The Jungle Book with the Voices of Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, and Ben Kingsley

Jungle Book Poster

On a cool, halfway rainy Memorial Day afternoon we went to a local to see “The Jungle Book” featuring live action and voices by Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Scarlett Johanssen, and Ben Kingsley, and a great performance by a young Neel Sethli playing Mowgli. The basic story is that Mowgli is a human boy (“man cub”) raised by a pack of wolves in the jungle after his father dies in an encounter with a Tiger named Shere Khan who was burned and scarred in the fight with Mowgli’s father. By the Law of the Jungle Mowgli is protected until he comes of age. That happens and then his wolf pack sends him to live with humans to protect him from Shere Khan.


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So Mowgli heads off to the man village with the aid of a black panther, Baghera, and Balou the bear. They have a lot of adventures with with monkeys, a snake, elephants and my favorite character, a big ape named Louie.


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There is a couple of great musical scenes with Balou and Louie. I found the movie totally absorbing. Just don’t ask too many questions such as how come the wolves, tigers, panthers, and bears can talk but monkeys and elephants can’t. Just go with it is what Heather says.

So the movie is a lot of fun. Check out its web site. Lots of good info and videos there. Take the kids, buy some popcorn and relax.

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Logan’s Graduation

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Well the rapidly rushing river headed towards Niagra Falls of Logan’s senior year finally came to the end and I guess we all survived. Wow, a lot happened this year, and wow, it all accelerated and got very fast at the end and then the end came and I guess we were all right.

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It was all very emotional for me as my little baby boy that we brought home from the hospital 18 years ago is now a big strapping young man.

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He is still our baby boy though except he is going to register to vote next week. 

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We were fortunate to have my Sister Ellen (far right) her dashing husband Irv (far left), and my brother Bob (betwsen Logan and Ellen) travel a long distance to share the event with us.

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The High School principal, Dr. Burrows, a very nice man came by and congratulated Logan. He told Heather a few weeks ago that they took a risk admitting Logan and he was very glad that he did. We are glad that he they gave Logan a chance also.

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And here is me. No we didn’t plan on being so color coordinated.

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And one of Logan’s classmates, Matt. Matt went out of his way to make Logan feel welcome when he first attended.

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And this is Logan’s Kindergarten teacher from a long time ago. She had her hands full with an oversize class and Logan took a lot of attention but she hung with him. She was the first of a series of teachers from several schools who had a heart of kids and went the extra mile to give kids like Logan the attention he needed.

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And this is the Kindergarten teacher’s daughter who went to school with Logan way back when and also graduated from the same school with Logan. She spent a lot of time helping Logan back then and they reconnected when Logan enrolled at the new school. 

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Another look at Irv and Ellen. They make a very handsome couple don’t they. They are very nice. Our dogs fell in love with them though and have been down in the dumps since Irv and Ellen left to go back to Colorado.

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Afterwards Nana hosted a party for Logan at her house the next day.  Many of Heather’s relatives attended the party as wells as Ellen and Irvin. 

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The party was a combined graduation and birthday party and had a drama theme since Logan’s first love is acting and performing. Notice the cake with the marquee.

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And the little chalk board like they use for movies. Or used to use anyway.

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Several of Logan’s friends showed up and all had a good time. This is where I admit that I am a bad son in law and did not get a picture of Logan and his grandmother together. Don’t you worry though because I will get a picture and add it to this post. One nice thing about blogging is that you can rewrite history any time you want!

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And then we sang Happy Birthday!!

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I did get a picture of the boy and his mom. They have a special bond that brings tears to eyes when I think about it.

So anyways, maybe I’ll be a better blog friend now. We have been busy lately!!

Skywatch Friday – Graduation Day

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I cheated, I found this in my archives from 2011. I don’t feel a bit sorry about it.

Thursday is Skywatch Friday in the blog world.

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Logan with his Mom and Nana (the world’s greatest MIL) at the Baccalaureate last Sunday.

