Yet Another Small Town Moment

Shooting at varmints and swimmin' wit da fishes

2009-07-20T00:01:00.001-06:00

This police blotter report in a recent issue of my small town's news rag contained a synergistic coupling of ironic and brain tickling hilarity. For your reading (and life lesson learning) pleasure, I present for you my take on the 4th of July police doin's in my small town...

First off, had I written the headline for the first entry, it would have read, "Bike thief, green with envy for yellow bike." Badu-bump.

Next, under lessons learned, I suggest not shooting a firearm in the city limits to scare off would be pickup thieves, until you've cleaned up your doobage and sprayed a good dose of Airwick inside your home.

Finally, apparently in my small town, discharging a firearm in the city limits to kill a couple of destructive squirrels won't get your arrested...but improperly disposing of fish will land you a court date.

A wheeless wagon

2009-07-17T09:26:00.007-06:00

While it was at first a little strange to see these "dubs" from the past used as yard and garden decor in my small town, much like fried okra, Dr. Pepper and Ford 150's as the family vehicle of choice out here, I've grown accustomed to their presence.

They must be considered by some to be a highly valued asset to a domiciles exterior ambiance -- valuable enough to be stolen in fact...

Who knows, perhaps some day my Chevy Ralley wheels and Crager SS rims will adorn (litter) the yard of some future dwelling and be labeled as "vintage" and "retro" by it's owners.

Some of my best friends are fans

2009-06-23T10:38:00.002-06:00

I'm what you call a fair-weather sports fan. When there are sporting events, I'll tune in or turn on -- Olympics, World Series/NBA Championships/Final Four/Rose Bowl, etc. But on a regular full-time basis, organized sports occupies very few molecules in my gray matter.

Unless of course, it's force fed me via my girl's participation (summer softball is allll-most over), and if the kinderfolken of friends/family are playing, we like to turn out to root-root-root for the home team.

On the other hand, I am a spectacle kind-of guy and while watching a game on the tube holds little interest, toss a couple tickets my way and I'll be the first to grab my keyring off the hook in the mudroom and withdraw my life savings for some dogs and a beer.

Case in point, last weekend was the highly anticipated appearance of a legendary LA Dodger to our local AAA club's venue. He was there as part of a fairly successful marketing ploy ("Tastes of the Big Leagues") saluting selected major league teams/ballparks across the nation. Last week was Dodger Stadium week ("Dodger Dogs...hold the smog"-- pretty clever tagline I thought).

Now, normally this event in and of itself wouldn't be enough to get me to shell out the baseball bucks needed to treat my family to a fun-filled night at the ballpark. However, even though we're not the be all-end all of baseball fans, we have a friend who is.

Jon's baseball career started early on, culminating to college ball and a short stint with a AAA club in Vermont. He was a southpaw pitcher, born in LA, weaned on Dodger Dogs with mustard and bled Chávez Ravine blue long before his family relocated to our small town some 20+ years ago.

Attending a game with his family and getting to meet and chat with a storied hero from his past was too much to pass up. And I was there to witness it.

We patiently stood in the meet-and-greet autograph line, missing the first several innings of what turned out to be an exciting match-up between our OKC Redhawks and the Nashville Sounds. C and Jon's oldest son (B, age 5+) stood with us as we surveyed the other 100 or so line standers, summarily judging their Dodger fanaticism level based on what it was they were having autographed and how much blue adorned their bodies.

C held tight to a brand new finepoint Sharpie along with a Dodger ball cap souvie my Wife had acquired sometime back in our LA days. Others around us held various 8x10 glossies, a few caps and jerseys dotted the line, as well as baseballs of various vintages and styles.

From deep down in one of Jon's cargo shorts front pockets, grasped firmly in his pitching hand, was what I believed to be one of the most prized possessions from my friend's youth - a MLB licensed baseball festooned with autographs of a dozen or so members of the 1980's Dodger's.

While the gameplay monikers for the 80's Dodgers may not ring any bells with some, for those of us who grew up in LA during that time period, the roster is etched in our memories...even in the creaking gray matter of those of us who didn't know much about baseball...Dusty Baker, Ron Cey, Joe Ferguson, Pedro Guerrero, Charlie Hough, Rick Monday, Manny Mota, Jerry Reuss, Bill Russell, Reggie Smith, Don Sutton, Bob Welch.And of course, the most famous of all Dodgers from that time, Steve Garvey.

For me, it was a momentary jolt of electricity as I stood back and watched C interact with Mr. Garvey, securing autographs on both her Mom's ballcap and her own hand-me-down softball glove.

The major joy of the event took place as I stood off to the side watching Jon step up to the table and pull his prized ball into view. While my eyes witnessed the everyday magic of one hero (a retired ballplayer) meeting another (loving husband, dedicated father), I let my mind drift back to my heady days of youth, when hero's stood proudly on pedestals and games were meant to be played, not paid for."And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces."

The casserole express

2009-06-16T19:02:00.009-06:00

Need to keep a tally of food and mercantile that's been rolling into our house since word got around my small town that the "little wife" is hobbling around with a busted ankle.

All I can say is, what a spectacular tradition this is.
Oven-warm pecan nut muffins brought over personally by our neighbor lady, who felt really bad that she wasn't home to hear the pathetic screams of my wife as she lay sprawled out off the back stoop with her freshly busted ankle.

From a family of cattle ranchers came a mess of Sloppy Joe's, made with ranch fresh beef, complete with buns. The sauce was a sweet barbeque style that was a welcome variant from our normal Manwich style.

Mexican/spaghetti casserole with french bread. Think of a Bob's Big Boy Chili size (the last time I ate one of these was at the Bob's '49 in Burbank, with Drew Carey eating one just like it across the way at the counter) with Tex-Mex flair and seasonings. Muy delicioso.

Grilled lemon/butter chicken breasts, grilled squash and tomato medley, and yogurt red grape salad with brown sugar topping. This meal was provided by a family with a father who Loves to grill (capital L). Accompanying this grilled extravaganza was an oven fresh, full loaf of homemade wheat bread that was yeasty and chewy and aromatic to the nth degree.

Spaghetti with sweet (homemade and fresh) Italian Sausage. The father-in-law of the family who provided this meal is known for his homemade Italian sausage. He's been grinding and stuffing the sausages himself since 1948, and only sells them at a grocery store in McAlester, Oklahoma. The girl's weren't prepared for the sweetness of the sauce, but once they figured out it was supposed to taste that way, they dug it.

Lasagna (frozen) Stouffer's makes a good frozen lasagna now.

Lasagna (fresh, homemade) with warmed French baguette, bag salad, seasoned croutons and Ranch dressing. Okay, Stouffer's is good, but nothing beats homemade, old family recipe, stack it high and wide noodled lasagna. C's second grade teacher brought this over tonight and we feasted like the Soprano's on a Sunday night.

Topping this extraordinary meal was a full-sized home-baked angel food cake with chilled fresh sugar-glazed strawberries for dessert.

Now, I've had plenty of sponge cake in my days (Twinkie's anyone), but this was my first ever foray into the angel food cake arena. Hard to believe, I know, but it's now become C's cake of choice for her birthday cake, and I will never look at the dull and boring squared off bundt cake the same again.

A half-gallon of Braum's mint chocolate chip ice cream (Wifey's fave) brought over as dessert to a main entree featuring a slightly used Action Patriot wheelchair.

The sporty coupe is decked out with cobalt blue paint, low profile 26" tubed racing tires on hardened plastic rims (new tube on the right side), crushed nylon seat and back rest and dual hand-operated hand brakes on each side for superior stopping and locking power.

Finally, another family brought over a set of vintage wooden crutches (circa 1950) that had been passed on from grandparent to grandparent and ended up collecting dust in this family's attic crawlspace. While it's not the lightweight aluminum wonders with click-stop adjustment and neoprene/silicone end tips and armpit rests, it fits with my Wife's personal vintage chic style.
Big thanks and hoo-haahs to all our lovely friends and neighbors that have participated in the "what's that family going to do for food now that S can't even stand up and walk" parade.

It's a good thing I can warm things up with the best of them.

