Going to Colorado

SuperPizzaBoy and I are flying to Colorado Friday. We are going to participate in the celebration of niece Jillian’s graduation from Colorado State University. Jillian is one smart cookie and she has worked pretty darn hard to get where she is. She is a champion horse judge and has won a bunch of awards doing it. We are mighty proud of her. She is going to slapping her dorky old uncle around because the photograph doesn’t do her justice.

So we get prepared. Clothes, camera, etc. Most important is I downloaded 500 geocaches into my two GPS receivers. It’s just not prudent to go out of state without at least one backup GPSr. I just hope that my sister Ellen doesn’t get too mad at me. She should understand, she’s geocacher, so is her husband Irvin. For that matter I think Jillian is also.

Hmm…. I guess this might run in families.

Dunkin Donuts Coffee, Natural Gas, Baseball, and a Music Recital

A lot has been happening lately not much of it involves being able to exercise but I’ve been eating like a horse. Plus my Health Club has closed their downtown branch facility which is depressing because I love running at noon. The main health club is wonderful but I have to use it in the morning because it is too darned far from downtown to workout if I stay up too late the night before. I’ve been checking out my options.

So, I eat, don’t work out and get fat. Big deal right? Join the crowd. At least I can get up early and drink my Dunkin Donut coffee and read blogs. You can check out this contact form, if you need donut franchise information.  I was drinking my coffee, wondering what to eat for breakfast, and clicked on one of my favorite blogs, “Jiggety Jigg,” this morning and it was about Dunkin Donut coffee as a cure for constipation. I about spilled my coffee and decided to put off breakfast for later. Google it, there is whole subculture out there! You learn something every day. I told Sweetie about it now we’re going back to Starbucks. (Just kidding.)Now for the natural gas part of this post. Don’t worry I’m talking about that that comes out of the ground. We had a team building exercise at work. We went to a daytime baseball game, the Tulsa Drillers vs the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, AA teams. We had a great time even though it was cool and overcast.

Below is the world famous geocacher Teresa. She is a lot of fun.

About an inning into the game I had to leave to go SupePizzaBoy’s school for his classes music program. Great deal. Each kid did one or two solo numbers, singing or an instrument, and then they did a few things together. The school really works hard with the kids and they did very well.

SPB played a keyboard piece. I think it was “When the Saints Come Marching Home.” and sang a funny song about Summer Vacation.

The class sang together “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”. PizzaBoy gave the family a preview last weekend at Nana’s pool. It was recorded for posterity.

Guess what I did then? I went back to the baseball game! Got there at the top of the 8th and got to see it end. I love minor league baseball, especially daytime baseball. At least once during the spring I’ll grab a customer, eat lunch, go to the park and watch the game with them and drink a malted beverage or two. Almost better than geocaching and no ticks! or snakes!

Thanks Folks

Saturday, the Autism Center of Tulsa held their third Annual 5K and Fun Run. It is their major fund raiser of the year and also an opportunity for the Autism community of Tulsa to get together and have a party. So you have the kids, their parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, and therapists show up. Each kid forms a team. Here is SuperPizzaBoy with his team sign.

At 8:00 am the 5K was held. It had about 500 or so runners. I ran it and it about killed me. Two hours later the fun run was held. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were not 2000 people were in it. The line stretched back from the starting line a long ways.
Action Shot of SPB, Sweetie, and one of SPB’s Speech Therapists during the run.


At the finish with Mom.

SPB and family friend Jacob sprinting at the end.

The end, with the old man.

Me, Sweetie and SPB would like to express our thanks to those who helped support SPB in this effort.

SPB’s grandmother Nana.

My Sister, SPB’s Aunt Ellen and her husband Irvin. She is probably going to sue me for publishing this picture from a recent trip to see her daughter in Australia. Ellen is one of the nicest people I know and an animal lover from way back and a great Aunt to SPB. She is married to Irvin, a former Army helicopter pilot and a great Brother in Law. Ellen is better looking than he is though and I don’t have a recent picture of him.


