Gold medal performance in the Face Drop

Today started with a bit of an emergency at the Catapillar Olympic Dormitory - when your intrepid reporter ventured into the arena this morning, she was horrified to find that the Catapillar condos had been turned on their sides during what can only be described as a catastrophe of epic proportions (a really strong thunderstorm in the middle of the night). After ascertaining that all of the athletes were more or less OK and accounted for, your reporter set about restoring the accommodations. We later learned that there was, unfortunately, one fatality. It couldn't be helped and number 14 was laid to rest with full honors (apparently, in his attempt to position for the Chrysalis Conversion, he didn't secure himself very well and he dropped during the conversion.) In his honor numbers 11 through 16 did their chrysalis performance in private.

The younger team members were less affected by the event and were keen to start the face-drop competition. As you can see here our gold medalist has accomplished the amazing feat of dangling his face plate from his head while shedding his striped uniform on the other end.  This is an Olympic first and the judges spent no time at all in naming our little stripy guy as the big winner of the day!  I should also point out that our little competitor is only about one third of an inch long. (And for those who want to know the more scientific facts - he was changing from his 2nd to 3rd Instar form, which involves shedding his old skin and face "plate" to unveil the new 3rd Instar form.)

It has been another hot and humid day in the AOG stadium, somewhat dampening this reporter's enthusiasm for the covering the games.  That said, we did get some good news clips and I will share those later… When our Internet service is restored.

Yes, in addition to wretchedly hot temperatures, we also awoke to no Internet service. As a consequence today's blip is an iPhone picture of my computer monitor since I have no way to upload the original image at this moment. Once our Internet is restored I'll come back and upload  the original image which is a much better quality then this one.  Better quality image now in place.

I will also be popping around to catch up on all the reports from around the blip-osphere on these Alternative Olympic Games.  In the meantime I encourage you all to do the same. Simply type #AOG14 into your blip search window to view all of today's fabulous entries.

Internet returned!  Two of my fav pics from today on Flickr:
A beautiful male monarch butterfly coming in for a landing
and a male downy woodpecker in the late-day light

Debbi