It is also the day that our son Logan graduates from High School. A big day of celebration in our house I’ll tell you. Of course, the next phase starts.

We are really proud of him.

Skywatch Friday

My First Gallery Showing

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As some of you know I am pretty active on Instagram (@yogiab, see the sidebar, and just why are we not instagram friends?) The local Tulsa newspaper, the Tulsa World, has a hashtag, #MyTulsaWorld, that can be used if one wants use it for Tulsa area photos and they publish in the paper (like on real paper) once or twice a week photos with that used the hashtag. They ended up publishing four of my photos and I got to know, via Intagram, anyway a whole lot of talented photographers in the Tulsa area. 

So I got an email from the Tulsa World inviting me to submit two photographs to an exhibit of Instagram photographers in the Tulsa area. So me and 17 others sent out photographs in and then we got invitations to a private reception for the an Invitational Exhibition at Mayfest, Tulsa’s annual arts festival in May. So anyways I was pretty excited. I’ve never had my photographs shown before. You know, except for my Mother in Law. 

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Heather couldn’t make it because of a previous engagement with our son so after work I headed down to the venue all by myself. I was pretty nervous.

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There were all sorts of people who were mainly looking for the art featured in the gallery. Lots of good stuff there.

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I scooped up some free food and drink and found the Instagrammer section. It was very disconcerting to see my photos on display along with other peoples. I would look at it and then circulate around and then come back to you. It was a great feeling but humbling also. 

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I picked two photographs that showed two sides. One a peaceful scene at Post Oak Lodge in the Osage Hills north of town and the other action frozen during Tulsa’s riotous Tulsa Tough bicycle races.

Tulsa Mayfest 2016

They asked for a bio so I asked my good friend Mr. Google about bios.They have to be written in the third person and really have to get to the nut of the matter and leave out extraneous words but have a humorous part also. I left out the humorous part. If I had to do it over again I would add Heather and Logan to it.

So anyways it was all kind of fun, and flattering, and humbling. From the faces of the my fellow Instagrammers they were pretty pleased with the thing themselves.

So, thank you Tulsa World for a great opportunity and experience. And thank you dear readers who provide so much support.

And why are we are not Instagram friends again?

It’s Getting Real!!

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Graduation is getting real!! The baccalaureate is tomorrow. I’ve never been to one, I’m not sure what it is. I guess that I’m about to find out. The actual graduation is next Thursday. The kid is getting nervous. The whole family is for that matter.

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He humored his old man and put on the cap and gown earlier this week before I school. I have to say that I have never seen that expression before.

He has been going to graduations of friends of his at different schools, going through finals, and finishing up class projects and it is all a whorl of activity.

Wish us luck and keep us and him especially in your prayers. Life is going by pretty fast right now.

Skywatch Friday – The Beginning of Snake Season

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This is the sky on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain late one afternoon last week. We have had so many beautiful blue skies so much lately it was nice to see some clouds. Clouds mean rain and rain is generally good. I saw my first snake of the season literally about 10 seconds after I took this photo. He was a little tiny guy so I wasn’t too worried about him. After the weather warmed up a few weeks ago some of my trail running friends posted photos of the first copperheads of the season. I’ve seen lots of snakes on the mountain but never a copperhead. I intend to keep it that way.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday today.

Spring Choral Concert

The clock continues to tick on Logan’s time in High School until he graduates. Tick, tick, tick. It is getting louder and louder for both him and his parents.

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Tuesday night a few more ticks went by. His school had their Spring Choir Concert. Choir is a class and this concert is their final. How is that for getting the kids to show up. It was all good though. The kids did great.

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The Senior and Middle School both participated in this concert and it featured a varied selection of music from Hymns to Musical tunes to more modern music by Billy Joel and Elvis Presley or like the opera.

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Logan didn’t have any solos or anything, he just sang and that is what he loves doing. Standing on the risers for such a long time was kind of hard on him. I don’t know how people do it actually.

