My route from the score O' at Shawnee Mission Park (Sun, Jan 11, 2015)

Rockcrusher O - New Year's Day 2015

Jan 1, 2015 - first orienteering event was at the Rockcrusher Area at Clinton Lake.  Here's my route.

Mar 28, 2014 E Fleming O' Meet

My route from the East Fleming Park, Lake Jacomo Meet, March 29, 2014.  Not a clean run, but I wanted to race it hard and got lucky to take first on the Red course.

My first orienteering meets - 1976

I first orienteered at Camp Bromelsick (Boy Scout Camp at Clinton Lake before there was a Clinton Lake) as a class outing in George McCleary's cartography 101 course in the fall 1976.  Don't have the map.
George drew up a better black & white map of Shawnee Mission Park than the USGS photocopy PTOC was using (or was it the Johnson County Outdoor Society?).  He did this in the middle of a geography faculty meeting.  It was a more accurate map for the Nov 21, 1976 meet.  George's cartography students and his Cub Scouts did better than the KU ROTC guys using the USGS reprint.  I copied the course from the master map in pencil (off to the right at shelter #2 on Small Lakes Rd).

Sam Mar Wee 1954-2012

My brother, Sam Mar Wee, passed away November 14, 2012. 
This is a slideshow of Sam from several family photo albums
created by our youngest brother, Kim.  

Saved kitten from road side

Saved kitten in a pocket.
Dee, Grover Everett & I were biking this morning on the path near 6th & Geo Williams Way & found these two kittens abandoned along the highway. The 1st gray kitten was willing to stay in my back pocket until we got to the corner and called Grover's wife, Carolyn to come by with the car. Headed out again and heard meowing in the same spot and found "whitey" who wouldn't stay in a jersey pocket. Called Carolyn for help. Both kittens are doing fine now and have been adopted by friends of the Everetts.
They're about 4 weeks. Cruel people in this world; they wouldn't have lasted long in the heat, to say nothing of wandering out onto Highway 40.

Psycho Wyco 2011

2011 Psycho Wyco

Snow packed with 6 inches of snow at the start then snow packed trails the rest of the way. Map attached. Ended up finishing in 2 hrs 8 min. Slower than last year.

Gateway Runt (Mar 7, 10

Map from the Gateway Runt (shorter than the Grunt) - 9.5k if you went to all the controls. You were allowed to skip one and chose #13. Bad, bad error to 4.

Mar 6, '10 Hawn Green Route

My first Quick Route map: Green course at Hawn SP.

mizzou.us

The Journal-World today reported that if you go to www.mizzou.us, you get to another website. "Word of the switch reached the Mizzou Alumni Association (www.Mizzou.com) Monday afternoon, drawing a few expressions of surprise, disappointment and, perhaps, maybe a little envy."
Going to be a fun year. . .

Hmong Haiku

A Hmong then two Hmongs
A Hmong among many Hmongs
Minneapolis

(composed before seeing Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino.
OK - "Detroit, Michigan" instead of Minneapolis)

My Univ of Kansas orienteers?

I came across the Vulcan O' Club's Orienteering Workbook (2004) with a reference to the KU Champs on page 9:


The Sport Evolves
After fading away around 1971-72, West Point orienteering was rejuvenated in 1975 by U.S. Army orienteering founder Bud Fish. The cadets have dominated U.S. intercollegiate competition from 1978 to the present except for 1983-85 when Gene Wee's University of Kansas orienteers won. Bill Gookin has been an orienteering organizer in the San Diego area since 1969. The San Francisco Bay area club with the leadership of Joe Scarborough and the clubs around the Seattle, Washington, area grew rapidly as the top western orienteering areas in the 1980's. . .



I assembled the runners and they did all the work. . . Many are still OK members 25 years later. Maybe KU in some other sport can win a national championship this weekend down south. . .

