less hypothetically....

[japhy]

On the evening of August 1, 2023 the sun will set at 8:11 PM in Center CO over the San Juan Mountains. If atmospheric conditions are right, and they often are, at about 8:00 PM the 60 or so mile stretch of the Sangre de Cristo Mtns visible from the Frontier will be bathed in the orange light of something called alpenglow. There is a reason why the first Spanish explorers named these peaks "Blood of Christ" when they saw them. This lasts for a few fleeting minutes but everyone on the site usually stands outside on the east edge of the property and looks for it during an event. On August 1 this will be followed by the rise of a "super moon" at 8:45 PM. I was there last summer when this occurred just before the viewing of a film. You can see the light from this moon coming up from the behind the ragged peaks for several minutes before the edge of it is visible. When it does come over the top, it is almost frighteningly huge. This giant orange ball comes up and everyone gets very quiet. With so little light pollution and thin air at 7600 ft in elevation everything casts a shadow on a full moon. If you ever doubted there was a God, viewing this event might change that shit for your. After the moon was over the mountains we started the movie. The first of August 2023 is a Tuesday which would make it a mid week event but that also comes with less traffic on a drive in and out.

Just somethin to think about.

If you is doing a once in a lifetime trip into the valley you might as well have it coincide with an equally once in a lifetime meteorological viewing.

[pdub]

I’m sorry japhy.

[japhy]

No apology necessary.

[Mjl]

Gah, 18 hour drive...

[TDub]

I bet that'd be something to see

[Overlander]

Put myself and Mrs Overlander on your list.

In ink

[Overlander]

I say a KU contingent crashing the Sand Dunes Hot Springs Pool complex is in order

The adults-only Hot Spring building has a great bar with surprisingly good snacks.

This bartender will need a break

[pdub]

I meant I’m sorry-I’m moving this off the basketball bored.

[zsn]

Oh wow, that sounds amazing. This is truly a bucket list trip. Unfortunately I have to explore the calendar for 2024 and 2025 because there are several 60th birthday celebrations (including mine) between July and September.

[japhy]

It is a 12 hour drive both ways from KC. We usually stop in Colorado Springs and spend the night to break up the drive.

If you fly into Albuquerque it is a 4 hour drive from the airport, this is a good alternative to flying into Denver. You can stop in Santa Fe on this route to the valley.

It is 4 hours from the Denver airport and 3 hours from Colorado Springs airport.

I drive out because I need my truck when I get there to haul stuff between venues and I usually need to haul supplies out there for whatever we are doing.

This summer we will host our third Solstice and are working with two artists on hosting a printmaking workshop and a collage workshop. We will also host the artist Tomashi Jackson for a month in our studio and we have construction on going on our residence in one of the buildings. On top of that the town has approached us about canceling their annual Fourth of July event and having us and a couple of partners put together a summer event for them using the funds they normally spend for July 4. So this event has to fit into a window between those events. And I still have a day job. All of this is just to splain why tying any dates for this event down early is key for me. It's gonna be another busy summer.

Given all of that, why would I hypothetically propose this?

I have met a number of members of this extended group. I have made some good friends of those I met. In spite of our differences, we have a common love of Jayhawk sports. Most of you liked Leawood, but few of you ever met him. To say that he was an exceptional human is an understatement. One of you out there likely has a medical condition and you may just disappear from here next year. That is how imaginary internet friends go, sometimes they just disappear. This is a chance to make real friends out of imaginary internet friends.

[DCHawk1]

Leawood was a gem.

[Overlander]

Wish I could have met him
Folks that I think highly of here spoke very highly of him

[japhy]

I can say the same about Overlander and DC. You two are just good people and I have been blessed to get to know you both. You are two people, neither of whom would have entered into my sphere of recognition if it weren't for the common thread of KU sports. To say that the three of us are very different in our other interests, beliefs and locations is undeniable. The chances of us meeting outside of our common sports interest is damn near zero.

My wife hates most sports. Except motocross cuz she competed in that as a kid in Fargo. She thinks professional sports is all about testosterone and selling alcohol (she is also allergic to alcohol which doesn't help). She has lived in MO for 20 years and has seen it turn from blue to red and seen the acrimony that has accompanied the transition. KC is still the blue holdout in the State politics and the rest of the State can feel adversarial towards us because of that. But when the Royals won the Series, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl and the Jayhawks won the NCAA she came to an interesting sports hater realization. Sports was the one thing that bridges all of our differences. People who would otherwise not be friendly towards one another were united in their love of sports and civic/institutional pride. A sense of camaraderie takes over the city for an extended period of time. She now appreciates that about testosterone sports. Being from, and living in, the midwest we all love an underdog victory and our sports teams always feel like underdogs.

