Jayhawks on Parade

We had a little parade in Lawrence today. It consisted of a police car, a fire truck, some of the band, some of the cheerleaders, and a few convertibles carrying the chancellor, the basketball coach, and the basketball team. Nothing visually spectacular, but I have never seen so many people crammed into downtown. The parade ran from 7th Street to 19th Street. Originally, it was just going to 11th Street, but they decided there’d be too many people to cram into five blocks. I think they were wrong. There were too many to cram into 12 blocks! It took about five minutes for the parade to pass by us; it took about an hour to get out of downtown. I think the entire population of Lawrence was there!

I uploaded pictures Becky took at the stadium on Tuesday after the game, plus pictures from today’s parade, to HarpShot’s Photos at Flickr. I also uploaded a video to HarpShot’s Videos at Google. Unfortunately, when Becky got to the stadium Tuesday, it was so full she ended up in the nosebleed section and, in any event, it’s hard for her to see over people’s heads. At the parade, it was hard to see much if you weren’t standing in front of the throng, which we weren’t. Nevertheless, it was all fun! I should mention that the Lawrence Journal-World’s parade photo gallery is much better than mine. There’s also this YouTube Video (among others) of downtown Lawrence after the game.

A Little Justice Made My Day

Pulled into the parking garage by the office today figuring to park in one of my usual spots. Got there and found a VW parked smack on top of the line, taking out both my favorite spaces. So I parked down the line and planned to get on the YouParkLikeAnAsshole website soon as I got to the office, and and print out one of their YouParkLikeAnAsshole tickets. But, when I got out of the car, I noticed the meter maid marking tires. Thought I’d ask her if it was actually a ticketable offense to park like that. Well, I caught up to her right at the VW. She asked if it was my car. I told her, “no way” and asked if she was going to give it a ticket. “A $40 ticket”, she answered. “Cool,” I said, “I hate when people park like that.” She said, “Me, too.” I skipped the YouParkLikeAnAsshole ticket. The real thing was much more satisfying. Later, I realized I should’ve used my phone to get a picture for the YouParkLikeAnAsshole website; but, when I when back, it was gone.

Jayhawks Rock

Naturally, I have to do an ode to the ‘Hawks, what with their winning the NCAA Basketball National Championship last night. This after the football team winning the Orange Bowl game in January. Sportswise, a good time to be a Jayhawk these days! As was the case Saturday night when they won the semi-final, there were lots of fireworks in the neighborhood and generally about town immediately after the win, and downtown Lawrence was a solid mass of humans acting out in various ways. The university canceled classes today, and downtown was relatively deserted. Seems a lot of people called in sick at numerous businesses, including the courthouse and county offices. Today’s weather was not especially cooperative, being rainy, but I kind of doubt it dampened things much up on “the hill”. I expect we’ll see a downtown parade before too long. Stephen and Kimberly probably remember the 1988 parade featuring Danny and the Miracles. I do. Yeah, this is pretty cool! We’ll be cheering for the Stanford women’s team tonight.