In Oklahoma “O” is for Oil Wells!!! LIke this old well up in Osage County in the northeast part of the state.
Or like these new wells being drilled into the Cana Woodford Shale in western Oklahoma.
Do you have oil wells where you live?
Y Not a Yopener? Prairie Artisan Ales Second Birthday
This past Saturday Heather and I dropped Logan off at his rehearsal and we went to far west Tulsa to the Prairie Artisan Ale Second Birthday celebration. It was cool.
I have been much concerned about hipsters and who they are what are they about. I haven’t meet anybody who admits to being one. Logan tells me that if you say you are one then you are definitely not one. Also, if what you like turns out to be the next cool thing, then you quit doing it. It’s kind of an anti-cool thing. I don’t get it. Do you?
I do think that we spotted a bunch at the brewery. What do you think. We also ran into a friend of ours, John, who is quite a beer guy. He gave us a sample of some the “good stuff” that they were not giving to everybody. It was darn good. Turns out that John and his son Josh also make a sell a beer bottle opener made out of whiskey barrels. It is called the Yopener. They sell it on etsy here. We bought one. I hadn’t tried it out yet. Besides being cool looking (I admit I have no idea how to use it, but I’ll figure it out) it’s great feature is that opens beer bottles without bending the cap. Myself, I recycle all my caps. Turns out that some collectors like to keep the caps.
It has a magnet and I as I type this it is on our refrigerator ready to do its duty! In the growler is a Lime Gose. A very nice sour wheat beer flavored with lime and salt. It is sitting nice and safe in my refrigerator right now.
So it was a great time, music, beer, hipsters, friends, and of course beer.
So how do you keep your beer caps from bending when you open a bottle? Do you care? Do you even drink beer? And are you a hipster? Do you know any?
2014 Tulsa Oktoberfest
Friday, Heather, Logan, and I headed out to the Tulsa Oktoberfest. I had run a race the night before and as part of my entry fee I got a one liter stein. And you know something those steins don’t fill themselves. I had to take it Oktoberfest so it could realize it’s inner “steinness.” If you don’t know what that means then buy my upcoming book “The Inner Life of Beer” and learn all about it.
Logan is rocking his new Oktoberfest cap and pin. I think he looks great.
Logan and Heather make a great couple. I have no idea where he is looking.
Oktoberfest has really upped its game with its beer. It used to be pretty lame but they now have a wide selection of both foreign and domestics, Warsteiner, Boulevard, Marshall Brewing, Paulaner, in addition to the crappy market leading domestics. They had a pretty good variety of food also, bratwurst, sausages, schnitzel and the rest along with typical fair food.
The people watching was world class with lots of people wearing chicken hats.
And one guy that looked like a hipster Hasidic guy. Hey, you know, the devout have to have beer also. Notice his stein. We also had some people right out of Breaking Bad.
Lots of dancing going on to German music. My favorite is the cross generational type dancing.
I think that a smooth and mellow time was had by all. We kind of ran out of gas and left before Heather could do her chicken dance, but hey we’ll double up on it next year!!
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Oklahoma! at Tulsa’s Clark Theater
We have been very busy lately, really busy. We weren’t too busy though to attend Clark Youth Theater’s performance of “Oklahoma!” the Rogers and Hammerstein Musical. It was fun and it was good. If you live in Oklahoma you should know the title song by heart because it is not only one of the great tunes of musical theater, it is also Oklahoma’s state song.
The musical is about optimism and hope, love, and good versus evil. it has it’s fun parts and it has it’s dark parts. The kids did a great job putting it on. Logan wasn’t in it but he auditioned for and got a part in Clark’s Best Christmas Pageant Ever which is going to play several times in December.
In the meantime, if you live in the Tulsa area go see Clark’s Oklahoma! If you miss it, goodness forbid, go see Augustine Christine Academy’s production which I think is going to be in November. Or you know, you could go see both productions.
Or what the heck watch the movie version above?
I have seen Oklahoma! on stage only three times I think. The first time in Jackson, Wyoming back in the late 60’s. The last time maybe fifteen years ago here in Tulsa in an outdoor theater where they brought real horses on stage. It was cool,
Have you ever seen Oklahoma! live?
2014 Lederhosen Lauf Three Mile Run at Tulsa’s Oktoberfest
Tulsa’s Oktoberfest is going on this week. I found out Thursday morning that they were having a three mile run, the Lederhosen Lauf Run that night from the Oktoberfest site including a “Non-official” beer stop along with a one liter stein and a free beer afterward. So I had to go sign up is what I think.
And of course my I brought my special “Fraulein Cam” along.
The Fraulein Cam can take other shots as well.
I took this Ferrris Wheel pic with my phone, not my special Fraulein Cam.
So how come some Frauleins have white socks and others have black. Figuring out things like that can lock my brain up for days.
And your typical shots of people milling around before the race. And it turns out that there are more Frauleins to the right. How come I never see them at any other races? And then we were off right at 7 pm.
Here is the Unofficial Beer Stop at about mile 2.25 or so. No beer for you said the beer nazi’s if you didn’t have a white wrist band. I’m not sure it was enforced. I’m a rule follower so you can bet that I had my white wrist band.
