It is time to celebrate. Heather and I have been married twenty six years!!! She is the life of the party in my book. She has stood by me this whole time.
And just keeps looking better the whole time.
She manages to keep me grounded from time to time.
She is a devoted and loving mother. Just ask the kid.
She is willing to go down to City Hall and stand up for what is right.
She is first in line for any adventure.
>She loves critters of all kinds from little yappy dogs.
Oxley Nature Center – Tulsa, Oklahoma Topaz Impressions
It is getting to be late September. Pretty soon the weather will break and Tulsa’s long wonderful Fall season will be upon us. You can already tell that things are changing. Although still hot, the sun is a little lower. The mornings are a little cooler. The sky gets a little bluer. There is something subtle about a cottonwood tree that heralds the coming of Fall. I don’t know if is a subtle change in the color of its leaves or just what, maybe my imagination, but I can tell that things are changing.
The sun was just coming up when I got there but the place with abuzz with activity. On a race like this the organizers and volunteers have already been out since dark thirty marking the course, putting up the various tents and starting gate, cooling the beer down and getting the food ready.
The local Fleet Feet Sports franchise sponsored the race. Tulsa is lucky because we have three really good running stores who not only sell shoes and running clothing but also give back to the community in various ways. They all have training runs and various programs to help runners of all experience levels. Fleet Feet though has the best decorated vehicle though.
At 7:15 the hamburgers were already cooking.
The beer was iced down. It was provided by Marshall Brewing. I love craft beers have I ever told you.
And off we went. The race was jammed up right at first because we were running on trails but after a while we spaced out. I guess that I spaced out too much and at about the 1.6 mile point tripped on a rock and fell on another rock with my knee. It was like ouch. I got up and my knee felt pretty bad so I started hobbling back to the parking lot, dreading the 1.6 miles back but then the knee started feeling better so I turned around after a short while thinking that I could walk it out but I had to climb up a few rocks and the knee started barking at me again so I turned back to the parking lot and got about a tenth or two down the trail and the knee started feeling better so I said what the heck, I have a long walk either way. So I turned around and walked the rest of the race except for a one mail segment where I ran. Fortunately there is not that much difference between my walking speed and running speed (sad to say). So I was able to finish and get some bling and a couple beers or three and a hamburger.
I think I finished near the last. I generally do. Last year I finished 94th out of 96 men. Believe it or not I finished ahead of some people this year. This year I finished 185th out of 204. Which means that nineteen people entered Yogi’s Hall of Shame except two of them were older than me so a net 17 people finished behind me that were younger than me.
This is from a camp out last year on Turkey Mountain during an event called Base Camp. Which is the only night one can legally go camping on Turkey Mountain all year. I have a pretty nice setup from my Cub Scout Assistant Den Leader Days. I have a nice roomy tent, a cot and even a night stand. And of course a decent cooler. Out Cub Scouts now I generally have different things to drink that what I brought back then. This is my post from last year’s event. I don’t know if I’m going to make it this year. Son is a senior and we have all sorts of things going on with him.
2. Shadows
These shadows are from a bridge at Powell Gardens near Kansas City.
3. Something I want
Heather and Logan are all that I want and I already have them. I am notoriously difficult to buy presents for because I don’t really want for anything. And no, that is not our donkey. I want pictures of donkeys but don’t give me the real thing.
4. Open
The past several weeks all the schools have been opening their doors for school. One thing I love about facebook is all the parents posting first day of school pics of their kids.
5. Posed
Saturday, Logan and I hiked five miles on Turkey Mountain. We both got a little parched and tired because it was hot and humid but took time to take a few pics. I thought this tree made a nice prop for a photo.
Hey it is the Labor Day Weekend and things are mighty colorful here in Tulsa.
Logan and I found this Blue play set at Lafortune Park. I had never noticed that it looked like a huge vacuum cleaner.
I went geocaching and found a cache at this abandoned liquor store with the very yellow sign.
Heather and I are in the market for dishes. Is it just me or does everybody find it hard to find dishes?
Friday night Heather and I went to the First Friday Art Crawl in Tulsa’s Brady District north of downtown. A good time was had by all. One of the galleries had red dresses for sale. Something about benefiting heart disease research for women.