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The teacher put everybody through their paces and there was lots of singing for everybody.

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The Middle School ladies did a great job with “You’re Going to Miss Me” otherwise known as “The Cup Song.”

At the end they had the parents of the seniors go up on the stage while the Benediction was sung. (This is a Christian School so of course there was a prayer before the performance began.) I appreciated the benediction but I hate being up on stage. With the lights it is so disconcerting. Logan loves the stage. He didn’t get that DNA from me. I am perfectly happy being in the audience, in the shadows.

It was a great seeing the kids performing and showing off their talent and not plugged into their so called “devices.”

So I continue to be an infrequent blogger and a lousy blogger friend. Sorry but we are counting down until Graduation and things are not going to change very much until then.

Solar Impulse 2 in Tulsa – The Future is Now

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The big news in Tulsa this week is that the Solar Electric Airplane, Solar Impulse 2, flying from Abu Dahbi around the world landed at our local airport a few days ago. American Airlines had a huge hanger available and they let the plane park there until the weather clears up. The owners of the plane made it available for public viewing for two days. So of course I had to go since there was no admission charge.

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The airplane is amazing. It uses only solar electric power, with batteries, and can take off on its own power. It can fly for days at a time. It is about 74 feet long and has a wingspan of 236 feet yet its fully loaded weight is 5100 pounds. It has four engines, each of which can generate 17.4 horsepower. Its maximum service altitude is 27,000 feet but with supplemental oxygen for the pilot the aircraft can go up to 39,000 feet. I got all these stats from wikipedia because teasing it out of the plane’s website was kind of hard.

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I figured out what the term “Cavernous Hangar” means. This thing is huge!!

The plane is amazing piece of engineering. It is so light and can generate enough power from solar panels and with the batteries on board it can fly pretty much indefinitely. It has a crew of only one person in an unheated and unpressurized cockpit. It uses an autopilot to fly when the pilot is sleeping. The project has a support staff of about 60 people a bunch of whom were in Tulsa. The control center is in Monaco. The spend a considerable amount of time plotting routes that avoid weather. The plane cannot take very much weather. 

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The plane’s owners intend the project to be a demonstration of the feasibility of solar power and its practicality and I must say the demonstration is impressive.

I was most interested in how the thing took off. Surely I thought it was pulled by a truck or something but no, as the above video shows it takes off under its own power.

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As interesting as the takeoff is I thought the landing was a very skillful and precise affair. It has to be perfect.

And a video about the landing in Tulsa. They are trying to get through tornado alley as fast as they can.

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Leaving the hangar we got a glimpse of the Solar Impulse’s support aircraft, a funky looking Russian made Ilyushin II-76 heavy cargo carrier. According to my good friends at Wikipedia it can carry 40 tons of cargo a distance of 2700 miles and land on a dirt runway. I found it almost as amazing as they Solar Impulse.

Logan sings “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin

Logan had another recital Saturday night at his music School. He sang “Friend Like Me” from the musical Aladdin.

Such a ham. He goes to his lessons but doesn’t practice much on his own but he still pulls out pretty decent performances. Heather took the video above. I took one of him practicing. It was nothing like he pulled off about an hour later.

That was fine even with a few stifled yawns. Oh well, I wish sometimes I wish I could figure out what is going on inside his head and other times I think I don’t want to know.

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The recital room is packed with parents and students. They start with the youngest, some of them pre-school, and go up to the oldest. Some of them are scared to death, others are poised and ready.

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Logan has never seen a microphone or stage that he was scared of taking.

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It amazes me sometimes, like “Where did that kid come from.”

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Here we are at the post recital dinner.  I’m still wondering where that kid on the stage come from.

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And here is the proud Grandmother and Mom.

Sorry, I just love bragging on my kid. He did great.

And guess what!! The 100% solar powered plane, the Solar Impulse which has flown about halfway around the world purely on solar power is in Tulsa and I am going to see her up close tomorrow morning and take a few photographs. I am so pumped!!