Category Archives: Life

My Big Day!

We had a little legal matter to attend to Thursday at our courthouse, me, the wife, and the kid. Nobody is in trouble, not in the slightest, just one of those things we had to do. So we all showed up and met our attorney who briefed on what was going to happen. So when the time came we went into the courtroom and raised our hands for the oath, and talked with the judge about this that and the other. She asked questions and we answered them and then we signed some stuff and she signed some stuff and we left. We were feeling really good about the whole thing.

And then we followed our attorney down to the second floor to the clerks office and all the things we signed and the judge signed were copied and stamped and initialed and examined and talked about and discussed. And then we moved away from the counter to another counter and our attorney was explaining this and that and when this and that needed to happen and what we had to do for this form and for that form and we were like okay,

And while all this was going on one of the clerks working there came up and and whispered very quietly in my ear, “Sir, your pants are blown out in the back.” And then she walked off.

Uh okay, so I stood there and listed to the lawyer finish up her spiel, and then we all three walked back through the courthouse, down to the street, and two blocks back to the parking garage. I was feeling the breeze the whole time if you know what I mean.

Labyrinths, etc

I was out and about and decided to go find a geocache at a local church. Right close to the cache was a Labyrinth and some instructions on how to use it. A labyrinth is not like a maze in that there are no choices to make or puzzles to solve. You follow the maze to the middle and then go back the way you came. It is presented as an aid to prayer. I’m okay with that. I googled Christianity and Labyrinths and boy talk about controversy.

In New Orleans I went briefly into the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, King of France. It is quite the building and the sanctuary is spectacular.

Geocaching in north Tulsa I come across another church. Lots more humble but they are trying just as hard, if not harder.

I am fascinated by the creativeness of people and the differences between people and how in spite of the differences their are so many things that bind us together.

The Homeless Guy said “Not Everybody Can Carry That Look Off”

Wednesday night I was at my liquor store downtown waiting in line to buy some craft beer as a reward for the run I was about to do. The guy ahead of me in line had a bottle of vodka in one hand and a ten dollar bill in the other. He was a homeless guy that I have seen in and around downtown for years. He turned to me and said, “You know you look just like those guys in the old time photographs. That cap and a sportcoat and khaki slacks. You know not everybody can carry that look off but you can.” So I said thank you very much. He asked, “So what kind of cap is that?” and I said that it was called flat cap and a friend from Uruguay got it for me and I love it because it was pretty darn warm.”

So he said “Really” and asked to look at it and so I handed it to him and he said, “No wonder it is warm, it is wool felt.” And I said, “sure is” and he handed it back to me and turned his attention to the clerk as it was his turn.

In a genial manner he told the clerk “Hey, that woman working here this morning said that I can only buy something once a day from you guys.” The clerk said, “That’s right sir we aren’t allowed to sell to the same person twice in a day.” So my new friend said, “Well you know that makes it kind of hard on me because I go through two of these a day” as he held up the bottle, “and I don’t want to be carrying one around all day. You know what I mean?” The clerk said, “I am sorry about that sir.”

And then the clerk said, “You want this in your backpack sir?” and the my guy said “Sure lets put it in there” and while they are doing that he says, “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. My daughter, I haven’t seen her in 17 years is flying in and said she is going to find me and I don’t know whether I should meet her or just go get drunk. What do you think?” The clerk said “I think you should go meet your daughter.” And I said, “I vote for that plan.”

The guy laughed and said, “Well we’ll see what happens, you guys take care.” And off he went out of the store.

For some strange reason, the guy made me feel good and bad at the same time. I have not met very many people so open, direct, and non-defensive as this guy.

Have you ever had a homeless guy make you feel good about yourself?

Childless Weekend

Leake Park in Tulsa on a warm sunny Winter Day (up in the 70’s)

The kid has gone with his senior class to Breckenridge, Colorado. We do have proof of life via text messages that he has survived the long bus trip, the snow, and the new surroundings and such. Far cry from when I was a kid where when we left we left and nobody ever thought about calling home or anything. No news was good news.