Hoops Part 1 - I'm in the system now

2009-06-05T07:16:00.003-06:00

One of the many hoops I had to jump through on my way to my recent hard won acquisition of this...

..was to be electronically fingerprinted at the State Dept. of Education, wherein my identity and background could be checked with the OSBI.

I was more than happy to do so, since it's one of those things that I'm glad they're checking before letting anyone near my publicly schooled kids. On the other hand, it unnerved me some to think that my name was now on yet another government "list."

True, we average citizens have been providing our thumb prints for years to get our driver's license renewed, and I know I'm not the only parent in the world to have their own kid's fingerprints on file with the local law enforcement agency.

However the entire experience of actually being f-printed at the hands of a complete stranger, even if it's for innocent and law-abiding reasons, was slightly more comfortable than the few minutes between the time you realize you need to adjust your shorts, and the instant you get to.

Guys, you know exactly what I mean here.

And what exactly am I going to do with a teaching certificate in Journalism (how all my film and tv education and experience was translated into a license to teach secondary level journalism is beyond me, but there you have it)?

Who knows. But given the number of hoops I jumped through, the number of tests I've taken (still more of these on the horizon), interviews I've succumbed to and paperwork that has passed through my home office, I guess I'd better do something more with it other than hang it on the wall next to my vintage iMac "Yum" poster and collection of American Graffiti die cast cars from the Johnny Lightning collection.

Have you seen these fish?

2009-06-04T10:42:00.004-06:00

The dog days of summer are hovering on the quickly approaching horizon and already our small town is seeing a rash of theft and thievery.

$.81 for three minnows. Seems the bad economy has trickled down to live bait prices as well.

My only question (actually, I have many but this one seemed the most questionable that I could cull from this police blotter entry) is how exactly did the Bait Shop owner know there were only 3 minnows missing? The bait shops that I've visited (okay, I've been to two in my lifetime) had huge tanks full of the swimming silver fishes.

Maybe the Rainman is in charge of the minnow tank.

DO NOT make important decisions

2009-06-03T20:09:00.002-06:00

FRACTURE WITH OPEN REDUCTION
A broken bone anywhere in the body is called a fracture. You have broken ankle.

Your broken bones have been put together and held steady by use of plates, rods, pins and/or screws. A cut through the skin over the fracture was made to put these devices into the fracture. Broken bones heal best when lined up and held in place with a cast or splint. The length of time you need to wear the cast or splint depends on which bone is broken and how well your bones heal. This may take 6 - 12 weeks or longer. the metal devices may need to be removed in 1-2 years or before if they begin to cause a problem."Wifey is home and resting now, after today's out-patient procedure to get her "shinbone connected to her ankle bone..." went textbook smooth.

S's ortho cutter was a slightly bulkier and more European version of Jason Scott Lee (in his prime while filming Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) with all the personality of the 750cfm carburetor on my El Camino. Still, I find that surgeons as a group are a right serious lot and truth be told, when staring down the wrong end of a #2 scalpel, I'd prefer less "Hawkeye" Pierce antics and more Dr. Rocket Romano, if you know what I mean.

Still and all, his prognosis was honest and forthright ("I can't make you good as new, but I'll do my best") and he did manage to crack a smile and mutter the appropriately witty retort when I pulled out the old "Doctor, will she be able to play the violin, when the cast comes off?" joke.

The title for this post was culled from the myriad of printed and verbally espoused directions, instructions, orders, recovery guidelines and mandates we received from an entire staff of concerned nurses, doctors, and assorted medical personnel during the course of our most trying of days.

To bad. I think in the fog of anesthesia, some of the most important decisions can be made with little or no regret at all.

Apple Camp

2009-05-28T00:05:00.001-06:00

The email snuck into my Inbox sometime during the daylight hours and by the time I had cleaned enough paint chips from my eyes to gaze upon my iBooks' screen, it was close to midnight.

Undaunted, I attempted to log into the registration servers that Apple had set up to handle the anticipated Katrina-like flood of online requests for registration into these free Apple-store/Apple-paid-for/Apple-employee-taught workshops for kidkins.

After the first hour... of refreshing the reg site ad infinitum, I finally made it through and deftly jumped through the several hoops necessary to get C registered in the Moviemaking workshop at the Apple Store near us (there are two in my panhandled state).

But wait, we can sign up for more than one workshop?

Dive - dive - dive [klaxons going off here]

The next workshop reg only took 24-minutes of incessant clicking and refreshing to hit the server. By gosh, I got through again and am now the proud recipient of two, count 'em, two emails from my local Apple Store welcoming me and my child (ages 8-12) to the gleaming bright white store offering all things Apple.

At only 6, my youngest is not yet of "free workshop" age (just as well since she has a pretty good handle on iMovie already...Final Cut Pro is not far behind). While I'm moviemaking with C, I expect PK will just find a nice Macbook somewhere in the store and proceed to dazzle the surrounding shoppers with her trackpad prowess..."No sweetie, don't drop into the shell here at the store, that's just for home doings...I know you like practicing your Unix commands but still..."

Of course I'm kidding about that whole OSX shell thing. What do you think I'm raising here, a Unix geek?

"Did someone leave a voicemail while I was fainting?"

2009-05-27T09:48:00.002-06:00

We've had two medical setbacks while attempting to get the multiple layers of stubborn, aged, and weathered oil-based paint off of our 114-year old house.

The first was a stubborn little paint chip that somehow made it's way through my face shield and industrial-strength battle goggles, directly into the upper reaches beneath my right eyelid. No amount of flushing or filling would get that sucker out and about the time my eye had swollen up to the point that I no longer had the double eyelid so coveted by those of my race, I relinquished control of my retinal area to a trained O.D.

In a matter of seconds the good O.D. F.A.A.O. had flipped up both eyelids while scanning for errant paint chips, and swabbed a good deal of the coating my house laughable called paint out from my corneal crevices.

Ahh, much better. On to the local hardware shop for some tighter fitting goggles.

The second medical issue was a doozie. Check it out.

That's Wifey's ankle bone, which is NOT currently connected to her shin bone.

She took a tumble off our back stairs while carrying a paint try and roller full of BullsEye 1-2-3 Primer. Actually she stepped the wrong way on a tin jell-o mold that had been embedded in the dirt for several years after it somehow migrated from our sandbox to the dirt area around the steps.

But the trip to emergency wasn't the highlight of this tragic event.

Nope, it was Wifey's heroic army crawl across the backyard, up the steps she had just fallen down, through the breakfast room, into and across the mudroom floor, finally emerging out the side porch door wherein she could finally attract my attention with some well placed screams of agony and succor that gets her name into the Annals of Heroic Endeavors.

See, I was on the other side of the house, next to the roaring air conditioner fan unit, grinding away on the walls, my head fully encased in shielding and ear plugs.

Couldn't hear a blasted thing.

Doc says the x-rays were bad. Two breaks he could see, but the D.O. Ortho guy were heading to tomorrow will take a better set and be able to determine if surgery is necessary, if Wifey has a bone pin in her future, and when this blessed event will take place.

In the meantime, she's hobbling around on a set of ancient borrowed crutches, downing generic oxycodone like it's Pez candy (the yummy purple ones) and trying to get her work done from within the confines of our queen size bed.

Back at the ranch, the girl's are out of school for summer break, the barren exterior of the house beckons me with every clapboard sigh, and all those cycling rides that Wifey was planning on for this summer will have to go on without her.

Oh, and the quote that begins today's blog post? An actual utterance from Wifey the last time she got up to answer the call of nature and had to be helped back to bed when the ringing-of-the-ears and glistening-o'-the-forehead almost got the better of her.

And the phone keeps ringing as the dancers danced.

Not gone, but wishing I were...

2009-05-16T00:11:00.000-06:00

My dry spell of posting has a light at the end of a dust filled tunnel.

Here's what has been zapping my energy and consuming my grinding days for the last couple of weeks.

Sorry for the un-neighborly mess, but it seems the previous owners of our 114-year old house neglected to scrape the paint on the clapboard siding down to the wood before repainting...ever.

So my F-i-L and I are taking grinders in hand, along with a few dozen boxes of 40-grit flap discs, and attacking the caked-on, solidified, and Oklahoma-weather hardened poor-excuse-for-paint that coats our humble abode.

