NBA's Notwitzki & fencing & Naismith

According to the AP story today, Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks got his speed as a big man partially from some footwork with fencers recommended by his basketball coach. That reminded me that the inventor of basketball was also a a fencer and fencing instructor. Here's a photo (from 1926) of James Naismith with some of his students at KU. The footwork helps the fencer score - she or he needs only a touch and not a millimeter more to score - the exact distance improves your chances to score.

a turkey vulture's wind tunnel

I was out on a morning bike ride to Clinton Lake. At the far west end before the boat ramps is a nice gradual descent between the trees. A turkey vulture came in over my head about 15 ft up and soared above me for quite a ways keeping pace just ahead of me (half-wheeling me?). Staying just below the tree tops, the road must be sort of a wind tunnel where this bird was catching a good draft.

The Pan American: to be (served) or not to be

Just finished Wayne's book. Curious to see what Kim thinks of the story as he made contributions to facts about the Pan American Cafe. Nice photo of a Pan American lunch crowd in the book, with grandpa (King Mar) serving customers behind the counter. I need to dig up a good photo of the apartments that were above Pan American (150 N Market, my first home address. Mom and Dad and I lived there my first year).

Wayne mentioned that blacks were served in the back. I remember the sign in front by the counter, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." A common sign back them to keep blacks out. The Pan American customers were mostly whites on a business lunch or between work as the book mentions the boom days of the El Dorado oil fields and the aircraft industry. The Chinese population in Wichita of 0.1 % made it nearly invisible and no race relations can be made if you don't see someone to interact. I always wondered if that sign would come back and bite the Pan American owners and cooks.

Still, it was a black and white society right up to the 60s.
I got two traffic tickets about 6th grade - once I was labeled white, then second time Dad was amused see I was labeled black. And then Sam as a high school student leader had to deal with the race riots. Mom and Dad mentioned to me Sam agonized on his proper role and reponse. Do you see i from the black perspective; from the white view? Wichita was still in the B&W TV mode and had yet to discover NBC's Wonderful World of Color. This was a few years before the 1998 movie, "Pleasantville" posing the possibilities of life beyond black and white.

Wayne's World of Wichita

During my lunch break, I happen to walk by the Asian-American History section in the Oread Books (shop) at the Kansas Union. On the top shelf was American Paper Son: A Chinese Immigrant in the Midwest, by Wayne Hung Wong. I was thinking, this can't be the Wayne Wong that my brother, Kim, and my Dad talked about years ago. Then, looking at the photo pages, the pictures sure looked like our family albums. Then, there was a shot of the Pan American Cafe - the downtown restaurant I grew up in and owned (partly) by my granddad, King Mar.

Info on the book is available from the Univ of Illinois Press. I always thought it would be nice to see an account of the Chinese in Wichita. I'm glad Wayne and others with the talent and resources assembled the story.

The photo shows the Pan American (circa 1950).

Bike Race at Perry Lake

Here's the peleton on the Ferguson Road (crossing the Slough Creek bridge). Dee and I were there partly to catch the racers on the steepest hill - nothing to bother most of the riders. A national championship event in the Lawrence area is a long ways from the big packs of 12 guys in tne 70s training on these hills. Riders from ALL OVER! Will catch the downtown criterium tomorrow.

TioMila video from France

I happen to come across this video of the Tiomila Relay last weekend (Apr 30, 2006) and also posted it in the runLawrence web page - partly because I'm intrigued by these net video productions and partly to share the excitement of team orienteering events. After viewing it a couple of times, I finally read the results scores posted with the video and figured out the three guys that anchored had a super race to the finish - seconds apart. But Halden wins - again.

Raintree Run

I wanted to get a nice photo of this year's Raintree Run, but did not want to repeat the overhead shot looking down on the line of runners. Well at the same spot, I took this photo of Vincent Topiwo with the rocky wall in the background. Are we still in Kansas or does this have a foreign feel?

