Monthly Archives: December 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens with Daisy Ridley

Could be Spoilers!!

The family bundled up and headed to the local movie house (as we used to say a long time ago) to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Logan was super excited about it. Heather got our reservations last week and we had all been looking forward to it. I hadn’t been reading about it or anything. I loved the original Star Wars movie and the subsequent two were good but not great and the movies in the series since then were very forgettable.

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I liked this one!! It is set years after the original movie the the worlds are littered with the detritus of the “old days” of the series now being scavenged for parts. I always loved how the space ships in Star Wars were high performance but battered and heavily modified. So in this movie the Millennium Falcon is found and pressed back into service despite a continuing series of malfunctions and bypasses. It kind of reminds me of our dishwasher back home that I’m kind of babying along.

They also bring out some old characters that are also kept going using baling wire and duct tape. When Harrison Ford appears people clap; the old dude still has that magic. The sad story is Carrie Fisher,her spark is gone and her performance weighs heavy on the movie. Whatever happened to Princess Leia? From what I understand she has had a hard life and it shows. Now Chewbacca is just as full of vim and vigor as he ever was.

The Storm Troopers are given life in this movie. They have feelings and emotions and are more than just drones to be mowed down by the heroes. I loved it and that is all I’m going to say on that topic.

Daisy Ridley steals the movie away from everybody else. She plays a scavenger, Rey, picking apart crashed space ships for parts in order to get her “daily portion” before she is thrust into a bigger role because of her sense of right and wrong. She plays a very strong woman who doesn’t back down from anybody including Hans Solo. She, along with everybody else, manages to keep her clothes on during the movie.

This movie was very satisfying. The forces of light are fighting the forces of darkness. There is some epic fighting. They are also set up for some great video games in the future and are set up for a continued sequels with younger characters. This movie brings back much of the magic of the original three movies. I saw the first movie back in the late 1970’s at the Galleria in Houston, Texas. I think I stood in line through one showing just to see the following showing and I was glad to do so. I might have been willing to do it again for this movie but thankfully we don’t have to do that any longer.

I strongly recommend seeing this movie. I hope that I haven’t spoiled it for you too much.

If you saw it, what did you think?

Mashable’s scene by scene recap. Huge spoilers

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Rudolph Run 5K – Broken Arrow, OK

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They had a cool and very engaged Santa at the race. He was giving out high fives, especially to the kids. I like active and engaged Santas. I still have a bone to pick with him about the ever increasing amounts of coal I get in my stocking every year.

Saturday I ran in the first ever Rudolph 5K in Broken Arrow. It was only my second race since I screwed up knee on a trail race on Labor Day and the first race where I was going to try and run the whole way.

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People dressed up with reindeer antlers and red noses and all sorts of costumes.

I went through a couple months of rehab on my knee and about a month on my own doing the stretches and exercises that the Physical Therapists taught me.

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So I pretty pleased, I was able to run the entire way though pretty slowly. My knee felt fine before, during, and after the race so getting faster is now a matter of training and conditioning. I never was very fast. My motto has always been to start slow and then taper off.

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I could say that I was fast enough to place third in my age group, which would be true. The whole truth is that there were only three men in my age group, not counting the thousands of guys in northeast Oklahoma who slept in and didn’t enter the race. So I’m booking it as third in my age group.

I appreciate the organizer of the race, Fleet Feet Sports, and all the other people including volunteers that it takes to put on an event like this.

Skywatch Friday – Morning River Parks Sky

RiverTrails parks with a flag - Topaz Textures Color Burst

I dropped the kid off at school the other morning and being a day off I spent a few minutes walking on the River. It was the start of a glorious day. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, the air was clear and cold with a stiff breeze. It doesn’t get better than that.

LInking with Skywatch Friday and with Pippa’s Friends Meet Friends

 

Brooklyn starring Saoirse Ronan

It was Heather’s birthday and she picked out a movie for us to see and it is a good one. Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan as Eilis Lacey, an young Irish woman, who emigrates to America as there are very few prospects for her in post World War II in her home country.

Life in Ireland was hard but she almost withers away from loneliness in Brooklyn but is saved by a priest who takes an interest in her and later Elis on meets a guy, and then, well you can guess the general theme of the thing but there are some surprises and strong emotions and this is a most excellent movie.

Ms Ronan is beautiful in an Irish pale skin kind of way. The cinematography is  absolutely gorgeous and the story is big hearted and optimistic. This movie proves that it is possible to make a movie about the Irish that doesn’t focus on drinking. And if you are interested in fashion Eilis is exquisitely color coordinated, especially for a poor Irish sales clerk. And she has a wonderful accent.

Check out the movie web site for lots of background information and videos. The movie is based on a book Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Apparently Heather’s book group read the book already. It is now on my list to read.

