Gretel is Cute, but Hansel is Hot!

The Tulsa Opera brought a twenty minute version of “Hansel and Gretel” to SuperPizzaBoy’s school last week. SPB’s class participated as the chorus. They played children (that role came natural to them), then as gingerbread cookies, and back to children. The kids loved it and did a great job. They have been practicing for some time.

Gretel was a soprano, Hansel was played by a woman mezzo soprano. The Opera Company brought four singers and a piano player. They barnstorm all over eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas putting short versions of popular operas on for school kids. They do a great job.
SuperPizzaBoy afterwards
Guess, what. I found a cache on my way back to the office. “Where the deer and the antelope run”, number 753 for me.

Brutalism in Tulsa, OK

I have to apologize for this post. I know that the implied requirement is to show “nice” things. I think I’ve done that with some of my earlier posts with photos of old trains and art deco buildings. Tulsa has a bunch of beautiful buildings, many art deco, many of other styles but on the west end of downtown sits a collection of butt ugly buildings.

I come to find out that these butt ugly buildings are of a style called “Brutalism” from the French “Breton Brut” which means raw concrete. It is a style of architecture which is supposed to be true to the materials of which the building is constructed. Most of the time that is concrete. The style was started by a French guy named Corbusier. Many college campuses have lots of Brutalist Buildings. I knew that they were ugly. I just didn’t know that ugly had its own name.

The architecture is certainly true to its material with no decoration but it is ugly. The buildings in Tulsa that I am referring is a complex of the City County Library, old City Hall, Police Headquarters, and the Civic Arena. They are all grouped together and share one of those wide expanses of concrete which is supposed to be a plaza but is brutally cold or hot, depending on the season, but always windswept.

Civic Arena – Nice on the inside, Ugly on the outside. Being remodeled to a convention center with lots of meeting rooms.

Tulsa Police Headquarters

Slightly used vacant City Hall – Asking price about $1 million. Will probably have to be demolished.

Library – cramped outmoded. I love what’s inside but we need a new one. It will be a long time though.

For learning about other parts of the world we share check out That’s My World.

Paul Harvey, 1918-2009

Paul Harvey the radio broadcaster passed away recently. He was 90 years old and a Tulsa native. He started in broadcasting at KVOO before he moved upward and onward to national syndication.

I never paid much attention to him until I had my first summer job in the oil fields of West Texas, chopping weeds, painting, waxing floors, cleaning up and providing much amusement to the guys in the roustabout gang. They timed their morning and evening breaks to Harvey’s broadcast. “Stand by for News” and then the much anticipated “Rest of the Story.” So I kind of got attached to him.

I don’t know how good a journalist he was. It was hard to tell the news segments from the commercials but he seemed like a great guy.

He hasn’t broadcast for years but I still miss him. I don’t think they have him on Satellite Radio anyway.

Slumdog Millionaire


Sweetie and I were childless last night so we went to see Slumdog Millionaire. It is one hell of a movie. It keeps you your attention from the openning scene to the finish and then on into the credits. It is on one of the best movies I have ever seen. Is Bollywood taking over Hollywood? Could be if they keep making movies like this.

This movie has everything: Romance, chase scenes, shooting, extreme poverty, extreme wealth, tension. It even has trivia questions. I don’t know how to classify this movie.

I rate it four stars out of four.

R rated so keep the kiddos at home.

Library Loot

Went to the library today and picked up:

“Brothers” by Yu Hua

“The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb

“Eclipse” by Richard North Patterson

I’m currently reading:

“The Women” by T.C. Boyle

“New Moon” by Stephanie Meyer

“Emma” by Jane Austen

So I’ve got a lot of reading to do!

Tulsa Adult Reading Program
Last Saturday I took my little card to my local Tulsa City County Library and got my red tote bag complete with coupons. One of the coupons is for a free used paperback at Gardner’s Used Books. Baloney suggested I think about John Sandford so I used my coupon to pick up his “Hidden Prey.” I also bought Alan Furst’s “Night Soldiers.”

If you live in Tulsa County and you read, take advantage of this. All you have to do is read 6 books. They don’t even have to be library books. It goes through sometime in March. No pre-registration required. Just get down there, fill out a form with your list of books along with your library card number (If you don’t have a card, they can fix you up right then and there.) and get your stuff. You don’t want to miss out on free stuff.

Honest Scrap Award


I am very derelict in acknowledging receipt of an award. Way back in January Dawn of Dawn’s Diversions awarded me the “Honest Scrap” Award. I’m very proud of it. I apologize to her for not acknowledging it sooner.

The award has requirements for the awardee. First I need to say seven things about myself and then I need to award it to other blogs.

So here goes.

