Tag Archives: Logan

Summertime in the City

Summer is here and we have already had our vacation so we are grinding it out. Logan is taking summer college classes downtown. He missed his bus the other day so he got to sit in my cubicle and read.

I took a class earlier this week on Leadership Training. It was held at a hotel and the swimming pool was next to the meeting rooms. We should have brought our suits.

Coming back from vacation in Alabama we found a decent liquor store with a knowledgeable clerk who gave me tips on all sorts of local and regional brews we don’t get in Oklahoma. This is a Key Lime Pie Gose. Gose beers are kind of sour and salty and they are just the thing in the summer. This one was great.

I wore my hydration pack for the first time for my weekly run on Turkey Mountain. I can carry 1.5 liters of water instead of just 750 ml that I can carry in my water bottle plus a lot easier to carry. You have to watch your balance though climbing up rock faces. Too easy to lean backwards too much. The pack doesn’t make me any faster but I can run farther and not be so wiped out at the end of the run.

Logan is getting a few more weeks of job skills training at Goodwill Industries. They have a pretty decent program for kids on the Autism Spectrum. Next up they will help him find a job. And then they provide job coaching. We are grateful for the support.

I won a $25 Goodwill store gift certificate at a Goodwill event just before we went on vacation. What do I buy at Goodwill? They surprised me with their collection of inexpensive books. So I got a box of books!! Which I will recycle through my account at used book store here in town that basically costs me a dollar when I exchange like for like quality of books. Sometimes I think I am extraordinarily cheap. Maybe but I like making a game out of it also.

What to do the rest of the summer. On the list are

Visiting my sister, Ellen who has started work in Yellowstone Park as a seasonal worker for a vendor. Check the link for her blog. She is making the most of her time there.
Going to see my Dad in Idaho.
We were talking that we have not been to New Mexico in a while. The green chiles are calling me

How about you, what do you have on your plate?

Oh yes, the latest Microsoft Windows upgrade has slowed my machine down tremendously. I thought I might have to get a new one but I am trying a huge increase in RAM from Crucial dot com. I am going from 2 gb to 16 gb at pretty reasonable cost. If it works. I’ll let you know. It should be here in a couple weeks. I can’t hardly run photoshop any longer.

Life’s a Beach – Birthday Edition

Logan started his birthday on the beach, reading.

It ended up raining and so the planned parasailing got put off for another day. We ended up doing a little shopping and running errands and such.

He wanted dinner at Shipp’s Harbor, a nice restaurant that we all loved.

It is in a marina. I love marinas. Looking at the different kinds of boats and seeing if I can tell which ones get used and which ones never get taken out.

We went to see a movie, “The Fate of the Furious”, part of the Fast and Furious franchise. It had some great scenes filmed in Havana with old cars and such. It also had a luscious Charlize Theron as a bad girl trying to steal nuclear launch codes. She commandeers a bunch of cars to go into driverless mode to attack the convoy that has the launch codes. Great scene.

We also had birthday cake of course.

And so a great day was had by all.

Family Life – The Kid is Mowing and Driving

Logan is growing up every day. Last year he graduated from high school, this year he finished his first year in college.

He has been mowing the yard for a few years now. He is getting better at it. He has figured out that it is not much fun. He hasn’t figured out that when you are mowing, nobody is messing with you. He is doing pretty good but left unattended he wants to go creative on his mowing pattern which would be okay if he got all the grass mowed. So he has some “mowhawks” I have to clean up. That’s okay by me. Making progress is the thing.

He got his Driving Learners Permit late last week. Sunday afternoon, after mowing and getting cleaned up we went to a local parking lot so he could drive around it very slooooowwwwly. This is going to work best if we go at his pace and so I imagine we will be doing parking lots turns for a while until he is ready to get on the road. We also regular driving lessons set for the near future. I think he is ready to learn how to drive.

Life is moving from one milestone to another and we are getting there.

The Kid Bows Out and Other Happenings this Weekend

Last Friday was Logan’s last performance with the Laughing Matter Teen Improv Group at the Clark Youth Theater here in Tulsa. He is aging out of the program. Heather and were trying to figure out how long he has been with the program. We think that it has been about eleven years but we are not sure. What kind of crappy parents are we anyway??