Heather and I are going places that Logan can’t stand (Bass Pro and Academy) and eating food he won’t eat (sushi) and staying up late without worrying about him but we already miss him and hope that he is having a good time. When we ask him what he is doing we find out that he is “hanging out.” When we ask if he is having a good time we find out “yes.” I’ve taught my son too well I think.

So today, more stuff the kid can’t stand, we are going hiking. What about you? What do you do when the kids are gone? I mean that you can share on a G rated site. Well, maybe PG.

Friday Night Lights – Oklahoma High School Football & Homecoming

Friday we all loaded up to go watch the Metro Christian Academy vs Poteau High School Football Game. Logan is in the Metro Choir and they were singing the Star Spangled Banner before the game.

The booster club was grilling food for sale. Is talking on the phone while grilling lawful?

The Zebras were keeping to themselves. Nobody has any love for these guys.

The latest fashions were on display. No joke, the young guys at the office were checking out web pages trying to buy pants similar to these.

The Choir gathered out on the field to get instructions and warm up. I think here they are playing the game of “Everybody look all different directions.” Or so it seems to me.

The photographer was out doing his thing while I was doing my thing and we got each other.

The cheerleaders were warming up. A big difference between cheerleaders today and way back about 40 some years ago is the athleticism of the cheerleaders. They were doing front flips and back flips and hoisting each other in the air. They are athletes themselves. The cheerleaders way back when were just as pretty but not as athletic. Or you know, maybe they were and just didn’t display it for everybody. These girls were amazing.

Metro’s team got in their big inflatable helmet. I don’t blame them, that is where the cheerleaders were. And then the coin toss and shaking hands and all that. The Metro team captains ran back to the ~~cheerleaders~~ helmet and then the gun sounded and they all ran out.

Poteau is a small town in eastern Oklahoma. I think they suited everybody in town up for the game.

The Choir sang the National Anthem, and a prayer was said. (Don’t worry, totally legal. Metro is a private Christian school and the game was on their property.) As far as I know, nobody from Poteau minded.

And then the game started. It was a good game. Both teams are very good and you could tell they are well coached. The modern game with its spread offense, quick release passing, and no huddles is really exciting but very demanding of the players.

One difference between then and now is the how the plays are transmitted to the players. The plays are signaled in from the sidelines. The three players and coach in the foreground send an elaborate set of signals. And everybody on the team watches. Poteau had a little bit different system involving three posters with colors, symbols, and numbers.

At halftime the Metro band got out on the field. They didn’t get to do much marching. Their function that night was to provide music for the presentation of the homecoming king and queen and attendants. The presentation was pretty cool; they introduced the kids and gave a little bit of information about them including where they went to church, their school activities and such. Their parents accompanied them out on the field and I thought that was a great idea. The parents should receive as much recognition a their children. I noticed that the mothers of both the boys and the girls were beaming and proud. The dad’s well, I’m sure they were proud to but they just wanted to get it over with.

And then the Pride of Poteau Marching Band came out and gave quite a show. That is another difference between way back when and now. The marching routines are much more complex. The Metro crowd was very appreciative of the show.

So, all in all it was a great evening. I have to confess though. We left after halftime. It was kind of cold there. Poteau ended up winning in double overtime 42-41.

Frustration!!!

Three weeks ago I banged my knee falling on a rock during a Trail Race on Turkey Mountain. I walked and ran about three and a half more miles and of course my knee was pretty sore. I went to the doctor a few days later and based on his examination and xrays I didn’t have any bad damage. Gave me some Naproxen and told me to stay off of it for a while. Well, things got better and better until Thursday afternoon when my knee quickly went out. It hurt and was stiff. I cancelled my plans to go to Idaho to help my Dad get his house ready for winter and instead went to see a Nurse Practitioner (cuz you know, the old doctor was not available on such short notice and my regular doctor just left on two weeks vacation.) The NP said that I did too much too soon and to take it easy and see my regular doc when he gets back. Huh?

