Amidst the great coverage of the Beijing Olympics on TV, I came across this article from the New Zealand Railways Magazine from 1936 that mentions my grandfather (a mile runner for the South African national team), I’ve bolded a few bits:

What is the predominant personal factor about the champion athlete? What manner of man makes the best athlete? These are two questions that come to my mind when recalling my associations with some twenty-four of the best athletes who have visited New Zealand since the Great War.

Men of the calibre of Jock Oosterlaak, Bukes, and Dave Leathern, from South Africa; Kirksey, Krogness, Merchant, Hahn, Scholz, Lermond, Simpson, Rothert and Kiser, from America; Carlton, Golding, Fitt, Cooper, Metcalfe, Barlow and Hampson, from Australia; Peltzer, from Germany; Perasalo and Sippala from Finland; and the four British athletes, Craske, Murdoch, Powell and Rampling, come readily to mind as one visualises the excellent athletic contests seen and personal friendships made.

It is not my intention to sort out the greatest sprinter, middle-distance runner or field event man from that assortment, but I will endeavour to analyse the personalities of the men who helped to encourage athletics in New Zealand—men who have won honours in big company.

Take Jock Oosterlaak, the wellbuilt Springbok athlete, who came to New Zealand in the 1921–22 season. He had an ideal temperament for big athletics. He knuckled down to serious business when the occasion justified it, but he could see the humorous side of sport as well. What New Zealander would see the funny side of travelling nearly 200 miles over the rougliest roads in New Zealand when seated on the door of a motor car? Well, Jock thought it an experience worth the while and is it any wonder that his memory, to-day, is cherished by those who had the good fortune to know him? Yes, he sat on the side door of a car when travelling from Napier to Gisborne; there was insufficient room on the seats, so Jock volunteered to sit on the door—and would not change places with any of the others. He won the big sprint at the meeting next day!

And J. W. Bukes, another Springbok athlete, was a fine fellow. Here we had the more stolid type of athlete; a man who would go to sleep twenty minutes before the start of his race, wake up and run 73/5 sees, for 75 yards! Dave Leathern, the third member of the Springbok team I met, was more serious than any other athlete I have seen. He took his sport as a serious mission and was always anxious to return good measure to the public. Before any contest he desired most of all a cup of tea.

It’s pretty cool how older articles get made available electronically, from all over the world just like this!

When I was in South Africa recently, this story about a domestic flight delay was reported in the local newspapers. Yes, a 2 hour flight took 15 hours and included flying back and forth between the two cities 5 (five) times! Nuts… but I guess that’s what you get for flying an airline called Mango. It’s better than the name of one of South Africa’s other domestic airlines: One Time (no, I’m not making it up:  South Africans have a strange sense of humor!).

I was meeting a friend for lunch on 2nd Street between Market and Mission in San Francisco when we saw 8 or so police cruisers all of a sudden, and two police officers jumped out of their car and started running down Jessie Street, weapons drawn.

Just after one of the officers drew his revolver, he stumbled and fell on the ground in the alley. A little embarrassing to be sure, but it looks like they got their man. Talk about some added excitement during the lunch hour!

Have you ever noticed that there is very little consistency between whether the men’s bathroom is on the left or the right? It’s like buying a Subaru — you never really noticed how many of them there were on the road until you buy or are thinking of buying one (we no longer own one BTW) — once you start seeing what side the bathrooms are on it will be something you will forever think about.

Well maybe I’m exaggerating, but next time you visit a hotel or airport, check it out. For example in a recent hotel stay in Denver, there were two sets of bathrooms of approximately the same design, with the men’s and women’s bathrooms directly across from one another. The one nearest the meeting rooms had the men’s on the left and the one nearest reception had the men’s on the right. Hmmmm… odd.

We felt a minor earthquake last night, around 3.50am, here in the East Bay Southeast of San Francisco. I went online just now to see if there was news of it, and a search on Google News turned up quite a few earthquakes in various parts of the world just in the last 12-18 hours: A 4.8 in Tokyo, one measuring 3.4 on the Richter scale in Lar, Iran, a larger 6.7 quake in West Sumatra, a 4.5-magnitude quake 390km northeast of Sofia, felt in both Bulgaria and Romania.

I’m not sure if this happens often - if quakes are felt around the globe; and perhaps it’s only apparent to me because I can find local news from various parts of the world almost instantly… but it’s somewhat creepy. It’s also weird and sad that I could not find ANY coverage of the local tremors! Perhaps we are blase about minor tremors here in California but that is no excuse.

Missearched and found an article in the Indian Business Standard which led me to this blog, which I found quite interesting. Rajesh Jain’s blog is worth checking out, and I especially like the Central Valley analogy.

Congratulations to fellow South African Charlize Theron on her Academy Award for best actress: she acknowledged the sacrifices her mother made for her to make it to the US to pursue her dreams. What a fabulous moment watching her speech — veels geluk!

Fellow country(wo)man Charlize Theron is tipped to win the Academy Award for best actress tonight - South Africa’s Sunday Times has a few articles about the lady from Benoni, including this one. Good luck!

BBC serial piece looking at the state of affairs in South Africa in the run-up to the election (April 14, 2004). The new South Africa is indeed here to stay, and I join many others hopeful that opportunities for people of all races will continue to grow. In the eloquent words of Ladysmith Black Mambazo as heard on NPR, please come to SA and invest!

I read tonight that Arne Naess died in a climbing accident in Franschhoek, which is one of the more beautiful parts of South Africa. As the Star reports, he was a “Everest conqueror, ecologist and Norwegian shipping magnate” as well as the former husband of Diana Ross. An unfortunate accident. The article is here.