He’s really enjoyed it and it has been fun watching the other kids grow up also. We are going to miss it. He hasn’t really started looking at what’s available for him now in the community but we’ll keep you posted. He just finished his first year of college and did very well. His mother and I are pleased.

The kids have really blossomed. Maybe they blossomed too much. They are an independent bunch and I think that is a good thing.

Saturday morning we did our cat rescue gig at the the Petsmart in Broken Arrow. We have gotten kind of fond of the cats and are happy that they all eventually get adopted.

There were three new ones Saturday morning. The one above is a male that got caught in a fence and some asshat shot him with a bb gun. He’s a sweetie but he is a little traumatized by his new surroundings. He’ll make somebody a great cat.

After the cat gig Heather and Logan went home and I went geocaching. I’ll post in detail about it later but I bushwahacked for 0.3 miles through the woods alongside the Verdigris River looking for a geocache. All told I spent two hours on that gig and didn’t find it. Three ticks found me though! The cache above is one I found later. I guess that I can find them if they are painted pink and have yellow caution tape so that I don’t trip over it. Yep, I love geocaching whether I find them or not.

We went to see Guardians of the Galaxy II later on. Heather and Logan loved it, and me I was just confused. Still am. We did build a fire in the patio and chill out for a bit afterward though.

Sunday was a work day at the house. Logan and I mowed the yard. Heather “amended” the soil. I got my chainsaw down and cut down a volunteer tree in the greenbelt behind the fence. We got a lot done, heathen pagans that we have turned into.

Later on we went to Nana’s house (Nana is the world’s greatest MIL) and grilled burgers and chilled. That’s Nana’s dog Reba above. She is my model for chilling.

And that’s a wrap on the weekend. How was yours?

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Easter at Nana’s House

This is Nana, the world’s great MIL. We had Easter dinner at her house this year.

And this is Nana’s daughter, my wife.

And Logan, the kid, the big kid.

We had quite the spread. You can tell we are really heavy drinkers.

And after dinner, while everybody else is working I am snooping around. These are Heather’s cowboy boots from she was just a toddler. Her grandfather had a ranch you see. No matter, if you live in Oklahoma you have cowboy boots even if you hardly know what a horse looks like. Next the boots is a photo of our son Logan on a horse.

And this is Nana’s mother’s Easter hat. Nana wouldn’t model it for me. When I was a kid, all the women had Easter hats, and gloves, and white shoes. The little girls had little muffs and me and my brother Bob had bow ties.

Yep that’s us, rocking the bow ties. Better than muffs but still torture. In case you were wondering, I’m the good looking guy.

Back to Nana’s mother. These are her Iris’s that Nana transplanted from the family home in western Oklahoma. I love these flowers.

And this is Nana’s father’s saddle and hat. I love this old family stuff.

And here is our family photograph. We hope you had a great Easter with family and friends because we sure did.

The Knot Board

We spent Easter Sunday with my MIL Nana and we had a great meal and visit. I had my camera so I was taking pictures of this that and whatever. Nana has her late husband’s knot board hanging in her garage. You see her husband, Charles, one of the world’s really good guys was really involved in Boy Scouting. He was an Eagle Scout in fact. Charles has been gone a number of years now but in many ways it seems like just a few days ago.

Charles and his grandson, Logan had a special bond.

Charles was a great story teller and one of my favorites is about scouting. You see Charles went on to become a pharmacist and after he got his degree he went to a small town in southeast Oklahoma and looked up the local Boy Scout Troop and went to the scoutmaster and introduced himself and said that he would like to get involved and was willing to help in any way possible. So the Scoutmaster said that was great and told Charles when and where the Troop met and invited him to the meeting.

Logan and I went through Cub Scouts but neither of us was interested in continuing with Boy Scouts.

So Charles showed up at the appointed time and the Scoutmaster said “Everybody gather around here.” and then he said “I would like to introduce you to your new Scoutmaster, Charles.”

I loved that story and of course Charles was a great scoutmaster. The knot board is something that he made for the scouts. Heather and Nana have lots of stories about numerous scout outings. When Charles passed away years later, several of his scouts showed up for the funeral. I think about him every day and still can’t believe that somebody who so full of life is gone.

Skywatch Friday – A Family Walk at Oxley Nature Center

Last Friday the family decided to go for walk at Tulsa’s Mary K. Oxley Nature Center. One of the best kept secrets in Tulsa. Acres and acres of trails, woods, marsh, lakes, and meadows and hardly anybody ever visits it.