#Sculpture #Art #PublicArt #EdmondOklahoma right by a customer's office in downtown Edmond #MyOklahoma

For some reason I love this sculpture in downtown Edmond, Oklahoma

I guess maybe I had been doing too much. I don’t know. My knee felt pretty good so I worked out once (no running). I drove out to western Oklahoma for a company luncheon and then traipsed around downtown Edmond taking photos and visiting customers.

I resumed my walks downtown taking pics and posting them on Instagram.

I even went to a local park and found a geocache. Don’t tell Heather that to get the cache I had to climb up and down a ten foot steel lattice, twice.

I even went out to the suburb of Sand Springs and walked about three miles finding a couple geocaches in the woods. (Don’t tell her about that either.)

So maybe I have been overdoing it. But my knee felt great while I was doing it.

What do you think? Was I overdoing it? Or do I need another doctor?

Hey, my bloody sock cleaned out really nice. I love those Thorlo running socks.

One Fall Down – Several Steps Back and Forward

I have had to take some steps back lately. Last week during a trail race on Turkey Mountain I tripped a fell and my knee landed right on a rock. Ouch!! It hurt. I made a stupid decision to go ahead and finish the race and in fact ran a little bit of the way. I just didn’t feel like quitting.

There are lots of places to trip on Turkey Mountain and I have found most of them by personal experience.

I might have should have gone to some sort of urgent care place, maybe I don’t know. My knee was sore and stiff but I didn’t sense that I was in any sort of crisis situation.

How do you like my newly pink sock? How about the blue zip ties on my Hokas. The most expensive shoes I have ever owned.

On Tuesday I went to my employer’s clinic because I couldn’t get in to my doctor in a timely fashion. The doctor looked my knee over, congratulated Heather on her wound cleaning and dressing skills and sent me off for xrays.

The X Rays were done at a brand spanking new Catholic owned hospital in the burbs here in Tulsa. I’m not a Catholic, I’m not sure what I am at this point, but I like the way the decorate hospitals. You get the sense that they think Jesus is somebody more than your buddy who helps your favorite football team win games.

Anyways I started seeing things with new eyes and my sore stiff knee. The available parking spots to get in the hospital were some distance away from the entrance. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I mean my pain is temporary and I’ll get over it and I’ll resume parking farther than I have to in order to get my fitbit step count up but lots and lots of people have to contend with long walks and their pain or stiffness or immobility is just something they will have to live with permanently. And they are not whiney babies about it like I am.

Dang the open registers are a long ways away. And then I get to walk back this way to get to the exit.

And then I had to go to a Target and run an errand. You know when you are walking at about 1 mph those stores seem a lot bigger than before. And really Target you only have three registers open and they are in the middle. Okay, ouch, ouch, ouch I went. Whine, whine, whine. Again I saw the store with new eyes. I’m having a lot more empathy for people who contend with this stuff every day. Also, I have my choice of medical care available, my employer’s clinic, my primary care physician, urgent care, all for nominal cost. My insurance company even has a nurse available 24/7 if I want to talk to her. (I did talk to her, she kept telling me that knee injuries take time to heal and I would have to be patient with it…) If I was uninsured or under a major medical policy I would have some hard to choices to make, especially if I was on a limited income.

Plus other people don’t have the world’s greatest wife to take care of them!

Playing with my new favorite Ipod app “Matter” . Are we Instagram buds yet? Why not I’m YogiAB. Look me up. As long as you are not selling Herbalife or body wraps or are a “life coach” I’ll follow back.

