Tag Archives: Life

My Big Day!

We had a little legal matter to attend to Thursday at our courthouse, me, the wife, and the kid. Nobody is in trouble, not in the slightest, just one of those things we had to do. So we all showed up and met our attorney who briefed on what was going to happen. So when the time came we went into the courtroom and raised our hands for the oath, and talked with the judge about this that and the other. She asked questions and we answered them and then we signed some stuff and she signed some stuff and we left. We were feeling really good about the whole thing.

And then we followed our attorney down to the second floor to the clerks office and all the things we signed and the judge signed were copied and stamped and initialed and examined and talked about and discussed. And then we moved away from the counter to another counter and our attorney was explaining this and that and when this and that needed to happen and what we had to do for this form and for that form and we were like okay,

And while all this was going on one of the clerks working there came up and and whispered very quietly in my ear, “Sir, your pants are blown out in the back.” And then she walked off.

Uh okay, so I stood there and listed to the lawyer finish up her spiel, and then we all three walked back through the courthouse, down to the street, and two blocks back to the parking garage. I was feeling the breeze the whole time if you know what I mean.

Never Quit is Our Motto

Sunday afternoon and the kid is going to a pool party after church and a friend of his is going to give him a ride to the event. Okay, well the lawn needs mowed, paper work needs to be papered, and house worked needs to be house worked but you know it is a beautiful day so lets go bike riding!! The plan is to go the Blue Rose parking lot on the River and go north and then cross the river and head down south and take a side trip on the Cherry Creek trail. Okay lets go.

Alrighty, I air up the tires and install the bike carrier and load the bikes. Logan’s friend shows up and off they go and so off we go!! We get there unload the bikes put our safety gear on and head off and the about three miles into it, BOOM!!!, my rear tire basically blows up into shreds. Oops, so we walk back to the nearest parking lot. Heather takes off on her bike to the car and meets me at the skate park parking lot. In the meantime I’m doing the Google maps search and bingo, Tom’s Bicycles, where I bought the bike, is open on Sunday.

We head over there and they fit me out with a new tire and a new battery for my cycling computer. (You gotta have all your instrumentation instrumenting if you know what I mean). So we load everything up and head back to the river to resume our ride. I have a to tell you that I love Tom’s Bicycles. They are a throwback to another era in a great way. They really are interested in getting you up and going rather than marketing a bunch of stuff at you. At the same time, they have everything you will ever need.

We gear up again and head on down the trail.

And whoops! guess what, Heather gets a call from the kid. His ride left the party a while ago and Logan needs a ride home. Yep,this was about a half mile into our second ride.

So we turn around and head back to the car and head off to south Tulsa. It is obvious that a high power does not want us on the River Trails today.

So we pick up the kid and he is all excited, talking about the party and getting lay out by the pool and the food, yes, he liked the food. Okay okay kid. So we get him home and we briefly think maybe forget it. And I’m looking at the grass that needs mowed, and the paper worked that needs done, and Nah, lets try it again.

And so off we go again, except this time we go the Creek Turnpike trail. Not as pretty as the Arkansas River, but a lot closer, and hilly, oh so hilly that we have not rode it in years but you know what we could handle the hills. We have 21 speed bikes for a reason. We could handle the cross roads, another reason that we don’t ride Creek Turnpike despite being so close to the house. We ended up with a 14 mile ride and a big sense of accomplishment.

So we set a family record of three bike rides in the same day. I am not looking to break that record.

It’s Getting Real!!

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.

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.

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!!

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?

The Morning before the Day Of….

Somewhere around here, a geocache was found.

Friday was my day off. It had been a while since I had my day off because I worked my last day off. I didn’t mind, I made the most of it and I’ll tell you about it because I made a “field trip” to meet with a customer and I took some pictures of some amazing technology that my employer uses but I need to clear the pics I took with my employer before I show you. So we’ll see what happens.

