I am such a lazy skywatcher. Every work day this time of year at about 5:15 I get from my cubicle with my iphone and walk down to the west end of the building and check out the sunset. Sometimes if it is too cloudy or no clouds there is not much to see. I shoot through the glass and I have found a spot behind a pillar next to the window where I shoot through the glass at an angle, and that cuts the back reflection back tremendously. It is still there but you have to look hard to find it.
This is a bull from the ranch in western Oklahoma. The photo was taken by my wife’s cousin’s wife who sent it to me and I edited it a little bit. I love the scenery and people of Western Oklahoma. You can tell this bull has a little attitude. Life as a bull is a balance. You need to get the job done with the heifers and a little attitude is tolerated. Too much and off you go, never to be seen again except maybe at your local butcher shop.
A little closer to home is a family walk on Turkey Mountain the day after Thanksgiving. We had a nice Thanksgiving and we all (including my brother not pictured) went a little walk. I am pretty gimpy right now and I got real gimpy during the walk. I bit off a little more than I should have with my running. In the course of a month I ran three fairly long distance races, a 15K road race, a 25K trail race, and a half marathon on the road. So my knee is kind of sore. So I am working to strengthen my quads, and loosen my hamstrings, and try to maintain some sort of fitness with non running exercises all while loading up on ibuprofen, and icing my knee when I can. So far my it is getting better. I don’t think I will be running until January.
Anyways, thanks for visiting. Check out the fun folks at Skywatch Friday
Yep I doctored this up plenty with Topaz Studio and no, I am not ashamed to admit it.
For Thanksgving I offer up for Skywatch Friday this photo from my office building showing the sun setting and the Arkansas river as it comes into Tulsa from the northwest. From now until daylight savings time starts I’ll be taking a photo almost every day. It is not from my office any longer. I am with a gas company and we used to have a marketing and trading company so I walk over to the big open area that used to be trade floor with the huge window looking west. So I go to a window that faces north and point my camera to the northwest. I do that to avoid the reflection of the camera in the window. After 17 years of taken photos of the same scene I have learned a few tricks.
Technically, not the best picture in the world, and not in focus. But if you know me you know I don’t care about that. I care about the personality that shines through.
Sometimes we have a big Thanksgiving and sometimes we have a small Thanksgiving. This year it is small. These two, Heather and Nana (the world’s best MIL) are the ones that stir the drink, and cook the food, decorate, and keep things going.
Brother Bob is coming in from Tennessee, his new home. The critters love Bob, he is so patient with them.
And of course Logan. The cat whisperer, just ask our new kitten Lizzy who adores him.
One of my favorite pictures of Dad. From several years ago. It has sparkle in his eye.
We’ll miss my Dad who passed away a few months ago. He flew down from Idaho for years to spend Thanksgiving with us and had not been able to for a few years now. He loved northeast Oklahoma and we went on a lot of adventures in the area. Right up to the last he was interested in the what was going on around him and current affairs and history and a very wry and dry sense of humor. He is my hero. I am thankful for the time that I had with him.
So we will enjoy each other’s company on Thanksgiving, eat some food, and figure out who the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions are losing to this year.
Yep, Oklahoma is built on a slope that goes from left to right. Deal with it. From Holmes “Peak” as my family and friends in the mountain states bust a gut laughing.
For Black Friday, I got an email from Post Oak Lodge, a resort in the Osage Hills northwest of Tulsa. They are opening up their extensive trail network to the public on Friday. So I am taking brother Bob and Logan there for the day! Bob is a big runnier but hasn’t done too many trails and Logan is a trooper so I plan on spending a couple hours tromping up and down the trails of Post Oak Lodge. They host some awesome trail races, featuring the “Hill from Hell.” Here is a race report from one of the recent ones.I don’t plan on buying a thing on black friday!!
This is the view from my office building on day last week. Sunset looking over the Arkansas River as it winds its way down from Kansas through northeast Oklahoma.
A cattle herd in western Oklahoma, taken by my wife’s cousin’s wife Cheri Lou at her family ranch in Washita County, Oklahoma. Cheri Lou takes pics, I edit them and post them on Instagram. We make a great team. I love the donkey in the middle of the cows. The purpose of the donkeys, besides providing comic relief, is to protect the herd from coyotes. I give the cows names that Cheri Lou doesn’t appreciate. Names like Little Brisket, Rib Eye, McDonald, Wendy, Burger King, and Chuck (roast). It’s all in fun, don’t report me to PETA okay. Honestly, do people think these cows are going to die of old age.
Well it is November and our weather up until today has been pretty mild, blue skies, and sunny skies.
My photo doesn’t really show but we had a crystalline clear moon one night. These was a few days ago just shy of the Full Beaver Moon or Frost Moon. I love moon shots.
My wife’s cousin’s wife (got that?) Sheri Lou has been taking photographs of the goings on around the family ranch in Western Oklahoma and she sends them to me and I doctor them up and post them and we have a pretty good partnership going on. I love the wide open skies of Western Oklahoma and the tough, big hearted people that live out there.
We have had a few funky skies in Tulsa. Here is a few weeks ago downtown in the late evening.
