Monthly Archives: May 2014

Wordless Wednesday – Mall Colors

Robotic Zombie Babies

I have a story to tell. It’s mainly a true story but once upon a time Logan and his band of merry co-conspirators were going to a Godzilla premier party last Friday night followed by a trip to the movies to see the film.. We were going to pick up Logan and his friend, well, we’ll just call the friend Doug. We were going to take them home so they could “hang out” as the kids say these days. Oh they were really looking forward to it.

Only thing is that when Doug come walking out of the school he has a baby carrier with him. Huh?? Oh, poor kid has been stuck with a robot baby for the weekend for his Social Skills class. Take a look at the baby.

Isn’t it cute? It comes with a diaper bag and instructions. It is a computerized baby that cries and needs fed and changed and in generally taken care of. Apparently there is a pretty good market for such babies for use by schools teaching about parenthood.

The baby was supposed to “go live” at 4 pm. That kind of put a damper on the hanging out. 4 PM came and went and not a peep out of the baby. It came time to drive to their friend’s house (we’ll call him Flynn) where the party was going to be. We all loaded in the car including “baby” and headed off to Flynn’s house.

5 PM came and still no peep, Logan and Doug started relaxing because they decided that Baby’s batteries were discharged. Well…

At 5:09 baby woke up. At first with that quiet muffled cry that baby’s get when they wake up. Doug and Logan looked at each other and had that look like they hoped that baby’s crying wasn’t going to get too bad. Baby proceeded to quickly go from a quiet cry, to a “Hey, is anybody out there? type exploratory cry.” To a “I’m really pissed off and I am going to kill somebody full throated howl.” Then either Heather or I said that they better take care of the baby.

Then it was hilarious, Doug was trying to hold the baby but didn’t quite know how to do it, and was yelling for Logan to find out what to do and Logan was scrambling through the diaper bag looking for the instruction book.

Baby was getting louder and louder, Logan was saying “Oh gosh, Oh gosh.” Doug was trying to hold the baby in different positions. And I was being really helpful saying stuff like “Don’t worry guys, Flynn will know what to do!” and then just grinning to myself. Doug and Logan reminded of me of new parents of a baby.

Eventually the instructions were found and the baby’s button pressed and it calmed down. We got to Flynn’s house and the baby was quiet but Logan and Doug were totally worn out. Flynn didn’t know what he was getting into but Flynn’s parents were looking at the now sleeping baby skeptically. I was just wondering if they were going to try and take the baby to the theater.

So we left wondering what was to happen, glad that it wasn’t our problem.

I’m sorry to report that the baby got left in the car during the movies. Is there a DHS for robotic babies? They did better than I would have though. I would have left the baby at the house. Apparently the babies are computerized so that the teacher can download a file and find out just how well or badly somebody treated their baby.

We were just glad that Logan had done the alternate assignment that was a report on the costs of having a baby. We all got our sleep.

Have you had to take care of a robot Baby?

Scavenger Hunt Sunday – The Bugs and Behinds Edition

Animals

For animals this is a shot of Logan riding Cisco at All-Star Therapy north of Tulsa. Logan has a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. Horseback riding helps him with a number of issues. The people at All-Star are wonderful

In the Shade

The Linnaeus Demonstration Gardens at Woodward Park has a number of nice shady seating areas. Sepia seemed just right for this pic.

From Behind

Believe it or not, those of who think that I am on the pervy side. I have almost 38,000 photographs on Flickr and not one tagged “Behind.” So I had to go looking. This is from a trip last week to Houston. I was at the airport and took a pic of the sky while nobody was looking. And hey, I thought this was a family friendly meme anyway; where we going with these prompts Ashley?

On the Ground

Well, yeah, it is on the ground isn’t it? Of course almost anything is on the ground one way or another. Hey, I didn’t make the prompt. I’ve been experimenting around with HDR processing since I learned that my point and shoot has bracketing available on the “P” setting. Fun, fun, fun.

Bugs or Blossoms

Well, I apologize because I have posted this pic before and I’ll probably post it again. I think it is a pretty good bug picture myself.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Mayfest Day 2

Friday was my day off, Heather and I headed off to Mayfest. Mayfest has lots of music.

And it is an art festival, so they have lots of … art?

What I like best is the people watching and taking pictures.

Heather photobombed one shot, I didn’t mind a bit. This was actually at the Blue Dome Festival right next to Mayfest. It is not as family friendly as Mayfest but a whole lot more interesting.. Keeping in mind that after about 7 pm Mayfest isn’t very family friendly either.

Weekend Reflections – Tulsa’s Mayfest

Mayfest is an annual festival in downtown Tulsa. It is a great place to go if you like to people watch as they wander around downtown looking at the arts and crafts booths, the food stands and all the music.

I like the colors and the sounds and looking at the different people who attend the fair.

And of course I’m easily distracted. These are the gas lights at my employer’s parking garage. A gas company has to have gas lights right?

Sorry for the effects. I used Corel Paint Shop’s enamel effect.