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It’s That Day Again

Birthday Cake and Birthday Angel

Somebody is having a birthday! Notice the Zumba cake that her mother got Heather. Also notice the Birthday Angel making another appearance. Time was Heather would groan when it was brought out, not any longer.

Heather as a Reindeer

Heather is always on the move these days. Full of life and surprises.

Heather with cake and Birthday Angel

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

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The party continued a couple days later. I love her top, and her tiara.

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And another birthday cake!!

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And she blew all the candles out in one breath!!

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Logan was looking forward to the cake

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And so were our three mutts.

Barbarian Days – A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

Book Cover - A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

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.

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Update on Turkey Mountain and Helmerich Park

There is a lot of news these days of interest to those in the Tulsa area interested in preserving green spaces and wilderness as wells as the financial health of our city.

Turkey Mountain Topaz Glow Dizzy Late Afternoon Sunlight

Maybe the most exciting news is that two local powerhouses, QuikTrip and the George Kaiser Family Foundation have given the Tulsa River Parks Authority a loan for $5.6 million to purchase 150 acres of land on Turkey Mountain, presumably including the 50 acre tract that Simon Properties wanted to purchase to put in an Outlet Mall. That deal fell through in September when Simon announced that that the were going to put the mall in  the suburb of Jenks. Money to purchase the 150 acres is expected to be in a bond issue to be submitted to the owners within the next year. Reported separately Friday, the Jenks Planning Commission appproved Simon Properties’ plans for the outlet mall. 

A family of hikers on Tulsa's Turkey Mountain

The bridge loan is great news. Until the land was in the public’s hands, it was at risk of development. This puts it out of private hands and into the River Park Authorities control.

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It is pretty rare in Oklahoma for people to fight city hall and win. City hall is not happy. Our mayor Dewey Bartlett got people riled up in November by pitching a proposal for a restaurant on the mountain. It didn’t go down very well.

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Mayor Bartlett was probably a little sore at losing the sales tax revenue from Simon’s mall to Jenks. Cities in Oklahoma are financed primarily by sales taxes and with the downturn in the energy industry and the rise of internet sales, sales tax collections are struggling. Friday, the mayor announced a job freeze  because of decreased sales tax collections. The city has been working hard at attracting national retail stores to Tulsa to increase sales tax collections. Some of us wonder if all we are doing is cannibalizing existing businesses but we are generally okay with smart development.

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Helmerich Park, or not a park, just been used as a park.

So now we have a new controversy over green space, this time concerning land in a city park, Helmerich Park, on the Arkansas River that the city is wanting to sell to a developer for a shopping center. Not a mall, just a moderately bigger than average strip mall type facility as far as I can tell. The problem is that you can’t sell land in a city park without going through a process involving the city council. The outdoor equipment retailer REI is expected to be the anchor tenant. To its credit REI has announced that it is not coming to Tulsa until all legal questions over the legal status of the proposed site have been answered.

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The volley ball courts at Helmerich Park. Note Turkey Mountain in the background.

So the city’s attorney has come up with this claim that the park is not really a park. It is just land that has been used as a park. So we are probably headed to court to settle this. It is very complicated because of claims that money was donated to the city to purchase the land to be used as a park in perpetuity.

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Acccording the city, this is not a park

The city wants to move fast to keep the project on tract, and a bunch of citizens are wanting to slow down and figure out this whole thing about what it means to say that land is not a park but is being used as a park. Plus we are trying to make sure that once land elsewhere in the city, like Turkey Mountain, is preserved as a park that it won’t be “unpreserved” by some fancy legal footwork.  And of course we are also concerned about the city getting enough money to pay for services and keep our police and fire departments staffed up and with the equipment they need to keep the city safe.

So now we are going to have another real life Quality of Life vs Development controversy in Tulsa.

Check out information from Smart Growth Tulsa Coalition. Among other things, they have a link to a video of our present Mayor Dewey Bartlett stating the land for the park will never be sold.

Facebook Group: Save Helmerich Park

Channel 6 Television story on the Bridge Loan

Channel 5 Television story on Tulsa deciding to sue for right to sell land in park

Tulsa World Newspaper story in 1991 announcing brand new Helmerich Park

Channel 2 Television story back in August where city announces they sold twelve acres out of the park

 

Weekend Reflections – Christmas Lights

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There is something out reflections at night when it is pitch black outside. It is very disorienting and beautiful at the same time.

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Looking down into the water you don’t see the water, it seems like if you jumped in you would fall forever.

Linking with Weekend Reflections

Skywatch Friday – Afternoon Walk Around the Pond

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For Thanksgiving we spent with family western Oklahoma. It is truly the land of the big skies and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, son Logan, brother Bob, and I went on a walk around a local pond. It was spectacular, not a cloud in the deep blue sky, the grass and brush were a golden color but the trees still had a lot of green on them. It was like a perfect moment that I will remember forever.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday