Category Archives: Uncategorized

Skywatch Friday – Oklahoma Winter Riviera Edition

View from my office building to the west. The sunset reflected in the Arkansas River.

It’s been warm this week here in Tulsa. No coat, maybe a jacket in the morning, walk around in shirt sleeves at lunch. Something is messed up about that. Except to me, I like it.

https://flic.kr/p/2cJsaLc

The Petroleum Club Building, kitty corner to where I work, has balconies on the top two floors. The Petroleum Club has been gone for some time. I think the livers of the members all gave out from the early afternoon gin and tonics. Some sort of internet based company took over the space. They took out all the walls, carpet, and ceilings and called it good. I’ve been in the space during a fund raiser. They have ping pong tables and refrigerators and workstations everywhere. They also have the balconies and late afternoon on nice days there are lots of people out there. I hate every one of them, and wish I was over there at the same time.

This is a little shaded area right next to the Arkansas River as it flows through Tulsa. It looks almost summery. We are going to get lower temps here in the next few days and maybe some rain. I can take cold wind and rain and you can keep your snow and ice.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

First Hike of 2019

20190101-103652-4

New Years Day I skipped the various organized runs and polar bear plunges and go on a facebook organized hike on Turkey Mountain but I had to change by plans when I was ten minutes late for the hike so I just went by myself. Which is fine, I like to go at my own pace and take photos and there were a couple of geocaches I wanted to try and find.

20190101-102426-1

It was frigid as you can see from this surface skim ice on the wet part of the trail. It gets cold in Oklahoma but almost always a few days later it warms up pretty good.

20190101-105306-6

I stayed on the eastern side of the park. It has the best views, it also had a little bit of wind compared to the more secluded areas. I was bundled up pretty good though. I’ve got a lot of excellent cold weather gear that I have accumulated over the years.

20190101-105440-7

There were not very many people. I saw one or two trail runners, several couples hiking, and only a few mountain bikers.

20190101-124630-9

I ended up with about five and a half miles and looked for two caches and found one. I have found almost all the geocaches on Turkey Mountain that don’t require climbing equipment or a ladder to reach. I used to try and get those on my own but as I have got older I realize that gravity is not necessarily my friend.

I had a good time and went home to warm up. I am linking with Our World Tuesday

Happy New Year Skywatch

Tulsa County Courthouse
(Older photograph)

New Year’s eve I had to go downtown and pay our real estate taxes, after I took advice from Denver wills law firm. Yep, I hold on to the money until the very last minute. I actually dreamt like owning a house from buy houses syracuse ny and going to the courthouse of our company and seeing how functionaries function. The assessor’s office is very efficient. All hands on deck there New Year’s eve to take care of people like me. Some sad faces close by though. They are on the same floor as the family court and there were tears there. I have a very blessed life is what I can say. My prayers go out to those having difficulties.

I’ll be going back though at the end of the month. Got a stern looking letter from the very same courthouse telling me to report for jury duty!! I haven’t done jury duty since about 1983 in Panorama Village, Texas north of Houston. We had a trial for a guy accused of speeding. Found him guilty, by gum. The town needed the cash!! Especially from non-residents.

20181231-105020-6

I left downtown and ventured to East Tulsa. I came upon this new gateway sign going in on US 66. I think it is beautiful. They are almost done with construction. So that is looking roughly south of north west.

20181231-105044-7

I turned to the south and took this photo. We had decent skies on New Year’s eve.

20181231-104057-5

This is what I was looking for in that area of town. A geocache. In my quest to get 2000 caches by the end of 2019 I try and find ore two every day. I’m at about 1632 or so. I have a tracker on the right sidebar to this page. This cache was cool because it was in the owners front yard and wasn’t hidden at all. I love those that are easy to find.

20190101-122611-8

As far as Skies are concerned, New Years Day was a bust. I went on a five mile or so hike on Turkey Mountain and it was gray and cold the whole time. I have to tell you that I loved it anyway. I’ve got the gear and clothes to stay warm and comfortable in most kinds of weather.

