This is the building where I work. The building is polished granite and glass and its modern exterior stands out in Tulsa’s mostly art deco style buildings. I took this shot from the parking garage across the street. I liked how the building reflected the sky to the east, and another high rise.
The building started out as Cities Service Oil Company’s new headquarters at 52 floors but before construction could get very far there was first an oil bust and then Boone PIckens who drove Cities into the arms of Occidental Petroleum who decided to make it 37 floors and then they decided to sell it to my employer who capped it at 17 floors. So it is “hell for stout” as we say in Oklahoma. A 17 story building with foundations and steel structure designed for 52. Plus we have lots of elevators! We can still feel the earthquakes we are having in Oklahoma.
I like old Christmas pictures from years ago. This is my Dad’s family in Del Rapids, South Dakota in the late 1950’s. I’m the the kid looking back. I’m sitting on my grandmother’s lap. The lady in blue to the far left is my great grandmother. My brother, Bob, is in the red shirt on the floor.
I love the tree with all the tinsel. My Dad was a forest ranger in New Mexico. He got a permit and cut the tree on the Santa Fe National Forest and hauled it all the way to South Dakota on top of our station wagon.
I am really excited about Barbarian Days. Talk about a great read. It is a memoir by New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan and his life told through surfing. He learned to surf at a very young age in southern California and then later in Hawaii when he was about middle school age. He was born in 1952 so his early years were in the 60’s when life of course was a lot different than it is now.
In Hawaii he talks about getting up every morning before school and paddling his board out to surf before going to school. Nobody went with him, no safety gear no nothing. At that time I was in Price, Utah and Eagar, Arizona and although far from the surf, on weekends, when we were not doing chores, my brother and ranged far and wide on our bicycles and got into and out of scrapes that my parents never heard about. Such parents would make the headline news now days as they managed a perpwalk with handcuffs led by deputies. Back then, kids were on their own much of the time.
Anyways, Finnegan’s account of the social pitfalls of school and staying out of the way of the bullies really resonated with me.
From there the story takes off on his adulthood as a surf bum going around the world, cadging cash and money as he could in search of desolate beautiful waves. I’ve never been surfing and never will go surfing but he sure makes it sound fun and terrifying at the same time. He talks about being pulled down to the bottom of the ocean and held there by powerful waves, sometimes two waves in a row ( a double wave hold down he calls it.)
He writes about the social pecking order out on the “Lineup” waiting for the waves. The big dog locals get first pick, visiting kooks (newbies) get the crumbs.
He gets a little older and finds a calling as a journalist and not a reporter who reports on the latest zoning fight at the board of adjustment. He reports on Apartheid in South Africa and Latin American revolutionary wars. He goes where the action is and sometimes where he can find a wave.
He gets a job at the New Yorker but still finds waves in the Atlantic and he is getting older but he still enjoys them backs off a little bit from the big ones.
This in one of the best books I’ve ever read and recommend it highly. It is still $14.99 for the Kindle version. I got my copy at the library. It took me longer than two weeks to read it and I’ll get it back to them today because I am getting daily emails about all sorts of terrible things are going to happen to me if I don’t return it soon.
Morten Storm is a Dane who had troubles growing up. A rough and tumble household led to him being involved in gangs and drugs and lots of fights and even more chaos. As he tells it, he happened upon a book about the prophet Mohammed and liked what he found. He jumped into this with both feet and got involved in the growing Danish Muslim community and converted and then sent to Yemen for further study.
He tells about his growing radicalism and brings up many of the things that I’ve heard over the years but you hardly hear anything about in the USA. The resentment that many Muslims have over the US military being on Saudi Arabian soil is chief among them. Radical Muslims have a world view, according to Storm, that is totally alien to western views. Democracy for example is a big no no because that is man acting like Allah. Storm become more and more radicalized after he returns to Europe and then of course we have the attacks on the American Homeland on 9/11.
He is repulsed at first by the huge loss in innocent lives in direct contradiction of the Koran but is slowly brought about by the viewpoints of the radical mullahs who now say killing innocent people is God’s will. All during this time he is traveling throughout the Mideast and Europe meeting with various terrorists and raising money to support them. He has increasing doubts however about the killing of innocent civilians and then later has religious doubts about Islam, especially their concept of predestination and realizes that he can’t believe in a religion that predestined the murders of so many thousands of people.