But I get distracted easy. This day off, I got to take it off. First on the agenda was taking the kid to school and then next was a dental appointment… at 9:30. Wow, almost tow hours between when I drop the kid off and and when I have to go to the dentist…. Hmmm, I have time to go to Turkey Mountain and walk around (I don’t want to run because I like my dentist and his staff, and I don’t want to run, and sweat, and stink up the place.) So I will walk, I will hike, I will shop up at his office smelling sweet. I might be dirty and bloody, that has happened, but at least I won’t stink. My experience has shown that blood doesn’t bother people as much as smell does. Do you agree?

I found this one last year.

So I went to Turkey Mountain and walked a couple of miles and found a couple of geocaches.

Little miss blue eyes. I found her on Turkey Mountain last year on private land that is now posted “No Trespassing” I left her there and I haven’t been back. I respect private private property and observe no trespassing notifications. She is still up there though, waiting for you.

And I get my head screwed on straight. And set me up for a good day. And a good day it was.

The approach on the Yellow Trail to the main parking lot on Turkey Mountain.

And a good day it was. I’ll tell you about it…

Let me see, Oh yes, I found two geocaches,
And I had no cavities!!! (I haven’t had a cavity in decades, literally! and I don’t floss, ever)
Heather has a contractor doing some work on the house, mainly on Logan’s bathroom, we went to Lowe’s and got him a first class commode, a veritable throne. The best commode in the house, the best we ever had. We also fetched some lighting and other items. I mean who is working for whom here?
I don’t mind, he is not the cheapest guy in town but he does a good job and treats us right.

And then Heather and I snuck away to “In the Raw” and ate ~~fishbait~~ sushi. That is our newest thing together. We have been trying all the sushi places in town. It is a whole new world to us.

And then Friday evening, Heather went to a Zumba master class and Logan and I went on a three mile walk around Lafortune Park. By the time I went to bed on Friday night I had almost 21,000 fitbit steps and I was tired.

And it all started with a little walk in the woods.

What have you been up to?

Lots Going on Here Lately

There has been lots going on these days. I have not been a very good blogging friend I am sorry to say.

Heather, Logan, and Nana after the play.

Let me see, first up this week, Logan was in a play at school. He plays Baloo the bear in the play “Just so Mr. Kipling” a drama based on Kipling’s characters in The Jungle Book.

It is a a great role for Logan with his deep booming voice. He makes a great bear. The kids all did great. For a one act play it has pretty large cast and you can tell the kids and the director really worked hard on it. They competed in a regional competition a couple weeks ago and won first place. So next week the State Championship so we are all loading up and heading down to Mustang, Oklahoma where the competition is being held.

And then Wednesday night was Corporate Night at Tulsa’s Oktoberfest. We took some customers to the event to drink beer, do the chicken dance, and wear funny hats. I didn’t take too many pics. Not good when you are with customers. I did get a pic of our VP of Operations holding two full beer steins. I am not sharing the pic with you guys though. At least not yet. Maybe after I retire, or he retires, or something like that.

The beer was great. This is Lagunitas IPA. Yum, yum, is what I say.

And then Thursday night the choir’s at Logan’s school gave a concert. Everybody from the first graders on up. Again they did a great job. Again, all I got is fuzzy pics from my cell phone. Sorry.

Saturday, Logan and I are heading out to the Wizard World at Tulsa’s Comicon. Fun, fun,fun exploration of the weirder side of our popular culture.. This pic is from last year’s event.

So that is what we have been doing. Kind of bouncing between Culture, Debauchery, Divine Music, and then Popular Culture. I’m really messing the kid up.

What have you been up to?

