Skywatch Friday – the Thirteenth

I went running in the Tulsa suburb of Jenks a couple weeks ago and when I finished up in the late afternoon this tree was yelling for my attention. I had to maneuver around to get a photo free of billboards and power lines but here it is. You can see one of the Cityplex towers of south Tulsa to the left. And I confess, I had to improve on nature a little bit, or at least the image my camera presented me, so I jacked it up with some Topaz Impressions software.

Anyways, this Friday is the 13th, the only one we have in 2016, so watch yourself!!

Check out my buds at Skywatch Friday

Creative Playroom – The Off Ramp

This is an off ramp off a highway going into downtown Tulsa. I love its broad sweeping turn in the air. I used Topaz Glow to get mask out the detail on the ramp and emphasize the form of it and its supports.

I’m linking with Nature Footstep’s “The Creative Playroom”

Mother’s Day Nursery Trip

Sunday was Mothers Day and Heather went to a local nursery. Heather went to gather plants for her mother’s pots. I went along to take pictures.

I can’t believe nurserys let people take pictures for free. Talk about a target rich environment for photographs.

I love the plants and also the ornaments. That is Heather in the background. Somebody should be helping her don’t you think? Oh, yeah, well I was busy also.

I found a whole flock of pink flamingos. Heather didn’t really act like she wanted one.

She didn’t want these statues decorating her garden either.

And back to Heather. She is having almost as much as fun as I am. She is a certified OSU Master Gardener so she knows her plants.

I also know my plants. For example these are yellow flowers. In the background are some red flowers. Impressive huh?

I love these rusty sunflowers. Here in Oklahoma you better tie them down good unless you want to see them sailing off in the wind.

And then we went to Home Depot. I was amused by these two guys who were having trouble getting a fitting on a hose. You should have seen the tools they were using to get it done. Remember when the Home Depot guys knew their stuff?

Home Depot has some nice flowers also.

And I love this wind vane. Made me want to sing “The wheels on the truck go round and round… round and round…”

Anyway that’s a wrap on our trip to the nursery.

What have you been up to?

Mid Day Run

This is our refurbished library under construction. They say they are going to be open this summer. I think they are going to have hump it do so. That is an oilfield term.

During the Spring and Fall, while the weather is mild I love to run during my noon break. That gives me a chance to read the paper and drink some coffee in the morning before work instead of waking up at 5:15 to run or run on the treadmill. I belong to a gym downtown and take off from there.

I run from downtown to the river and back downtown so I get to dodge office workers, construction, workers, meth heads, k2 addicts, and homeless guys and gals on my out. Plus I have to run by the Oklahoma State University Medical Center. They have banned smoking on their campus so the doctors, nurses, and others go stand on the sidewalk and pollute the air and throw their butts down on the ground and it has made quite a mess. I’ve been thinking about writing a post about hospitals that do things like that. Saint John’s Hospital’s employees to escape the smoking ban cross a busy street and loiter at my drug store and again leave a mess behind. Meanwhile the hospitals get to brag how healthy they are. Well send a crew over and clean up your employee’s mess fools is what I say! What do you say?

Finally I get down to the river trails and get to run along them for a mile or so of my four mile route.

Coming back from river to downtown I go through a pleasant neighborhood that includes the Council Oak Tree memorial. A band of the Creek tribe picked this area on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River as their council ground in 1836 after the US Government forcibly removed them from their lands in the southeaster USA. The tree in the background, an ancient burr Oak, is reportedly the original tree that they met under. The sculpture in the foreground is called “Morning Prayer” by Creek artist Dan Brook.

I love to check out the roses in the flower beds of the houses I run by.

There is a fountain on the way also. No big deal today but I love running by it when it is a 100 degrees outside. ( true confessions, I don’t run outside when it is close to a 100 any more)

And then on back to the core downtown. My gym is on the 16th floor of the green topped building to the right.

A good time was had by all!!

Western Oklahoma Sunset

Heather, Logan, and I were in western Oklahoma Wednesday evening and most of the day Thursday for the funeral of Heather’s cousin who died unexpectedly last Saturday. Funerals are a good thing. We honor the deceased and the survivors and the family gathers to mourn their losses together and strengthen ties. We also get to see people we haven’t seen in a long time. After the funeral, when everybody goes home, is when the real work starts for those most affected. They have to figure out what they are going to do now and tomorrow, and the day after that.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Ruby Tuesday Too – New Orleans and Tulsa

I was in New Orleans in April for a convention. I apologize for keeping going back to the well but the Crescent City is such a rich city for the senses: sights, sounds, taste. I finally took a ride on a street car while I was there. I don’t know why I had never had before. The conductors are efficient and helpful, the technology is almost steampunk. Its a great way to move around the city.