On Sunday, son Logan and I went for a walk on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. I had run a race the day before so I just wanted so get out and stretch my legs a little bit. Something called a “recovery walk” or a “recovery run” except I was not running.
Turkey Mountain has a few double track miles of trails but most of it is single track. Once we got a quarter mile away from the parking lot, we had the place to ourselves.
The air was just barely warm, and dry, and the skies were deep blue.
The just barely changed leaves were almost fluorescent with the sun shining through them.
The grasses are just now turning color.
Here is a track of our journey. We stayed on the “Snake Trail” not because of snakes but because the trail folds back on itself.
I’m running a 25K race this coming weekend on Turkey Mountain, the TurkeynTaturs 25K. We’ll be running the Snake Trail and just about all the other trails on Turkey Mountain as well. I’lve pretty much run them all. I plan on taking my time and trotting the non-rocky flats and downhill segments and walking through the rocks and uphills.
This is a cumulative “heat map” showing all the trails I had run as of several months ago. As you can see I run a lot on Turkey Mountain. I love it and the race Saturday will be a tour of all of it.
Wish me luck!! It will be the longest race that I have run since 1997 when I ran the Madison Marathon in Wisconsin.
Started when the sun was low which makes for long shadows. Since my knee injury a couple years ago I always walk a half mile before running.
I am being a little ambitious with my running this Fall. I have signed up for the Tulsa Run 15K and the half marathon event of the Tulsa Route 66 Marathon. I’m also thinking about doing the 25K event at a Trail Race on Turkey Mountain. And of course it is all well and good to sign up for this stuff but at you also have to train for the runs.
Tulsa is a city of trees and Up with Trees is a great organization that wants us to have even more!!
So most of my training runs have been up and down the River Trails here in Tulsa. I love the River Parks trails but you know, you need a little variety now and then. There is a park a few miles northwest of our house, Lafortune Park. It has an 18 hole golf course, and a 18 hole par three course, lots of picnic areas, tennis courts, a library, a tennis center, a lawn bowling pitch, a high school, with football and baseball fields, and best of all a 3 mile running/walking track that winds its way around all of those other things.
I ran by the offices of Crisis Pregnancy Outreach. This is a great organization that is devoted exclusively to the babies and their mothers. No time for wedge politics or anything like that. You want to do politics go somewhere else. If you are concerned about babies and mothers, this is your place.
I have run around the park many times, and Heather and I have walked around it a lot, even son Logan and I have done the three miles a bunch of times.
The closest thing to Fall Color I saw on my trek
Well I wanted to close the loop so to speak by running from the house to the park. From the house I have walked, run, and biked to the Creek Turnpike Trail. And although I have not done it all in one outing, I have walked, run, and biked about 20 miles to the east, and to the west and northwest probably 30 miles or more. So I wanted to extend my connectivity the few miles to Lafortune and get an 11 mile run at the same time. I had already done nine miles last week, so I wanted to do 11 this past weekend.
I love old signs. This sign has been there a long time even the store is long gone. It’s days are numbered though as there is some construction going on.
So off I went. It was different than running on a running path. First of all I wasn’t wearing headphones. Running on the street with headphones is a prescription for getting run over. I had a good friend who got run over and died while running on a freeway frontage road with headphones on. Second is the camber of the road. The crown. You really have to alternate what side of the road you run on otherwise you will tear up your knees or ITB band.
I passed a new restaurant going in at a busy intersection. I am a sucker for glass blocks.
But hey, it was all good. A nice brisk, sunny day.
Saint Francis Hospital.
It about wore me out. I didn’t have any time goals. I just wanted to finish and yes I walked a lot.
Probably 60% on the streets, roads, and sidewalks, the rest on park trails or vacant fields.
I know, I know, I should have been in church on Sunday morning but running had me totally in the moment and it all seemed to go by in a flash.
Next Saturday is the Tulsa Run 15K. It will be my 23rd. it is my favorite race of the year. It will be cold!!! but that is okay. I have the cold weather gear. I know how to dress for the cold weather, the hot weather, and wet weather, and dry weather. It doesn’t matter to me.
Here is the garmin video my very slow run.
Here is the much more fun “relive” version of the run. I like it much better for its 3D aspect plus it makes it appear that I ran the whole way.
My wife’s cousin’s wife, Cheri Lou took this photo at the ranch in western Oklahoma. I love the rolling hills, grassy rangelands, and the big skies out there. The people are great also.
Where we live in northeastern Oklahoma is more forest land and a lot wetter. Son Logan and I went on a little jaunt at Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center. Lots of wildlife in Oxley. Lots of water also and it is right underneath the main approaches to our local airport and is right next to the police gun range so it can get kind of noisy but I love it.
There are several sizeable lakes and ponds and it is known as a good birding site. I love birds but I don’t have the patience to put in the work.
Here you go, any photoblogger worth his salt has the obligatory first red leaf of Autumn. I think this might be my first red leaf ever.
This gave me a start! Don’t worry, it is a rubber snake placed near a geocache. At least I think it was near a geocache. I looked for it and didn’t find it. I lifted a rock and found me a real snake. Just a tiny little garter snake but I decided, enough is enough.
