Rudaska

Cats are where it's at. They are low maintenance and just need a good rub now and then. Rudy joined our family in August 2001. He's just the best damn cat I've ever been around. He's funny, personable, greets everyone who comes to the door, and just loves to roam the great outdoors.

He's named after another Rudy. That Rudy was also a big yellow tom who belonged to my late mother. That Rudy was a big butterball who loved donuts. I inherited him after my mother's passing and unfortunately eight months later he contracted feline leukemia. It was tough because it brought up a lot of emotion so shortly after my mother's death.

The new Rudy used to have a running mate. China Cat Sunflower lived to be a ripe old 18 but we had to put her down in 2002. China lacked Rudy's charisma. She was a good cat and was never overly demanding.
Rudy on the other hand can be a handful at times. He always wants to roam outdoors but that's no longer allowed. Between the fleas and the threat of becoming a meal for a gator we don't let him out. Occasionally he escapes and returns dirty and happy from his adventures.

He loves water. It's the amazing how he loves to drink out of an ice filled trash can as I try to nurse an injury. Rudy demands running water from the faucet of the bathtub at least four times a day and if that's not available, the toilet does just fine.

Ice Baby Ice

My poor friends in Western Kentucky are enduring the unthinkable. The winter storm that swept up through Arkansas across the Ohio Valley did a real number on parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. I believe this photo was taken by Lew Jetton just outside his home in Tennessee. Lew's reporting power could be out for weeks in some parts of the area.

I've been through a few ice storms. The first bad one I remember was in Kansas City in either 1986 or 87. The ice storm hit when the trees still had leaves so it really created a mess. The house I was living in didn't have power for a couple of days. What I remember most about that storm was all of the debris that was cleared throughout the city. The mulch was laid out on a runway at Richards-Gebaur air base in Belton, Missouri. The pile ran more than a thousand feet and was 20 to 30 feet high and about 60 feet across.

The worst storm was in 1994 in Paducah, Kentucky. That's the same area hit this week and not far from where Lew currently lives. The rain, ice mix started falling the evening of Sunday, January 16th. I ran 11 miles that day and remember the rain started to turn to ice. Before going to bed I had a conversation with Tom Butler, a grand gentleman who was my mentor at WPSD where I was news director. Tom was going to anchor that morning and wanted to know if I could drive him into work in the morning if there was a problem.

I went to bed just after 10 p.m. and it was snowing pretty good. I got the call from Tom sometime after 3 a.m. and told him no problem, I had front wheel drive. Well, the snow by then was up to the wheel wells of my car. Underneath the heavy snow was pure ice. I couldn't budge my Mazda and called Tom. He had a tow truck on the way to try and rescue his Cadillac, I got in my running clothes and headed to his house, a little more than a mile away. When I got there the situation was hopeless. There was no way his boat was going anywhere short of a helicopter airlift.

I decided to run into work and see if I could to prepare a newscast while Tom waited for the wrecker. The run was the most incredible of my life. It was just three more miles from Tom's house to work. It was eerily silent and beautiful beyond belief. The snow was up to my calf, fresh, soft, and very moist. Nary a vehicle had been down the road so I was alone in this winter wonderland. The trees, so weighed down from the ice and snow were bending over the narrow two lane street. Occasionally a branch would hit a power line and the pop and arcing blue flame would light up the night sky. This must have happened a half dozen times on the way into work. By the time I got up to the main highway about a half mile from work I realized that travel on this day was impossible.

I made it to the newsroom grateful to find that a director had spent the night at the station with his girl friend who also was the chyron operator. I called Lew, who was the morning weatherman to access his situation. He was stuck as well and a mile away from work. I told him to walk. He reluctantly agreed. It was about 5 a.m. and the news was starting at 6 a.m. There was no way to prepare anything that resembled a newscast and I was feeling more and more sure that Tom Butler would never arrive. The phones were starting to ring. Businesses, schools, people, wanting to know what the heck was going on. My two words of advice, stay home.

When 6 a.m. rolled around I took to the air wearing a sport coat over my Macy's marathon shirt. The shirt was particularly tasteful, bright red with gold lettering. We had a camera set up in the newsroom and I spent about five minutes showing the radar, reading off the closings and telling people not to venture out. I tossed it back to the "Early Today Show," praying that Lew would arrive soon. He walked in not more than a couple of minutes later. We went back on the air probably five minutes after that, Lew talking about the weather, while I answered phones and told folks about the closings and whatever other vital information I could lay my hands on. I think we managed to fill almost all the way to "The Today Show." Ironically it was the same morning as the Northridge earthquake in California so there was plenty of news.