Some interesting exchanges from drop-in visitors (fascinated by our daily progress) have taken place, some humorous, some irritating.

The most reflective conversations usually start something like this..."Hey, they are really making progress on your house," or "Wow, they are scraping your house clean, aren't they?"Problem is, there is no "they." There is only we...my F-i-L and I.

And scraping is hardly the most accurately descriptive word I'd use in describing the process we've had to undergo to remove the mother-of-all old paint from this old house.

We went to 40-grit flap discs when the 60 just got gummed up after several passes down a couple of clapboards. My F-i-L has resorted to using a propane torch and/or heatgun to melt down the several layers of resin-like coating that seems to occupy the north side walls. And I had to finally retire my new wonder tool that I specifically purchased for the paint removal duties on the house when the specially formulated 3M pads made for the tool ended up costing me more to purchase in the mass quantities that my housepaint from h#ll required, than a day-laborer with a scraper and sharpening stone would set me back.

Inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot, board-by-board and wall-by-wall, I curse the previous owners of my house in their neglectful ways of paint preparation and vow with every uncovering of naked wooden clapboard that no new paint will be applied to that which was applied with malice and maliciousness by a previous mortgage holder.

Why, oh, why doesn't Earl Scheib paint houses...

Joisey Joe comes to my small town

2009-04-29T00:01:00.000-06:00

The time has finally come to get some siding up on our bathroom/tower extension. Keeping it local is what living in a small town is all about, so we made the 4-block drive to our local lumber yard and found our options for siding that matched our 114-year old clapboard cladding somewhat limited, but satisfactorily within our ways and means.

The fella who helped us wasn't from 'round these parts, as articulated by his dialectally discernible accent, punctuated by his pronunciation of his home state of New "Joisey."

His tale of pomp and circumstances of how he, his son, and old yeller lab made it from the boardwalks of Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and the Sopranos to our little corner of middle Okie heaven involve the 8.3% unemployment rate in his home state (something like 1.6 million jobs lost), and the opportunities for a fresh start, employment in a field of familiarity, and lower living costs.

My entire realm of experience and knowledge of the Garden state comes from listening to Springsteen songs, watching Kevin Smith flickers, and undertaking marathon sessions of Diners, Drive-In's and Dives on the Food Network, yet we communicated on a level unique to immigrants everywhere -- of things missed from back home, and the pluses and minuses of where we are now.

When asked how he's coping with going from New Jersey, which has the highest population density of any state to Oklahoma, which ranks 36th in terms of people per square foot, Joisey Joe commented, "a guy doesn't have to drive very far to be alone with his thoughts out here..."

Indeed.

Quiet, testing in progress...flatulance allowed

2009-04-28T06:18:00.000-06:00

A better part of my free daytime hours last week was spent as a TM.

That's Test Monitor to the untrained.

The Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests (OCCT) are part of the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) testing that instigated a few years ago. The third grade tests consist of Math and Reading with the students writing their answers in the actual test booklet (no scantron answer sheets just yet).

My job as TM consisted basically of making sure the teachers don't cheat. That's right, I was responsible for each and every test booklet that was handed out to the class of which I was assigned.

I was instructed not to let a single booklet out of my sight for fear that 1) a test booklet would go missing and end up for sale on eBay, 2) a rogue teacher would fill in the answers for a more academically challenged student and 3) the costs involved with the scandal that would ensue had a booklet ended up in the "wrong" hands, not to mention the financial end of reprinting and retesting test booklets was enough to warrant a full-time test booklet monitor.

Pretty easy duty for a casual observer, who knew and trusted the teacher that I was assigned to monitor. But given that I was not to talk to the teacher or any student during the actual testing, nor was I to answer any questions related to the testing in any way, my shining personality and sparkling school volunteer demeanor had little bearing on my time spent in-classroom.

A few observations on the third graders over whom I lorded over via test booklet monitoring for those three days (I'll reserve my opinion on standardized testing and the whole "No child left behind" issue for a more appropriate forum)...
Yawning for third-graders is dangerously contagious, and seems to run in sets of three.

I can see why Ticonderoga pencils are favored amongst test monitors. Their hexagonal design with six equally flat surface areas provide for fewer pencil desk roll-offs than the rounded-type available in bulk through the Oriental Trading catalog.

Almost across the board, the girls finished the reading sections first, while the boys finished the math first.

Out of 17-students, I counted 6 southpaws. This seemed like a higher than normal average of righties-to-lefties to me, but I left my statistician hat back in my college statistics 210 class, so who knows.

Student farting is more prevalent than one might think in a classroom of 17 third graders. And while the students were so focused on their tests that they were seemingly unaffected by the momentary passing of the gas by their fellow test takers, us mature Test Monitor's weren't so fortunate as the suppression of silly, immature giggles was borderline painful to endure.

The Commissioners, The Famer and Me

2009-04-13T00:01:00.007-06:00

I spotted the familiar face of a fellow Soccer Dad at his desk in the County Assessors office. Yelling across the vast room to each other like drunk OU fanboys, Soccer Dad pointed me to where I needed to go, quantifying his directions with an inquisitive raised eyebrow and friendly warning to just head for the room where "all the arguing is coming from."

Swell.

Three of the five County Commissioners were present (enough for a majority voting quorum) as well as the County Clerk and the County Sheriff ("How those new Chargers working for the Deputies?" I asked him. "Oh, they'll do 120 easy," he replied."). In the back I noticed the editor of our local news rag sitting quietly, notebook in hand.

I was first on the agenda. Agenda? Just what the heck was I doing at a County Commissioner's meeting?

Seems the artist who wanted to restore "The Farmer" statue had requested a few dollars from the county to go towards the new bronze version of the 33-year old pitchfork wielding quikrete figure. My presence at this meeting was requested to provide some background (what little I had turned up) on the statue and to help make the case for some of our counties taxpayer dollars to be used for the project.

The artist had raised the majority of funds for the bronze through private party donations, and considering the statue was originally dedicated to the residents of the county, and the statue itself sat in front of the county courthouse building, it didn't seem too much of a stretch to ask the County for a few bucks.

So, I got up, did my song-and-dance about how the previous perpetrators of the project originally intended for the statue to be made of bronze, and had they followed through with their original intent, we wouldn't be here talking about needing to revamp the existing statue, since a metal Farmer would have stood the last three+ decades with more fortitude.

My droning went on as I revealed that my digging a few feet deeper turned up a link to an art inventory catalog conducted and maintained by the Smithsonian Institution. Back in 1996 they surveyed our local farmer and categorized him as constructed of "metal" whose condition was in "need of treatment."

Even the Smithsonian was led astray.

I also discovered the original artist to be long deceased, but his offspring are still alive and kicking in various parts of the state.

Had I been an investigative journalist with nothing better to do, my next step would have been to chase down the family lead, along with surveying any surviving American Legion vets from the 70's who may have first hand knowledge of 1) whether or not they did indeed raise the funds for the bronze, and 2) if they did cough of the dough for a bronze statue, were they aware that their promised metal figurine was instead delivered in Quikrete.

However, seeing the old news hound editor furiously scribbling on his notepad (later asking me which particular issues of "his" newspaper I had found my information in) put my mind at ease that at least somebody would be hunting down leads, and tracking the whereabouts of the missing bronze.

The next day, this article turned up in the local news rag.

Funny thing is, the article all but states that I'm the Johnny-on-the-spot, man-on-the-case in tracking down the molds for the original bronze casting, when all I remember saying was that I had uncovered evidence that a mold had been made and that the surviving family of the original artist may have some knowledge of the background of the bronze-that-never-was.

In an effort to put this "Farmer" to rest, I may make a few phone calls and see what else I can find out about this small town mini-mystery.

My only fear being, what funny bone this skeleton may be holding onto as I pull it further out of it's 33-year old resting place.

OKDad and the Case of the Missing Farmer

2009-04-10T20:18:00.000-06:00

An ongoing project of mine has been to research and write the text for a series of historical markers that dot the sidewalks of my small town's downtown district. It's been a good exercise regime for the research muscles in my brain and has introduced me to the colorful past of my adopted hometown. The experience thus far has also been rewarding in that I'm doing my part to preserve a bit of how we got here and where we came from.

