MUCH BIGGER SOCHI PROBLEMS

Yesterday, I poked fun at all the funny things going on in Russia ahead of the Olympic games, but I left out the biggest travesty of the entire thing.

The Russian government has partnered with an extermination company and is paying them to round up all the stray dogs and cats throughout the city and kill them. They're shooting them with poison darts and leaving poisoned meat for them to eat. The poison causes the animals to suffocate and it takes up to 90 minutes for them to die.

These dogs aren't strays, not really. Most of them are pets that were abandoned by families whose homes were demolished to make way for the building of Olympic venues. There are some people that have been trying to get dog sanctuaries up and running, but construction crews are in short supply, because most of them are still trying to finish building the hotels that athletes, journalists and other visitors are staying in.

The company hired by the Russian government, Basia Services, refers to the animals as "biological garbage" and feel they're doing the right thing.

Here's Keith Olbermann talking about it on his show recently. I hadn't planned on watching anything related to the Olympics because I don't care about winter sports, but now I'm in full on "Fuck This" mode.

Welcome to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Gay people aren't welcome, you can be arrested for swearing, and now they're killing dogs in the streets by the hundreds.

It's horrible.

MISERABLE.

The older I get, the more I hate winter. Today is my Saturday, so when I woke up to more snow I was pissed. The last few days have been almost spring-like (in Salt Lake, anyway) and I did everything I could to keep my hopes down. I knew it was only a matter of time before winter came back again and crushed my dreams of not dreading leaving my house, sitting outside at night and riding my bike around town.

To make matters worse, I just bought my plane ticket to a wedding in Florida in a couple of months. Granted, by the time the wedding rolls around, the snow will be long gone and Spring will be taking shape, but still. I've been looking at the pictures of the resort for the past hour and getting really excited. Then I remember that it's three months away and I have a lot more of this ahead of me:

Either I turn into my Grandpa (who bails for Arizona every September and stays away until May) or I suck it up and get really good at snowboarding so I can use bullshit phrases like "shredding the fresh pow" and sound like an idiot, or I can get the fuck out.

But you know what? I'm doing neither. I'll keep living here and bitching about it on the Internet. Because that's what it's for.

And I'll just keep looking at these pictures to tide me over until April. So thanks Dan and Kristin, but I do secretly wish your wedding was sooner.