He ends up offering his services to the Danish version of the CIA, the PET who get him involved him with the two British versions of the CIA (MI5 for internal affairs, and MI6 for overseas threats) and eventually the American CIA. His disclosures about these various agencies is hardly flattering to them. He talks about the briefings and debriefings done a very expensive hotels by these agencies and the debauchery of the PET in particular. The British agencies get a little break because they are very ethical and very reluctant to put innocent civilians in harms way.
The CIA he portrays as having very sophisticated technology but are very arrogant and also very willing to kill innocent people if necessary. He spent a lot of time with the CIA and feels that screwed him out of some major cash for tracking down some major bad guys but not paying him. Where he decides to leave his life as a double agent is when he is helping track down an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, and is tipped by somebody else that he doesn’t want to be sitting by him ever because the Americans will fire off their hellfire missiles from drones or helicopters whenever they are sure of his exact position and don’t really care who else may be around at the time.
So he gets out and goes rogue, writes a book, and gets interviews on 60 Minutes. The book reads like a spy thriller but seems very believable. Storm has had an adventurous life meeting with many of the middle eastern bad guys and even finding a third wife for Anwar al-Awlaki on facebook and taking her to him in Yemen.
The book is a great read and I highly recommend it. Not only does he tell a heck of story about his life as a double agent but he also talks about the grievances that many Muslims have against the US and many of the countries in the Arab world that are seen as lackeys to America. Couter terrorism is a messy business. Our enemies are very smart and adaptable and are very committed. What struck me is the ease that terrorists can move around the world. They fight in Yemen, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Chechnya, and then go home and spend some time with the family in England or Denmark or wherever until they decide to go and fight somewhere else. It is also remarkable how dogged and determined the US and allied military and intelligence agencies are going after the bad guys.
This is a heck of read. I’ve been trying to figure out if Storm is legitimate or not. Who knows with a double agent. I hadn’t seen much in the way of people discrediting him besides the usual conspiracy lovers who point out things that don’t really matter. So sure he is gaming us a little bit but a lot of what he claims rings true.
Here is a 60 Minutes segment featuring Morten Storm and his claims.
Hey, I bought my book in the Kindle format on Amazon for about $3. I have put my Goodreads list on my Amazon wish list and check it regularly. Every now and then Amazon will cut the price of a book drastically for a short while. So I check my wish list regularly and grab books when they get cheap. The price for the book is back up around $10. I also download books for free from library but in these tea party crazed days, libraries here in Oklahoma have less and less money available.
I had my 9/80 day off on Friday and Heather and I went to see “Learning to Drive” with Ben Kinglsley and Patricia Clarkson. Clarkson plays Wendy a woman who gets dumped by her weasel of a husband just as the movie opens. The little turd decided to tell her that he was leaving her in a restaurant, hoping that she wouldn’t make a scene. That didn’t work out so they took their fight to a cab driven by a Sikh named Darwan, played by Kingsley. Darwan gets the weasel to his girlfriend’s house and Wendy to her house. Darwan finds out the next day that Wendy left something in his car and he delivers it back to her and she takes his card.
In the meantime Wendy has promised her daughter, Tasha (played by Grace Gummer, who is also Meryl Streep’s daughter) that she would learn how to drive so she could visit her in out in the sticks way up in Vermont or somewhere. So she calls Darwan and he proceeds to teach her how to drive. While she is learning to drive she is also learning how to live her life without the weasel.
Meanwhile Darwan has his own issues. He is single and and is planning on marrying somebody he doesn’t know from his village in India arranged by his sister. He doesn’t really know how to deal with her and so he and Wendy kind of muddle along teaching each other about life as the driving lessons proceed. Then Darwan’s wife Jasleen shows up and she and Darwan get married the next day and start their life together in Queens and she is so unhappy because she doesn’t understand why her new husband is never home and he doesn’t understand because she just won’t adjust to life in her new place.
Anyways I’m not going to tell you about the whole danged movie but I loved this because it is about growing and changing and adapting and picking yourself up and moving forward and making a life for yourself. I loved this movie.