Although I think the "historical walking tour in-progress" has had little to no impact on tourism, local interest, and citizen apathy, a local artist noticed enough to ask me to contribute to an art restoration project currently underway.

Back in 1976 when the entire country was scrambling to spend Bicentennial funds being allotted to communities throughout our then 200-year old this-land-is-your-land, a group of "concerned citizens" led by the venerable local American Legion chapter decided to fund a life size bronze of a typical farmer, called "The Farmer."

Catchy.

The good citizenry rallied around the oh-so-starred-and-striped project, started a fund drive, commissioned an artist from up north to create the sculpture. In the interim, local merchants and volunteers bricked up a pedestal to mount the thing on and a concave backdrop wall was erected behind the entire setup. For good measure they dropped two time capsules into the pedestal and had a bronze plaque mounted on the wall.

My role in the restoration project would be to research and pen the text for two additional plaques to be placed on a newly constructed pedestal for the statue. Plaque one will tell a little history on the statue itself, while the second one will provide some background on the significance of "The Farmer" to the creation and continued existence of my small town.

It was while conducting said research that I upturned yet another rock, uncovering yet another skeleton in the closet of my small towns past.

Every published account from 33-years ago dealing with the creation, erection, and dedication of The Farmer lists the statue as being of bronze construction. Several pictures were taken and published of the artist working on the piece, including one that shows molds being taken of the clay original to be used in the bronze casting process. I even found an account listing the fund raising efforts being made on behalf of the American Legion to cover the costs of the bronze figure.

Only problem is, The Farmer that stands in front of my small town's courthouse on Main Street is not made of bronze. He's some sort of hardened concrete-plaster hybrid (according to the Artist planning to restore it).

Had he been made of the brown ferrous metal, no restoration efforts would be needed for another 100 years or so.

So, what happened to the bronze? He was planned as a bronze. Molds of him were made in preparation for a bronze. Funds were apparently raised for him to be cast in bronze. The papers from July 4, 1976 (the day he was dedicated and unveiled) clearly state he is a statue of bronze stature.

So, where's the bronze?

To be continued...

A law for everything

2009-04-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

I'll close this week and leave our SoCal Spring Break '09 trip behind with a little reminder, courtesy of the line at one of the great roller coasters at Knott's.

When an adventurous archeologist from the far flug future, digs this sign up in the dry desert wasteland that our planet is destined to become, what will this artifact tell her/him/it about our society?

Steve Martin and the boysenberry

2009-04-02T00:00:00.000-06:00

According to author Heather Waite, Barbie Dolls, blue jeans, the boysenberry, the pill, white zinfandel wine, the square tomato, natural soda, the computer “mouse,” the wetsuit, and theme parks were invented in California.

Wait, the boysenberry? Surely you jest.

In fact, comic genius Steve Martin (okay, I'm not gonna argue with you on this point, but when I saw Steve live at the Anaheim convention center right after the release of his first comedy album, Let's get small, only a comic genius could me me laugh as hard as I did) developed what would become his signature comedy style at the same place where the beloved boysenberry was created.

Ladies and gents, I give you America's first theme park, Knott's Berry Farm.

According to his recent biography, Born Standing Up: A Comics Life (a great read, btw), Steve developed his live audience entertaining chops here...

And expanded his repertoire of magic tricks he learned while working at Disneyland here...

See page 58-59 of the book mentioned above for references to the Bird Cage Theater or listen to an NPR interview with Steve.

And the boysenberry? Well, seems old man Knott took some dying plants that were crossbreeds of the red raspberry, blackberry and loganberry, figured out how to get them to grow and named it after the guy who brought him the feeble plants to begin with, Rudolph Boysen. Today, all the boysenberry plants in the world can be traced back to Knott's. Pretty cool.

These amazing facts and other thrilling adventures awaited the girls and I as we took on the park with my Dad and Stepmom in tow, at the end of our So Cal Spring break trip.

Yes, I did ride the rides...even THOSE rides.
Yes, we did eat chicken dinners.
Yes, the girls did pan for gold.
And of course, we bought some boysenberry preserves.

Begin the Beguine

2009-04-01T11:54:00.004-06:00

I began the dance.

The dance made it through the first year.

And a second.

To a third.

To here. Now. 4 years since I changed the lives of my family unit and I.

And the dance continues.
Play it Artie...

Traffic legs

2009-03-31T02:32:00.000-06:00

While it had only been a little over a year since I was back in LA for more than a short weekend visit, it surprised me how long it took me to get my rush hour "traffic legs" back under my feet.

Staying road-rage mellow was a bit easier, however, given the looks Wife and I would exchange with every bumper-to-bumper jam we found ourselves in.

A sly smile and raised eyebrow was all it took to remind each other that we were only visiting. This wasn't our life anymore and distance, rather than number of cars and time of day, now dictated our prairie land drive time allocation.

Course, beauty can be found just about everywhere, even on the 10 Freeway.

I always smiled when I found myself behind one of these highly polished beauties while hightailing it along the freeways and byways of SoCal. In my mind, only LA trucking companies care enough to ensure their trucks (for the most part) are not muddy, road dirt soaked eyes sores.

Keep on Truckin'...and smiling.

At least helicopters don't poop

2009-03-30T09:26:00.002-06:00

There's a classic frenetic montage sequence in Scorsese's GoodFellas, wherein Ray Liotta's character is constantly watching the skies for law enforcement helicopters who are tracking his every move - "All day long the poor guy's been watching helicopters and tomato sauce."

Our recent trip back to my pre-OK stomping grounds in So Cal had me chopper scanning as well.

It was a lovely spring day in Century City. The daytime temps were in the low-70's, traffic was light (we were heading west at 10 a.m. when most commuters were heading east), and the smog level was just light enough to make locals sound convincing when they stated, "that's not smog, that's low lying haze..."

The family unit and I were visiting my B-i-L at his office in the Die Hard Building aka the Nakatomi Building, in reality known as the Fox Plaza. After a quick tour around the building we jumped into a golf cart and trucked on over to the Fox Studios lot for lunch at the lot cafe, aptly named Moe's Grill.

The inside dining area was abuzz with studio folk watching one of the dozen or so giant wall mounted monitors spewing forth any number of Fox channels, Fox programs, Fox movies, or Fox commercials for Fox channels, Fox programs and Fox movies.

We chose to eat outside.

As the girls snarffed on their grilled cheese sandwiches, danced around the grassy areas, and begged us to go exploring among the back lot buildings and fake street facades, B-i-L, S and I had a pleasant lunch.

Until the choppers came. Three of them. Circling our position like turkey buzzards over a family of freshly roadkilled opossums on a county road.

While we spouted out guesses for the myriad of reasons so many helicopters would be converging on such a small chunk of flyover real estate (one vote for high speed pursuit, one vote for bank robbery, one vote for nearby filming -- after all, we were on a movie lot) the girls excitedly watched the whirlybirds pass over head, probably wondering where the tractor accident was that caused the mediflight chopper to come into town to take the wounded Farmer to the hospital in the city.

Okay, I'm theorizing on that last part, but since the only helicopters the girls get to see in the skies above our small town are usually one-way flights to the OU medical center with some unfortunate victim of a heinous tractor accident onboard, you can see why my mind drifted in that direction.

The choppers finally left, we finished our lunch, the girls got to peek inside a few sound stages and act out imaginary scenes on the backlot, while S and I counted about 358 Prius hybrids in the parking lot.

Our next encounter with a flight of choppers occurred during an early evening patio dinner atop the Mount Washington home of some good friends. Same scenario. We're eating, talking, drinking, and theorizing why a bevy of the rotored beasts are circling overhead.

Home invasion robbery, chasing a suspect through a neighborhood, high speed pursuit ending, Keanu Reeves sighting at the Baskin Robbins. Take your pick.

During the week the girls became pretty good at spotting the whoop-whoop-whooping copters overhead. Once at the cemetary, once at Disneyland, once at Knott's, and several times over my Mom's San Gabriel valley based condo.