Well somebody had been visiting. We saw a few of these in the park but they didn’t look like they had been used.

I love the big and small ponds, lakes, and streams on the property.

It looked like some beavers had been hard at work.

A sign needs either replacing or fetched.

A nice surprise were some pelicans. They were cruising about. The geese seemed a little put off their visitors.

Heather taking in the view near the photo blind.

Yep, I’m a lucky guy is what I think.

Heather and our gentle giant of a son, Logan checking out some storm damage from last year.

And here is our route. About 3 miles and a good mix of woods, open land, and water. We saw nobody else during our three miles.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday this week.

Shadow Shot Sunday – New Years Eve Walk at Ray Harral Nature Park

Logan and I went for a little hike on New Years Eve. He had his wisdom teeth taken out a few days ago and he was supposed to be quiet but by NYE both he and I were pretty owly and needed some fresh air and walking time. I have a hard to shake sinus infection and so I haven’t been doing much either.

So off he went!! He isn’t into running much but he was pretty restless. We went to Ray Harral Nature Park in Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa. I kind of like it. It has lots of trails and not very many people. By planning your route you can get a couple miles in by varying the loops available.

The woods were grey but I did find a cardinal hiding from me in the shadows for a bit of red.

I finally catching up with the kid. There is something about pedestrian bridges that I love. I alos feel compelled to tilt the camera. For some reason it seems more interesting.

How about you? What do you tilt the camera for?

I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday today.

I wish everybody a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!

Black Friday 2016 at the Tulsa Zoo

I don’t know about you but we really enjoyed Thanksgiving this year (we do every year) we had a lot smaller group than usual but we did just fine. Uncle Bob drove up from Corpus Christi and the world’s greatest MIL hosted the dinner. We enjoyed fine food and fellowship most of the day.

The next day is the notorious Black Friday where everybody gets up terribly early and stands in line to trample their fellow humans to get half price televisions and laptops and such. Not us, we slept in. We had a guy trip to the Tulsa Zoo. No standing in lines there, easy parking, and friendly people!! I hope you enjoyed your shopping, we enjoyed our nonshopping.

The first critter we ran into was this grizzly. He doesn’t look too happy in there all by himself.

Next was this rattlesnake all coiled up and ready to strike. I don’t know much about rattlesnakes but I’m wondering if this is kind of an old guy judging by his filmy eyes. He might just be confused. I do geocaching and trail running and am always concerned about running into snakes. It seems we have more copperheads than rattlesnakes but I’m cautious nonetheless.

And an American Bald Eagle. They sure do look noble.

And a pair of American Albino Alligators. This dude is in serious need of some orthodontics.

And a Scarlet Ibis.

And a pic of son.

And a Golden Headed Lion Tamarin. He doesn’t look happy either.

And the flamingos are always cool and elegant.

The Rhino was up and doing this thing.

And the giraffes were reaching for their lunch.

And the elephants were having their meal as well.

I tried to see if the Zoo wanted this guy for the chimp exhibit. Nope, he eats too much he says.

There is a big construction project going on at the zoo. The Tulsa Zoo Lost Kingdom is going to be a huge addition with enhanced habitat for many of the critters. It is going to be finished sometime next year.

A good time was had by all. We celebrated Brother Bob’s birthday and so we had another excuse to eat well!!

I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving and a pleasant Black Friday. We sure did.

Arkansas River Reflections

View from the west bank of the Arkansas River here in Tulsa of some rowers in the late afternoon last Tuesday. Tulsa has an active rowing community and I see them often out on the river practicing. It looks very hard work to me.

Logan is in production on the play he is in at Clark Youth Theater, “Romeo and Juliet Live From the Underworld.” This is a musical version and … “Romeo and Juliet awake in the after life, confused and unaware of their deaths. With the help of those in the Underworld, the lovers watch as the events of their lives replay before them, eventually making peace with the choices that led to their demise.” The play is very different and I am glad that I saw it twice as I did not understand at all what was going on the first time.

It takes a little to get an ear for Shakespeare especially when done to rap rhymes in Iambic Pentameter. The kids are doing a great job. There are some really talented and accomplished actors among the teenagers. Logan has a small part and does really well with it.

Anyway that is it for now.

YogisDen.us

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