Monthly Archives: July 2008

Boys Night Out

Thirteen times a year SuperPizzaBoy and I get a night out on the town. Sweetie belongs to a book group. She has belonged to this group for years and years. One time they were even featured in a magazine article. It pretty much has been the same group of women the whole time. Sweetie even continued to attend the meeting during our brief time in Oklahoma City eight years ago.

Usually there is lots of reading going on before the meeting. After all, it is a book group so you read books, right? Right, most of the time.

Anyway, SPB and I have a great time on these nights, we go to movies, swimming, and Lazer Tag. We eat really well, Johnny’s hamburgers, mexican food, barbecue. We have ice cream or milkshakes for desert. We go shopping. We have a done a lot of geocaching. We have a whole series of “Boys Night” geocaches.

One night a month though is different. We leave earlier and we come back later that night. It is the night that the spouse kicks us out of the house. The night the Book Group Ladies come to the house. That night is special.

It also takes lots of preparation. You would think that we are shooting an HGTV segment. Lots of decoration and house repair goes on.

For example, Sweeties office, before:

and after,
Lots of other work went on also,
Full disclosure, Sweetie did most of it!
Hey, I helped out a little.

No books though, no reading, lots of other activities on tap, hammering, nailing, painting,
moving furniture, shopping, rearranging.
Cooking, menu planning, drink selection. She does it all.
I got to admit, she does a good job.

I won’t tell about several years ago, when I slashed my thumb open with a knife
the night before book group was coming.
I sucked it up and finished the job before I drove myself to the quack in a box for stitches.
And then drove to the pharmacy. I have got a lot of mileage with that story over the years.
I don’t exaggerate at all, or at least not too much.

The night came, SuperPizzaBoy and I left the house early.
We went swimming. We ate at Johnny’s,

Then we went to play miniature golf. SPB has gotten a lot better over the years.


Then, off to Braum’s for desert, milkshake for him, small mix with Heath Bars for Dad.

We were going to our favorite used book store afterward to find a Swiss Family Robinson or Robinson Crusoe for story readings at night. But,
I got a call from Sweetie, “you can come home now, everybody’s gone.”
What, come home, OK be right there.

We finished up desert and came home,

Hey look there is the book!

Michael Savage Controversy

On July 16 this year a conservative radio commentator named Michael Savage went on a rant about Autism. Basically saying that autism is the parents fault. The mediamatters.com link is here. Apparently it has caused quite a ruckus nationally with parents of autistic children really getting angry.

I don’t listen to him personally even though he is carried by a local radio station. Apparently, the insurance company, AFLAC, has dropped their sponsorship and a company in Mississippi who owns 7 talk radio stations are dropping him.

His rant is very ill informed and has provoked a lot of response from parents of autistic children and autism advocacy groups. I’m afraid that that type of response falls right into the hands of Mr. Savage. These guys thrive on controversy. I think that a low key response is best such as by the organization Autism Speaks.

There appears to be some “overspray” on this matter by supporters of Mr. Strange such as this guy. He thinks that autism is over diagnossed and that this is done by a conspiracy between big government and something called ‘big pharma” which I guess is drug companies. I don’t know. Last I heard there were no drugs that could cure autism. If there were the Yogi family would be at the front of the line. So would a whole bunch of other families we know. That same guy also says a lot of other outrageous things.

The tone of his post though seems to be that autism is turning into a political disability. Out there on the right is the good folks whose children don’t have autism because their parents discipline their kids. On the left, that is where all the liberals, who don’t discipline their kids, are blaming autism.

Mr. Savage is starting to backtrack and weasel word. His employer “Talk Radio Network” made a statement. In the statement they say, in part:

“In the context of his broader concerns, it is clear that Dr. Savage’s comments were intended to suggest his opinion that, in the vast majority of cases, most children throwing tantrums, or refusing to communicate, are not autistic. Unfortunately, by condensing his multifaceted concerns into 84 seconds of commentary, the necessary context for his remarks was not apparent, and the few words he used to express his concerns were, in this instance, inartfully phrased.”

That is just great. If all there were to autism was tantrums, life would be a lot better for the parents. I’ve seen all sorts of kids throw many tantrums at stores, restaurants, schools, churches, playgrounds. I guess the thought that only autistic kids throw tantrums never occurred to me

I used to have a boss who always told me, “Never argue with an idiot.” I think this applies in this instance.

The Dark Night

SuperPizzaBoy is off to spend the night with his favorite friend “Q.” So Sweetie and I had a date night, Dinner and a Movie.

We started with Italian Food and then went to see the Dark Night. The new Batman movie. I loved it. The Joker stole the show. Heath Leger was great. What a shame that such a great talent is now gone. His Joker is sinister, crazy, and utterly ruthless.

Most people I talk to are wanting Batman movies like the old ones. I love this one. It is my favorite. The action is nonstop, the special effects are very special, the story is great. There are not too many plot holes, a few, but not too many. I give this one a full 5 stars.