Weekend Reflections

Skywatch Friday – Oklahoma Style

The sky at Logan’s riding stable last Saturday. It was a little breezy outside but hey this is Oklahoma we get nervous if the wind isn’t blowing.

It made me think of the lyrics from “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from the musical Oklahoma”

All the sounds of the earth are like music
All the sounds of the earth are like music
The breeze is so busy it don’t miss a tree
An’ a ol’ weepin’ willer is laughin’ at me

Oh, what a beautiful Mornin’
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I’ve got a beautiful feelin’
Everything’s goin’ my way.
Oh, what a beautiful day!

Even if you are not in Oklahoma, try to have a great day! 😉

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday – Peanut

How About some Soylent for Lunch?

This isn’t Soylent, its a Bram’s Mix with Heath Bars. Hey I can’t do a post without a pic and I don’t want to get sued for violating somebody’s copyright!

The New Yorker magazine had an article recently by Liddie Whiddicombe “The End of Food” about a company who has found a substitute for food. The company and the product is called Soylent and supposedly it is all scientifically designed to meet all human nutrition needs and one can live on it for months.

Lucky’s Hamburger with trifle oil fries

I didn’t care about those claims or the product, what intrigued me is that the article discussed the two types of eating. One type of eating is social and experiential where eating is lots of fun. The other type of eating is utilitarian where you eat because you are hungry and that can lead to a lot of bad type eating like fast food or fries, chips. You know crap food that is bad for you.

Sushi and other stuff from the Sushi Place

That really hit a chord with me. I love eating and social eating most of all and my favorite dining partner is my wife Heather but I also like eating with friends and coworkers and talking about the food. I hate crap generic food. I really do. I also hate eating by myself. Heather and I went to New Orleans years ago and we had a great time. I went without her two years ago and it was completely different. I was at a convention and so I ate lots of hotel banquet food. In a city of great food I hardly ate any of it.

Impressions Beef Stew, Carrot Cake, and French Bread

Also, when I’m traveling on business through rural Oklahoma I hate stopping at small country cafes in small towns. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings and I’m speaking in general terms but I’m also saying as a veteran of eating in numerous small town cafe’s in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi I can say that most of them are pretty bad. All I can say is thank Heaven for Subway!

Before Subway and before Walmart killed retail in small towns my secret was to find the local grocer and go to the back where the butcher counter was and have the butcher make me sandwich. Now, those were good. Big thick slices of meat and cheese and lots of veggies. I haven’t been able to do that in years. (Has anybody else done that?) There is still a grocery store here in Tulsa that will do that for you.

Pho!!!

This Soylent product comes as a powder and you mix it up with water and sip through a straw. Supposedly it has the consistency of watered down pancake batter and tastes like cream of wheat. You know I could do that. Instead of stopping at some crappy place I could be sipping on my soylent while take photographs or hunting geocaches or just walking around. Seriously I really would rather do that than stop at a cafe. Unless I knew that the cafe was good.

Coneys

What about you? Are you ready to sip on some Soylent for lunch or dinner in place of crap food?

Running and Thinking on Turkey Mountain

Last Wednesday I used my weekly kitchen pass to go run on Turkey Mountain. It was a good day to run on the mountain because it was pretty windy and the trees on the mountain cut the wind by a lot. It also looked like rain was coming. If it is warm I don’t mind getting wet but I’m not fond of electrocution so I won’t run in the rain if there is thunder and lightning. Lightning has the potential to ruin your entire day. I figure my odds are better on the mountain than down on the River Trails.

I’ve gotten lazy with the running. I like to do it in the morning. I also like to drink coffee check on other people’s blogs, poke fun at the liberals and tea partiers on facebook, and read the paper. Somehow I’m spending more time sitting on my butt than running. I can tell by my waistline and by my running.

Running is a total feedback thing. The more you do, the better you get, the less you do, the worse you do. Plus as your weight goes up, that just makes it harder.

Trail running is fun. Once I get a quarter mile down the trail from the parking lot I hardly see anybody. I see bicyclists but very few other runners. When the weather is iffy I don’t see hardly anybody. I like being by myself but I wonder sometime if I fell and broke or twisted something what I would do. When I’m up there I don’t worry about it though.

I’ve never seen a threatening person on the mountain. I’ve come across a few homeless camps but the people living there are nowhere to be seen. To me it would be a lousy place for a homeless camp. There is no potable water up there, there are no food stores or convenience stores anywhere close. Plus runners are notoriously cheap, except for their running gear, so they would poor marks for panhandling.

I’m on Instagram (@yogiab) and every once in a while I check #turkeymountain to see who is posting what up there and last week I saw somebody posted a photo with some sort of caption about getting high on turkey mountain. The picture looked like some sort of pipe that looked kind of druggy to me. That actually simultaneously annoyed and chilled me. To my knowledge none of my family and friends uses illegal drugs. I guess that I lead a protected life. The other thing was “What the heck are you doing getting high on drugs on my Mountain!!!“