A to Z

The Real Housewives of Oklahoma are at it again with the Monday meme, which just because I’m contrary do it on Tuesday. They even let guys participate. At least so far. They are all very smart and sassy bloggers. Check them out.

This week is an A to Z type thing.

A ~ age: 55 (Yep I’m very old, just ask Miss Priss. I can’t wait until she is 55! I’m going to have me some fun with that.

B ~ Baseball Team – Houston Astros.

C ~ Yep, Dallas Cowboys.

D ~ Dog’s name: Sweetie’s dog’s names are Ginger and Abby

E ~ Essential start of your day: Coffee

F ~ Favorite color: Cowboy Blue.

G ~ Geocaching!! Yes

H ~ Height: 6′ 1″

I ~ Instruments you played: phonograph, cassette tapes, 8 track tapes, cd, ipod, radio.

J ~ Job title: Dad

K ~ Kid(s): SuperPizzaBoy who will be 12 this month

L ~ Luck factor, extremely high. I have the greatest wife in the world.

M ~ Mom’s name: Margie

N ~ Nicknames: Childhood Buddy, now Yogi, old guy, fat guy, hey you

O ~ Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Broken nose at age 15

P ~ Pet Peeve: Piggish driving.

Q ~ Quote from a movie/show: from “Chinatown” “Bad for the glass”

from “The Unforgiven” – “Nobody gets what they deserve”

R ~ Right-handed or Left: Right

S ~ Siblings: one older brother, one younger sister

T ~ Time you wake up: Usually around 5:15.

U ~ University of New Mexico Lobos thank you very much. aka “MIT on the mesa” or “Harvard on the Rio Grande”

V ~ Last valentines day card I got was from Sweetie!

W ~ Why you run late: I don’t.

X ~ X-rays you’ve had: chest, feet, teeth, head

Y ~ Yummy food you make: I’ll put my fried chicken up against anybody’s. Plus I make great pancakes.

Z ~ Zoo favorite: Elephants, Rhinos, Gorillas, Chimps, Giraffes, Lions, Tigers, I love the Zoo.

A Day Off

I work a 9/80 schedule at work. In other words I work 80 hours over 9 days. That makes for some long hours for the nine days but I get a day off every other Friday. I love it. Last Friday I had a day off. Sweetie and I did a little knocking around.

First we went to SuperPizzaBoy’s school for the big end of year of conference. Of course we were confused by all the testing results but assured that he is doing fine, they love him, and he is ready to move to Middle School. Ok…. Well darn it he may be ready, but we aren’t! He’s our baby.

While there we were looking at the stuff hung up in the hallways. I always check that out. Hey what’s this?

That is his picture, what’s this? Stories that the kids wrote. SPB wrote a story! Nobody told us? I told you we aren’t ready. He is supposed to tell us everything. He hasn’t. The story is pretty decent, I mean for a 6th grader. Teacher said that she had to shut him down or he’d still be writing. There you go, you can’t advance him until his parents are ready. I’m telling you I don’t care if he would be bored. We aren’t ready for him to go to Middle School.

I mean for crying out loud we are standing in the hallway reading his dad burned paper like ordinary passerby.

I guess that you can tell we are going to put the “H” in helicopter parents. Reminds me of these GenX parents. Supposedly at my employer, one of the new hires last year was upset about something his supervisor said about his work performance. His Dad called the supervisor to try and discuss the situation. I don’t know if its true or not, but you have to admit it makes a good story. Sorry I’m way off topic.

They also had dioramas that the student‘s ~~parents~~ made. I love dioramas and the other hands on stuff SPB has done this year. We didn’t have that 46 years ago wehen I started my elementary education. The only hands on we got was the unpleasant kind from the teachers. Here is SPB’s project. His was on the little brown bat. He really got into it, the diorama was of a cave.

I tried to teach him about stalagmites and stalactites and how to remember the difference using something my own mother told me, “The mites go up and the tights go down.” He didn’t quite get it. Probably for the best. I don’t know what his teacher would have thought of that.

Well after all that trauma and drama we went to Nordaggios to get a couple of coffee drinks. Not only are the drinks great but they are pretty.

I mean, how can you drink a work of art? I did though.

Not bad for a day off, right?

Happy Mother’s Day

Todays the day that we celebrate our Mothers. I don’t know why we are only supposed to be celebrate Mothers one day a year. Probably because they are too busy working the rest of the time. What do you think?

Here is Sweetie, my Wife and Mother of my son, SuperPizzaBoy

Sweetie and SPB are inseparable. He is one loved child.

They run together

They certainly have lots of fun together

She loves to pull pranks on him

She even made him a SuperPizzaBoy costume one time

They are inseparable

Happy Mother’s Day Sweetie!!

Here is my Mother, Granny.

She has been gone for several years now. I miss her tremendously and think about her all the time. I can tell you that she would not appreciate a picture of her in her bathrobe on the world wide web, but hey this is one of my favorites. She was a great Mom, what can I say. She had that Irish twinkle in her eye all the time, loved children, especially her children, grandchildren, and great grand child. She loved to go trout fishing, and visit with her friends and family. She and I exchanged weekly letters for years. I’m not talking emails, I’m talking the real deal with stamps!

She grew up in the mountains and told her forest ranger husband, that she would go anywhere as long as she could see the mountains. From her resting place in Idaho you can see the back side of the Tetons in Wyoming.

Here she is with SuperPizzaBoy.

Happy Mother’s Day Everybody!!

Ready Set Run 2010

The Autism Center of Tulsa had their annual Ready, Set, Run 5K and Fun Run today at Hunter Park here in Tulsa.

What do you think of this. I was going along the race course and came up on the Finish Line. I was thrilled, there was absolutely nobody ahead of me. Look at the photo. Can you believe it, me all alone at the Finish Line!

Of course it was an hour before the race start but still.

I did beat a bunch during the race. Below is a couple of sore losers. I kicked their butts good.

Here is the star of our team, SuperPizzaBoy and his mom Sweetie.

Another of SPB and his old man.

An action shot of SPB sprinting toward the finish.

Here is Sweetie and our friend Baloney. They were busting some moves. I think Sweetie has a leg up on Baloney on this particular photograph.

She is called Baloney because she is full of it. Check out her blog That’s Baloney. She has a major blogging mission going on. I think at last count she has brought to salvation over 140,000 people. That’s very impressive. I’m about to start calling her Baloney Graham. I try and try but about 3 people have lost their salvation reading my blog. She has setbacks also. Last year she was voted Oklahoma’s hottest mommyblogger and I personally know 7 guys that lost their salvation as a result.

The Run is the major fundraiser for ACT but almost more importantly is an annual gathering of families who are affected by autism. When they start the fun run everybody lines up. It is a very emotional site seeing how long the line is. Lots of people in northeast Oklahoma are affected by autism.

After the race SPB took full advantage of the other attractions.

There was a mascot for the new Tulsa Shock WNBA Basketball team:

And he jumped right in the middle of a bunch of cheerleaders.

Anyway, we and everybody else had a lot of fun. Thanks to everybody that contributed to the event!! We appreciate it.

Way Back When

Here’s Yogi, 1967, 43 years ago in Eagar, Arizona up in the White Mountains. We burned wood for heat in our house so brother and I got to cut it, split it, and then stack it. We didn’t have any chain saw we used that saw you see me holding in my hands.

We didn’t think we were anything special, that’s how most people in town heated their house.

The hard part was hauling enough split wood from the log pile to the house, every day.

We thought we had it easy with the wood. Where we lived before in Price, Utah we took turns shoveling coal into the automatic stoker that fed our furnace. If it was my night I had to hurry down after dinner so I didn’t miss my shows. You know Addams Family, Combat, 12 O’Clock High, Destry Rides Again, Fort Apache. You GenX people don’t know what the heck I’m talking about do you?

So, can you now understand why I am in the natural gas industry? It’s a lot less work heating the house.

Oklahoma Skywatch

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain

And the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet

When the wind comes right behind the rain.

Oklahoma, Ev’ry night my honey lamb and I

Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk

Makin’ lazy circles in the sky.

We know we belong to the land

And the land we belong to is grand!

And when we say

Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!

We’re only sayin’

You’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma!

Oklahoma O.K

Sorry, I wasn’t born in Oklahoma but I love it here. I know that where you live is great also!

Check out Skywatch Friday for other views of the sky, and if you are lucky some lyrics, from all over the world.

Wordless Wednesday – Lego Store

Worldless Wednsday

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande is a surgeon who has written this book about checklists but it is not a book on how to make checklists for shopping lists or planning weddings nor is it a book about productivity. This is a book on using checklists as a tool to deal with modern technology’s extreme complexity to avoid disasters and death.

This came to the forefront with the development of the B-17 Bomber in the 1930’s. The plane was very complex and difficult to fly under the best of conditions. When things went wrong pilots made very obvious mistakes that led to crashes. In response Boeing developed very simple checklists that when used cut down on the number of crashes considerably.

He also talks about modern buildings. The incidence of failure of high rise buildings has been ridiculously low. Much of that is because of the use of checklists during the design and construction of the buildings. Everybody knows that know one person can think of everything in such a project so they depend on codes and lists in order to ensure the safety of the buildings.

Dr. Gawande really blasts his fellow doctors for being so resistant to standards of care and checklists for even the simplest of procedures. Standards and checklists that have been proven to work if followed. The problem is the ego of many doctors to hand power briefly over to somebody else for the briefest of times in order to make sure that the procedure is to be done.

The problem, as almost everyone who has ever dealt with the medical profession knows, is that doctors are treated like royalty and everyone else, nurses, technicians, and other highly educated, trained, and experienced professionals and especially the patients, are there at the doctor’s bidding. I asked a nurse last year when a family member was hospitalized what her number one problem was in her job. She said that, besides the workload, trying to explain to patients and their family members that she couldn’t tell them anything about test results or treatment plans or anything else. They had to wait for the doctor to tell them that and then telling the patients that she had no idea when the doctor was coming by, that in fact he or she was going to come by when they pleased and not a minute before. Further, they could page or call him or her till the cows come home and it would not do any good. She said that the whole floor of the hospital was full of people wondering and waiting when the doctor was going to come.

She said it as pretty frustrating. I think that there has to be a better way.

What do you think?

Oh yeah, I rate this book 2.5 stars out of 4. I mean its a good book but it is still only about checklists. At least it was short. But really, isn’t 200 pages like a graduate degree in checklists?

My World – Western Oklahoma

The Yogi’s loaded up with MIL Nana and headed off to Western Oklahoma to visit Nana’s sister’s family and to check out what’s happening at the ranch that Nana and her Sister, Sue Carol own.

Our modern day technology has even affected ranching. Remember windmills? Well, this a 21st century windmill.