The other thing that is throwing for a loop is a personal attack on me by another blogger. I am the main admin for Skywatch Friday. All I do is set up the page for linking in by other bloggers. It was started by someone who passed away several years ago and I am just one in a chain of people who keep the meme going. I am in my third year doing this and enjoy it and regard it as my way of contributing back to the blogging community. I wont’ get into details but I got an email with somebody who was furious with me for the last Skywatch Friday linkin. I tried reasoning with them but to no avail. I consulted with one of my co admins who counseled wishing the person peace. Getting something like that out of the blue is quite disconcerting. I am not afraid of conflict (the Oklahoma natural gas business is not for the faint of heart I will tell you) but there is usually a reason and there is usually something you can grab onto to make the situation better for the person who is angry. Anyways, peace everybody. I am gong to be more sensitive to people in the news who inadvertently suffer attacks from the public. These people are real people even though they may have made you and angry for some reason. There is no reason to launch on them.

I love the Lululemon girls and their signs at the various races that pass their store.

Anyways, my knee is now getting better and I’m going to be pestering my doctor about rehab. This may be my excuse not to do the Tulsa Run 15K this year. I have a streak going of running it 21 years in a row. Streaks like that are okay but get to be a pain in the butt. But then I think. That is six weeks away. Maybe I’ll walk it? Maybe I won’t.

Have you ever had anything throw you for a loop? How did you react?

Post Memorial Day Weekend Update

Monday morning I got up, not too darn early, and headed out to Floral Haven Cemetery in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. It is a huge cemetery and they have a program where a Veteran’s survivor can donate their loved one’s casket flag to be displayed on Memorial Day Weekend. There are over 3000 such flags put up and taken down every year by Boy Scouts and it makes for a great display.

I love it so I went to take some pictures. It is very inspiring especially since so many graves are decorated by loved ones also.

I love the idea of Memorial Day. A day where we remember those who went on before us and those who sacrificed themselves for our freedom.

And then I went home and attended to my smoking duties. My mother-in-law Nana found a local butcher in south Tulsa, Perry’s, at 81st and Sheridan. It is a small place but boy do they sell good meat at very reasonable prices. This is the second time we tried them and the results were great. The meat on the ribs pulled cleanly away from the bone and the chicken was very tender.

Heather was off running errands so Logan and I had to do some extensive sampling of the results . You know for quality control. We are all about quality control especially when it comes to food.

So we packed up the food including a birthday cake Heather made and headed off to Nana’s house. We made quick work of the main course and then Logan did a great job of blowing out the candles on the cake. You see we are getting close to his birthday and you can never start these celebrations too early is my mottow.

One puff is all it took so I guess that all his wishes will come through. I’m sure though that Super Bowl Championship for the Cowboys never occurred to him. I don’t know exactly where I went wrong raising the boy.

Here he is with his Mom.

And here is with his Nana.

And here I am with Rascal the Pomeranian. What is going on here? Is somebody trying to tell me something?

Anyway, we had a great Memorial Day, what about you?

Saturday Catching Up

A lot has been going on lately and I need to tell you about it.

My beautiful wife Heather has become certified as a Zumba instructor and is now teaching classes at our gym. Check this link if you want to see a video demonstration of Zumba. (I am not embedding the video because so many of them have the auto start enabled which is annoying.) Anyways she works hard coming up with routines to make the class interesting for the customers. She is having a lot of fun at it.

Son Logan just finished his Junior year at his new school. He did very well. As you may recall he has Asperger’s Syndrome and had been in a special needs school since second grade. This year he switched over to a college prep Christian School. The academic load zoomed up off the chart over what he was exposed to before and he responded well and has made all A’s and B’s. He has worked his butt off to do that and has learned a lot about academics. Heather learned American Sign Language and I got a pretty good refresher in Geometry and Biology. Geometry has changed much in the last 44 years but Biology has zoomed forward a bunch.

I had to bite my tongue in biology on the whole Creation Science vs Evolution thing, because it is a Christian school, and I told him before he got into it that his Dad was a Christian and also a die hard evolutionist and further I didn’t see any contradiction between the two. I also told him that he was old enough to decide for himself what he wanted to believe. Hopefully I haven’t scarred the poor child or caused him to get a bad grade. I have a feeling that I may have made it on a few prayer lists as well. No harm in that though.

