Stolen Prey has everything, meth addict muggers, horse manure thieves, a money laundering Spanish language software company, gold smuggling, machine guns, and a gang of Mexican narcos who arrive in the north country to find out where there dang money went and go about killing and torturing in order to get what they need. The action is driven by a motley group of computer hackers who have figured out how to hijack the money laundering activities for their own gain. John Sandford ties all this together in this novel. This book has lots of irony, I love irony, a complicated, but not too complicated, plot and lots of crossing and double crossing.
I give this book four stars out of five. It is a very satisfying read. I got mine at the library.
No, its not the dog, although I love her. I bought a new Ipod Touch recently. It has a camera similar to the one in the Iphone. It’s a pretty nice camera but I also got an app, Hippstamatic where one can simulate all sorts of cameras including old film cameras like my film Lomography cameras.
Couple the Ipod Touch and the Hipstamatic with Instagram. Have you heard of Instagram. It’s like facebook but only for photos.
No hurt feelings by insulting your favorite cheesy politician or cause. Just photos.
So I’ve been going crazy with my trio of brand new toys.
The Ipod is small and compact so its easier to get more candid photographs than I could with my regular cameras.
Don’t worry, they are just one more tool in my bag. I still love my big Canon SuperZoom, and my little Powershot, as wells as my Lomography cameras, and my special effects digital camera and all the rest. I haven’t gotten off the deep end yet, but I may be headed there.
Do you have anything you want to show and tell about today?
Tulsa’s River Parks System on the Arkansas River has lots and lots of free bikes for you to use courtesy of Tulsa Townies. They are all pink and they are well used.
Nope, its not a sunset, it was before 10 am. But it is Sunset, Texas where SuperPizzaBoy will be spending a week at summer camp next week. Don’t tell SPB but Sweetie and I will be having our own summer camp in his absence!
I know this picture is a mess. The horizon is all whopperjawed (yes that is a word in Oklahoma, but I wouldn’t use it in Scrabble or WWF) and the and the poles are all akimbo but I love the blue sky and the ranch wicket gate, and the big ole trees. (If you have a ranch in Texas, even if it is just an acre, you have to have a wicket gate, or you are just a poser.)
SPB went to a short session summer camp, Camp Grey Squirrel, in Oklahoma last year and just loved it. This year it is a whole week. When I was a young Yogi, way back when the earth’s crust was still cooling off, I went to a bunch of summer camps in the mountains of northern and central Utah, northern Arizona, and New Mexico. I loved them. We’re hoping SPB will have a good experience also, despite the total and complete week long ban on anything electronic.
When was the last time you went to Summer Camp? Was it Fun?!
Spotted close to a huge Indian Casino in southern Oklahoma
The chapel is not a gimmick nor is it the latest and greatest in “Name it, Claim it” Prosperity Gospel, it houses a hard working chaplain for a local horse race track. It is part of The Race Track Chaplaincy of America a network of 62 chaplains all across America. As described in The Surebet Racing News:
“In addition to holding weekly services and prayer meetings, many racetrack Chaplains also perform marriages, officiate at funerals, and serve as marriage counselors, drug counselors. They are good listeners. Much as with your traditional Minister, they do whatever is needed. That is their calling.”
Sunday night Sweetie was a happy woman. It wasn’t anything I did, I’ll tell you that.
It was this guy’s fault. Sting, fomerly of The Police, now international music superstar. Sting started his latest tour at the Winstar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma. Never heard of Thackerville? It is right over the border from Texas. Texans hungry to throw their hard earned money away come in droves to give it to the Sallisaw Tribe. The casino has a very nice events center and that is where Sting kicked off his Summer 2012 Tour. You want to know where he is going next?
Sting is going to a few places here in the States and then heading over to Europe. But it is starting in Thackerville. Cool for Sweetie and I. Anyways, I digress.
Sting was awesome. Sweetie is a huge fan, I liked him until I heard this concert, now I’m a fan. Not like Sweetie though.
He is a very gifted and accomplished performer. His band and backup singers are great also.
The violinist, Peter Tickell, blew us away. You show up in Oklahoma you better know how to play, and he does. He looks so young.
The music just flowed from the stage, no hickups or bad notes (like I would know, right.)
The keyboard player, see him? He is a very nice guy David Sancious. We chatted with him for a little while in the bar before the show. Very soft spoken and unassuming, very nice to a couple Okies. He told us that he played the keyboards and told us a little about Sting, and the band. He has been with Sting off and on for twenty years. He made it sound like it wasn’t any big deal. We google him afterward and find out he is a very sought out musician. He toured Bruce Springsteen in the early years of the E Street Band, he also played with and toured with Peter Gabriel, Santana, Seal, Jeff Beck and so on. Plus he has several albums of his own. So we are now fans of Mr. Sancious.You just never know who you are going to run into do you?
Anwyways, Sweetie was happy and I was happy that Sweetie was happy. I give the concert of five stars out of five.
All This Time Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic Englishman In New York Demolition Man I Hung My Head Driven To Tears Fields Of Gold Sacred Love Shape Of My Heart Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven) The Hounds Of Winter Never Coming Home Desert Rose King Of Pain Every Breath You Take Next To You
We traveled down to north Texas. We had a little time to kill so we parked in a cemetery. (No I didn’t go geocaching.) I took some photographs of some of the gravestones. I love old graves. They often reflect a hard life.
A dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit or the messenger of God.
I see a lot of hands like this on graves. Using the old Google it seems that it can symbolize a last goodbye. It can also symbolize a passing of a spirit to heaven with a previously deceased spouse holding the hand of the recently deceased to help in the process. You can tell who died first by looking at the cuffs. Here it looks like the husband died first and is holding the hand of his wife as her spirit passes into heaven.
The hand pointing upward represents the ascension to Heaven. Myself, I plan on having a geoache near where I am buried. My finger is going to pointing to where it is hidden.
A Book represents a Bible, used to indicate a very devout person, sometimes it used for ministers.
A lamb used a lot on children’s graves, and in old cemeteries there are lots of children’s graves. The lamb represents innocence.
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
I’ve been spending a lot of time running the trails on Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa. The mountain has a lot of lakes and ponds, more than what you might think. One of my favorites is Lake Logan at the Westside YMCA Camp on the north end of the mountain. I think the campers spend a lot of time on the lake.
The canoes were all racked up waiting on the kids to show up.
I picked up Holes by Louis Sachar an oldie but goodie at our son’s Book Fair at school. It is written for pre and early teens and crusty gas guys.
Poor old Stanley Yelnats (palindrome anybody?) is falsely accused and unjustly found guilty of stealing and is sent to Camp Green Lake for rehabilitation. There is no Green Lake at Camp Green lake just a dry lake bed. The rehabilitation at Camp Green Lake consists of digging holes. Each boy has to dig a hole a shovel deep and a shovel wide, every single day, no days off. What they are digging for, only the warden knows, and she isn’t talking.
There is another parallel story set a long time before that strangely enough involves one of Stanley’s ancestors. Somehow the long time ago gets all wound up with the present and couple that with one of Stanleys’ fellow inmates campers goes walkabout and Stanley has to go help….
Anyway, the book is an award winner. Will adults like it, maybe but I rated it three stars out of five. For kids, it might be a four. At least you don’t have to worry about language in this book.
At Henthorne Park in Tulsa using my low tech Lomography Fisheye 2 Film Camera. In my minds eye the photo looks almost like a planet seen from space with blue for the oceans, and the clouds, I guess they are clouds over the ocean… Forgive me, I’ve been working hard this week.