Clarkson is a marvel. She is so expressive and when she is frowning and sad, we are sad also and when she is happy, she is radiant and we feel great. Kingsley does his thing where just subtle changes in expression really multiplies the emotional effect. He is also a definite solid guy in counterpoint to the weasel.
I thought this was a completely satisfying movie and give it two thumbs up. It is R rated mainly because we get a really good view of Clarkson’s breasts bouncing around as she has a sex with a guy she met. I mean I like looking a breasts as much as any guy but this was totally gratuitous and didn’t have much to do with the movie before or after the viewing.Not that I am complaining.
I took Wednesday off because it was Heather and I’s anniversary and one of the things we did was go see “A Walk in the Woods” a movie with Robert Redford and Robert Deniro based on the book of the same name by Bill Bryson.
The movie opens with Bill Bryson, played by Robert Redford, being interviewed on television and then attending the funeral of a friend. We can tell that he is fumbling looking around for a new adventure and then he finds out about the Appalachian Trail. Over 2000 miles long from Maine to Georgia and by gum he decides to tackle that but his wife forbids him to do it unless he gets a partner. Finally he finds an old scruffy acquaintance, “Katz,” played by Nick Nolte who shows up and off they go.
These guys were buddies 40 years and ago and they have a rough start on their new adventure. Neither one of them is in good enough shape at the start but they get in the groove. They have different outlooks on life. Bryson is a nerd who knows facts that only nerds care about and Katz just wants to take things as he finds them and concentrate on the “big picture.” They have some comic adventures and become even closer during their trek.
So, yep it is buddy movie but it is a good buddy movie. They are buddies who are physically way past their prime but they don’t back down from anything. Redford does his typical underplaying the role and Nolte is bigger than life. I’d give this flick two thumbs up.
It is R rated because of the language. Lots of cuss words in here but everybody keeps their clothes on.
It is time to celebrate. Heather and I have been married twenty six years!!! She is the life of the party in my book. She has stood by me this whole time.
And just keeps looking better the whole time.
She manages to keep me grounded from time to time.
She is a devoted and loving mother. Just ask the kid.
She is willing to go down to City Hall and stand up for what is right.
She is first in line for any adventure.
>She loves critters of all kinds from little yappy dogs.
I get every other Friday off and this week after dropping the kid off at school, going to eat breakfast, and a bit of shopping, we went to see “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a spy flick with a wry sense of humor.
It features two bon vivant spies, Napolean Solo, a smooth talking thief who now works for the CIA and Illya Kuryakin a brutish, strong, hot tempered KGB spy. These two guys are balanced by the luscious Alicia Vikander playing Gaby, a car mechanic from East Berlin.
All I am going to tell you about the movie is that it is set in the early 1960’s when the Cold War could turn hot any second. An evil worldwide criminal organization has kidnapped Gaby’s father, a renown nuclear physicist, to make the most powerful atomic bomb ever known! So the two spies, who don’t like each other by the way, must work with the beautiful Gaby to find her father, and disable the bomb. I bet you couldn’t see that coming could you?
So why did I like this movie? The plot was good, the actors were good, lots of action, good cinematography, and all that? All that was great but what I liked about this movie was the 1960’s vibe. You know the early 1960’s elegant movie style. The two spies were bon vivants who got into a hilarious argument about proper accessories while in a high fashion salon when Gaby was dress shopping. The spies wore smart suits with ties and had sterling manners and nothing fazes them (except sometimes for Kuryakin). I loved the Jaguars and other vintage sports cars, the 1960’s soundtrack, the elegant hotels, and restaurants and the proper crystal glassware. Gaby’s fashions. Plus she looks pretty darn good in just regular old pajamas. she kind of acts like a princess but also offers to clean out the jets on the carburetor of a race car. (And the 1960’s race cars are so much more elegant than what we now have, in my opinion.) The movie is set in Rome with the classical background. The bad guys getaway boat is an elegant teak speedboat. Yep, it was the vibe that hooked me on this movie.
There is some suggestiveness in parts of the movie but everybody keeps their clothes on and of course gentlemen watch their language.
I remember vaguely the original Man from U.N.C.L.E from the 1960’s. I liked it fine I think but it was not on my “A” list shows. Shows you like “Combat”, “Twelve O’Clock High,” “The Flintstones”, “Johnny Quest” and others. The Man from Uncle was on my B list.
