Tag Archives: Oktoberfest

Getting Educated

A couple years ago I got moved from a commercial position at work to an engineering type job and it has been a transition. I went from having almost constant interaction with my fellow commercial people to hardly any interaction on a daily basis in engineering. Literally there are some days where I don’t talk to anybody else at work. So that has been a struggle but I got a little break earlier this week.
An engineering company in town hosted a natural gas engineering symposium and invited a bunch of people to come in and learn a few things free, gratis, breakfast and lunch included. Sign me up is what I say.

Plus there were continuing education hours involved. Those of us who are Licensed Professional Engineers need to have 15 hours of continuing education every year. So free hours were a bonus.

So I am not really an engineer’s engineer, or anybody’s engineer for that matter but I love learning about the new technology and in the natural gas world there is lots of new technology. The machine above is an Expander Recompressor. It takes natural gas and cools it to about minus 130 degrees F to partially liquify it in order to remove the ethane, propane, butane, and natural gasoline out of the gas. This machine is cool. It does that without oil. It uses magnetic bearings! Dealing with oil at minus 130 is the pain in the butt. It can be done but using magnetic bearings is a lot better.

They talked about levitation. You turn a switch and you levitate the shaft. on its bearings. It can stay levitated for years. Who says there is no magic in the world.

And we got a shop tour. They said to ask before I took photographs. This is about the only one they let me take. I literally asked them if I could pictures of the windows and they said yes. What I really wanted to take a picture of was this gigantic stainless steel apparatus that was headed to one of our national laboratories to use liquid helium to cool a particle accelerator. That would have been a cool pic, but no can do, oh no!! So you get these windows instead. Just imagine something ginormous, very cool, and made of shiny stainless steel.

But that is just a quibble. Getting a shop tour is a rare privilege these days because of safety concerns. Believe it or not but that is a huge thing these days and I fully support it. And part of safety is avoidance of risk and it is just a lot easier to just say no, but this company said okay. Of course we got a safety briefing from their safety guys and we had safety guys bird dogging us through the whole tour and we wearing our PPE (“Personal Protective Equipment”) hardhat, safety glasses, and ear protection.

But hey, I got over it when we went to Tulsa’s Oktoberfest later. I soothed my feelings with an imported malted adult beverage.

I have seen some other cool stuff lately that I can post pics about, but that is for another day.

Have you seen anything cool lately?

The Lederhosen Lauf 3 Mile Race at Tulsa’s Oktoberfest

Last week was Tulsa’s Oktoberfest. It is quite the party. It has grown considerably for the years and is a lot of fun.

On Thursday night they have the “Lederhosen Lauf,” a three mile run from the festival out along the Arkansas River trails and back to the festival. I am always looking for a deal and it is a deal. For your entry fee, you get the race and a t shirt, sure, but you also get admission to the festival, a 16 ounce mug, a free fill of the beer of your choice for that mug, and a nice tee shirt. So sign me up.

The pre-race festivities included our mayor G.T. Bynum on the right. On the left is the lovely and talented Leslie who works for the company that sponsors the festival and is also a fellow Zumba exercise instructor with my wife Heather. Anyways, after the talk, off we went.

This is the halfway point, they had beer for us there. I don’t know what kind it was but it was good.

And then we finished so I took my stein and had it filled with Paulaner Oktoberfest Wiesn. it is my new favorite beer. I am usually not much for lagers but this one is great. It may be my favorite beer ever.

I also had a Spaten Optimator. I drank this back in the bad old days when Tulsa was a wasteland for beer. It was good but a little sweet.

I got me some schnitzel and sides for dinner.

And listened to a band playing decent rock and roll covers. I am not much for German music so I stay away from the big main tents.

The race was great. Well organized, nice well marked course, beer on the course, beer after the race, fun before, during, and after the race. So check, check, double or triple check, check and check. Plus

They posted the results on paper (I was fourth out of six in my age group) and on the internet. Immediately and right away.

A big thank you to the sponsors, the race director, the army of volunteers, and my fellow participants, and the brewers!! I love this race.

As you can tell, I am pretty slow!! But I was out there.

Lots Going on Here Lately

There has been lots going on these days. I have not been a very good blogging friend I am sorry to say.

Heather, Logan, and Nana after the play.

Let me see, first up this week, Logan was in a play at school. He plays Baloo the bear in the play “Just so Mr. Kipling” a drama based on Kipling’s characters in The Jungle Book.