Storm damage and Udall

The following were the top three news releases from KU today. The first two refer to the recent storm damages. While it's nice that three students are being considered for the Udall scholarships, Udall has a special meaning to Kansans and in particular those from the Wichita Area. A very bad tornado disaster truck Udall (near Wichita) in the 1950s. There probably wasn't a bigger tornado disaster story until Topeka was hit in the mid 60s.

* Force of microburst wind pressures wrought havoc on KU campus roofs; Damage assessment on March 12 storm
http://www.news.ku.edu/2006/march/16/damage.shtml
The competing negative and positive wind pressures lifted roofing materials, in some cases tearing them off and in others slamming the roofs back down.

Media Advisory: KU officials to discuss storm damage, cleanup
When: 1:30 p.m. today
Where: Danforth Chapel, Jayhawk Boulevard and Lilac Lane
Who: Jim Modig, director of design and construction management, and Jim Long, vice provost for facilities management

* KU nominates three students for national Udall scholarship competition
http://www.news.ku.edu/2006/march/16/udall.shtml
The Morris K. Udall Foundation awards 80 scholarships nationally to students focused on careers related to the environment and to Native American and Alaska Natives planning careers in health care or tribal policy. HOMETOWNS: Overland Park and Salina, Kan.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and Vancouver, British Columbia

Perception of effort in workouts

When posting my workouts in Attackpoint you're asked to rate your workout from1 to 5, 5 being the hardest. The plan was to run this morning doing 3x1.5 mi with half mile recoveries - at tempo. Years ago we sold a textbook inthe Union Bookstore, "Physics for Poets" - a text for non science majors, of course. I wonder if there are any real measurable standards to determine the workout effort. My formula is a 3 is for a training run, a 5 for a race and a 1 for warmups, or walking around an airport at a brisk pace. This morning, the "at tempo" is new enough to me in that I had to think a pace to keep than just "go out and run." The effort could have been more a 4; but there's the recovery which should rate a 1. So, it was 3 workout on my log. That's the poet's measurement.

Good run wasted - another boom

Mark Roodhouse set a 7.7 km red course at Shawnee Mission Park. After a good New Year's Day trail run, I decided being careful and slow will get you clean, but slow runs. So, made it a point to run harder today. No major complaints up to 13, then then went back to 4 instead of going to 14. Cost me at least 3 places in the results. Can you see a comtributing cause for the error, besides the oxygen debt?

New Years Day 2006

Here's a shot of the New Year's Day run at Clinton State Park. Note that Mike Eglinski has a map. I left mine at home.

Bigger event isn't always the best

On Thanksgiving Day, runLawrence hosted its 2nd annual 5K Run. Why another run when Kansas City attracts thousands at the Sprint 5K & Family Stroll, or the Parkville Turkey Trot also on the same day? Well, a few people came to Lawrence from KC, Bonner Springs, etc., to get away from the crowds. The Parkville event is well attended by most of the KC running crowd, is fun and is convenient. But it has grown. So, runLawrence is happy to host a crowd of about 200. If we continue the trend, we will again offer homemade cookies, hand-crafted awards, the 5K distance, and the smalltown feel. All events are great; we're just the small town version. All the volunteers seemed really happy to help - and probably happier to be able to get home about 10:30 to spend the rest of the day giving thanks.

Good Day to be a Jayhawk!

Lawrence is happy with the first victory over Nebraska football team in 36 years. KU volleyball won in Manhattan, also another long-time losing streak ending. Saw a falling star on the way home last night from the PTOC meet at Blue Springs earlier in the day and the ngiht O'.
Good weekend to be a Jayhawk!
Rock Chalk!

Shrouded Phog

Just in time for Halloween - Phog Allen's outfit. Renovation on AllenFieldhouse is just weeks away from completion. Phog decided to dress up for tomorrow night. "Beware ye all who enter. . ."