Annie recently name our youngest dog Udoka, and she appreciates the magic tricks Mahomie pulls out of his sleeves. There is some reason to believe that we may be growing on her.

[Overlander]

How long after Summer Solstice did it take for ‘Doke to lose the eye brows?

[japhy]

Dan calls these "dog brows". I think he adorns his own dog with them on occasion. Big D was less than a year old at the time. His first time partying late into the evening with the older kids. He woke up the next morning looking like this. It took a couple of weeks, but they did just wear off. It garnered him more attention while he had them and Dok loves attention.

[Overlander]

He looked like a Vaudeville performer

Plus, he is a super cool dog

[seahawk]

[seahawk]

What happened to Leawood?

Met him in person several times and we spent a couple of days with him at a tennis tournament--a genuinely good guy.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

What happened to Leawood?

Met him in person several times and we spent a couple of days with him at a tennis tournament--a genuinely good guy.

Post by japhy » Fri Sep 09, 2022 10:41 am

motherfucker, I had a feeling it would end this way.....

It wasn't unusual for Leawood to not answer my text messages every time, or not hear from him for a month or two. His health had taken a turn for the worse earlier this year and he retired and was preparing to move to South Dakota. WTF? He wouldn't say it, but I think he had a secret fantasy that he might meet Kristin Noem and get to see her neked. He had pretty much given up hope of seeing Sarah Palin neked so this would be a logical progression.

I sent him a photo from Colorado back around Solstice. It was of a huge Lauren Boebert sign on the edge of the Empire and told him that Defix and I were going to sneak up there at night and deface it. He really wanted to see a nude photo of the Congresstwat also. We didn't make that happen then, but it could still happen. Not long after that his text messages faded away. I knew his heart issues were really bad and he didn't like to talk about it. My "are you still alive?" messages were starting to feel like they were in poor taste. After a couple of months of no response I went through the somber work of looking through the obituaries this morning and found out he passed away in late July. This is how it goes sometimes with imaginary internet friends. Their real friends and family don't know we even exist and so when they pass, they are just another message board character that doesn't post any more. Unless someone knows your real name and looks for your obituary, you just fade into the ether.

Bob was a proud father, a smart lawyer, a funny drunk, and a good dude and friend with a bigger heart than he let on most of the time. I will miss his dry caustic wit.

I have already regaled you with my story of our crusade for justice in Windsor MO. But I do have a couple of other Leawood stories. At one point I was a recently divorced single guy and was invited to a friend's 50th birthday party. I knew I was going to be one of a very small number of straight males there and the only person I would know was the birthday girl, so I invited Leawood to go with me so I would have someone to talk to. He lived nearby the party house and he obliged. Now as the moniker "Leawood" might suggest, Bob was sort of a Johnson County country club preppy guy at least in appearance. But I had no clue he was going to show up to the party in his tennis whites, polo shirt and matching shorts with a god damn white tennis sweater thrown over his shoulders and tied around his neck and topsiders on. He was a muthafuckin vision of country club splendor in his "take me, I'm your ballboy" outfit. Other partygoers were "dressed up" as well because it was a gay woman's birthday party, but nobody drew the admiring looks that he did. Not only were we the only straight people in the room but we were also the only men. Not long after that my friend Stephanie put the song "It's Raining Men" on the stereo and the girls demanded we dance because they put "our song" on for us. I think we declined the girl's request and left shortly after to get a drink elsewhere. Unless you have video to prove otherwise, I am sticking with that.

After I met Annie Oakley and started growed up dating, Bob kept a close eye on the proceedings. In theory he thought the concept of having a mate was good, but in practice he never really warmed up to domestication. He really liked Annie; every now and then he would ask me if she had any friends? Annie declined making any introductions, "seriously, I couldn't do that to one of my friends." I never told him that but I am pretty sure he it would have made him laugh. Not everyone can laugh at themselves. I always take it as a real indicator of character if you can laugh at yourself, and Bob was good at self deprecation.

Another imaginary friend is gone. He will be missed.