Who knew there were so many tractor accidents in LA.

RAHN-DEE BAAH-SUU!

2009-03-27T00:01:00.003-06:00

One of the benefits (yes, my fellow small town hovelians --just made that word up...like it-- there are benefits) of living in an area the size of SoCal is the cultural diversity that can be viewed on local television.

So culturally diverse in fact that I actually witnessed a pop-cultural reference to a fellow small town Oklahoman via a Japanese language drama series broadcast over local Los Angeles tv.

It's a small world folks.

It all starts with one of our family's newest favorite people, LB. Her career path enables her to intersect and interact with many of the gentle folk who were elected to run our state government. One such person being State Senator Randy Bass of Lawton. She recently relayed the story of Senator Bass to Wifey and what a story it is.

In a nutshell, Randy Bass was a major league ball player from Oklahoma who went on to achieve superstar status as a member of the Hanshin Tigers pro baseball team in Japan. He is now a public servant for District 32 in our state, but still enjoys cult-like status in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The curse associated with Bass and the Tigers is the stuff of sports legend and you owe it to yourself to bone up on the details of the story here.

When Wifey relayed the background of Randy Bass to me via LB's anecdote, I thought it was interesting but didn't pursue any further research into the matter. After all, I'm not all that huge of a baseball fan (unless you're holding a two-fer of Dodger Dog's in my face), and while the image of a bunch of crazed Japanese baseball fans tossing a statue of Colonel Sanders (read the story) over a bridge into a river makes me shiver with anachronistic delight, the relevance to my life was lost.

Until the other evening, sitting with my Mom watching a subtitled Japanese language program on local SoCal tv. The dramady we were watching centered around a group of misfit high-schoolers who were attempting to form a baseball team at their school to help keep them out of detention.

I had minutes ago finished telling my Mom about the whole "Randy Bass" cult and the Curse of the Colonel in Japan, when one of the characters on the show hits an unexpected home run, drops his bat, tosses him arms triumphantly in the air and jubilantly screams out loud, "RAHN-DEE BAAH-SUU!"**

So there it was, in digitized living color. A pop-cultural reference to what I thought was a relatively obscure Oklahoma character, that I had only recently been made aware of, and was now being shoved in my apathetic consciousness by the wonders of a subtitled J-tv program.

Face it, if your name makes it into a tv show as a pop culture reference, you must be something big.

I give you State Senator Randy Bass, public servant, Baseball god, Colonel Sanders look-a-like (I don't get that one, but okay), and proud Okie.

**This was my phonetically spelled version of how the non-English/Japanese speaking actor pronounced the name, Randy Bass. Here's another one for you to translate...Maku-do-na-du-do's" -- think fast food and the golden arches.

The de-EVO-lution of my senses

2009-03-26T09:58:00.004-06:00

Meeting gearheads in my small town is a relatively easy exercise. You alley walk.

For a three block radius from the main drag in town, situated behind the houses that line the residential streets are driveway alleys. They provide convenient rear entry access for the homeowners, relatively unfettered gathering right-of-way for our bi-weekly trash pick up (you heard me, twice a week my refuse is swept away), and the perfect p.o.v. ingress for garage voyeur opportunities.

On more than one happy occasion I've struck up friendly conversations with folks both under hood and under chassis while walking the family hound up and down the alleys.

Once I clearly identify myself as not being affiliated in any way with one of the many religious organizations who prey, um I mean, witness their messages of peace and love via doorbell rings or driveway interventions, my small town neighbors have shown 100% favorable reaction to my alleywalk impromptu gearhead visitations.

And while the temptation to join my new found motorhead mates in synergistic internal combustion bonding has been great at times ("If you have another ratchet, I'll change the left bank plugs while you do the right..."), I generally scoot on my way content with the knowledge that the fine art of shade tree mechanicking is still alive and running at 8000 rpms in my small town.

Fast Rewind to last week and my family's brief Spring Break-o-rama at my Mom's So Cal condo digs.

I spotted this spanking Evo poking it's perky nose out the front of it's garage while taking out the trash one morning. Walking by I noticed a pair of feet sticking out from under the tail of the ramped up rear-end, alongside a shiny new cat-back aftermarket exhaust setup sitting on the floor. Ah-hah, I exclaimed, as my brain signaled some performance modding occurring in the general vicinity.

My flip-flopped steps combined with the thunderous sound the dumpster lid barked as it slammed shut onto my deposited trash caused the Evo mechanic to look out and around his project. The sight of me smiling like a garage-snooping-small-town-alley-walker must have freaked him out some, as he just kinda scowled, checked around his immediate area to see if something had gone missing, and called (in Chinese, I'm guessing) to an unseen person in the kitchen area located adjacent to the garage.

I was about to utter, "nice car..." but the survival instincts ingrained in my brain as a born and bred Los Angeleno finally awoke from it's small town slumber. As my gray matter database of city living accessed how my actions could be interpreted and misconstrued as an invasion of privacy, my casing a joint for future theft, or even challenging in an aggressive manner, my feet carried me quickly away.

Out of the corner of my eye two additional fellows emerged from the kitchen area. I knew better than to turn around for a looksee, but my gut told me that all three sets of eyes followed me on my hasty retreat to "my side of the condo complex."

So now I'll be on the lookout for any Evo owners on my alley walks in my small town to see if they're all that cranky or paranoid.

Keeping my distance of course.

1000 words or more, "What I did over Spring Break" essay

2009-03-24T00:01:00.001-06:00

So, how'd your first day back at school after Spring Break go?

I figured it was an innocent enough question. My 9-year old hasn't yet developed the swarmy sarcasm of a text-crazed teenager, so I expected a fairly straightforward answer to my probing query.

Not to be.

As C launched into her retelling of her day, and how she...(taking a deep breath)

...told about a "zillion" kids how the entire family flew to California for Spring Break, stayed with my Mom, went to visit our old house, ate sushi till we barfed, watched Mommy's eyes glaze over at her favorite Thai restaurant as they brought out dish-after-dish of her "deserted-island meal," watched my Mom's treasured dvd of Mamma Mia about a "zillion" times, went to visit several old friends - one of which was C's pre-school heartthrob (she was capital N-ervous), spent a mid-week/hardly-any-crowds day at the OG House of Mouse, spent another where-the-heck-are-the-crowd's day at Knott's, shopped, learned to play Do-Re-Mi on my Mom's piano, ate pastrami dips at The Hat, Hawaiian soul food at Bob's Okazuya, some home cookin' at my Mom's, dim sum from a hole-in-the-wall dive on Garfield Blvd, and along with easily a "zillion" other satisfied customers since 1920, snarffed on the absolutely best fried chicken west of the Rockies at Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant.

There was more, but I'm paraphrasing.

Really, I am.

"So, did any of your other friends do something fun over the break?" was my follow-up question, overly confident that C's description of our whirlwind week in my old stomping grounds was enough to make even the most jaded 3rd grader take notice.

"Well, Madolyn told everyone she got a new heifer and they all thought that was the coolest."

A heifer. Really.

Sorry Gover-nator Schwarzenegger, your golden state may be cool, but in the eyes of my small town's 3rd grader's, a young female cow is the b-o-m-b.

Locker room secrets

2009-03-12T09:34:00.002-06:00

"I never thought I'd ever see all of my friends totally naked...it was so, so weird!"Those were the first words out of my 9-year old's mouth as she climbed into the back of my two-toned ricer after school the other day.

The auspicious occasion wherein she was placed in the "so-so weird" situation of seeing her fem-school budkins sans clothing was the community pool locker room. Her entire grade was getting a few hours of away-from-school-and-into-the-pool time courtesy of the principals deep pockets as a reward for passing their 0-9 times tables tests.

When the note came home indicating the requirements for participation being 1)bring swimsuit and towel, 2)plastic bag to keep wet items in and 3)do not wear swimsuit underneath regular clothing, I knew we'd have to have a talk about the pre-swimming activities.

And we did.

However, the reality of disrobing out of her drysuit and into her wetsuit in front of others must not have sunk in, judging by her opening statement upon days end pick up.

