Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Friday, December 22, 2006 More Top 10 in 2006 - a surprising factoidI was going to write about someting I learned in 2006. That morphed into something unexpected, which morphed into a the "Top Surprising Factoid" from 2006.To stereotype - Orienteers tend to work in areas like engineering, science, computers, and so on. The stereotype seems to fit so well, that I'm surprised when I meet an orienteer who does something else. The Top Surprising Factoid has to do with what a top orienteer does. Oliver Johnson was in the U.S. this fall and took the time to run an A-meet in New Jersey. He completely dominated the competition. I took a quick look at the results from one of the races. He won the middle distance race at 4:53/km. Second place was Mats Froberg at 5:45/km. Third was Eddie B. at 6:05/km. It is good for U.S. orienteering to have really good orienteers come over and remind us how much faster people can orienteer.  Getting back to the Top Surprising Factoid. I chatted with Johnson at the meet and discovered what he does. Of all things he was in the U.S. to attend a conference where he was presenting a paper titled "“Kul’turnost’ or Kitsch? Varnishing Reality in the Art of Aleksandr Laktionov” He's not an engineer or scientist, he's an expert in post-war Soviet visual culture. To me that was both surprising and cool. I'm sure there are plenty of other interesting, and unusual, professions among orienteers. But, post-war Soviet visual culture has to be among the more exotic. By the way, the image is a painting by Laktionov. Back to okansas.blogspot.com. posted by Michael | 7:49 PM 
Comments:
Oli is also a classy guy. Kind and supportive and a damn good orienteer. That is why it was that much more frustrating to see him DSQ'd in the long qual at WOC for what appears to have been a SI hic-cup.
Wow, I didn't expect to see that on your blog today! I suppose I do have a somewhat unusual field (especially among orienteers?). I am impressed that you remembered who it is that I am studying, let alone managed to find an image of one of his paintings. Most people tend to glaze over or change the subject as quickly as possible.
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Best wishes for 2007 and I promise that I will start updating my own site again in the new year... # posted by
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