While in New Orleans I got invited to a crawfish boil at this restaurant. Eating boiled crawfish is a lot of work. You have to break the tail off just right to get at the meat. And then there is the fat in the body that you eat. I love it. It grosses a lot of people out but that is their problem. I used to have a boss in Houston who every once in a while would feel not too good. I’d take him to lunch and he, being the good native of El Paso that he was, would order tacos. Me from Albuquerque, would order raw oysters and boiled crawfish. I knew that he was going straight home from lunch.

And this is one of my wife’s knockout roses home in Tulsa. I have fun in my not very often trials but it is always nice to get back home. We are hugging each other a little tighter in my family this week.

I’m linking with Ruby Tuesday Too on this post.

Running What I Can Instead of What I Want to Run

The Jenks Bridge, now limited to pedestrians and bicyclists.

I haven’t been to Turkey Mountain in a month! What with traveling and conferences and this and that and whatever I have missed my coveted Wednesday after work run. When I went to change into my running clothes I found that I forgot my shoes. No problema I thought. I’ll just drive home and get my shoes and change and head over to the mountain and it will be fine.

The former Oral Roberts University Hospital and Medical School, now an office building. If you think it is tilted just tilt your head.

Except, their was a huge traffic jam on the Broken Arrow Expressway and it took me an hour to get home. So I decided to “plug back and abandon” (that is fricking fracker talk for giving up the original plan) and go for a shorter run. I was under time pressure because I needed to pick up Logan at a certain time. So I was a little put out at myself at first but as I got into the run my cares just disappeared especially since I had some time to take some pics on the run.

So yep, one can have a decent run along a turnpike. I’ll be on Turkey Mountain Friday morning!! I am double checking the shoe situation.

I’m linking with Weekend Reflections

Skywatch Friday – Storm Season

Unedited photo taken in late March 2016 to the east.

It is that time of year again in Oklahoma. The storms are spinning up in west Texas in the early afternoon and then head northwest gathering energy as they go and generally hitting Tulsa well after dark. Wednesday was one of those days. My sister’s employer decided to send her to Tulsa that day right in the path. Great timing guys!!

Linking with Skywatch Friday

Prom 2016 in the Books

Logan’s school had their prom Saturday night. He wore his late grandfather’s tux complete with vest and tie. The trousers fit pretty good after the alterations, the jacket and vest were fine.

The kid is so danged tall that Heather almost needed a step ladder to get all the motherly primping done. He cleaned up pretty well.

I thought he stood out in the crowd. (Sorry I couldn’t resist). The school arranged for an outdoor event center for photographs. You know for some reason they don’t invite parents to the proms. We had a good time with the kids at the pre-event.

The kid with his nervous and proud mother.

And with a friend.

Did I tell you that I thought he was the handsomest guy there?

And a few more friends.

And another. All the young gentlemen looked and acted the part.

Here he is with a childhood friend. They went to early grade school together and then ran into each other again when Logan started this high school. Tulsa is the biggest small town I’ve ever seen.

And then a call for the young ladies. They were all beautiful in the elegant dresses.

And then the ladies and the guys.

And then the guys, and it kind of went downhill from there. Just kidding, they were a spirited but fun bunch.

And then on the way to the prom we stopped at his grandmother’s house for yet another photo op. These two have a special bond. He was proud to wear his grandfather’s tuxedo and she loved seeing Logan wear it.

And that is where the photos end. We dropped him off and then went back to give him his change of clothes for the after prom and then picked him up after that. I was proud to be chauffeur for the evening.

Morning Run

Lafortune Park early in the morning

Lots going on these days. Logan’s prom is Saturday night, he graduates in a month. We have new carpet coming for upstairs and we (mostly Heather) have been painting. I’ve been a lousy blog friend and I’m sorry about that.

A bridge at Lafortune Park. When Logan was a toddler he liked to hang out under this very same bridge.

Plus lots of stuff going on at work also. People quitting and others moving around. That takes time to adjust to. I spent a few days in New Orleans last week at a Natural Gas Processing conference and have been to a couple briefings since then put on by some high priced consultants. Bottom line, bullish for crude oil, bearish for natural gas. We’ll see what happens! What is really surprising is the inroads that renewables have made into power generation. Yep, solar, wind, and hydro are taking market share. I’m a big believer in the market. The big loser is coal.

I’m kind of an “All of the Above” type guy on energy even though I work in the natural gas industry. You want to know what we need to do if we really want to reduce carbon? Nuclear. Yep, if you are serious about reducing carbon, nuclear can do it and do it on a big scale. That scares all sorts of people half to death. Especially since many of the big nuclear explosions from back in the day are now declassified. They are terrifying actually. Below is a video of the first US Hydrogen bomb test in the south Pacific called the “Mike Shot.”

What do you think?

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