My grandfather, King Mar, was an avid amateur photographer. During the day he was the cashier/manager of the Pan American Cafe in Wichita. He took lots of pictures and lots of pictures of the waitresses that worked at the Cafe. The cafe thrived because of its downtown location (150 N. Market) and businessmen appreciated the quick lunches for about 60 - 90 cents a plate. Don't know who these two ladies are, perhaps waitresses. They're dressed up pretty nicely. The photo was taken in King's apartment (above Pan American) in the 1950s. Looks like he used his floodlights (from the right). Behind the light in back are photos of King's parents.

The apartments above Pan American (I wonder how they decided on that name for a Chinese-American cafe?) looked a lot like the tenement photos you would see in 1900s back East. There was an open space in the middle that went up three(?) floors. Each floor had a balcony all the way around. Clothes lines were strung across all the time. The floors were dark, probably unpainted. I lived there the first year of my life. After we moved to 350 N. Topeka, I would often visit King in this apartment. It was just like any set out of a film noir movie. King and my Dad were pretty dapper when dressed in suits and looking very much the man of the 40s and 50s (Tyrone Power, Humphrey Bogart, etc.).

Any way, a nice photo of the period.

O'run videos

Mike Eglinski recommended Thierry Gueorgiou's latest "Follow Me" video. He shows a leg of the world cup sprint race in Italy. Don't think running on the KU campus will be that intricate.
Mike did his own video running at Knob Noster SP as well.

Then Patrick Nuss ran a white course in Seattle last weekend. Check his video.
(My apologies for the bad link that played every time.)

All of these would be great to show at a club meeting (if we ever do meetings again...)

We're not in Kansas...

Aspens were in full fall colors. Dee & I went to Beaver Creek, Colo, Sept 25-28, for the Dean Evans & Associates conference for users of the Event Management System. This was just up the hill from the Park Hyatt where we stayed for three nights. Further up we got within ten feet of a mule deer.

An intelligently designed sign?

Gene on the way to the stables. The family name , Mar, means horse in Chinese. Since Kansas questions the theory of evolution, I may not have been visiting distant "relatives."

River Trail Run

Headed out from the house through Lawrence and on to the river trails (bike trails to Mud Creek and back). Just a nice morning for a run. The leaves are still green, but yellow leaves were falling here and there. The sun streamed through the trees and a cool breeze picked up on the return leg back. Noticed the lack of spider webs across the trails - different from a week ago.

About a mile into the trails, heard the rumble of machinery harvesting the corn crop - you could see the equipment over the other side of the levee. Saw two deer about 15 meters to my left about a mile from Mud Creek.

On the way back, started to take one minute walked to ease up - that helped and I finished tired but without stress.

Noticed a marker just before the Mass Street bridge indicating the top level of the 1993 flood.

"Till Eulenspiegel" - thought came to mind I'll sign a quote for the Late Night with Mook Trail Run with Till's name. The fun run without sun; you do LNWM to vary your routine and enjoy a chat with friends on the trail; the headlamps some people will wear will impress you; etc.

Total run time: 2 hrs 28 min - marathon training run

web authoring is hard work

Labor Day Weekend was a holiday weekend. It was also time to update the running club's web pages. Info was needed for the Sun, Sept 4 meeting. Finished the draft for the Thanksgiving Day entry. Worked with Photoshop Elements to create the turkey chasing a group of runners. Also put together the first draft of the Late Night with Mook flyer. After the club meeting, created the club store page so members could order running gear. Then, Mon (Sept 5) went to Leawood to photograph Dee and Karen Hyde at the 5K. Added results and photos to website.
Fun work, lose sleep, get addicted to the creative process, lose energy to train. But accepting the fact that I don't have the talent to be a pro at this stuff, but there's enough talent to be a good amateur and still enjoy the creative activity. It's like my running - good enough to enjoy and train, but not among the best in the world.