Dogs and Sports and Stuff!

Hey there, I’m Ken! And this is my website!

Well, this is one of my websites. I’m also the founder of Sliding on Ice, a website about some of the greatest and most inclusive winter sports: Bobsled, skeleton, and luge. But more on that later.

So a little about me:

I was born in the picturesque town of Northampton, Massachusetts and lived there until I moved away to college in the late ’90s. From there I attended the greatest little college that you’ve never heard of, North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, NC. (Note: Rocky Mount is neither rocky nor mountainous.)

Once I finished school I got a job in Durham, NC and have lived in this glorious city ever since. If you haven’t been to Durham, you should come to Durham. It’s amazing, I promise: We have the Durham Bulls. We have Duke University. We have some of the greatest food you’ll ever taste.

I’ve had three amazing dogs: Sammy, the sweetest springer spaniel ever, Deacon, the greatest Boston terrier who passed away a few years back, and Tiki, the best pit bull/Dutch shepherd mix to ever roam the earth. If we ever meet, there is a 100% chance that I will remember the name of your dog and about a 20% chance I’ll remember your name without writing it down.

In 2019 I went and got married to my lovely wife Lauren. She’s great, and she tolerates a lot of my shenanigans. We met on dating site, went on a first date where I opened with the most epic “This guy named Tucker destroyed the plumbing at a race track” story one can tell, and a few years later we got married!

Aside from my day gig, I’ve done a LOT of side-work, some of it with IT consulting and stuff of that nature, but my passion has always been sports. From 2005 until 2012 I worked with a (now defunct) motorsports website as their lead reporter and photographer. During that time I also began doing announcing and/or public relations work for various race tracks in the region, including Richmond Raceway, Southern National Motorsports Park, Orange County Speedway, and Wake County Speedway. In recent years I’ve worked as the track photographer for Martinsville Speedway and as an announcer and social media guy for South Boston Speedway. In total, in one way or another, I’ve covered nearly 300 motorsports events, and over that time I’ve gotten to know some of the best people you could ever possibly meet.

Growing up I always loved the Winter Olympics, especially bobsled and luge (at the time skeleton was not an Olympic sport, and television coverage was scarce, at best). Over the summer of 2011 I decided to put together a little sliding sport blog called Sliding on Ice just with some basic information and whatever. Over the last decade it’s grown into a pretty great little website with results, interviews, track facts, and a lot more. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend seven IBSF World Cup events, a World Championships, and the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang. The website is probably the work I’m most proud of.

So that gets you caught up on the basics of who I am and what I’m doing here. I’m always glad to hear from folks, feel free to reach out on Twitter @TheKenChilds or wherever social media may take you.