At around five o’clock Sunday evening, just before my wife left for work, I bundled up for my first trip out into the sorry excuse for a blizzard Southern Maine was being hit with.

The mission was simple, but I had a schedule to keep. First, I would run across the street to the Mobil station for a six-pack of Magic Hat #9, a fruit-flavored pale ale that I enjoy immensely on cold winter days (and hot summer days and brisk autumn days).

When I got home, the beer would go into the refrigerator, and I would retreat into my home office to transcribe some notes.

After that, there would be a meal of leftovers, followed by chores – I promised the wife I’d vacuum and empty the dishwasher at some point.

Finally, at 7 o’clock, if all had gone according to plan, I would crack open a Magic Hat, plop onto the couch and watch four and a half hours of Winter Olympics coverage. According to the “info” button on my remote, there would be Alpine skiing, speed skating, ski jumping, snowboarding and luge.

It was a solid lineup that could’ve been perfect with some men’s hockey instead of ski jumping, but I somehow had managed to avoid seeing any results on TV or online – and I was on the couch with beer in hand before 7 – so I couldn’t complain.

Here are some random thoughts I jotted down while watching and wondering if I’ll still be whistling the Olympic theme song when the 2008 summer games roll around …

– The big news of the day is Michelle Kwan’s decision to withdraw from competition after injuring her right groin during practice.

The 25-year-old American was in search of her first gold medal at her third Olympic Games. She fought for a place on the team, and the U.S. Figure Skating monitoring committee granted her one even though she had been battling injuries.

I respect Kwan for having such a strong desire to represent her country, and I respect her even more for realizing that she would be hurting her country if she tried to fight through the pain and compete.

But was there really a need for USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth to say, “Michelle Kwan means more to the United States Olympic Committee than maybe any athlete that’s ever performed for the U.S. Olympic Committee”?

There was this stocky little guy named Mike Eruzione. In 1980, he scored this game-winning goal against this supposedly unbeatable Russian hockey team. The win led to the crumbling of the Kremlin, nuclear disarmament and brought an abrupt end to the Cold War.

OK, maybe I’m getting a little carried away here, but Peter, if you’re reading, you get the picture: tone it down.

– Next up: ski jumping, the K 95, normal-hill variety.

Fox Sports feels the need to use a cartoon character to explain a curveball to us during Sox-Yanks games, but the NBC folks can’t give us a little background info on ski jumping?

I’m not looking for much here, people, just a few basics, like, maybe, who was the lunatic who invented this sport?

– If I hear snowboarder Shaun White described as “The Flying Tomato” one more time, there’s going to be a tomato flying directly at my TV. My wife wouldn’t be all that “stoked” to see the idiot box all juiced up, but I’d lie, tell her to “chill, brah” and then explain that after witnessing the “raddest fakie, fakie, double McTwist 1080 I had ever seen” I couldn’t control myself.

– During the men’s luge I learn a few things:

1. Germany’s Georg Hackl is nicknamed the “Speeding White Sausage.” This makes me laugh out loud.

2. U.S. luger Tony Benshoof works at The Home Depot. Having recently remodeled my kitchen, I have grown frustrated with The Home Depot and it’s whole “You can do it, we can help” mentality. As a result, Tony Benshoof is the only American athlete I will openly root against.

3. When an announcer says that a luger is “soaking up the bumps” what he/ she really means is “during a slow-motion instant replay, you can see every jiggle of fat and flesh through his skin-hugging suit.” I think I’ll look away when the “Speeding White Sausage” is “soaking up the bumps.”

– I really think I could beat Anton Apolo Ohno and Ahn Hyun-Soon on a short track if I was wearing properly-sharpened hockey skates.

Seriously.

For the first five laps they cruise around like mitten-and-scarf-wearing, hot-apple-cider-drinking, Bing-Crosby-listening fools.

Me? I’d go like gangbusters when the gun popped and immediately build a two or three lap lead. Then, I’d flip it around and finish the race skating backwards just for kicks.

If I had to wear those sword-boots, though, I wouldn’t make it past turn one.

– At 9:07, Bob Costas tells me the men’s downhill is on deck – the moment I’ve been waiting for.

Four years ago, I bought into the Bode hype. After the controversial 60 Minutes interview, my commitment to Miller wavered, but since reading a New York Times piece on him last week I’m back in his corner.

Miller is egocentric and quirky – maybe that’s what happens when you’re raised in a New Hampshire cabin with no electricity or running water – but, like Kwan, White and Ohno, he is an individual who has a passion for his craft.

And it’s athletes like this whose anguish I can see and feel when they don’t come through like they thought they would – as was the case with Miller and Ohno on this particular night.

It’s athletes like this who keep me glued to the TV for four and a half hours at a time.