About Ken Pahkim and his running— No prelims for Ken! His first-ever race was completing the AFC Half Marathon in 2002. Ken credits his success to the club and the Front Runners and Walkers members who motivated him, especially Denis Desmond, James Harman and Brian Jackson for encouraging him at Saturday runs, going out with him on 5-8 mile training runs and being beside him over the 13.1-mile course on race day. A self-described “African American,” born in Harare, Zimbabwe, Ken arrived in San Diego with the new Millennium in 2000, after stints in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In California and UK, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in hospitality and business management fields. “Then,” he says, “I had to get a life!” And that’s when he joined FR&WSD. A naturalized U.S. Citizen, “British” English is Ken’s first language; he spoke “conversational” Cantonese with his parents. Now in year three as a member of the FR&W board of directors, Ken helps maintain the club website blog on www.frwsd.org and manages the Facebook news and more recently, weekly updates. Looking forward to future running, Ken says, “I don’t see races beyond the AFC Half; I enjoy Saturday club runs, and I’m out running two or three more times a week.”
What is a Blog? The word, invented in the 1990s, is a shortening of WEBLOG—A blog is simply a place where you tell your story quickly, a place to share information and learn about shared issues. Blog predecessors include newsletters, newspapers, columns, and magazines; all of them still with us. The blog audience is for everyone and everywhere for those who use the Internet.
What is involved in “building” a blog?—Blogs can be constructed as stand-alone or as part of an Internet web page, pages or site, and are usually maintained by a blog master, who functions as editor, solicitor of contributions, and other duties, such as posting photos, images and graphics, updating info and correcting copy, and other entry errors. Instantly! The common print affliction of permanently seeing errors in print is history.
What are blog-building “tools?”—They are legions, such as templates, paste-ins, and layout models for presenting information and visual impact enhancements. And then there are resources from the Internet: images, photos, drawings, and schematics, excerpts of all kinds to name the move used, to say nothing of access to every conceivable subject and the unknown. On websites the information and enhancements offerings are endless.
Do blogs and social networks “play together?”—Absolutely! The FR&WSD blog, for instance, has lengthier club stories and info about this flows through postings on Facebook, Twitter and the world of the Internet. Our new FR&W website has a handy weekly club calendar, a quick schedule or runs, walks, social and community activities is a great info-sharing tool available to all. This is replicated on the Facebook Events calendar as well.
Where do blogs go from here? —Anywhere, everywhere and who knows! I see blogs as equalizers in society. They are not publishing houses but are a house of writers. People will always want to tell stories, so blogs will always be with us. Moses, for example, was a person who wanted to tell his story, and he did! On stone. So the legend goes. And it lives to this day. Storytelling is for always. Try fixing an error on that medium!
To access FR&WSD blog: go to www.frwsd.org When the Welcome page opens, click on “News,” right side of the page, Viola!—the most recent blog posts appear! No Identification and Password codes required. Enjoy!