Anyways I highly recommend this movie! Check out The Man from U.N.C.L.E web site. Lots of good stuff there. Movie web sites are the little secret of movies. Nobody I talk to goes to them. I love them and almost all movies have their own sites. Check out the IMDB site for the movie also. They have encyclopedic information on the cast, guidelines for parents, lists of goofs, and links to trailers and lots of photos.
You know I use the Goodreads App to note down books that I’m interested in. I might find lead on interesting books in various newspapers and magazines and from people I know. After a while I forget where I got the tip from. And when I’m looking for new books I start at the most recent and go back until I find one that the Tulsa library has that I can download without waiting on it. So I don’t know where I got the idea that I wanted to read “The Bishop’s Wife.”
LDS Temple in Idaho Falls
The Angel Moroni
I downloaded the book and oh groan it looks like a “Woman’s Book” type murder mystery. The protagonist is Linda Wallheim who is the wife of a bishop. Not a Catholic Bishop of course (now that would be a story!) or an Episcopal or Methodist Bishop but a Mormon Bishop. So, uh, I said I spent much of my formative years in Utah and northern Arizona in heavily Mormon dominated areas and I have relatives who are Mormons. In fact I had a shop teacher in my high school in Arizona who was a Mormon Bishop. We, everybody, not just Mormons, called him Bishop Brown instead of Mr. Brown. So anyway that piqued my interest more than a little bit. So, it was like “What the heck, I’ll keep on reading this.”
So anyway this Bishop’s wife Linda Wallheim is one of those women who make the world go round. Maybe you know them regardless of what religion or belief you are. They are right in the mix of things at church, school, Cub Scouts, and any other activities. I recognize them because my mother was that way, and I’m married to one, and I have a sister who is one also. Like my MIL Nana says, “If you want anything done, you have to get an old broad to do it.” Not that my wife and sister are old broads. So anyway Linda (I feel like I’m old friends with her after reading the book), is here there and everywhere. Basically she is leaning on the church door every time it opens. As you can tell I fell in love the character.
The LDS Temple in Kansas City, Missouri
Now the thing is, although a Mormon Bishop is a lay position (that means they do it for free) it is an official position of authority in the Mormon church. The Bishop’s wife is not an official position but she is the “Mother of the Ward unofficially. So Linda’s husband asks her to go check on people from time to time. So he asks her to go check on things with a couple families who are also close neighbors. Well she takes that assignment to heart, she checks in on them and then next thing you know she is rifling through garages and finding all sorts of suspicious things and pokes around their back yards. She also surreptitiously goes through their cell phone call histories and goes through their dressers. And then she goes back to her house and bakes cookies and brownies. Her other duty as the Bishop’s wife is that some of the women in the ward will talk to her when they don’t feel comfortable talking to the her husband. I tell you what she gets an ear full from some of these women. They tell her some things that would make Hannibal Lector flinch. It’s like wow!!
Another angle on Moroni
On the spiritual side of things Linda is of course a devout and faithful Mormon woman but she chafes under the all-male authority structure of the church and really gets steamed when her own husband tries to play the bishop card on her. She pretty much does what she wants and doesn’t tell him anything she doesn’t think he needs to know. She has two grown sons and one still in school and her relationship with them is a little prickly. This all makes Linda real to me.
And oh yes, murder’s are committed and the perps are found and my friend Linda is right in the mix. I am hoping that Mettie Ivie Harrison writes another one of these books. I loved it. This is her first Adult book after several young adult fantasy romances. She is a practicing Mormon and lives in Utah.
While we were on our family vacation in Hawaii, The Smokey Bear facebook site posted this photo below. I would have missed it by myself but we had some family members who subscribe to the site who tagged me in it. It was quite a thrill seeing this picture. It shows my Dad and myself at the Pecos Ranger Station in New Mexico. I have a Smokey Bear and dad is pointing off in the distance. I was just two years old at the time and of course have no memory of it. Dad was the District Ranger which put him somewhere below the President and above just about everybody else in my mind.
The photographer who did the shoot for the Forest Service sent Dad a bunch of prints including this one where my Dad is pointing off in some other direction and brother Bob was looking elsewhere.
Dad is now retired in Idaho. I have always been proud of him. Way back then and even more so today. He has always been my idol.
Happy Father’s Day Dad!
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