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| Me and my daughter at the rink in early 2012. She's a LOT taller now!! |
It’s been so long
since I completed a post, I almost feel a need to re-introduce myself. So allow
me to (almost) do just that…
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My name is Kelli, and this is my blog… established 2008.
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I’ve been a fan of figure skating since watching Dorothy Hamill at the
1976 Innsbruck Olympics, and skated competitively myself from 1979-82.
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I wrote a book about the broadcast history of the sport called Skating
on Air, published in 2011. You might see a pic of the cover there on your
screen somewhere. It’s pretty good. You should read it if you haven’t already :-)
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I come from a family that holds sports in high regard: Dad played
baseball, basketball, and football (at least 2 of the 3 at the collegiate
level)… my oldest brother is a swim coach and has been to multiple Olympics on
behalf of USA Swimming… one of my sisters is an official at track & field events all across the country… and my youngest brother played pro baseball
for 10 years, including 6 glorious weeks in The Majors (for the Pittsburgh
Pirates) in 1998. In fact, he has two teenage sons who are promising baseball
players as well… and I have a niece who just a few days ago finished in
the top 100 for her age group at the Chicago Marathon and qualified for next
spring’s Boston Marathon! Generations of serious athletes there!
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My husband is one of the biggest open-wheel racing fans you’ll find, and
with good reason—he grew up about 10 minutes from the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway, a.k.a. home of the INDY 500. So I consider myself an
Indycar-Racing-Fan-By-Marriage. (And a sort of basketball-fan-by-marriage too,
as I think it’s a Hoosier rule. Go (Butler Bull) Dawgs!)
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I’ve got two teenage kids of my own. One is a sophomore who plays second
marimba in his high school marching band; the other is a 7th-grader
who studies dance (non-competitively) and is about to get fitted for her
first-ever pair of pointe shoes. Neither has been bitten by the skating bug,
but given what I think I know about the cost of the sport—and what I KNOW I
know about the costs of their current activities—I have to say I’m relieved.
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As for me… I’ve been known to hit a low-level freestyle session at the
nearest ice rink from time to time, but those times have wound down to nearly
nothing in the past few years, I’m sorry to say. There are lots of reasons, but
just about all of them are boring so I won’t spill them here! My fantasy life
has me getting back to the rink in the future… getting my double-jumps back AND
taking up school figures again (!!), something the 11 year-old me can’t
understand… and making my mark on the “adult” competitive circuit. (But don’t
hold your breath for any of that—it’s a fantasy for a reason!)
+ In the real world, my time is galvanized by three things: the work I’m
paid to do, the work I’m not paid to do (a.k.a. household stuff), and
transporting the kids here and there and (some days it feels like) everywhere. It
might be very similar to the way your time is galvanized, or used to be
galvanized, or will be in the future. The caveat, in my case, is that I seem to
be markedly slower at getting it all done than most people… which leaves less
time for things like this blog.
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I DO write for a living, but aside from the aforementioned book and some
skating-related articles that were published about a decade ago, you probably
aren’t familiar with my work because it’s largely been B2B
(business-to-business) magazines the past few years.
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In an increasingly distant life I was also part of the video industry—not
just the scripts, but as a grip, a prompter operator, a director, a producer,
and everything in between. No big-time stuff, but enough to give me my share of
interesting anecdotes. If I get a memoir written, watch out…
So, that’s some
stuff to know.
Now, just a few
things to mention about STATE OF THE SKATE before I call this a blog post:
+ Despite appearances to the contrary in recent months, I very much plan to
keep this blog going through the 2016-17 season and beyond (God willing).
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Many aspects of it are outdated at the moment, both in terms of links and
of appearance (mostly because, as I say, it’s been around 8 years). I know
this, and hope to make improvements in the coming months. I’ll probably even
solicit suggestions! Stay tuned.
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There’s a lot to be said for developments in the figure skating world
since I last updated the blog, and I hope to address many of them… but as you
probably know, we are just days away now from the start of SENIOR GRAND PRIX
SEASON!!!! So all that off-season/pre-season fussing will have to wait a little
longer.
That’s it for now.
Whether you’re a new reader looking for some wisdom along the lines of skating journalist extraordinaire Jackie Wong (yikes, tall
order), or a returning reader hoping I’ll be able to help you keep all the teenage
Russian and/or Japanese skating starlets apart (a viewer’s guide to such is on
the table for SOTS consideration), I hope you’ll keep coming back as often as I
can manage to give you reason to do so!
2 comments:
So glad you're back! Can't wait to read your posts again. And kudos on the book! Well done.
Thank you so much!
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