Finally, a chick with a blog on ESPN.com. Cool. And doubly cool because the chick is me! Check out my new bi-weekly Olympics column, Five Ring Circus. My first installment introduces you to the snowboarders and skiers you want to follow over the next six months.

Keep checking back regularly!

Last week was ESPYs week, which meant I blinked and the week was gone. And I realized this morning that I haven't checked in with the AR.com blog in more than a week. In other words, I was busy. I spent Monday night at the Playboy Mansion (obviously) surrounded by athletes, agents and naked women. (And I wonder why all my guy friends think I have the dream job.) Tuesday was spent at The Standard downtown hooking up tickets and party passes. And Wednesday night was the actual awards show, which was way better in person than on television. Although I'd take JT over Sam Jackson as host any day of the week. Let's make that happen next year, home office! The rest of the week was spent doing actual work. (Can't wait for you to check out the Colt McCoy piece for our college football preview issue, or the Clay Marzo piece, which is finally running next month.)

This week, the U.S. Open of surfing is taking place at Huntington Beach. I'll check in from there this weekend.

And next week is X Games week, which I am pretty sure will make ESPYs week seem like a cake walk. Monday, I'm playing in Ryan Sheckler's celebrity golf tournament. I haven't swung a golf club in five years, so that should go swimmingly. Hopefully I'll land Kelly Slater as a teammate. Tuesday, Red Bull is roasting Travis Pastrana at the Avalon downtown. (Maybe they'll give away a few books, too.) The rest of the week/weekend is packed with movie premieres, parties and competition.

The X Games starts Thursday, so check out our preview, which is on newsstands now (or here, online) to prime yourself for four days of skate, BMX, moto and rally racing. For the preview, I hooked up legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk with Alex Perelson, the future of vert skating. I talked with Travis Pastrana about his 10 years competing at the X Games and asked Shaun White and Ken Block to share their favorite X memories. It's all fun stuff.

Tomorrow is D-Day ... That's Day One of X Games 15 here in Los Angeles. It's my first X Games as a local, which means after all the craziness each day, I get to come home and sleep in my own bed. (But it also means I don't get to sleep at the Viceroy, which was secretly my favorite reason for coming to LaLa Land every August.)

If you haven't checked out our X Games preview issue of ESPN The Mag, spend some time before tomorrow night with the online version. And check out my updates on the pieces I did with Tony Hawk/Alex Perelson and Travis Pastrana. The trick Pastrana has planned for Friday night's FMX Best Trick contest, called the Toilet Paper (TP) Roll, is so technically difficult, he says he warms up with double backflips. If he lands wheels-first, this trick is not something you will want to miss. That goes for the entire contest. This Best Trick event has the potential to be the most exciting, and most frightening, contest the sport has seen in 10 years of X Games competition. Two front flips ... another Kyle Loza surprise ... Scott Murray's double backflip ... a backflip body vairal ... and a rodeo 720 (the TP Roll). Two years ago, any one of these tricks would have won Best Trick, hands down. Friday night, three of these guys won't make the podium.

Speaking of Pastrana, last night at the Avalon downtown, Red Bull hosted a "toast" of the FMX supastar, called Red Bull Toasted. Think: part celebration, part roast, total fun. TP's BFFs and family flew to LA to have a little fun at his expense. The ironic part about the evening was that the roasters—Tony Hawk, Ryan Sheckler, Carey Hart, Sal Masekala, Jolene Van Vugt, Andy Bell, TP's mom and dad—didn't have much to dog Pastrana about. You can only make so many jokes about someone being a nice guy with a death wish and the mentality (and game with the ladies) of a 13-year-old. So they ended up roasting each other waaaay more than they roasted TP, who got away much more easily than Sheckler and Hawk.

AFTER THE ROAST, TP TALKED ABOUT HIS RETURN TO BEST TRICK ...

I will preface this entry with an admission: I haven't picked up a golf club in about five years. Well, that's not exactly true. I picked up my entire golf bag and moved it to Los Angeles about 10 months ago. Then I stuck it behind my bedroom door and haven't thought about it since.

Until last week, when I received an invitation to play in the second-annual Ryan Sheckler X Games Celebrity Skins Classic at Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club. I was going to be playing with a foursome of folks from AXE body spray, one of the event's title sponsors, and skier Bode Miller. Around Friday, I realized I was going to potentially make a fool of myself and had a minor mental meltdown. Then I regrouped, refocused and found an executive course near my apartment in Santa Monica. I needed to practice.

So on Saturday evening, after attending the US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach (and witnessing one of the most fun waves I've ever seen surfed in person—Kelly Slater zipping through the HB pier on a double-overhead monster), I grabbed the only five clubs I need) for a round of golf (my 3-wood, 5-wood, 9-iron, wedge and putter) and headed to Penmar Golf Course to hit some balls. I figured after an hour at the driving range and a little time pitching and putting, I would be ready for this tournament.

Unfortunately, I was met with this greeting: "Um, ma'm, we don't have a driving range. You can play nine holes, though." Fortunately, the golf angels (or golf unicorns) took pity on me and sent me two earthly golf angels, Brandon and Tyler, who were paying their greens fees as I walked up and invited me to join them for nine holes. They were fantastic company and coached me along the way. By the end of nine, I had remembered how to hold and swing a golf club, was much more confident and had an honest 48 on the scorecard. Not bad.

That practice session made Monday much more fun. Bode was the hands-down MVP of our team, but we actually used my drive (it was a best-ball format) four times, as well as a few of my shorter shots and my Shot of the Day, a 100-yard pitch with my 9-iron that landed about nine feet from the hole. It's those shots that keep you coming back for more.

The entire day was a blast and really well attended by the action sports set. The team of Kelly Slater/Rob Machado/Sal Masekala won the skins prize and Sheckler's team won lowest score. After the six-hour round of golf, we headed inside to the AC (Thank goodness! Man, it is hot in the desert.) for a cocktail hour, dinner and an auction. By the end of the night, more than $500,000 had been raised for the Sheckler Foundation and the Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation. That's what happens when you get a bunch of competitive athletes with disposable income tipsy and then lure them into a bidding war over trips to Vegas and autographed golf memorabilia. I am sure several folks (Travis Pastrana, Jim DeChamp, Bruce Irons and Brody Jenner, to name a few) woke up Tuesday morning wondering what the hell they were thinking a few hours earlier. "I spent how many thousand dollars on something I could get for free?!"

Before the event teed off, Sheckler unveiled his new Got Milk? ad, which is pretty dang cool and his new AXE commercial, which begins airing during the X Games. Check it out early HERE.

THE ALL-STAR TEAM: MIGUEL, BODE MILLER, ME, NOODLE AND STEVE

In my latest ESPN.com Olympics blog, I check in with the U.S. Snowboard halfpipe team after their two-week progression session at Mount Hood.

My picks for Olympic frontrunners, six months from the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. And if you need an Olympic tutorial, check out my breakdown of the snowboard and freestyle ski events at Winter O.