C started going into detail on the events of the locker room tomfoolery, who ducked into a toilet stall to change, who chose to utilize the privacy of the showers, and who was small enough to actually fit into the full-length lockers for a bit of isolation.

By the time we had rolled home and were jumping into afternoon snack/homework doing time, she started going down the list of who she actually saw sans clothing -- at which point I grew uncomfortable and stopped her flaming lips.

What followed was an unusual conversation between myself and my 9-year old about the theories behind locker room gossip, the complicated concept of personal space, and the unwritten codes of behavior and privacy that both girls and boys share.

Truth be told, I was pretty vague on that last point, especially the girls part.

Okay, I was vague on the boys part too, since, I didn't think it was the appropriate time to explain to her why men tend to favor looking straight ahead, or straight down when we pee or shower in group situations.

At which point I made a mental note to make sure Wifey brought the topic up at their nightly tuck-in talk.

Heavens to Murgatroyd. Exit, stage left.

Tastes as good as it looks...a bad thing

2009-03-11T11:49:00.000-06:00

Wifey brought home something called Cain's Ultra Select Green Tea (Japanese style) last night and almost choked up her upper GI track this morning as she was drinking a cup on her daily commute.

During the phone call wherein she poetically espoused the negative aspects of the green tea, I took a gander at the packaging wherein the most heinous of warm tea-like beverage was contained. Here is what I saw.

Now, I'm no advertising exec.,nor am I a paid art critic, but c'mon, this is substandard even by my substandard's of packaged artwork.

However, since the taste of the tea apparently accurately reflects the cheesiness of the packaging, perhaps the artist who created the masterpiece can be forgiven if he was wholly motivated by what lie beneath the folded boxes contents.

Hard to be creative when you gagging I suppose.

I'm not blaming Cain's here. Apparently the Cain's Coffee company has ceased to exist for some time now, having been sold to Nestle in 1960, Chock Full O Nuts in 1992, and Sara Lee in 1999.

Why stymies me is that Sara Lee's coffee and tea division apparently makes some decent selling hot beverage products.

Yet nowhere on their Brands website can the Cain's logo or product line be found.

In '03 Cain's Oklahoma coffee and production plant was closed and even though the grocery story shelves throughout the panhandle state still devote an enormous amount of shelf space to the perceived "Made in Oklahoma" line of Cain's products, they only thing remotely "Cain's" about it is the name on the label.

Another fine Oklahoma institutional product, relegated to ugly stepchild status.

At least the ultra-cool Cain's Ballroom is still rockin' and rollin' and swingin' and swayin'.

Wonder what kind of tea they serve there? Hope it's not green.

Buttoned up

2009-03-10T12:03:00.000-06:00

The deal was, we'd take the girls to see Coraline, if and when C finished reading the book on which the movie was based.

That same deal worked out pretty well for The Tale of Despereax, the author of which my 9-year old is now listing as one of her favorite writers.

She buzzed through Coraline far faster than even I had anticipated and no sooner than we had said "my other mother," the family unit was chowing down on multiplex popcorn and watching the credits roll.

It was a typical movie going experience, at least for us. S was nonplussed (she can't seem to get past animated flicks), PK complained about her feet falling asleep when she forgot to rotate her sitting position, and C and I had a lively discussion as soon as the house lights came up comparing the differences between the book and movie versions (I read the book one night after she finished it...really enjoyed it).

The next morning I woke up early, scrounged around our sewing kit, got Wifey to play along and we both quickly lay back in bed, our eyes shut tightly and covered with a pair of these....

PK came downstairs first. Our eyes "buttoned" shut, Wifey and I could only hear what was transpiring, but it was enough to paint a picture.

Our youngest saw us in bed, eyes buttoned up.
She pauses, not saying a word.
She tears off upstairs, heads down the hall and into her big sisters bedroom.
They talk. They pause. They think. They head downstairs, whispering along the way.

Upon spying our practical joke, C gave a knowing chuckle out loud and the jig was up. PK later told her that she first thought we were giving ourselves "spa treatments with cucumbers, but then she realized they were buttons on our eyes and that the movie had come true."

If none of this makes any sense, go check out Coraline at a theater or in the young adult section in a library near you.

Haunting our resort room boob tube

2009-02-27T00:01:00.001-06:00

The drive down to Frederick for the Oyster feed was long enough that the Wifey and I decided to make a weekend out of it and find some interesting digs to cohabit with our girlies in tow.

We ended up at this plushy palace of southwestern Oklahoma charm.

Wifey had known about the amenities at Quartz Mountain for awhile, and it's reputation as a world-class (and I don't use the "world" word lightly here) artist retreat/colony even managed to permeate the mitochondria in my memory cells some time ago. But who knew a cushy, resort resided in the dramatic mounds and valleys of the Wichita Mountain range.

We took advantage of their $59 room special (as did my in-laws who joined us for the mollusk madness), spent the evenings exploring the galleries and sharing the heated pool water with Dieter, Greta, Helga and Otto, a foursome of tourists from Munich in search of the real America (not their real names, but hey, I took Spanish in HS, not German).

Check-out day morning we gorged ourselves on surprisingly edible hotel buffet fare and hiked it off taking in several of the nature trails that surround the resort. The cave trail was a thrill for the girls, while my F-i-L seemed preoccupied with his search for deer, elk, and turkey signs. Several times I noticed him reaching around back for his shoulder slung rifle that wasn't there as he blazed the trail for us, mighty sprightly for a man of his age I might add.

The only "made-us-go-hmm" moment of our stay came when we scanned the channels of the hotel supplied cable tv and found this image occupying the digital bandwidth on channel 78.

The image on the tube is exactly as we saw it...frozen in time, no audio, no 60 cycle hum, no character generator scroll running along the bottom warning us of the impending switchover to digital signal.

Just this image.

Examine if you will, as we did, and you'll notice quirky details in the picture. I'm toying with an appropriate caption for the shot. So far my choices are:"Laura and Luke enjoying their final cup of coffee moments before being attacked by three enormous french roast coffee beans from behind."

"Jack Black travels back in time to have a cup of joe with Janis Joplin, but suffers from temporary blindness due to a malfunction in his DeLorean's flux capacitor."

"Celebrating the release of the seasons 1-3 of the landmark 90's television series Friends on Blu-ray DVD, Ariel and Ishmael enjoy a cup of coffee and attempt to harmonize the lyrics to the theme song, "I'll be there for you."
Okay smarty pants, you come up with something better...

And visit beautiful Quartz Mountain while you're at it. If you're lucky, these two will still be drinking their joe on channel 78.

Burping oysters for 20 years

2009-02-24T12:00:00.000-06:00

A referral and personal invite from a lovely lass in Wifey's office who calls the uber-cool burg of Frederick, Oklahoma her home town, found the family unit and I spending a fall-like February day consumed by (and later consuming) mass quantities of bivalve mollusks fresh from the gulf coast.

It was Oyster Fry time in Frederick.

I know what you're thinking and I know that look that crept across your face as I strung together fresh seafood and Oklahoma in the same sentence. It's the same look I get whenever we're sitting at a sushi bar in the city and the chef assures us that the fatty tuna is fresh, fresh, fresh -- saying it three times in a row in a charming attempt to assuage our fears of nematode laden raw fish.

But some casual fryer-side questioning of the man who oversees the transport of the raw oysters from the gulf coast fishing docks to the Frederick community center kitchen in a matter of hours put my mind at ease.

As did the first, second, fifth, seventh, (uggh), and twelfth bites of fresh, raw, ice cold oysters, dabbled with tabasco and a squooge of lemon juice, with nary of hint of fishiness or aquarium essence to be found.

And while freshness is no guarantee of a roundworm free dining experience, I made sure to down a half-dozen of the cracker-breading fried shellfish wonders for good measure.

This being an Oklahoma culinary institution, the brimming platter of fundraising comestibles included a generous scoop of coleslaw, a handfull of Ruffles, some fresh from the can S.E. Rykoff green beans, water and/or tea, all topped off with a squeezable slice of Wonder bread.

Someone down Frederick way also came up with a red sauce that was the perfect blend of smooth, bite, sweet, and Cajun sassy-ness that they were more than generous handing out for oyster dipping madness.