It was a mess but we had all hands on deck that day and covered heck out of this major story. That night a national guardsman in a Humvee drove me home. It was the only way to get around. Tuesday, I managed to free my car and get into work. The main roads were fairly passable. I remember heading out for some lunch at a little seafood joint. I walked in and I realized that everyone was staring at me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong until one of the patrons spoke up and told me what a great job I had done the morning before. Two or three others joined in with compliments. I continued to get the, "Hey aren't you the guy who ran into work," comments for the next two months.

The Wrestler

The Czarina is on the road so I took advantage of my solitude to head out to a film that she would never see. "The Wrestler" has gotten so much buzz because of Mickey Rourke's acting. It's a fine art film. Rourke does a very good job. But it's not a great movie. He'll probably win the Oscar for Best Actor but I've seen better, more compelling performances this year. Clint Eastwood got screwed.

I'm not sure why I'm not ga-ga over this film. I've never been a big fan of Rourke. I can remember when he was going through his boxing phase and he blew into Kansas City for some bout. He ended up live on the station I worked at doing an on set interview with our sports anchor. I didn't even care enough to go down and meet him. I was ambivalent about the whole thing. Just the way I feel about this movie.

Don't get me wrong, I get a kick out of meeting celebrities. I can remember the first time I met George Brett face to face. He sat next to me on press row at a Big 8 post season tournament game drunk off his ass. It was K-State versus KU and Brett had the nerve to cheer for the Mildcats. He liked Ed Nealy, go figure. It cracks me up now every time I see Brett sitting in Allen Field House at a KU game.

I've met a few other minor celebs, Paul Ruebens, AKA Pee-Wee Herman, Dr. Demento, "Weird" Al Yankovic, Joe Walsh, Minnie Pearl and a lot of running stars like Olympic Gold Medalist Frank Shorter and marathon great Bill Rodgers. It's a long list.

Perhaps my best brush with greatness was when I went down and watched the Moody Blues perform a sound check at the Barbara B. Mann center. I've seen more than a half dozen times in concert and they've always been one of my favorite bands, right behind the Beatles when it comes to British groups.

Anyway, I met them before the sound check. They were very gracious and enjoyed chit-chatting about their new album, their love of their work and other mundane subjects. It was a big thrill. Much better than sitting through two hours of Mickey Rourke playing a washed up Hulk Hogan.

The Germinator

German Fernandez just set the running world on its collective ear. Every track and field fan knows by now that this freshman who attends Oklahoma State ran a 3:56.5 mile over the weekend in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Taken into perspective, Jim Ryun, arguably the greatest collegiate miler ever didn't run that fast indoors until two years after graduating from the University of Kansas. Ryun ran his then indoor world record in the mile of 3:56.4 in 1971 on a board track that at the time was considered state of the art.

Fernandez had the advantage of running on a state of the art synthetic indoor at in Arkansas, but he's barely 18 years old. Ryun was 23 when he ran his record, that's the same age as Hicham El Guerrouj was when he set the current world indoor record for the mile of 3:48.45 in 1997. Fernandez is a relative baby and here's the kicker, pardon the pun, he's a running neophyte.

When Ryun started setting records he was a veteran of an intense training system. 100 mile weeks were for Jim routine and it helped him produce two outdoor world records in the mile and win an Olympic silver medal. Fernandez hasn't come close to running that many miles in a week. Because of injury problems his high school coach wisely monitored his mileage. His senior year Fernandez shattered the long standing high school record in the two mile and came amazingly close to breaking four minutes in the 1,600 meters in a solo effort at his state meet.

What does it all mean? It means that American distance running truly is on the comeback. Even with Alan Webb's Olympic year flame out and Ryan Hall's disappointing marathon in Beijing Americans can take heart. We're competitive again, both men and women. I think much of this distance running resurgence can be traced back to one thing, the Internet. Running sites like Dyestat and Let's Run have created this cross polination of running thought, hero worship, criticism, and most importantly, excitement.

Dyestat's coming of age nearly coincided with the emergence of Alan Webb, Ryan Hall, and Dathan Ritzenheim. The trio showed that you have to run more than 50 miles a week to be a competitive distance runner. They were trailblazers just like Jim Ryun and Gerry Lindgren were nearly 40 years before them. And not to leave the girls out but the same thing is happening with them too, hello Shalane Flanagan, I'd like you to meet Jordan Hassay.

This is great stuff for running nuts. German Fernandez may never win an Olympic medal or set a world record. But if he can stay healthy, he's going to create a lot of excitement on the track for the next decade.

One

Finally a week where I was too busy blog but not to busy to take in the historic changing of the guard in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama isn't wasting anytime putting his stamp on the office. Thank God!

He basically gave the hard line wing of the Republican party the finger. Who can argue with his sentiment that it's time for the GOP to quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and get about the task of fixing the economic ills of this country. Mr. Obama's quote of the week to a gathering of Republican leaders arguing with him over the stimulus package, "I won."