I have to tell you about my new toy for Christmas. I got a drone, one with a camera. An inexpensive one to learn on. A Zeraxa Pro. I finally took it out for a spin in a park hardly anybody ever visits and I loved it. It is very stable and responds well to the controls. So I am just learning the basics of flying and trying to smooth my movements out. Later on maybe I can get one with a lot better camera. As you can tell, Oklahoma is very brown right now.

20181231-115151-8

I think it is kind of pretty. And don’t worry I wasn’t drinking and flying!!

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Mary Poppins Returns with Emily Blunt

The family went to see Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns. The original Mary Poppins came out when I was a kid way back in the 60’s. It is so far back that I don’t actually remember seeing it back then. I just remember that it was special and magical and I was hoping that this sequel was that way as well. And it is!! I won’t get into the story line, IMDB does a great job with that, except to say that a family is in trouble and Mary Poppins flys out of the air to get the children organized and all the problems sorted out.

So there is singing and dancing, and great semi-animated scenes. The problems are all sorted out, a couple new romaces started up and at the end (spoiler coming) Mary Poppins opens up her umbrella and flies off to wherever she goes leaving happiness and hope in her wake.

Emily Blunt is a perfect Mary Poppins. She is not Julie Andrews, and she doesn’t need to be. I keep people comparing the movies. I don’t think they need to be compared, they are both wonderful.

I give this movie five stars or two thumbs up, or whatever the scale is, check it out, go see it. It is great.

Visiting Tulsa’s Woodie Guthrie Center

_DSC0512

Right after Christmas me, son Logan and brother Bob visited the Woody Guthrie Center in downtown Tulsa. The center is the archive for almost everything Woody Guthrie and they have a small museum showing off some of his papers, musical instruments, artwork, and of course his music. 

DSCN3012

They have on display lots of his papers with lyrics and notes, letters and such.

_DSC0509

He put his stamp on his musical instruments including woodburning and ink. You may notice that on this violin he says it helped kill ten fascists. He was in the merchant marine during World War II and served on three ships that were sunk. (If I remember right.)

_DSC0508

He wrote on all sorts of materials. You can tell he hated fascism. One interesting segment is that he lived in an apartment owned by Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump in New York. Woody didn’t really care for what he considered racist housing policy. 

20181227-102033-2

The museum also has a Virtual Reality experience of the dust bowl that is very eerie. Here are brother Bob and son Logan with the VR goggles.

_DSC0510

The center also has a small space for special exhibits. This time they had a lot of memorabilia from John Cougar Mellencamp including recordings of his songs and quite a bit of material of Mellencamp talking about his music. I found it quite interesting.

_DSC0511

As part of the Mellencamp exhibit was this reel to reel recorder/player. I tried to explain to my son how cool these things were and how expensive they were and then to why a ipod touch like mine totally outclasses these things. Reel to reel tape machines are still  very cool in my book!!

Check the centers web site for information on hours, location, and exhibits coming up. They have an exhibit on Leonard Bernstein coming up in January. I’ll  be checking it out. I got to see Bernstein at the premiere of one of his operas in Houston back in the 80’s. Everybody in the crowd was yelling “Bernie” like they knew him or something.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

The Lights at Rhema Bible College in Broken Arrow, OK

We had a great Christmas. We were blessed to be together and my brother Bob joins us for the Holidays and we had a great meal.

_DSC0498

After the meal, we ran home and dropped the dogs off (Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t bring our three rescue mutts over to visit with Nana’s two dogs, they all joined giving the neighbor’s dogs a good barking if nothing else.) And then we ventured to the Tulsa Suburb of Broken Arrow where Rhema Bible College has had a great light display. They have been doing it for years and years.

_DSC0473

We were eager to see the lights Tuesday nights because they are best seen o foot and the weather was good and is expected to get cold, windy, and rainy on Wednesday.

