...Where Dreams Begin®
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Click here to view all my photos Live...from Colorado Springs
Thursday was a day to just relax, unwind and get used to the higher altitude. We did visit the Olympic Training Center where the World Junior Championship Open is being held. Master Chambliss has been here several times so he gave me the grand tour. The OTC is a very colorful place with numerous statues representing the various Olympic sports and lots of photos and video displays from past Olympic competitions at the visitors center. There are lots of resident athletes here as well as those checking in for the Taekwondo championship and staying in the dorms. The USA Taekwondo headquarters are a short walk across the main parking lot so we went there too to check on our missing Kukkiwon Black Belt Certificates for our 1st and 2nd degree black belts who tested during the past year. Although the Kukkiwon in Korea has issued the certificates in September of 2007, they still have not sent them to USA Taekwondo. The USAT lady in charge of mailing out the certificates pointed to the huge stack of paperwork in her filling cabinet and told us that those are the 900+ Kukkiwon Black Belt certificate applications she's waiting to receive from Korea! We were hoping to bring home our missing Kukkiwon certificates from this trip to the OTC, but now we realize that it's totally out of the control of the USAT. At least we now know that it's not just Chambliss Taekwondo recent Black Belts that are waiting, it's 900+ Black Belts all across the USA. Hopefully this backlog will be cleared sometime soon in 2008.
Next, we stopped in this quaint, very old western looking town
called Old Colorado City, to visit "MagicTown".
Magic Town is this unique
1/6 scale miniature city neighborhood with various buildings and scenes, set
inside the art gallery of the sculptor Michael Garman . When you look into
the various buildings and windows, the scenes magically change. It's
really hard to describe except to say that it was really well done. Each
three dimensional sculpture of a person or building is so well detailed and
makes you feel like your looking back in time to the 30's or 40's. There
are various talking holograms throughout too. It was pretty incredible.
Even met the owner and sculptor himself. He was in the art gallery meeting
and greeting everyone. Every time we travel, I always bring home something
for our fireplace mantel to remind me of our trip. I was so impressed with
Magic Town that I bought a small statue of a cowboy and his saddle. We
thought it was quite appropriate for our western town visit to Colorado. Third stop was the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. You may not know this, but Master Chambliss grew up on a quarter-horse ranch and participated in many rodeos as a child and teenager so you can guess who picked this stop. As we pulled into the empty parking lot, we thought it might be closed but it wasn't. It's a huge facility and we were told we should allow at least 90 minutes to "see it all". Since it was already 4 PM and weigh-ins ended at 6 PM, we had to forego the tour and instead opted to look through the gift shop only. As we were leaving, Master Chambliss mentioned to us that his cousin, Hugh Chambliss is one of the directors of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. We thought he was joking. I said, "so where's his name on the wall?" and guess what, there was this huge plaque with his name listed as Secretary/Treasurer! So what do you know! We learned that the Chambliss family is/was very involved in the rodeo hall of fame. Guess I married me a cowboy and didn't even know it! Made it back to the OTC in time for Cory to weigh in. It was pretty busy since there was only a two-hour window to weigh in, but the lines moved quite quickly. Cory made weight no problem, but many did not do as well. Since this is a World Championship team trial, you only get 2 chances to make weight or you are disqualified. Saw a lot of sad faces on those who tried to play the weight game and lost. Dropped Cory and Elena off at their hotel and then we went back to ours to relax before the "big show" tomorrow. One last note...every time we turn on the television, we keep hearing about the nasty weather in California. You'd think the whole state is covered in snow and water. When they mentioned mandatory evacuations in Orange County, curiosity got the better of me and I had to call home to be sure Torrance hadn't floated away. Hope you're all staying dry. I'm sure the storms in California will eventually work their way here to Colorado but hopefully we'll be long gone when that happens. Saturday January 5th Picked up Cory and Elena at there hotel at 8 AM so we could get to the OTC on time for today's competition. Although it's scheduled to start at 8:30 AM, there really weren't that many people around when we arrived. Bleachers were quite empty. Cory's first match is #55 and his report time is 1 PM (noon in California). He has four matches total for the gold. He's in great spirits, and ready to get this party started. I'll keep you updated as the day progresses. Unfortunately, Cory lost his first match 6-4. He started out strong, with a 2 point lead of 3-1, but found himself in the corners too often, receiving a couple kyongos for going out of bounds. By the end of round 2 if was obvious that the thinner air of Colorado was taking it's toll on Cory. In the final seconds of the third round, the score was tied 4-4 and we thought it would go to overtime, but his opponent scored the final 2 points to win the match. We're proud of Cory and wished he could have gone all the way at this one, but it just wasn't his day. No matter, it still was a great experience. We're anxious to get home and back to business. We were able to change our Sunday evening flight to one in the early morning so that's great news. We'll see you all soon! |
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Master
Chambliss, myself, Cory and his Mom Elena all arrived safely here in Colorado
Springs on Thursday, January 3rd for the World Junior Championship Open. We were greeted by unseasonably warm
weather. The daytime temps are in the low 60's, with sunny clear skies.
There's very little snow on the ground or even on the mountains. At first
I thought I wouldn't even have a chance to wear my new down jacket or boots, but
it does get a bit chilly once the sun goes down. Cory and Elena are
staying at the headquarters hotel just a couple miles from us, but I booked our
room at the beautiful 
Friday
was another beautiful, sunny, warm day here in Colorado Springs. We picked
up Cory and Elena at their hotel and went back to the OTC so Master Chambliss
could work with Cory on some drills and other training in the Taekwondo/Judo gym
affectionately called the "dungeon" since it's in the basement of the main gym.
Surprisingly, there were very few other athletes training. It was actually
a very quiet day at the OTC. Since we had several hours to kill until
weigh-ins opened at 4 PM, we did a little sight seeing. With Master
Chambliss driving, me navigating and Cory and Elena our captive passengers, we
were able to get in a couple fun things. First stop was the famous Garden
of The Garden national landmark park just outside Colorado Springs. It was
a short drive from the OTC and quite amazing to see these tall, red sandstone
rock formations. We had fun driving through the park seeing if we could
find the famous rocks named in the brochure. Master Chambliss was first to
find the "Kissing Camels". Although we drove through the park twice (not
on purpose of course, just missed the exit and all roads are one way) we never
did find the "Balancing Rock" or "Siamese Twins", although I thought one of the
rocks looked like a squirrel or big rat.