My cousin Merri Ann in Idaho. She is a real sweetheart and has a great family.

The girls of Today in Idabel Oklahoma. They are also sweethearts. I don’t care what anybody says. They provided a pledge to the Autism Society of Tulsa and some encouraging words to SPB.
Note I showed SPB all the kind comments that people made, he really like them. Others with encouraging words are:
Kathy of the Oklahoma Booklady.
Anyway, Thanks everybody, I’ll probably be hitting up everybody again next year!

Happy Mothers Day

Wow, Mothers Day is almost over. So I better get busy. I didn’t have a post pre-done. Maybe next year – not this.

Sweetie and I were exhausted yesterday and we slept in. Shh!! don’t tell the pastor but we didn’t make the service. Sweetie is teaching 4 year olds this month in Sunday School and I am her assistant. Hey, and I thought the draft is over, some 35 years ago. Nope, it is alive and well at our house. I even know my lottery number. It is 1. (I know that if you are not a male at least as old as I am you don’t know what I’m referring to, that is too bad.)

Anyway, we went and had only 10 kids this morning. Whew, we also had two teeenage assistants who had their act together, double whew. I had my camera my of course I didn’t take any pictures of the kids. I’m not sure their parents would appreciate it if the Mother-in-Law’s second cousin Ethel in Waynoka called to tell them that they saw little Francesca on the internet! Also, there is too much going on to take pictures.

After we got them herded back from big group I did take a picture of their coloring project. We did another little project that was cool, we painted the kids hands then made a hand print. We had blue paint and red paint. We found out with the first two kids that the blue washed off, the red didn’t. We switched to all blue. But there is one cute little girl somewhere out there in Tulsa that is going to spend a few day with a bright red hand.

After church which took quite a while because some of the parents don’t come pick up their kids until 12:30 (Hellooooooo, come pick up your kids!!!! They are cute and adorable but they are yours!!! Don’t be pulling this crap during football season!) We grabbed a bite to eat, went home, changed, grabbed the dogs and went to a local park for some walking.

SuperPizzaBoy had his triton which is a strange cool little rear wheel steered tricycle. He can really make it go. We were out there for an hour so we worked up an appetite.

So, we made a frozen yogurt run at Freshberrys. A local outfit that offers fruit toppings. I had chocolate yogurt with kiwi fruit, blueberries, and raspberrys. Sweetie and SPB got into a tickling contest. I’m not sure who won but they both had a lot of fun.

Afterward, we hung out at the house a little bit and then went and grabbed Nana to go out to, guess what? Eat Again! (How did you know?)
We went to Charleston’s. SPB again got the sillies but Nana got the final word in.

SPB is vowing revenge!
Sorry for all the exclamation marks. I know that it is a sign of poor writing. But hey, its Mother’s Day.
I hope everybody had as good a Mother’s Day as we did.

Stuck Gator Gets Free

An oil and gas company customer sent the following pictures to us in a power point presentation. I pulled the pictures of the power point. I didn’t take the pictures myself so I’m not posting in a meme.

At a gas compressor installation in south Texas an alligator got himself stuck in the compressor skid and struggled to exhaustion before they found him in the morning.

They removed the 2″ pipe that was pinning the gator and then got out of the way. A Game Warden showed up to help ensure the safety of the critter.
Then the gator got mad and tried to get even.


He finally got himself out of the skid and just layed there for a bit recovering.

They measured it at 8′ 7″. The wildlife department transported it to a nearby State Park. So it was happy ending.

Skywatch Friday – Blue Sky and Granite

It has been raining by the buckets here in northeast Oklahoma for sometime. When it wasn’t raining it was drizzling and cold. Finally Wednesday, the clouds cleared off and the sun came out.