While the ratio of fried to raw eaters was somewhere in the 80:20 range, those whom I observed were joining me in the partaking of the raw gems seemed to be imbibing with gusto. Although admittedly, the joy of grossing out fried-only oyster eaters with every uncooked bite/chew/and swallow is almost as enjoyable as eating the little slippery suckers themselves.

A craft show, art exhibit and personally guided tour of the charming historic downtown district topped off the day and kept us burping oysters into the crisp southwest Oklahoma afternoon.

Wifey ate and enjoyed her first oysters. C did as well. One. PK liked poking the raw ones.

Thanks for the day, LB.

TLA of the Day

2009-02-23T11:47:00.001-06:00

In four short years I've gone from using such common internet software related TLA's as TCP/IP, FTP, ICQ, LAN, UFS, WWW, RSS, and XML in my daily conversation, to this one...

PBR

-- which I uttered the other day to my Wife at dinnertime while discussing current local events.

Don't know what PBR is? Well then, I guess you're not from 'round these parts.

Actually, PBR may be coming to an indoor arena near you. Check this website for a schedule.

And no, I've never been.

Big moo cows scare me.

Letter box for the week is Y

2009-02-20T09:27:00.001-06:00

Every week, PK's kinder class discusses the traits and characteristics of a specific letter of the alphabet. The payoff comes on Friday when the students are encouraged to bring an item from home that reflects the particular letter of their weekly study.

Last week it was the letter Y.

All week long PK ruminated and contemplated on what her show-and-tell letter item would be.

The obvious items (at least in her 5-year old mind), a yo-yo, a ball of yarn, one of her Mommy's Yo Yo Ma CD's (it was a gift), a yard stick, a calendar ("It's a whole year, Daddy!") were all summarily dismissed as "what everyone else will bring."

As she ate her breakfast Trix/Yoplait yogurt one morning, it dawned on her that yogurt started with a Y and if only she could bring enough to share with the class, she'd be in like flint.

Our grocery budget nixed that idea.

Finally, one night after practicing some yoga moves on the Wii Fit, she announced that instead of bringing something for letter box show-and-tell, she would do some yoga poses for the class.

And that she did.

Although we weren't present to witness the event, she was apparently a hit, and may have sparked a budding career as a yoga yogi, leading her other kinder classmates in the Warrior, Triangle and Tree poses, constantly reminding them of the importance of breathing.

I knew that Wii would be a good investment.

Subscriptions down two

2009-02-13T16:06:00.001-06:00

Well, the economic south bound freight train has finally breached the sacred confines of our small town hovels mailbox...and my wife is taking her frustrations out on Martha Stewart.

Let me explain.

After making the move to larger pastures, our family mantra has been to streamline where we could, which included taming our magazine subscription splurges.

I've cut out all of my subscriptions entirely, choosing instead to gather my current info online, at our local libraries surprisingly well stocked magazine section, or while standing in line at the supermarket -- can you believe that Patrick Swayze...he's so inspiring...

Okay, I do have a multi-year sub to Hot Rod, only because it was a gift.

Since my M-i-L is a self-professed magazine addict, most of her periodic publications makes their way to our house by way of the weekly underground railway between her armchair and our breakfast dining area.

And even my lovely spouse had managed to whittle her ever expanding list of interests down to two single, favorite subscriptions -- Cottage Living and Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion.

Having narrowed her focus down to these two monthly glossies, naturally she reacted to their monthly arrival with vim and vigor. Like a mother hen who loses all but two of her eggs to the sly chicken hawk, Wifey was protective and covetous of the remaining home delivered publications.

Then the bomb dropped. Twice.

In the last two consecutive months, S has received notices that both of her beloved magazines are ceasing publication due to dropping subscription numbers and lack of advertisement interest.

While the notices she received were pleasant and upbeat, promising to credit her remaining subscription dollars with an equal number of home delivered copies of Martha Stewart's Living and Southern Living, respectively, the damage had been done.

My Wife's outlook on daily mail delivery will never be the same.

And holding up my latest issue of Hot Rod and offering to share my thoughts on cam selection for a 500 hp small block Mopar build up didn't ease her pain.

For now I'll just have to be patient and join her in taking out her frustrations by disdainfully criticizing the "yankee-inspired" design sense of Martha Stewart in her monthly rag.

Could be fun.

Storm basement follies

2009-02-11T08:41:00.004-06:00

The historic high rise my Wife works in has several below ground basement levels.

On the rare occasion when tornado sirens wail through the alleys and narrow streets adjoining the downtown district, the tenants of her building make their way to the lowest levels of the historic center and sit out the closing tornadic activity in climate controlled comfort.

Other than the normal conversations that erupt when folks are gathered underground waiting out a passing wonder of Oklahoma weather, modern technology has enabled two-way communication with those on the "outside" as well.

Fingers fly over miniscule keyboards, sending digital updates and messages of relief or concern to friends and loved ones.

Cell phones flip, click, flop and slide open and closed as interrupted 9-5er's seek information of events occurring outside the safety of their concrete and steel block size tomb.

People gather around laptops that are wirelessly streaming the latest video feeds from the local news stations as they kick into high gear and cherish the opportunity to flex their weather reporters muscles.

Somewhere in the serene chaos, my Wife notices the husband of a friend of hers among the not-quite huddling masses. She described him as "texting furiously" on one of his micro-qwertied electronic communication wonders, while dealing with "a continuous barrage of incoming calls on his cell phone."

So engrossed was he in his dissemination of both verbal and written digitized information that my Wife didn't bother to engage him in any conversation, but managed to sneak in a quick "hey-wave" of cordial acknowledgment.

Like most tornado warnings, this one passed, but was soon followed up with a twin doppelganger of duck and cover twister warnings soon after.

When the third (and final) tornado warning was called off about the same time the guy at the Slade Gravel pit was yanking on the birds tail sending Fred Flintstone for a rail slide down the tail of his brontosaurus, Wifey caught up with "husband of friend" guy on a rare moment of non-communication calm.

Why the fast and furious phone/text fest during the warnings?

Turns out the guy works high up in the OKC Thunder organization, and was fielding frantic calls and text messages from panicky and distraught Seattle-ites who relocated here with the team back in July.

While they may have experienced some nasty winter weather during their previous 8-months as OKC taxpayers, and a bit of rain under the shadow of the Seattle Space Needle back home, apparently the sirens wailing in the downtown area ("Tornado's only strike trailer parks in rural areas...right?") were enough to spook the lot of them, prompting the mass exodus of Seattle Supersonic turned OKC Thunder staffers from their comfy desks and into their designated storm shelters.

And then the calls and IM's starting pouring in.

You gotta feel for these people in some little bitty way, as I outlined in a previous post.

Still and all, this was a serious round of weather, as eight good people down in Lone Grove lost their lives, and more may be found today.

Whether you came here from Seattle, So Cal, or all points in-between, when those sirens start wailing, life boils down to a few simple things.

A good lesson to carry through the coming days.

Tod and Buzz in the bath

2009-02-06T00:01:00.002-06:00

Blogger's Note - Okay, this blog post should be a two parter, but bear with me here and if you need to, read it over a two-day period to lessen the eyestrain and avoid the brain hurt.

The original plan was to have the upstairs bathroom be for the girl's to share and for the ground floor bathroom to become the domain of the adults.

As we have almost (finally) completed the 2nd level interior renovations (Stairway, 2 bedrooms, 1 office, 1 playroom, 2 hallways, 3 walk-in closets, 2 secret hiding cubbie holes, and one huge bathroom complete with two sinks, two-station make-up vanity, walk-in closet, 9-drawers, 12 cabinet doors, and a clawfoot tub) we're looking to bogart the downstairs bathroom as our own.

We celebrated by installing a new, taller 17" ADA height commode (which would have been a bit of a jump for our littlest to use on a daily basis) into OUR bathroom, while moving the standard 14.5" one into the girl's bathroom.

Their themed, brightly hued, and somewhat mismatched towels and bath supplies are upstairs; our soothing and natural matching earth toned linens now occupy OUR bath linen closet.