I'm afraid even throwing a trillon dollars at this problem isn't going to solve it. Once they let Lehmann Brothers fail there was no turning back the clock. I think the government needs to take a step back and let a couple of these other big banks go as well, specifically Citi and Bank of America.

I blame deregulation for a lot of the ills that are being visited upon us. The banks simply got too big to control. Unfortunately, they got to big to let fail. Deregulation has killed broadcasting and in some ways the newspaper business as well. These mega media groups bought properties based on ever expanding advertising revenues. Any hiccup in the economy meant painful draconian cuts in jobs. The Internet took a slow burning fire that had been ruining newspapers, television and radio for years and turned it into a raging inferno. The media business set itself on fire when it didn't come up with a pay model for all of that information that gets shoveled to the web.

Communities are going to suffer greatly because newsrooms will stop covering the hard subjects like government and fall back to the easy gets of murder and mayhem. Bloggers will have to fill the void but that is a dangerous path in the search for truth. I believe some bloggers offer useful insight to the political process, take for example Tonys Kansas City. But bloggers generally have agendas, even TKC, a well run newsroom at a TV or newspaper doesn't.

Here's hoping that our new President is given a chance to fix what's ailing us. Rush Limbaugh and his gang had their chance and after a promising start (The Contract with America) but in the end they became even bigger spenders than the Democrats that had wrested power away from. I think we're in for a lot more pain, three to five years worth perhaps. Generation X is going to learn some tough lessons that our parents and their parents experienced.

Cheno-whiff

Watching Kansas cut through Colorado in Boulder and the monstrous slam dunks from Cole Aldrich got me to thinking about how he stacks up with true centers that have played for the Jayhawks over the last 50 years. Wilt fits into that time frame so he's obviously the top dog in that group. But how do the others rate?

The Jayhawks have seen an incredible run of great low post players. The list is long, Bill Bridges, Wayne Hightower, Dave Robisch, Rick Suttle, Danny Knight, Danny Manning, Mark Randle, Richard Scott, Raef LaFrentz, Nick Collison, Wayne Simeon, Drew Gooden, Darrel Authur and Scott Pollard. The best of this group, Manning, LaFrentz, Gooden and Collison all had sweet post moves. Robisch was the king of the turn around jumper and parlayed that into a decent NBA career. Bridges and Pollard could do a little of this and a little of that and turned that into NBA careers.

Let's not forget some smaller guys who could grind in the post. Paul Pierce could get down and dirty in post. Even smaller guys like John Douglas and Carl Henry scored a lot near the glass.

But the list of true centers is short. We're talking about guys that played with their back to the basket 75 percent of the time or more. The names that come to mind are the immortal Wilt Chamberlain, Walt Wesley, Paul Mokeski, Greg Dreiling, Greg Ostertag, Sasha Kaun, Cole Aldrich and the biggest underachiever of the bunch, Eric Chenowith. Out of this group only Chenowith and Kaun failed to make it to the NBA. Kaun may end up in the NBA yet someday. Wesley, Mokeski, Dreilling and Ostertag all had serviceable NBA careers. Mokeski's was the most interesting because he became more of an outside threat in the pros than he showed in college.

From what I've seen Aldrich could be the best of the bunch, save for Wilt. Nothing was more frustrating over the last 15 years than to watch Ostertag and Chenowith go up with half hearted put backs. Aldrich is ferocious. He doesn't hesitate to jam the ball down the basket. Add to that Aldrich's feathery touch from the perimeter and he just sticks out on the offensive end. Defensively, I don't think I've seen a better shot blocker than Cole at Kansas. If Aldrich sticks it out for all four years, Ostertag's career blocks records should go by the wayside. And he rebounds with passion. The tradition of great Kansas big men is certainly safe for at least the next two years.

Rawhide

The Czarina and I went to see "Gran Torino" last night. It may well be the best movie Clint Eastwood movie to date, which is saying a lot. It struck me as Dirty Harry meets Archie Bunker. The story line was incredible and Eastwood was just Eastwood. He's really marked himself as one of the great movie directors of the last quarter century.

It's hard to imagine coming from the small screen and his role as Rowdy Yates on "Rawhide" to those indelible spaghetti westerns to Dirty Harry that Eastwood has cut the most enduring image as a movie star since John Wayne. Harder still to imagine if you look at his early work as a director which was fairly uneven to what he's done since the mid-80's. It's mind blowing. He rates with Spielberg, Scorcese, Coppola, and Ron Howard as the top American movie makers still working in my book.

I love movies and don't get to the theatre enough to suit my taste. It's hard to justify $9.50 a pop for some of the crap that's out there. Plus add in the ghastly price of soda and popcorn, which I can't even eat anymore, and it has to be something really special to justify the cost. Eastwood is one of the few stars/directors that make the experience of movie going a pleasure. "Gran Torino" was just a strong story, well acted, that delivers on every emotional level. I'm not sure that it's better than "Unforgiven" but it's darn close.