Geocaching, Saying Goodbye to the Kid, and the Dallas Cowboys get a Win

Saturday I dropped the kid off at his school for rehearsals for a one act play that he has a part in. He is a little busy these days. We suspended horseback riding for a while because of the rehearsals and he is missing his improv comedy workshop on Saturday. It is nice for him to be busy. Speaking of busy I went to Walmart after I dropped Logan off and got some stuff for making geocaches. I have three that have gone missing (“Muggled” is the term we nerds use) so I have to replace them plus I wanted to place one at the Tulsa Arrow that I found a couple weeks ago. Camo duct tape is a geocachers best friend. The waterproof match containers make great waterproof “microcaches.” The orange box makes for a good geocache container. I’ll use lots and lots of camo duct tape covering up the orange. The hot wheels are for trade trinkets in the caches in case you bring kids along. And I love Altoids and the empty tins are good cache containers if you can keep them out of the weather because they are not waterproof.

So after Walmart I buzzed downtown and replaced a geocache “Boys Night Out Downtown” that Logan and I placed in 2010 and has been found about 249 times and muggled five times. It is in a spot that homeless people find to be a great overnight sleeping area. By the time I got the thing camo taped and placed I got a text from the kid to come pick him up and then we drove up to north Tulsa’s Reservoir Hill to place the new cache.

It took us a while to find a good spot. I want it to be far away from houses and nowhere close to the City of Tulsa water infrastructure that is also there. I found a good spot, maybe too good. I placed the cache and it promptly disappeared from view so I suggested on the cache page that you bring gloves. So anyway here is the cache page for Tulsa Arrow. I wrote it up on Saturday and it got approved on Sunday.

On Sunday we packed Logan up and took him to school to catch a bus for the Senior Trip. They bused the kids down to TAhlequah, Oklahoma and are going rafting Monday morning on the Illinois River. So Heather and I are childless for about 24 hours. We kind of miss the kid actually but he’ll be back by the time I get home from work. He is really having a good year at school this year. He is taking drama and choir and he loves those classes.

So Heather and I didn’t feel like going out to eat so we went to the local sprouts store to pick up some Salmon. I am a fan of exotic tasting chips and so I found the these pumpkin spiced chips. They are okay but overly sweet and they have no salt. If they had left the salt in, I’d be buying a case of them. They do have a satisfying crunch to them.

Yep, I’m posting this photo again.

And speaking of satisfying the Dallas Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles in Philly with the help of my two friends above. The Eagles didn’t play very well and Dallas had 18 penalties. Might be the last win for the Cowboys in a while. Tony Romo broke his clavicle and it looks like Dez Bryant is going to be out for a couple months with his broken foot.

Oh well, that was what happened this weekend. What about you?

One Fall Down – Several Steps Back and Forward

I have had to take some steps back lately. Last week during a trail race on Turkey Mountain I tripped a fell and my knee landed right on a rock. Ouch!! It hurt. I made a stupid decision to go ahead and finish the race and in fact ran a little bit of the way. I just didn’t feel like quitting.

There are lots of places to trip on Turkey Mountain and I have found most of them by personal experience.

I might have should have gone to some sort of urgent care place, maybe I don’t know. My knee was sore and stiff but I didn’t sense that I was in any sort of crisis situation.

How do you like my newly pink sock? How about the blue zip ties on my Hokas. The most expensive shoes I have ever owned.

On Tuesday I went to my employer’s clinic because I couldn’t get in to my doctor in a timely fashion. The doctor looked my knee over, congratulated Heather on her wound cleaning and dressing skills and sent me off for xrays.

The X Rays were done at a brand spanking new Catholic owned hospital in the burbs here in Tulsa. I’m not a Catholic, I’m not sure what I am at this point, but I like the way the decorate hospitals. You get the sense that they think Jesus is somebody more than your buddy who helps your favorite football team win games.

Anyways I started seeing things with new eyes and my sore stiff knee. The available parking spots to get in the hospital were some distance away from the entrance. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I mean my pain is temporary and I’ll get over it and I’ll resume parking farther than I have to in order to get my fitbit step count up but lots and lots of people have to contend with long walks and their pain or stiffness or immobility is just something they will have to live with permanently. And they are not whiney babies about it like I am.