I went on a geocaching jaunt earlier that day to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center. I found this yellow flower. You want to know what kind it is? I just told you, it is a yellow flower!
And I found some red berries. Don’t be asking what kind they are!
How about these refreshing drinks a Sisserou’s before the Art Crawl. Heather and I were doing a little precelebrating of our 26th wedding anniversary. Yep, I’m one lucky guy alright!!
First shot I tried, then the clouds came in and out.
I have had my fancy schmancy Nikon D5300 for several months now and haven’t taken the time to really learn it. I bought a pretty good book and learn a few things but then life gets in the way and the thing is just so complex and it really does well on the Auto settting and blah, blah, blah. One thing that doesn’t work well on Auto though is taking shots of the moon. The results look like perfectly focused white disks. No color or detail or anything like that. Last Saturday we had a “Super Moon” or “Sturgeon Moon” anyway a really pretty full moon. So I got the old tripod out and then hit my good friend that knows everything Mr. Google and poked around there some.
Same moon with some clouds moving in front
So I found out Auto isn’t going to work. Also, you have to have a pretty fast shutter speed at 1/125th seconds because the moon does move and most people recommended keeping the iso at about 100 to 200 and the f stop at about 8. Totally counter-intuitive to what I was thinking, max the iso, slow down the shutter speed, and open up the aperture as far as it will go. Well, the deal is that the moon is pretty bright so you have to tone things down. So I tried it and I got some decent results. (At least they are decent to me.) The main thing I couldn’t figure out was how the timer worked on the shutter. I know, I know, that is pretty lame but doing it manually very gently seemed to work out for now and I can read up on the shutter timer or use my cable release or my fancy schmancy wifi control of the camera from either my ipod or generic android cell phone.
Anyways, I learn best by doing rather than reading about how the menus work in a book. Give me a task and I will work with Mr. Google and consult a half dozen sources and then figure it out. So in addition to the timer thing, I have to figure out how to manually the focus the camera.
I went on a walk at noon Monday east of downtown Tulsa to the East Village area to see what was new and I found this sidewalk garden. I love it. It is so luxuriant and seems like it is about to take over the sidewalk. Plus I love all the windows and reflections in this section of the street. There is a lot happening downtown especially in the close by neighborhoods. There are all sorts of small businesses taking over and renovating formerly run down properties. Condo conversion and new construction is happening. It is quite the frothy mix. Downtown Tulsa is becoming a cool place to be.
I processed my original photograph with Topaz Impressions’ “Cezanne 1” filter blended 60% with the original photo.
Scene at a gas station /convenience store on a rainy morning north of Tulsa. At the QuikTrips people are coming in getting gas, coffee, breakfast wraps, and sandwiches. Everybody that comes in is greeted. The stores are constantly clean and continuously updated. Stores like QuikTrip and others are killing some of the other chains like Shell and others in the Tulsa area. I don’t mean to sound like a commercial but the plethora of abandoned Shell and other stations in Tulsa has really been a subject of mine on this blog.
I helped son with his Drama Class project to build a model theater today. So we got the seating, stage, left wing, right wing, fly space, sound booth, lighting booth, apron, orchestra pit, lobby, and the final bit is the ticket booth. Then we are going to have to pretty it up a little bit.
2. Inside
It has been hot lately and Logan has done his riding classes inside the arena. Around and around he goes.
3. Candid
Logan and I go walking around Tulsa’s Lafortune Park. It has a three mile loop and sometimes when we find a shade we rest.
4. Yum
Saturday evening we went downtown and ate some barbecue and then walked to the Tulsa Drillers game. I had the smoked chicken dinner, fried okra, baked beans, and a Marshall Brewery’s “This Machine” IPA. Yes it was yum.
5. Natural Light
From a family walk last week in the waning hours of the day.
This is a resident bear at Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, Idaho. I call the post “Essence of Bear” because I blended a drawing rendition of the original photograph with the photograph (at about a 20% drawing/80% original ratio) to bring out some of the features of the animal because the original photograph was like a silhouette of the bear with his muzzle.
She has stood by me this whole time. 