And we had a little unofficial music to go with our unofficial beer at the unofficial beer stop.
I finished the race, vertically with dignity. Got my token for my beer and a one liter stein and went to the beer tent. They had an incredible variety of beer there. The token just got me a pint instead of a liter. I was okay with the pint. A liter seemed a bit much and you know I have this thing about cleaning brand new glassware before drinking from it.
There are a bunch of large tents with different bands in each. It is all very cool.
In this tent they were having the most enthusiastic chicken dance session that I’ve ever seen.
Outside the tent, it was pretty much what you see at your local state fair.
I was all instrumented up for the race (after all you wouldn’t take a Ferrari racing with instruments right?) so you can see just painfully slow that I ran the race. It was fun though. Like I said I finished vertically which was my goal.
So, do you have an Oktoberfest where you live? Do you have a Fraulein Cam? I want to hear about it!
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Skywatch Friday – Sunset on the River
Running after work on the Arkansas River I don’t get much running done sometimes when sunsets are nice. I took this with my phone. I admit I ran it through Snapseed and then a Topaz filter to bring out the bicyclist and her bicycle a little bit more.
ABC Wednesday – N is for New Orleans
The letter this week is N. What better N than New Orleans?
It is a city of Street Cars.
And ancient houses with flowers up top. And great food, and music, and all sorts of stuff!!
Staying Comfortable the Neo-Luddite Way
Old Al Gore wouldn’t be happy with me. I got rid of our fancy schmancy programmable thermostat and replaced it with an old school unit with a rotary dial. I put the programmable unit in about ten years ago or so and have hated it every day since. It was hard to program, chewed up batteries, and was hard to read. Our lifestyle is not really programmable. We are home when we are home and gone when we are gone. Not really anything that can be programmed so we have had in manual mode almost the whole decade.
That wasn’t much fun either when we were trying to raise or lower the temperature we’d press the up or down button and the thing had to think about it for a while then make a high pitched whine and then move the setting up and down way too fast so it took a while to get it set where you wanted. Plus the lighting was dim in the hallway and it was hard to read.
So now we just move the dial to the left or right. I feel that we just made a huge step forward.
Anyway, sorry about that folks. Can somebody pick up the extra carbon load we are going to have with this thing? Class, class, anyone?
Have you ever gone backward in technology in order to move forward? Tell us about it.
Hidden Cities – A Memoir of Urban Exploration by Moses Gates
Hidden Cities: A Memoir of Urban Exploration is a chronicle by Moses Gates of his and his friends explorations into places where he is not supposed to go like the catacombs of Paris, the subway systems of New York City and London as well as climbing various bridges and buildings and sewer systems the world over. No trespassing signs just seem to attract him. It turns out that there is a huge subculture of urban explortionist’s that love to to do these things. For example I think that I am the only guy in Tulsa that hasn’t sneaked into the Tulsa Club for a look see. I went very shallow into Tulsa huge storm sewer system to find a geocache once but I haven’t ventured into the Elm Creek Tunnel to find it’s geocache. Supposedly it would require five miles of walking through the storm drain. I’m not doing that!!
Speaking of Elm Creek Tunnel, which drains into the Arkansas River. It seems to be hot on the list for Tulsa area urban explorers and You Tube has lots of videos of parties that have gone on. They look absolutely miserable to me. But I would go!! I wouldn’t stay long though. I did go into it a few feet to take a pic though.
I’m too much of a rule follower plus kind of a chicken. In my geocaching I get to talk to enough security guards without having to explain why I am in a building where I don’t belong. I do feel free though when a door is left open and there is no signage to go check things out if I feel interested.
Back to the book, it is a good read although a bit scattered. It kind of convinced me that I would not be a good urban explorer but I am fascinated by people who have to venture over the ropes and beyond the no trespassing sign.
Something New, Some Comfort, and a few Details for Scavenger Hunt Sunday
1. Details
One of my favorite subjects to photograph is Boston Avenue Church here in Tulsa. It is a notable art deco masterpiece designed by Bruce Goff. Something about it keeps drawing me back. Something beyond their parking lot where I change into my running outfit after work on Wednesdays that is.
The thing about Art Deco is not just the grand design but the design details and my favorite are the horse riders done in terra cotta on the south side of the building. This is a testament to the circuit riders of the early Methodist Church.
2. Friend
I captured this image at a local coffee shop. A child playing while his mother visits with a friend. Something that everybody needs, especially moms of young children, is a friend.
3. Comfort
This is our big ole Maine Coon hogging the heat on a cold night. She is gone now but she certainly knew how to stay comfortable. She was the Alpha Queen of the pets in the house. She didn’t take any lip from any of the other dogs and cats while she was still around.
4. Above
I go to Houston every now and then on business to see my customers down there. Downtown Houston certainly has some tall buildings.
5. New
New, new, what’s new? Oh, I know what is new!!! At work we finally finished our new plaza area. It is very cool, it is a lot more open than the old one and has shaded seating areas. The smokers are not too happy, they have been banished across the street to a corner just outside the parking garage marked off by orange traffic cones. But you know, they could use the walk right?
Linking with Ashley Sisk’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday