Men's Volleyball and start of the NBA House (August 2, 3, 4, 5)

The last few days have been go, go, go. On Thursday I headed up to Arsenal to have lunch with Tom Fox. It was great talking with him about everything from the work he did with my grandfather, to the fact that my college roommate’s mother is his former college girlfriend. Crazy how small of a world it is. We also talked about what I want to do with my career. He is going to help me when I get back to the US, and get me in touch with several people. It has really been a great opportunity to get to know him and create a personal relationship with him.

After a great lunch with Tom Fox, I headed over to the Oakley Safe House, where I met with Brian Carlin, who works in the marketing department of Oakley. I met him at the USA Processing Center last week and got his information so I could meet with him. They had a great set up at the Safe House for all the athletes to come and get custom glasses. It was great seeing their set up and talking more with Brian about what he does.

Later Thursday night I went to see the USA Men’s Volleyball against Brazil. Brazil had about twice as many fans at the game then the USA. It was a great environment to be in, and even a better game to watch. USA won in the fourth set after close games for every previous set. It was fun being the one of the loud Americans in an arena dominated by Brazilians. I left Earls Court and passed out as soon as I got to the dorm. I had an early morning where I would start my work for the NBA House.

Friday morning was my first shift with the NBA House. We went through the whole place and they showed us all the different activities that we would be helping with over the next 9 days. There was a pop a shot, a Slam Cam, a half basketball court, and a Twitter wall to name a few things.

The past 3 days have all been pretty similar at the NBA House. The people who put on the event liked the way I worked the Twitter wall, so I have been assigned to that for the remainder of my time there. The Twitter wall is an interactive screen where fans can see live tweets that come in the #NBA or #NBAhouse in the tweet. This is cool because fans can tweet from their phones, and see the tweet just seconds later come up on the screen. It is a fun screen for them to play with, and is a very interesting way to have fans interact with social media.

Today before going to NBA House, I had lunch with a very old friend Kenny Haisfield. Kenny and I played roller hockey back when we were 7 years old, and haven’t seen each other much since then. It was great having some time to catch up, and see what he has been up to. He is near the end of 100 days of traveling around the globe. It sounds like he has been having a great time this summer!

I will be working at the NBA House until August 12, and I still have the Women’s Soccer gold medal game and Men’s Basketball gold medal game to attend. Should be a great last week and a half of this incredible trip to Europe.