Saturday I had some time so I went looking for some urban caches in Tulsa. Found one near the Saba Grotto. I think it has some relation to the Masons. There were a few instagram pics with Saba Grotto. it looks like a big man cave. They have a pretty active facebook page and they seem to have all sorts of benefits and events. Who would have thought? Stuff like that intrigues me. People don’t seem to join clubs any longer. They belong to “affinity groups” where they do people who have similar interests but is a lot looser. Anyway, one reason I love geocaching is that I find new places and learn new things.
Another cache I found was on a freeway interchange. Talk about hiding something in plain sight. Lots of cars whizzing by while I figured out where the cache was.
I am still training for the Tulsa Run 15K the last weekend of this month. Last week I ran 9 miles after work and I actually felt pretty good. Cooler weather and a hydration vest works wonders. I had already signed up for the race and went ahead and signed up for the Route 66 Half Marathon in November. This weekend I am running 11 miles on Sunday morning. At least that is my plan. Check back later. Plans change.
A side benefit is running is the opportunity to take photographs. A great deal of my running (and a great deal of my photos) are along the Arkansas River. Tulsa really is a beautiful town. Of course I love the gritty west side of Tulsa where all the industry and refineries are.
In the Fall the skies get a lot more interesting. This is a sunset photo looking east with my back to the sun.
I’ll finish up with a selfie with a combuster at a waste treatment plant on the river. I was halfway on my nine mile run and I was really happy with how good I felt. Cooler weather, a hydration vest, and Metallica on the earbuds works wonders. That is about as big a smile as you will ever get out of me.
Monday night I was working out at my gym downtown and when I left to go home I captured this scene. I took a bunc of shots of it and spent some time “messing” with them with various filters. The above uses good old Snapseed, the free and very powerful and easy to use app from Google. The building is the Boston Avenue Methodist Church in downtown Tulsa. Designed by Bruce Goff and built in the late 1920’s. It used to be our home church and I will tell you that it is even more beautiful on the inside than the outside.
What I started out taking pictures of was the pink clouds. It was spectacular.
And this is from last week from my office looking toward our Library. We got soaked all day.
I took this homey pic of a scene across from my office building. I loved the glow of the lights and the reflections. And I really ramped up the HDR on this. I love using filters. I find that I don’t have the time to edit photos with my editing software any more.
We are having a couple cool days now but it is going to be back to the 80’s the day after tomorrow. What is the deal!!
And how about a kitten picture. This is Lizzie. She has taken over the house and is about as cute as cute can get.
This is Ginger and Logan. They are not so cute any more.
My last post was about a wedding we went to, this is about the day after.
I wake up earlier than everybody else and sure I drink coffee and read the paper but I like to get outside and I didn’t feel like running so I went geocaching.
A simple type geocache is a skirtlifter. Located on the skirt on a parking lot light. There were two close to our hotel so off I went to find them.
The caches have little paper logs that you sign to prove that you were there and also a separate web page that you “log” to show the world that you found it. Check out geocaching.com for more info.
Some of the containers are pretty small. Plus under one of the caches I spotted a black widow spider.
Who would of thought that high rise apartments in Oklahoma City would be around enough to need renovation.
You are saying, “Hey this a Skywatch post, where is the sky?” Right here, behind this architectual gem. I don’t know whether this is mid century modern or Googie or what but I think it is beautiful. It is also empty, but seems well cared for. I love those arches with the cables. I am thinking this used to be a bank.
This is the back side of what I think is a bank. I don’t know about you, but I really think they should install more lighting. Eleven lights is just not enough.
And this building is a special place. This is Founders Tower and there is a restaurant at the top that rotates and that is where Heather and I had our first date back in the 80’s. It was called the Eagles Nest then and now it is called 3sixty restaurant and bar. We had a great time. Or at least I did.
It is also and office building. The oil and gas industry at a certain level is almost a barter economy. You have geologists, landmen, and reservoir engineers who will work for an interest in a well rather than cash. Lots of those guys used to have offices here. That was back in the day when you could drill a vertical Redfork well in the Anadarko basin for “only” $1.5 million. Nobody does that any more. Now to drill and frack a horizontal Woodford Shale, or STACK, or SCOOP or other shale well is going to cost you $10 million. I have had customers with a straight face tell me about “pilot projects” with seventy such wells.
The technology invoved used to be almost generic but now the players keep their secrets very closely held. I am out of the game a little bit now but I wonder how the barter economy has survived. As Alan Jackson says, “the big money has come to town” or something like that.
And then back to the hotel. Notice the pedestrian friendly streets in Oklahoma City. I’ve always loved Oklahoma City for its pioneering boom and bust attitude.
Its late September and that means that I am spending a lot of time every week on the River Parks trails along the Arkansas River training for the Tulsa Run 15K that occurs in late October. This is the perfect time to run where we still have daylight savings time and the weather is beginning to cool. Last night I ran eight miles and it went splendidly. I have decided that I am going to sign up for the Route 66 Half Marathon which runs in November.
And the skies are a lot more colorful this time of year. I took this in the street in front of my home.
