If you saw someone running around dazed this week, odds are that was an Arctic Winter Games volunteer. If you saw someone screaming in a cell phone, you can be dang sure if was an AWG official hammering out some final detail. A source close to the Betster said this week that the backroom at AWG World Headquarters looked like an all-night study session at a college fraternity. Cold slabs of pizza half-eaten. Mutilated doughnuts. Papers everywhere — in other words, kind of like the Homer News on deadline day.

How do organizations pull off complicated events with as many details as a military invasion? It’s a miracle. Somehow these things all come together. Just when you think it won’t happen, just when that last critical part got sent to a farmer in Possum Trot, Tenn., holy FedEx, it happens. Everything comes together. So, when Team Alberta steps out onto the sheet Monday and slides that stone down the ice, that whirring sound isn’t the stone whisking over the pebbles — it’s the exhalation of a hundred volunteers. Whoosh! You did it! A bare spot on the Spit two years ago has now became a place to celebrate circumpolar friendship. Attaboy and attagirl. You done good.

This week’s Bestest Bet? Of course — the Arctic Winter Games. But there’s still plenty else to do, like some of these Best Bets:

BEST TEXAS TEA BET: With a little luck, some spit and a lot of sweat, Aurora Gas might just hit a pocket of gas. Find out how the Houston company is doing at 6 p.m. today when representatives present an informational meeting at the Anchor River Inn.

BEST READ QUICKLY BET: Last week the Betster rented one of those foreign films and forgot to set the subtitle button on the DVD player. Sacre bleu! The B’s high school French wore out by the second scene. You can test your Francais or just read along when the college foreign film series starts up again Friday at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. This week’s film is “Black and White in Color,” a 1976 French film set in West Africa during World War I.

BEST LUCY IN THE SKY WITH GLASSES BET: Who knows what the Beatles really sang about? The Betster’s theory: a laser light show. Check out the thrills of pencil-thin lights flashing around the ceiling when “Invisible Science” performs at 10 p.m. Friday at the Alibi. Laser artist Warren Zera is accompanied by musician Dawson Stone. Leave the cats at home, or you’ll drive them crazy.

BEST IT DOESN’T GET BETTER BET: Wow, that powder that fell last weekend was just perfect. With long days, lots of sunshine and deep snow, now is that time to get in some late winter skiing in. Check out the Ohlson Mountain Rope Tow from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday.

BEST FORWARD INTO THE FUTURE BET: Women’s rights have come a long way since suffragettes marched for the vote, but there’s still work to be done. Celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, and listen in at 6:30 p.m. at the Amped Café when a cross-cultural, cross-generational panel talks about “Embracing Women’s Issues in America Today.”