out of luck there. That may have been different if my brother, who works as a bouncer, were working tonight. But alas, he wasn’t, so no party there.

9. I shall miss Peter Bick, but I will see him at Trials. If I do make it to Santa Clara, it will be weird to not pal around with him. However, if I’m at Santa Clara, I’ll have my dear kiwi to keep me company!

10. Final Thoughts: I really hope that this Ohio State Grand Prix is a yearly event. I really like having a big national meet here in my own backyard. It’s nice to not always have to travel to meets. I thought everything went really well and the meet ran very smoothly, was well-attended by fans and top swimmers alike, and featured some fast swimming. Can’t ask for much more, can you?

If you were expecting a nice and long rundown from today’s prelims, you thought wrong! I was mostly all business during this morning’s session.

1. This session was so short and sweet. It was a nice change from Day 1 & 2, whose prelims seemed to go on forever!

2. If you can get to the Grand Prix in Omaha before Trials, do so. I have it on good authority, that that will be quite the meet!

3. Willa Wang’s mother is crowd fave. And by crowd, I mean the swimmers on deck immediately below her. There are multiple videos of her cheering for her daughter that are making the rounds on deck.

4. There may or may not be a jail break tonight…

5. The Asian may be done swimming…for good. There’ll be more on this on MGoSwim after the meet is finished. I spoke to Coach Bob this morning.

6. I am worried about T-DUB!! Not only has he not seemed himself this meet, but he scratched the 2Fly today.

Here’s the evening update. Hopefully there will be no more haters on here wasting our time.

Anyway…

1. The impossible has happened! I have captured a shot of PVK on the awards stand with a genuine smile on his face! I know, I know. Bow down to me. All it took was a little OSU/Michigan humor and he lit right up.

1a. Before his race, I finally got a chance to catch-up with Pete face-to-face. I realized that I hadn’t gotten to talk to him in person since the Snik meet last year. Now text messages, emails, and facebook are all good and fun, but there’s nothing quite like the Vander-wit up close and personal.

1c. What a strange numbering system I’ve got here, huh? Keeping with the PVK theme, I would just like to say how proud I am of him and his awesome 400 Free tonight. I knew he’d eventually go after Kletus‘ US Open and American Record, but I didn’t think it would be tonight! This isn’t even a taper meet! Look out for PVK this summer yo!

2. Kaitlin, whom I apparently “stalk” was a doll again today. I already told y’all how she refuses to keep the chocolate she gets for placing top 3. Well today, a young fan asked for her autograph after the 400 IM awards. When she was done signing she offered the little girl her chocolate. And the girl made the funniest face! As if to say “why would I want that?” haha. Kaitlin immediately turned around gave her chocolates to me. I don’t refuse chocolate Buckeyes. They are delish! She and I joked that the little girl simply didn’t want Kaitlin’s chocolates since she only finished 2nd.

3. I would like to thank UCLA for ruining my bracket. The game was showing in the hospitality room and I couldn’t stop checking in on the scores throughout the session.

4. No embarassing SPA stories this evening. Shout out to Piper and her big-ass feet. No one that short should wear size 11’s homegirl!

5. Gary Hall just ceases to amaze me. He is beyond amazing with fans. I am in awe. Every time I passed him to shoot a race, he was obliging someone’s request for a picture or autograph. And he just doesn’t sign and then move on. He engages in conversations and the whole she-bang. Very impressed! I just love seeing that.

6. The meet officials at the 50m turn are so friendly. I love being able to chat with them while I’m over there.

7. Maybe we should make a new category called “Peter Bick Owns Us”. Because after this meet, that may very well be true. The jokes never end; especially when we gang up on misbehaving swimmers while on the awards podium. JK, JK.

8. Erik got DQed from his second breaststroke race of the meet. Methinks Bob & co. may need to tinker with his stroke a little.

9. T-Dub is majorly M.I.A. He didn’t swim in finals tonight. I look forward to seeing him in the 2Fly tomorrow.

10. Again, Dan Madwed impressed me. He really pushed Pete in the 400 Free prelims, but in finals, he swam a best time too.

11. I’m not as tired as I was this time last night, but I’m still going to pack it in and head to bed. One more day, friends. One more day!

12. So funny story. NBC4, a news channel here, did another story on the meet. I know, I was surprised too. They said that the reason Mike didn’t swim the 400 Free prelims this morning was because he fell asleep on the diving platform and missed his heat. HAHAHAHA I want to believe that, but I don’t know if I can because I could have sworn that saw him leave with a media rep to do an interview long before the 400 Free heats began. It’s funnier to believe that he was stretching fell asleep! It’s ok, though. He wouldn’t have beat PVK anyway

This is gonna be short, cuz my ass needs a nap like you wouldn’t believe!