Turtle Wakeup Call

Got up this morning, drank coffee, ate breakfast. While cleaning up and getting dressed our little, dumb, hand picked for Sweetie, shihtzu maltese mix was barking her little head off outside. I came out of the bedroom and Sweetie was holding a turtle. It seemed tame, if a turtle could be tame. Apparently the turtle was the reason for Abbie’s barking. She didn’t act like she wanted to hurth the turtle, she wanted to play with it. Our dachsund mix, Ginger was very unsure of it.


We then had a great idea. Lets wake SuperPizzaBoy up with the turtle! So we did. It did surprise him. Its not every day that you wake up with a turtle in your face.

Bike Ride

Sweetie and I have a new deal going on this summer. We go bike riding. I got a new bike last year for my birthday and really enjoyed riding it. I would go on a long bike ride on Wednesdays after work. I went all over the place, usually about 17 to 24 miles. I rode from TCC on 81st to NEOSU in Broken Arrow, Up and down the Arkansas River, Out and back to Sandsprings from the River and the Osage Praire Trail.

This year we bought her a nice bike so we get a sitter for SuperPizzaBoy and go bike riding on Wednesday. This past Wednesday we rode the Arkansas River. We started near the pedestrian bridge and went north to Southwest Boulevard and then down the west side to nearly the end. 17 miles all told of fairly flat riding but very windy.

Following is a picture near the end of the trail. I told Sweetie that I was starting a blog. She doesn’t want to be blogged about and doesn’t want to have any picture of her. So for today, no pictures of Sweetie. Just the end of the trail.

The next picture is near downtown.


We used to go to movies on our date night and we still do those from time to time but I much prefer being outside. We only have a few weeks left and then school starts. So much for bike riding.

The next step is to get SPB a bike and then we can go as a family. Sweetie and I both agree that we feel like kids again on our bikes.

The Eagles are coming! and we are going!


Last week the city announced that the Eagles are opening up the BOK Center on September 6. Soon thereafter my employer announced that they had some $192 seats that they were going to lottery to the employees for purchase. I won! I guess I won. Winning will cost me $192. That will buy a lot of cd’s.

Oh well, it will be a great anniversary occasion.

Note: Photo courtesy of digitalart2 on Flickr under creative common license.

Book Group #1

Those who are unfamiliar with Book Groups are under the impression that a book group is about books, discussion, and fellowship. Actually book groups are about many things. Things such as refrigerator repair. You cannot have a book group in a house with rust on the doors. Cannot happen no way. Book groups are about other things and we may cover those but today, book groups are about repairing the paint job on a refrigerator door.

Below is a picture of the door before the repair.


and during the repair:


How did it turn out? Not very well. The color didn’t match but it looks better than rust.

Pancake Run!


One of the ways the Yogi family entertains ourselves is with “pancake runs.” When me make pancakes at the house for the humans we always save the last cake for the dogs. Do we just give it to them? No way! We make them earn it. We make them chase us around the house and beg! They never get a pancake without earning it.

The dogs we have now, Ginger (colored so) and Abby, have a lot to learn about a pancake run, but they are learning. They still think that at some point we are just going to feed them without earning it. Nope, not happening. We need to see a loping trot with the eyes always on the cakes and then they have to jump real high. Ginger and Abby score pretty low in both accounts but they have only been at it about a year. So we haven’t given up hope.

Cradle of Rome

One Sunday our pastor. who is normally a fairly serious guy, especially when it comes to salvation, diverged on a sermon about his addiction to a computer game called “Cradle of Rome.” I had to try it and I became addicted. I told Sweetie about it and she became addicted to it also. We are too cheap to pay for it so we played the crippled free version that took you only so far and graphics are not very good also.

Then Sweetie did a very bad thing. She found a site where you could play for free. Bad news. We would start playing at 8 pm after SuperPizzaBoy went to bed. I’d look up and it would be 2 in the morning. I managed to kick my addiction.

See if you can resist the game. Personally I don’t dare start again.

A Day Off

Today I took a very rare day off to go bike riding with my Sweetie. At work our vacation is basically “use it or lose it” and I have to finish my yearly ration of days by the end of July.

Anyway, we scheduled this day last week and I have been looking forward to it for some time. We got up, drank coffee and read the paper, ate breakfasat, loaded up the kid, and off we went. We dropped off SuperPizzaBoy at his day camp for a fun time of bowling and skating. Sweetie and I drove to a spot of town and rode a “rails to trail” path. Out and back totaled about 16 miles.

Here is a shot of Sweetie halfway into the ride. Note the absence of a helmet. We have them, I promise. We just forgot to put them on.


Afterward, we refreshed ourselves at a nearby sonic and went for a Sunday drive on Friday.

Nice day, I’m going to have to do it more often.

I wish my employer would start a 9/80 work schedule. 80 hours over 9 days so you get a day off every other week. 26 extra days off. I could handle it.