And let me see, in my new job as Director of Project Development I actually had somebody call up and offer me a ticket to the Big 12 Conference Baseball Championship here in Tulsa that past week. After spending 21 year entertaining and hustling drinks for other people it felt strange to be on the other side again but I made the most of it. We sat behind a scouting team from the Baltimore Orioles. They had radar guns, complicated charts and nice haircuts. The guy on the far right had a big old giant World Series ring on his finger also. I don’t know who he is but when he stood up I could see that he was big, real big. It was all very cool. And you know something college baseball is good although I still don’t like the “ping” of the bats instead of crack of a wood bad. But hey, I’ll get over it.

And last Sunday Heather and I went to the Hopjam festival sponsored by Hanson. It was great. Great music and great beer. What a combination.

Also, we are fixing to (as we say in Oklahoma) on our family vacation. All you burglars out there don’t get too excited because we have a full time house/pet sitter. I’m going to be taking a digital break so I won’t be posting for about a week and a half probably starting late next week. I’m a host of the Skywatch Friday meme that comes out on Thursdays and I have already prepared the next two week’s posts. I hope that I didn’t screw up the linky’s or the posts or anything because there won’t be much I can do it about it.

Anyway, what is new with you?

Yarn Bombs, Baseball, Refineries, and a New Job

Some of the things I’ve been doing lately.

I came upon this yarn bomb just outside Elote’s in downtown Tulsa. I think Yarn Bomb’s are friendly graffiti. I mean they don’t age well but they don’t vandalize property either and they are kind of cute. I think Yarn Bomb’s are getting more prevalent. I’ve seen several around Tulsa.

Monday at the Gas Company we had our annual team building exercise. We go a daytime Tulsa Drillers AA baseball game. They feed us and we get to spend the afternoon watching the game. And then we have to go back to work cuz I work until 6. It is a very nice break in the middle of the day especially on a beautiful day like we had today. The Drillers lost one to nothing. It’s like cmon guys. You can’t score one run??

We have had a lot of rain the last week and lots of storms and in central Oklahoma some tornadoes. One day we had flooding and tornadoes and some big cats got loose at one of those low rent ripoff private zoos. We even had a tragic accident where somebody died in their tornado shelter. I’m telling you Oklahoma weather is pretty wild plus now we have earthquakes. The reason I’m telling you this is because on Wednesday instead of going for my regular long run on Turkey Mountain or the river I went on a short run of only about three miles. For part of the run I went where I wasn’t supposed to and got a good picture of one of our local refineries. Being the chemical engineer that I am I just love refineries and I think they are beautiful. What do you think?

While I was over where I shouldn’t have been I checked out the new not opened pedestrian bridge across the Arkansas River. I thought about running down there and seeing what I could see but I didn’t like the big curve that hides the end. I mean, who is just around the curve. Bridges are creepy enough already. So I will delay my run across the bridge until I know that it is open. I’ll let you know.

Next, here I am at the barbers. Rozetta and Billie at Antonio’s in the Petroleum Club Building have been cutting my hair, or what is left of it anyway, for 23 years. Anyway, I was getting my hair cut because it was picture taking day at work. My official picture was taken fifteen years ago when I started work and I hated it. So I needed to make the most of it and so here is the new pic.

So here it is!! In case you are wondering, that is my smile, thank you very much.

And my job has changed. I am now helping develop projects and am less involved in the commercial area. it’s a good change for me. I had the job as Director of Gas Supply for Oklahoma (and for several years Kansas) for about 13 years and although I loved it, I’ve been ready for a change. I’ll be working with many of the same people I was before helping develop projects to achieve our commercial goals. Projects like pipelines, compressor stations, natural gas processing plants and all that other fun stuff.

Hey, have you had any changes lately? Tell us!

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