_DSC0493

They have over 2 million lights and they spend months getting ready for the Christmas Season.

_DSC0490

I bet they were glad to see LED lights get popular with their drastically lowered electric consumption. I bet the meter was about to spin out into space with conventional lights. 

_DSC0495

They are so generous. The whole thing is free. Yep, free, no charge for admission or parking or anything else. They do have refreshments and snacks available for charge and otherwise there is no charge.

_DSC0485

And they do a good job of it. The designs have got more elaborate over the years and they have added music ad pulsating lights. It’s really a good show.

_DSC0484

They are open nightly through New Year’s Eve. If you are in the area go check them out.

_DSC0474

Take your camera. I chickened out and used the night landscape setting on my Nikon and I’m pretty happy with how things turned out. That is what makes me a picture taker instead of a photographer. 

_DSC0504

I also know my limits!!!

Skywatch Friday – Out and About

20181217-163432-2

To the right a brand new hotel in downtown Tulsa. Lots of hotels have been completed the last several years and they all seem to be doing well.  The tall building kind of in the middle is where I work.

Mohawk Skywatch

Earlier this week I went geocaching in Tulsa’s Mohawk Park. I had a pretty decent sky. 

20181217-114648-2

I turned around and this little doe was checking me out. We had a bit of a stare down until I decided to see if she would let me get closer. Nope, she had all of me she wanted and ran off.

I hope that you all are doing well. I know that Christmas is not a happy time for everyone. 

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Instant Family with Mark Wahlberg

We went to see Instant Family over the weekend. A great movie about a childless couple who decide to adopt a group of three siblings. They sure didn’t know what they were getting themselves into as they deal with various “issues”with the three kids of widely varying ages who had been bouncing around “the system” for some time. I really love this movie and recommend it highly.

A Walk in the Woods

20181215-132205-3

We are having some great weather right now. Sunny, almost warm, so Logan and I went exploring on Saturday in some urban woods. They are not a park, it is undeveloped private land. We were geocaching.

Woods

Their used to be houses here I think. Note the phone box out in the middle of nowhere.

20181215-131521-1

I found the first stage of a multistage cache. The clue to the next location was a underlined letters in a Hardy Boys detective novel. Logan had to wait while I went through the novel and copied down the underlined words into my note book. The letters told a riddle that I think I have solved except you know the answer is a word and I need a bunch of numbers because I am looking for GPS coordinates! 

20181215-133751-4

We set that issue aside and went looking for another cache and found it. It Is a lot fancier than most of the caches we find. Some geocachers really put a lot of work into their hides.

So we only found one, but the fun is in the looking, at least for me. For Logan, the fun is getting back home.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday! 

Skywatching in Sperry, Oklahoma

20181211-114944-3

At lunch I went to the Tulsa suburb of Sperry, Oklahoma, a dozen or so miles north of Tulsa. They have a rails to trails project, the Osage Prairie Trail run right through town. Its a great place to take your bicycle. I found a cache called “Railroaded” near where I took this photo.

20181211-113943-1

I was going to do a little geocaching while there. I ran across this sign at the first place I parked. Oops!! Luckily there were no geocaches around the sign and the weather is kind of cold. Also, there are lots of snakes in Oklahoma in areas where there are no signs.

20181211-122648-7

One of the caches I found was called “Dress Up” it had some items you could wear and post on the cache page. I kind of liked these glasses, especially with the hat. I almost kept them.

20181211-120812-6

There was another cache named “baby cache” about fifty feet away from this old gas station. I love the rock exterior. A scene from the movie “The Outsiders” was filmed here.

20181211-125738-9

On my way back to the office I found this “hay bale art” out by the highway. Obviously whoever put it up is one of those crazy people who like snow. Who in their right mind, over 12 years old likes snow? Only ice is worse than snow. And tornadoes, and earthquakes. How come we have all the bad stuff in Oklahoma.

Not bad for a lunch hour, huh?

I am linking with Skywatch Friday