Oh Trader Joe’s, Your Croissants Are Calling,
From end to end with chocolate at heart.
I should have bought a case of those pastries
But I did not, I wasn’t very smart.
The next morning:
Twenty five minutes later:
Oh, Trader Joe’s!
An interesting article in 1966 Popular Mechanics describes potential ways of disarming an orbiting H-Bomb. A manned spacecraft would be dispatched to the potential offending satellite and disable it by the most unimaginative of ways – cutting off its antenna.
Obviously nothing like this have ever transpired (as far as we know) but the seriousness of the article makes it a nice read.
Couple of weeks ago unbeknown to you the Russian population of this Metro Area has doubled for a few days. A surprising number of Russian-speaking coaches, parents and participants arrived to Kansas City for the U.S. Fencing North American Cup Tournament. There were of course many others (some of them even Americans :-)) but the number of foreign languages spoken at the Bartle Hall that weekend was indicative of a huge European influence on the sport of fencing. Among the participants was my niece from New York City which gave me a good reason to see the sport for myself. I spent two days at Bartle Hall watching and taking pictures, and while my photos are nothing to write home about, the people with good cameras probably had better things to do, so this is all I have.
Fencing may not be as popular as other sports but it’s lightning fast, physically demanding, psychologically challenging and beautifully choreographed. It doesn’t hurt that fencing may be an asset for college admissions. For kids like mine who don’t seem to enjoy team sports this is an attractive option. There are a few local clubs in Kansas City, one was started by a famous Russian Coach who since moved on to become a head coach at Ohio State and the other one still has a Russian Coach.
Here are just a few out of almost 300 photos I took with my slow camera.
In this video I slowed down the motion a little just to demonstrate ballet-like quality of fencing.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPDpdezHTx0
This video is a short clip of one of the final bouts.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H2nCganaWc
By the way, commonly used word touché originates in fencing (not to confuse with the Yiddish word tuches which means something entirely different).
Since my previous post on the subject I’ve found a few more photos of winter in Moscow. Sadly, no Russian bears got into the photographer’s viewfinder, but rest assured, the bears are there, probably in hiding or something.