Dang the open registers are a long ways away. And then I get to walk back this way to get to the exit.

And then I had to go to a Target and run an errand. You know when you are walking at about 1 mph those stores seem a lot bigger than before. And really Target you only have three registers open and they are in the middle. Okay, ouch, ouch, ouch I went. Whine, whine, whine. Again I saw the store with new eyes. I’m having a lot more empathy for people who contend with this stuff every day. Also, I have my choice of medical care available, my employer’s clinic, my primary care physician, urgent care, all for nominal cost. My insurance company even has a nurse available 24/7 if I want to talk to her. (I did talk to her, she kept telling me that knee injuries take time to heal and I would have to be patient with it…) If I was uninsured or under a major medical policy I would have some hard to choices to make, especially if I was on a limited income.

Plus other people don’t have the world’s greatest wife to take care of them!

Playing with my new favorite Ipod app “Matter” . Are we Instagram buds yet? Why not I’m YogiAB. Look me up. As long as you are not selling Herbalife or body wraps or are a “life coach” I’ll follow back.

The other thing that is throwing for a loop is a personal attack on me by another blogger. I am the main admin for Skywatch Friday. All I do is set up the page for linking in by other bloggers. It was started by someone who passed away several years ago and I am just one in a chain of people who keep the meme going. I am in my third year doing this and enjoy it and regard it as my way of contributing back to the blogging community. I wont’ get into details but I got an email with somebody who was furious with me for the last Skywatch Friday linkin. I tried reasoning with them but to no avail. I consulted with one of my co admins who counseled wishing the person peace. Getting something like that out of the blue is quite disconcerting. I am not afraid of conflict (the Oklahoma natural gas business is not for the faint of heart I will tell you) but there is usually a reason and there is usually something you can grab onto to make the situation better for the person who is angry. Anyways, peace everybody. I am gong to be more sensitive to people in the news who inadvertently suffer attacks from the public. These people are real people even though they may have made you and angry for some reason. There is no reason to launch on them.

I love the Lululemon girls and their signs at the various races that pass their store.

Anyways, my knee is now getting better and I’m going to be pestering my doctor about rehab. This may be my excuse not to do the Tulsa Run 15K this year. I have a streak going of running it 21 years in a row. Streaks like that are okay but get to be a pain in the butt. But then I think. That is six weeks away. Maybe I’ll walk it? Maybe I won’t.

Have you ever had anything throw you for a loop? How did you react?

Weekend Update

We had a lot going on this weekend.

Logan had his first riding lesson in a long time. He sprained his ankle back really badly back in May and had been in a boot and then on restriction since then. He was glad to get back in the saddle on a hot Saturday.

After the riding lesson we loaded up in the car and headed off to Livesay Orchards out in the boonies about 45 minutes southeast of Tulsa. We hadn’t been there since Logan was a baby and man is it popular. We ended up in a group of nine cars headed out there and when we got there we found out there was a line to get in. The line moved fast though. I mean they are selling mainly peaches so it doesn’t take long for people to pick out what they want and move on.

And man where their peaches, bushels, pecks, half pecks anything you wanted as long as it was peach related.

After that we headed cross country to the ‘burb of Bixby to Dotson’s Produce and picked out some Amish Tomatoes. I never did figure out if that was a type of tomato or the religion of the farmer that grew them.

Dotson’s had all sorts of other produce. We tend to go crazy in a place like that.

We decided to counterbalance all healthful vibe of the produce with some Hawaiian Ice which is Okie for ice cream cone at a place nearby. Part of the fun is waiting in the heat. Is it against the law for those places to provide shade for their customers?

Sunday was church, seeing the movie “Ant-Man” with one of Logan’s friends and then an historic occasion. Logan left with his friend, with his friend driving. First time that happened!

Then Heather and I had dinner and drinks with some friends and then out to pick up Logan out in the country.

So we ended the weekend with a nice crescent moon.

So our weekend was great, how was yours?

Linking with Our World Tuesday

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