Exposed

I can't believe I got to hold an Olympic gold medal! So who's medal was I holding...Cullen Jones! He was part of the 4x100 relay swim team that narrowly beat the French! It was awesome watching the relay race again with him sitting 2 rows in front of me! Very surreal and more hilarious when the NBC commentator said (paraphrasing), 'Now Cullen Jones is in the pool....one of the slowest ones on the team!' It was hilarious and he took it in stride. And in case some of you remember the little controversy regarding the post celebration...where's Cullen Jones?....well towards the end of the race he hoped up on stage and pointed out exactly where he was! He was on the side of the pool in case you're wondering! Oh...and he did one of those 'Thanks Mom!' commercials that ran through out the Olympic games. Youtube it, you'll love it!

Well I would be remiss if I didn't share one of the things he came to talk about. Right now he's supporting a little program called 'Make a Splash' (www.makeasplash.org) It helps expose minority kids to the world of swimming. And when he said 'expose' a light bulb went off in my head!

Here at work we've been trying to increase the Native American population but it's hard to get Indians to leave the rez! Really...who wants to leave home, family and everything familiar. So earlier this week I meet with the VP of Diversity for my company and we talked about it but I couldn't get my thoughts out clearly...not until Cullen spoke. What I want to do is 'expose' Natives to the world of technology! Why? Because that's what someone did for me.

So in my own way....Thanks Mom for exposing me to the technological world! From that exposing moment I went to college, interned in VT, graduated, moved to NC, met my husband and who knows what else will come from that one moment!