It is a a great role for Logan with his deep booming voice. He makes a great bear. The kids all did great. For a one act play it has pretty large cast and you can tell the kids and the director really worked hard on it. They competed in a regional competition a couple weeks ago and won first place. So next week the State Championship so we are all loading up and heading down to Mustang, Oklahoma where the competition is being held.

And then Wednesday night was Corporate Night at Tulsa’s Oktoberfest. We took some customers to the event to drink beer, do the chicken dance, and wear funny hats. I didn’t take too many pics. Not good when you are with customers. I did get a pic of our VP of Operations holding two full beer steins. I am not sharing the pic with you guys though. At least not yet. Maybe after I retire, or he retires, or something like that.

The beer was great. This is Lagunitas IPA. Yum, yum, is what I say.

And then Thursday night the choir’s at Logan’s school gave a concert. Everybody from the first graders on up. Again they did a great job. Again, all I got is fuzzy pics from my cell phone. Sorry.

Saturday, Logan and I are heading out to the Wizard World at Tulsa’s Comicon. Fun, fun,fun exploration of the weirder side of our popular culture.. This pic is from last year’s event.

So that is what we have been doing. Kind of bouncing between Culture, Debauchery, Divine Music, and then Popular Culture. I’m really messing the kid up.

What have you been up to?

2014 Tulsa Oktoberfest

Friday, Heather, Logan, and I headed out to the Tulsa Oktoberfest. I had run a race the night before and as part of my entry fee I got a one liter stein. And you know something those steins don’t fill themselves. I had to take it Oktoberfest so it could realize it’s inner “steinness.” If you don’t know what that means then buy my upcoming book “The Inner Life of Beer” and learn all about it.

Logan is rocking his new Oktoberfest cap and pin. I think he looks great.

Logan and Heather make a great couple. I have no idea where he is looking.

Oktoberfest has really upped its game with its beer. It used to be pretty lame but they now have a wide selection of both foreign and domestics, Warsteiner, Boulevard, Marshall Brewing, Paulaner, in addition to the crappy market leading domestics. They had a pretty good variety of food also, bratwurst, sausages, schnitzel and the rest along with typical fair food.

The people watching was world class with lots of people wearing chicken hats.

And one guy that looked like a hipster Hasidic guy. Hey, you know, the devout have to have beer also. Notice his stein. We also had some people right out of Breaking Bad.

Lots of dancing going on to German music. My favorite is the cross generational type dancing.

I think that a smooth and mellow time was had by all. We kind of ran out of gas and left before Heather could do her chicken dance, but hey we’ll double up on it next year!!

2014 Lederhosen Lauf Three Mile Run at Tulsa’s Oktoberfest

2014 Lederhosen Lauf Three Mile Run at Tulsa’s Oktoberfest

Tulsa’s Oktoberfest is going on this week. I found out Thursday morning that they were having a three mile run, the Lederhosen Lauf Run that night from the Oktoberfest site including a “Non-official” beer stop along with a one liter stein and a free beer afterward. So I had to go sign up is what I think.

And of course my I brought my special “Fraulein Cam” along.

The Fraulein Cam can take other shots as well.

I took this Ferrris Wheel pic with my phone, not my special Fraulein Cam.

So how come some Frauleins have white socks and others have black. Figuring out things like that can lock my brain up for days.

And your typical shots of people milling around before the race. And it turns out that there are more Frauleins to the right. How come I never see them at any other races? And then we were off right at 7 pm.

Here is the Unofficial Beer Stop at about mile 2.25 or so. No beer for you said the beer nazi’s if you didn’t have a white wrist band. I’m not sure it was enforced. I’m a rule follower so you can bet that I had my white wrist band.

And we had a little unofficial music to go with our unofficial beer at the unofficial beer stop.

I finished the race, vertically with dignity. Got my token for my beer and a one liter stein and went to the beer tent. They had an incredible variety of beer there. The token just got me a pint instead of a liter. I was okay with the pint. A liter seemed a bit much and you know I have this thing about cleaning brand new glassware before drinking from it.

There are a bunch of large tents with different bands in each. It is all very cool.

In this tent they were having the most enthusiastic chicken dance session that I’ve ever seen.

Outside the tent, it was pretty much what you see at your local state fair.

I was all instrumented up for the race (after all you wouldn’t take a Ferrari racing with instruments right?) so you can see just painfully slow that I ran the race. It was fun though. Like I said I finished vertically which was my goal.

So, do you have an Oktoberfest where you live? Do you have a Fraulein Cam? I want to hear about it!

YogisDen.us

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