THE RUNDOWN

TUESDAY, AUGUST 19

Olympic fever sweeps across the Inland Empire, sending many residents flooding into gymnastics and swimming clubs in a desperate search for a cure. Infected by the Beijing Games, people are tossing their kids into the healing waters of a swimming pool or making them bounce and spin and dance like dervishes on a wide-and-padded mat. It’s terrifying. “It’s the Olympic boom—that’s what we call it,” Tim Black, owner of Gymnastique International in Riverside, tells the Press-Enterprise. Yeah, well, I just called it Olympic fever—and I’m the guy writing this column. I also happen to be writing it while I prance and saunter on the balance beam, never mind the threat of suffering a severe groining—and of course I’m talking about the constricting effects of those tight gymnastics getups on my package of get downage.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20

Market conditions point to an exponential growth in business for Inland Empire locksmiths. Well, actually, the conditions project growth in home foreclosures, but anything with the word “closure” in it portends good news for locksmiths. Their business is up big-time as they change locks and keys at foreclosed homes from Upland to Beaumont to Corona to Hemet to Murrieta. Oh, yeah, and Moreno Valley—they’re doing lots of business in Moreno Valley; does anybody own a home there, anymore? “It’s your bread-and-butter,” one 24-year veteran locksmith says. “Without the foreclosures, yeah, we would notice a major drop (in business).” The same is true for lots of other businesses—such as house cleaners, carpet cleaners, trash haulers, painters and gardeners—that prepare bank-repossessed homes for resale. In the locksmiths’ case, the idea is to keep the evicted homeowner from getting back in. Sad, but true—and profitable. 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 21

Inland economist John Husing is getting in on a little bit of that foreclosure-crisis windfall cash, too—taking a paid gig to evaluate the suggestions of a group of business and government officials and formulate a plan of action. His brilliant insight: something has to be done to more effectively help homeowners with problem mortgages. Smart guy. Now I really wish I’d gone on and gotten my degree, instead of taking a job at a newspaper, where they’ll hire just about any idiot. Of course, Husing gives specifics—what do you think, that he’s just some opportunistic, whored-out hack? “There is a very definite need to centralize the process,” he says—like one phone number people can call to reach a county-based center of well-staffed and savvy counselors able to negotiate mortgage modifications with the various lenders. And they can publicize this number by putting it in one of the utility bills that you don’t open, anymore, since you have no hopes of paying them—or that you don’t even get, anymore, now that you don’t have a house. Hey, John, be sure you don’t forget to include the numbers of all those locksmiths, house cleaners, carpet cleaners, trash haulers, painters and gardeners. Yes, I’m a smart guy, too.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

The incisive insight and analysis continues. A report from the American Sociological Association drops this bombshell: in rough economic times more people shop at thrift stores and garage sales. Whoa! No wonder the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin runs with the story—straight to the American Cancer Society’s Discovery Shop in Upland, where veteran store manager Sue Benedict confirms it in no-holds-barred language: “We’re definitely seeing more people,” she says. “They’re looking for bargains.” 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23

Kenyan marathoner Samuel Kamau Wansiru leads a breakaway pack to a blistering pace in the Olympic marathon, and Big Bear City’s Ryan Hall doesn’t even think about going with him. Who would? Wansiru and a couple of other Africans are running like crazyguys in the scorching heat of Beijing. It seems unlikely they can keep it up. But then they do, and Wansiru smashes the 24-year-old Olympic record—the one Portugal’s Carlos Lopez set in Los Angeles in 1984—by more than three minutes, covering the 26 miles, 385 yards in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 32 seconds. Hall comes in 10th in 2 hours, 12 minutes and 33 seconds, one spot behind countryman Dathan Ritzenhein. Too bad, but really, not that bad. It’s the first time two US runners have placed in the top 10 in an Olympic marathon since 1976, when Frank Shorter won the silver medal and Don Kardong came in fourth. Okay, so I happen to like track.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 24

The Olympic Games come to a close with another remarkable ceremony—I think they called it the “Closing Ceremony”—the appropriate finishing touch on China’s unprecedentedly extravagant $47 billion world party. Incredible. 

MONDAY, AUGUST 25

Now that that’s over, the Chinese can go back to pouring their money into human rights abuses. And making smog. Same difference.