Exclusive Interview with Aaron Harris, Gold Blogger for One Winter, Five Dreams and Axels, Loops, and Spins – February 9th, 2010 – Part I
This is Part I of an exclusive interview I did with Aaron Harris from Axels, Loops, and Spins. He will be blogging for Panasonic’s “One Winter, Five Dreams” project the next few weeks. Aaron is well known in the Figure Skating World and has been a prolific blogger on the subject since July 2007. We are proud to have had the opportunity to get some time with him two days before he left for Vancouver to cover the Olympics.
Here is a link to his blog: Axels, Loops, and Spins: http://loopaxles.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to the “One Winter, Five Dreams” project: http://5dreams.panasonic.net/
This is my first time to transcribe an interview…and as it turns out, it is much more difficult than I imagined. So, this is Part I, just so I can get it online. The rest of the interview and a link to the Audio Interview is coming soon.
I highly suggest you follow Aaron Harris on twitter (http://twitter.com/skating102) ,
facebook, and read his blog daily
if you are interested in Figure Skating or the Olympics at all.
So, without further ado, and no more gilding the lilly I bring you Aaron Harris and Travis Phipps discussing The Olympics, Figure Skating, Blogging, and of course Johnny Weir!
TP: How are you doing?
AH: I’m exhausted, but I’m ok.
TP: When do you take off (for the Olympics)?
AH: Thursday afternoon.
TP: Tell us a little about the project “One Winter, Five Dreams”
AH: Was launched several months ago by Panasonic when they decided to follow 5 athletes, from 4 different sports that wouldn’t have the most conventional way to the Olympics. They aren’t your Evan Lysacek’s, Patrick Chan’s, Kim Yu-Na’s. They don’t come from ideal training situations, they don’t come from places that have heavily supported Olympic Federations, they are people that have really had to work hard. They have been following these 5 athletes on the One Winter, Five Athletes website. They also put out a contest looking for a blogger. Not only blogging about these 5 athletes but also the Olympics in general. I like blogging and I love the Olympics, so I entered the contest by filling out a questionnaire. I tried to be as sincere as possible. Apparently my efforts were good enough, because I won.
TP: What was the process for selecting the winner?
AH: I suppose they followed my blog, but other than that there wasn’t any other process except for me getting the email stating that I won the contest.
TP: When did you find out that you won the contest?
AH: I actually knew for a week before I posted it on Twitter. Panasonic asked me to wait until the Olympics were closer prior to announcing it on my blog. They told me last Friday that I could announce it; however, they still don’t want me to go into great detail because they want to announce it in Vancouver.
TP: Do you have a “Day Job”, because I know you spend a lot of time on Axels, Loops, and Spins?
AH: Yeah, I work for a non-profit medical organization in medical imaging…and I’m not really allowed to use their name either. On the blog it can be deceptive because I can write a post in the evening and have it pop up first thing in the morning.
TP: How long will you be in Vancouver?
AH: I leave on Thursday (February 12) and return on March 1st, so I’ll be there the whole time.
TP: Wow, I can’t tell you how jealous I am.
AH: Everyone on facebook and twitter has been saying the same thing. I said that if there is a problem taking off in the snow storm that I’ll get out and push the plane, and everyone else is saying, “if you take me with you, I’ll help you push the plane!”
TP: Where do you live?
AH: West Central Illinois. Right in between Chicago and St. Louis.
TP: Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the Opening Ceremonies?
AH: I have no idea, I’ll figure that out when I’m frantically packing.
TP: Do you have a schedule, do you get to attend all of the events, how is it all going to work?
AH: Some of it, I’m sure I’ll learn as I go, but Panasonic has told me a lot…but they want me to keep that a secret for the time being. But as it unfolds I’ll be blogging about it.
TP: We’ll keep an eye on your blog as the Olympics comes around, and we’ll send everyone your way for minute by minute updates. So, everyone keep your eyes open for that. But in the meantime can you tell us a little bit about your blog, how long you’ve been blogging, and what got you started?
AH: Sure, I started blogging in 2005 just before the Torino Olympics. You can actually see on my blog archives the very early beginnings of Axels, Loops, and Spins. It was spotty writing, nothing consistent, and I kept track of Michelle Kwan because I’m a big fan. I got away from it, and took break for almost a year, but got back into it in the Summer of 2007. Started the “Pic of the Week”, and then it became real steady. Went to several events and wrote about those. I found that what will drive traffic to your blog is mainly frequent updates. When I started hooking it up with Facebook and Twitter and that is when I started getting a lot of traffic.
TP: [This is where I spend some time complimenting Aaron on his prolific writing and thanking him for his consistency ;) ]
More to come!
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