Camp Prairie Schooner (Sept 16, 07)

Sunday - day 2 - got the chills the night before and almost missed this one. Slow start and didn't have a great plan on route selection. At gun, thought either 3 or 2 would be a good starting point; opted for 2, got crowded at 1, so I skipped (why?) 1 figuring I might not finish the course and call it quits about 30 min. Anyway, Larry Rink missed the turn to go to 15, so Paul Clatterbuck and I headed north to 15, then Larry zoomed by us. I couldn't keep up with either of them and decided picking up 16 would save me the climb later (west to 16, then retraced steps to trail to 15, then almost missed the faint trail to get to 21. Area is very reminiscent of Camp Naish with faint trails, clusters of hue rocks broken off from outcrop lines; lots of campsite pads and small buildings. Mary Jones left 21 before I did on her way to 24. I was trying to slide up to 18, but ended up verring on to the trail to 24; then up to 18, 23, 14, 19, up 13, trail to 20, 8, 11, followed Kelly Sumner to 10, then 17, then on way to 22 saw the stupidity in getting 17 first, then fearing the darker green up from 17, took the trail by 10 and all the trails to 7. Then seeing I had a lot of time left to finish in under an hour, went to 9 (clearly botched the route choices), then 6, 5, 4, 3, and 1.

49:11. 3rd. OK for a sicky.

Harrisonville Score O

Having only entered 2 O' meets last season, the 2007 season started off with 2 event the same weekend (Sept 15-16). The Jerry Tabb Road Trip Orienteering Event was held at the Harrisonville (MO) city park - a 1:7500 map made by Kelly Sumner - and the event was listed as not a PTOC event, so refreshing to have a new meet director and event sponsor.

My route: 24-23-22-21-18, then wanted to go to 20, but made a parallel error going to 19, then headed east like I was leaving 20 for 19. Mucked around before figuring out the problem. Then continued: 20-19-17-16-14-13-12-11-10-9, ran back to 5, then was sloppy and missed 6 and 7, so headed to 8, then picked up 7-6-4-3-2-1.

Lee's Eighth Promise

Reading William Poy Lee's Eighth Promise. Lee is a Toisan-American and the similarities of his growing up experiences, even though he was in San Francisco and I in Wichita, are more than our differences.
Toisan perceived by many as the hick dialect of Chinese - yea.
Herbal soups were a battle ground with my Mom, too.
I could figure out most of his romanized Toisan words; this is digging back to 50-year ago.
He's had more success in blossoming into a lawyer, activist and writer. Is the Toisan roots that important for every Toisan-American to get his act together?
Would a visit to the home village be enlightening or as some who've gone back, a trial of grubby "relatives" demanding tribute to those you suffered and did not get away?

Upscale Indian Restaurants

The NY Times reported on a few upscale Indian Restaurants in London and mentioned Hot Stuff as a great less pricey traditional small establishment to try.

Psycho Wyco - Runners with Loose Screws?

Are they crazy to run on icy trails on the hills at Wyandotte County Lake Park? The event name is Psycho Wyco. The sponsors are the Kansas City Trail Nerds. Trail running is catching on around the country and the Feb 10th event proved these die hard serious, fun runners know what they're doing.

Loose screws? If you were doing the 50K (3 lap) race and came into the first lap aid station, you may have lost your screws. The ones on the bottom of your shoes. Trail Nerds had been heralding this simple fix to fight the icy trail conditions all winter. At the aid station like any horse out for a long run, you need to be reshod. A team of volunteers with power drills and ample supply of ammo "screwed" any runner's shoe in need of a fix.

This created the miracle on ice - traction on a sloped skating rink. But there were plenty of falls - some harder than others.

For Lawrencians, Psycho Wyco's aid station support is like an Octoginta for trail runners. A a laid-back attitude, along with serious prep (screws), good food and great support crews - all make this event your should put on your calendars for next year.

Christmas and music

Christmas Day - There was a nice TV documentary on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It HAS been along time since I was in a choir. They sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic (the Gould arrangement) - how I liked that piece! These days it is hard to carry a tune. But, like riding a bicycle I hope you don't forget and some day, given the opportunity, I can sing in a chorus. One of the latter songs on the program was "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing". Mom used to sing that and is a favorite hymn of mine. I thought it was of Scottish background, but is an American melody (Shaker?).
Anyway, it brought back memories of Mom, Don my brother who loved to sing, my youth and a past now long ago.
It was nice to reminisce.

Accessing blogger account

Had trouble logging into the blogger account the past week. Things have been messy ever since trying to use Internet Explorer 7. Went back to 6.0, but still some problems.

Sample Map of Dec 2 Sprint O

This is just a test to see if the map we're making for the Dec 2nd O' on Mt. O' reproduces OK. This should be a fun meet and any KU Alumnus will be pleasantly surprised what the campus has to make for an interesting course. Final scale will be either 1:4000 or 1:5000.