1. I like beer. Give me a porter, india pale ale, wheat beer, stout, nut brown ale. I like them all. I especially like brew pub beers. One of the highlights of my life is two weeks I spent in Great Britain years ago. I loved the pubs and two, three, or four pints of bitters.

2. I love coffee. Starbucks brew is OK. My favorite coffee joints here in Tulsa are Double Shot Coffee on Boston near 21st street and Topeca downtown in the old Mayo Hotel building. At these places I’ll get an Americano at those places. There are other places in town that I haven’t tried. Let me know about them!

3. Guess what, you will never guess. I love geocaching. I manage to work a cache in no matter what I do. Check out the very bottom of my blog page for some very detailed statistics. Its not about the numbers though. No not at all. I don’t really hardly pay any attention to them at all, really.

4. I am a nerd. At one time in my life I was headed toward hard core nerddom. I worked on a research project in college on rockets. I presented a paper at the Air Force Academy on a study of optimum time delay between staging for multistage rockets.

5. Sweetie and I fight over her Southern Living magazine. I think she hides it from me until she gets to read it. It is so cozy and comfortable I cannot hardly stand it.

6. I love being outside. I have to be outside for at least a little bit every day or things do not go well for me at all. It grounds me.

7. My guilty pleasure is zoning out. I zone out while running. Its like a meditation or a prayer to me and goes really fast. I can zone out in almost any situation. I had a root canal years ago. I zoned out almost the whole time. I mean I was aware of the whole thing but it was in one room and I was in another room. My dentist still tells me on occasion that he had never seen anybody so relaxed during the procedure.

Now, where does it go from here. Here are the people I’m awarding this to:

Baloney of That’s Baloney – Baloney has the ability to make a flat tire entertaining. Takes very entertaining, and sometimes compromising, pictures.

Kathy of Oklahoma Book Lady – Kathy can write about all sorts of stuff besides books. She has a very good eye at photography.

Michelle of the Froggy Bottom Blog – Wide ranging blog on her family. Very good at photography.

Yeah Whirlpool!

Our oven went out earlier this week, so yesterday I took a long lunch hour going to parts stores and calling more from the office to get a new bake coil. No such ruck. I picked up one that they said might work. I wasn’t too happy with that but I can return it if I don’t install it.

I finally got on the Whirlpool web site and found the part. You can’t but parts via the web but they have an 866 number to call. I did and talked to Andrew, a very pleasant guy in San Antonio who said that they had the part. I got the expedited delivery for 2 to 3 business days. He said that it would probably be Monday, slight chance for Friday. I said OK and let Sweetie know. She was ok with it.

Anyway, the part came in Wednesday. Less than 24 hours from when Andrew and I talked. So I put it in Wednesday night and it works like a charm. So way to go Whirlpool! Way to go Andrew!

I get a little ahead of myself on repairing stuff and I am a nitwit when it comes to electricity. So Sweetie helped me out.

Isn’t that the Sweetest Love Note Ever?
I’m not being sarcastic.

Best thing is. Only one little part left over!

Downtown Exorcism – Continued

The exorcism going on downtown is continuing. All new cast yet again. They are more energetic and they now rotate the chant lead task. These men and women are very determined and so are the people bankrolling the venture. There is a Coffee Store right there, Topeca, which may be the best in town. I think the excorcisors drank some expresso before their perfomance today.

I hope them rats leave soon.

Boys Night Out

Once a month when Sweetie goes to book group, SuperPizzaBoy and I have “Boys Night Out.”

First we go get something to eat. We go to Johnnies a lot for hamburgers. Our other favorite spot is Mexacali’s for Mexican food. That is where we went Tuesday night. SPB is relaxing with a pre-dinner drink.

I was going to get a picture of the chicken fajitas I ordered but didn’t remember until I was well into them. You will thank me for not taking a picture of a half eaten plate of food. I considered it though.

After we eat we do various things. We have a whole series of geocaches we have placed in Tulsa named “Boys Night Out” with some tag on the end. They have proved pretty popular. That is mainly in the summer though. It takes time to properly place and hide a geocache and determine the coordinates.

Sometimes we play miniature golf, Lazer Quest is fun, Tulsa Driller Baseball Games, we have done a lot of stuff.

Tonight we did something different!

We went home so I could repair the oven. Actually I had to cut the power to it. The bake coil needs replacing and I won’t have one until Friday or Monday. The oven is on the same circuit as the range and microwave. Leaving the oven off wasn’t working. The old coil was heating up with the oven off so I shut off the breaker. So tonight’s task was to safely cut off the power to the oven.

Looks like fun huh! I have to do it right. If I screw up and the house burns down, I would never hear the end of it. Plus Sweetie may not go geocaching with me on my birthday. I love her very much but she can be mean sometimes.

So far so good.