1. I’ll be honest. I didn’t think I’d have anything to share today because I’m that tired. But I do. Funny how that works, huh?

2. Oh Em Gee! Cesar Cielo KILLED IT this morning! His 21.99 was a crazy sick 50 free time! I saw that his seed time was in yards, so he was in one of the “slower” heats. I made sure I had a great spot on deck for it because I knew, coming off of NCAAs, that he’d be fast! Holy cow!

3. My quality time with the St. Petersburg Girls is never dull. They all made asses out of themselves this morning, in the presence of UF swimmer Shaune Fraser. When Meg sees this, she’ll probably kill me, but what is she going to do about it? Nothing! Anyway, I always know when Shaune is near because Meg follows him not just with her eyes, but her entire head! These girls don’t know what discretion (or whispering) is and it’s so entertaining to me. I won’t share the rest of the embarassment, because a lot of it you had to be there for. They wanted to go shopping at Easton this afternoon. I highly recommend it. They also said they were looking for a ride there. I’m soooo glad they didn’t ask me. I would have felt obligated and not gotten my much-needed nap!

4. Katie and I plotted our party plans for post-Beijing. She’s looking forward to getting her dance on the week after swimming is done. When she gets back stateside, we have a date, and it’s gonna be insane. Trust. She also noted how zombie-like I was this morning (I told y’all I was tired). I didn’t even shoot the women’s 400 IM because I was that out of it. That and I decided to sleep in a little, so I missed the early heats.

5. Kaitlin, Kaitlin, Kaitlin. What can I say about her? Well, besides how much I love her. Her hotel hasn’t been doing right by her. The bed are supposed to be comfy, but she can’t sleep. Then wakes up with a crick in her neck. Not cool! She’s also looking forward to checking out some of the shops on High St. Every time I pass them, I think about how Kaitlin would probably love to shop there. Guess I was right! I just urged her not to go after dark since there was a shooting on campus (in that area) last weekend…I gotta look out for my peeps. Don’t want them getting shot up.

6. Dan Madwed is swimming out of his mind this weekend. Really great times. Definitely going to make a nice addition to the University of Michigan/Club Wolverine Family.

7. Gary Hall Jr. signed autographs, this morning, for at least 30 minutes. Every time I walked by, age group swimmers and meet volunteers were crowded around him and he was signing anything and everything given to him. He was also taking pictures with everyone. This went on for a long time. I said 30 minutes, but it was probably a lot longer. Others shut themselves off, ya know, under diving platforms, so people can’t interact with them. So this was very nice to see.

8. I FINALLY got to meet Miss Felicia Lee face-to-face. About damn time, huh? I really, really, really want to fold her up and put her in my pocket with my other faves. Wonder if anyone would notice…

9. There may or may not be more to this morning, but I can’t think of it. I’m going to go take a nap. Peace out!

Soooo tired. Can hardly see straight. The things I do for swimming. Here’s tonight’s nuggets:

1. Finals ended AHEAD of schedule. Could be the first time ever. Everything went so quickly that I almost didn’t have time to socialize. Key word: almost.

2. Saw my local TV stations while on deck. They each covered the meet tonight, which was great to see in a city that revolves around Buckeye football.

3. After Kaitlin accused me a stalking her during prelims, she decided to switch roles. She stalked me during finals. We still didn’t get to adequately catch up, but we’re going to. Funny story. The top 3 swimmers make the awards podium and get chocolate. Kaitlin gave hers away saying that if there is chocolate near her she is going to eat all of it. Funny girl.

4. Mama Romano almost had a panic attack when Hy-Tek wasn’t working during Meg’s 200 Free race. She sent me a couple of text messages. But eventually they got the results and all was good in the world.

5. PVK beat Phelps in the 200 Free. I’m so proud I can hardly stand it. But nothing topped how awkward he continues to look on the medals stand. After the meet, I texted him to make fun of him and his excuse is that he’s not a good actor. Oh, Pete.

6. I haven’t forgotten about the Nike suit. I’m going to bring a good picture back here tomorrow or Sunday. Promise!

7. My cell phone service is not all it’s cracked up to be down on deck. In the stands everything is fine. This annoys me, but there isn’t much I can do about it.

8. Peter Bick and I had fun giving the swimmers a hard time if they didn’t pose during the awards ceremonies. The Hoff, who is usually amazing with the poses, thought she was going to climb down without giving us our shot, so we called her on it. Good times, good times.

9. JOE DOYLE RULES (That’s for lala)

10. There really wasn’t enough time for juicy gossip like there was this morning. I’m sure I’ll make up for it tomorrow with another long-ass prelim session.