Although the Olympics now seem like a distant memory, the event remains on my mind quite a bit these days...more as a missed opportunity than anything else. My wife and I both love the Olympics. And this past year, we were living in London during all of the preparations. We suffered through countless tube closures, media coverage of cost overruns and delays in venue construction, and an overall fear that the city would buckle under the huge number of expected visitors that would test an already overworked infrastructure. The city was nervous...and we, unfortunately, also got anxious.

Staring down an impending relocation back to the States, we determined that departing prior to the Olympics would probably be best so that we could avoid the inevitable crowds, traffic, and frustration of living in a city that is overrun by tourists. We weren't the only ones to "leave Dodge" prior to the event. Droves of locals rented out their flats at exorbitant fees and fled to other parts of Europe to wait out the certain mess. Wow...were we all wrong. Yes, the tube was overrun during events. And yes, our friends there were certainly glad to say goodbye to the swarm of visitors after it was all over.

But by all accounts, the Olympics was a huge success (for everyone other than local retailers. There were no security incidents of note, the tube didn't suffer a catastrophic collapse, and the venues all seemed to look great. TV viewership in the U.S. was the largest eve and the big advertisers were generally satisfied with the results of their brand exposure. Pretty much everyone was happy...except for me. My eyes were glued to the TV for 2 weeks straight, and the whole time I was thinking that I should be there experiencing it live. What a missed opportunity.