I was leaving the office and looked to the east and had to take a double take. It looked the granite in the office building was reflecting the blue sky. What do you think? Its pretty close to me.

Checkout Skywatch Friday and see other photographs of the skies around the world. Contribute one of yours! Everybody has a picture they took of the sky sometime somewhere. I want to see it!

Sign up Here

I have a great deal for you. It won’t cost you anything, nothing at all. Just by leaving a comment for this post, you can help a great organization with a fund raiser. Just read a little bit further and leave a comment and then you are done.


Here is the deal. The Autism Center of Tulsa is having their annual 5K and Fun Run Saturday morning at Hunter Park here in Tulsa. You can click on the link above to find out more but they provide a ton of resources to help Autistic children and their families cope with the disease. This includes sponsoring seminars and other training, family fun nights. They have a resource center with all sorts of information. They don’t do therapy, they provide information, support, and services.

OK, I’m done, here is my deal. SuperPizzaBoy as well as Sweetie and I are running the Fun Run, and I’m also running the 5K:

Please leave a comment for SuperPizzaBoy encouraging him to complete the Fun Run. No strings attached. Just leave a comment and you are done!

I’m not quite done. We have had some very generous donors who contributed to Logan’s team. If you would like to join them go ahead and click on the widget on the right. If not, just leave a comment. I would appreciate it very much.

One last thing, if you or somebody you know live in Northeast Oklahoma and have a child with autism and need help or information please tell them about the Autism Center of Tulsa. The contact information is on the web site. They can help.

Checking out the new Trail

Felt like crap all day with allergies or a cold or something. Stuck in a basement for a training session. The training was OK, I just hate being someplace without windows, especially on such a nice day, especially when I don’t feel good.

Sweetie gave me a kitchen pass so I went running on the newly renovated river trail section from 31st street to I44. It is great. Thanks George Kaiser of Kaiser-Francis Oil Company and the George Kaiser Family Foundation. They wrote a check for the whole thing, about $12.4 million. Incredible generosity.

It has separate paths, for much of the way, for runners and bikers. I always dreaded a head on collision with a bike while running at night. This should cut the chances of collsions.

Quik Trip Corporation paid for a new play park at 41st street. It is incredible. I’m such an old fart that this is the third play park built at this location since I moved here. The one they tore down is the new one. This newer one is wonderful. It has splash pads. I love splash pads. I love Quik Trip. Tulsa kicks some major butt on convenience stores. Quik Trip rocks. When SuperPizzaBoy and I go geocaching we get hungry, so we have geocaching lunches at QT. Hot dogs, chocoloate chip cookies, freezes. Don’t knock it. Above all don’t tell Sweetie!!! Shhhh! Can you keep a secret?

Shadows are getting long. Time to go home. Usually I have a couple of malted beverages and a bath. I felt so crappy I had a couple glasses of spicy V8. I enjoyed the running though. I went abut 5 miles and it is like a dream on a day like this.

Watery Wednesday – San Antonio Seaworld

The Yogi family went to Seaworld a couple months ago. They were open for Spring Break. There was hardly anybody there! So no long lines. They have water rides now. So Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy went riding, I held the purse and the drinks and took pictures.

Down They Go!

Splash!
SPB was up for doing it again.

Click over to Watery Wednesday for more wet pictures of the world.

Children of the Lamp Book 2 – The Blue Djinn of Babylon by P.B. Kerk

SuperPizzaBoy and I just finished Book Two of the Children of the Lamp Series “The Blue Djinn of Babylon.”

Its a great story about two preteen djinn John and Philppa Gaunt (genies to you “mundanes” out there) who this time travel the world looking for a lost a lost of book of djinn secrets, the “Solomon Grimoire.” John and Philippa have all sorts of adventures and misadventures. We learn all about djinns in the meantime.

I give this book 3 stars out of 4. A kids book that is not painful to read. SPB loved it. I don’t know what we are going to read next, anybody got any ideas out there?