Unfathomable

"Yoon looked every bit like a man who lost everything when he spoke yesterday of his wife and babies. His eyes were moist, his voice deadened.
Watching him, I realized that worrying about the health of a retirement fund can seem so trivial. Or a less-than-spectacular Christmas season. Or the auto bailout."

Our hearts and prayers go out to University City resident Don Yoon who lost his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law when a crippled F/A-18D Hornet crashed in a fireball that destroyed his home, yesterday.

Yoon and his family had just moved into the house a few week previous from their apartment to gain a little more room due to the arrival of 15-month old Rachel. Yoon's mother-in-law had come over from Korea to help out the family. Its been a long time since we've seen a photo emote that much anguish and grief.

May God bless Don Yoon.

If You Watched Only One Race....

Its doubtful we have ever seen a more compelling visual moment in these or possibly any Olympics than the seconds following the women’s 100 meter hurdles final last night.

In this race, the favorite, American Lolo Jones, who was at the lead, bumped the second-to-last hurdle and stumbled across the finish line, second to last. This opened the door for American, Dawn Harper to win the race and take the gold…. not that Harper believed it at first.

At the same time Jones was on her knees in anguish, alternately looking up at the video screen to see the replays of the race and burying her head in her hands, Harper was walking down the track looking up at the board with her arms outstretched and a facial expression half-way between “theres no way I just won, this is a big joke, right?” and outright denial as she appeared to be shaking her head, refusing to believe.

Meanwhile, the silver and bronze medallists from Australia and Canada, respectively, were running around, laughing, screaming, hugging each other, hugging anybody within reach…. The results of the race had to have been up for at least 15 or 20 seconds before Harper allowed herself to believe that she was an Olympic champion and the joy began to wash over her as she ran to the stands to grab an American flag to begin her victory lap.



Shock, dismay, denial, disbelief, realization, unrestrained exuberance and gratefulness all on display by 4 women in the span of 40 seconds. Incredible.

UPDATE #1: Video here gives an idea but does not do justice to what we witnessed last night