Little Ponies, Mermaid Barbies, Watermelon scented no-tears shampoo, Lego jetski playset, suitcases brimming with hair bobs, hair beads, hair braids, hair clips, and hair bobbles, - all upstairs.

Bath and Body works skin scrubs, Mediterranean sea sponge loofah, Arbonne hair products, and oatmeal impregnated bar soaps - downstairs.

Yep, it's good to have our own bathroom.

The only complaints have been easily rectified...so far.

First, in the hectic morning rush hour traffic that is our house, there are times when making the girls run upstairs to brush their teeth is problematic and downright cruel.
Solution - get duplicate toothbrushes for the downstairs bathroom.

Second, the sheer size and number of mirrors we installed in the upstairs bathroom was giving C the willies due to her unfortunate slumber party exposure to the legend of Bloody Mary.
Solution - I sat in the darkened bathroom with her one night, went through the whole Bloody Mary procedure and proved to her there was no such thing as Bloody Mary...well, at least one that didn't involve tomato juice and vodka.

Third, there isn't a flatscreen tv in the upstairs bathroom
Solution - uh, sorry girls, we didn't plan on installing one there. Tough luck.

Now, don't go all "that's such a guy thing, having a tv in the bathroom" on me. It was my Wife's idea. See, we watch so little tv as it is, that the only time my Wife figured she'd have the uninterrupted time to view a little of the tube, is while she bathed. The LCD models are so compact and streamline, that finding the space in the linen closet was a no brainer and when hooked up to a dvd player, bath time becomes movie time as well.

Which brings me somewhat circuitously to Tod and Buzz in the bath.

Awhile back I must have been waxing poetic about our families travels on Route 66, prompting my Mom to send me the dvd collection of the first season of the 60's tv show of the same name.

Having been born a few years after the premier of the famous tv show about two guys seeing the country from the bucket seats of a classic (then and now) Corvette, I had never seen one full episode in the comfort of my home tv. Unlike Gilligan's Island, Route 66 didn't seem all that popular with the syndicated station guys, as reruns were hard to come by.

They dvds came in a lovely boxed set, and had I been a single guy, with single guy values, single guy time, and single guy space, I would have run down to the quickie mart, bought a couple dozen diet cokes in glass bottles, some string cheese (don't ask) and a pounder bag of teriyaki beef jerky, plopped myself down in front of the tube and watched every episode of my new prized dvd collection in order.

Instead, over the last few weeks, I've had the pleasure of discovering the sheer pleasure of Route 66: The Series from the comfort and late night solitude of OUR downstairs bathroom. The roughly 46-minute episodes are broken up into 3 distinct acts, which, when split into 15-20 minute soak sessions, allows me to stretch my virgin viewings of these video gems from the past into manageable and concentrated sessions.

I had no idea of the dramatic depth and exceptional screenwriting offered by this vintage series, not to mention what sheer joy it was to see familiar locations (in and around LA) as they existed around the time of my worldly conception.

Seeing the UCLA campus that my Mom and Aunt attended in their younger days was a hoot. And the boarding house where the boys live while passing through LA looked to me to be what is now Yamashiro's restaurant in the hills above Hollywood.

The series pilot is as spooky an introduction to a tv show as I've ever seen, and having passed through many a dinky and dying town here in Oklahoma where you can feel the eyes of the downtown residents watching you drive by from behind their shuttered windows, I got the genuine creeps as Buzz and Tod fell into the hands of some nutjob local townies.

While my prospects of spending a few months traveling the Mother Road in a ragtop Vette with my best bud at my side are far behind me, I can't imagine it being anymore fun than my recent sojourns up and down Oklahoma's offering of Rt. 66 with my lovely wife and our two road trip loving girl's.

As for Tod and Buzz, well, we'll always have my bathroom and Kingman...Barstow...San Bernardino, right?

Richard Noggin called, take a message

2009-02-05T00:01:00.000-06:00

Talking in code is one of those useful skills that we as parents develop early on.

Spelling out words works fine until the kiddies learn to spell. It's a dark day in the lives of all parents hoping for moments of communicative privacy during long car trips when Junior figures out that putting letters together forms words.

The Name Game (aka the Banana Song) works until they catch the song playing on the oldies station and figure out the rules lickety-split.

Pig Latin would work just as well, however I've never been able to fully express myself using that obfuscated language method. Ix-nay on the ig-Latin-pay, or something like that.

Finally, we've turned to citing words and phrases common to our shared experiences from the past as bypasses to talking about certain topics. You know, say "Spring Break '89" and one or two shared memories pop forth, neither of which may be appropriate for young ears to hear, but help to get a point across about a certain 9-year old wanting to wear a certain inappropriate clothing item.

Then there are the more advanced forms of code-talking around the all-hearing/all-knowing/all-digesting senses of our offspring.

When conversing with her current husband about her ex-husband (and father of her eldest child), a friend of ours refers to a person known as Richard Noggin. "Richard Noggin called me today to complain about so-and-so's style of dress..."
"Ran into Richard Noggin down at the mall today with his new girlfriend and was surprised that the high schooler's were let out early today..."
"Richard Noggin forwarded another one of those emails to me today about Bill Gates giving away free money for forwarding email..."You get the idea.

Here's hoping there are no Richard Noggin's in your lives.

Blogger's note - haven't figured it out yet? Okay, here's a hint. What is the rhyming nickname for Richard aka Rick? Next, what body part is represented by the word, noggin? Party on, Wayne

Purple is the color of irony

2009-02-03T12:18:00.000-06:00

The only public stage auditorium in my small town is of pre-war construction and is located at the site of the recently demolished mid-high school. Sometime in the 60's it looks to have been updated for code and safety precautions, but the inadequate climate control and lack of modern conveniences have rendered the once grand auditorium as somewhat of a pariah in the community at large.

A future lottery winning purchase on my part indeed.

Head southwest about 50 miles into OKC proper however, and you'll find a theater showcase worthy of the traveling Broadway productions that successfully make their way to our flyover state.

The OKC Civic Center Music Hall, specifically the Performing Arts Theater is as nice a theater as I've ever had the pleasure of planting my substantial posterior in.

A few nights ago, Wifey and I had secured our grubby mitts on a pair of tickets belonging to some season ticket holders for a wink and a smile. In exchange for our profuse bows and appreciable thanks we were treated to the traveling production of Oprah's The Color Purple.

A kiddie drop off at the in-laws and quickie snarff at a local taco stand found us parking and walking to the theater a comfortable dozen or so minutes before curtain call.

My lovely Wife and I entered the theater and navigated through the entry way accompanied by an enthusiastic population of lobby loiterers, a good portion of which were of African heritage.

Scoring donated seats from long time season ticket holders placed us in the orchestra section, shoulder to shoulder with those fortunate hundred or so folks who have delegated a chunk of their disposable income to supporting the live theater experience.

The house lights dimmed, the string players rosined up their bows, and our journey of discovery into the wonderful lives of Alice Walker's inspirational characters began.

During the intermission I commented to my Wife that the politely enthusiastic reaction to the play of those we were sitting with was in stark contrast to the raucously ebullient response on display from the upper tiers of the theater.

While it hadn't dawned on me earlier, I took advantage of the raised house lights to take a studied look around the section in which we were sitting. The majority of our fellow orchestral pit sitters were Caucasian baby-boomers, one or two generations above where I currently stand in the timeline of life.

For a brief moment I wondered where all the excited faces of color that we saw upon entering the theater had gone to, realizing soon enough that the sections behind and above us were reserved for individual, non-season ticket holding show goers.

While I didn't make a studied survey of races and ages in every seating section, the irony of the coincidental and non-racially motivated segregation of the audience at this particular show, was not lost on me.

I'll leave my critique of the show to the more articulate and salaried reviewers of the world, but both Wifey and I were inspired, enthralled and driven to extremes in emotion and hand holding for the duration of the show.

I was thankful for the comp'd seats and ample leg room afforded us in the orchestra section, but it did sound like the upper tier sections were having a better time.

And the balcony? Well, that was just one big party.

Cultural and generational crossover - with a side of fries

2009-01-30T17:27:00.000-06:00

Back when cartoons were cartoons before they were bestowed with their fancy labels of "animated characters" and "toons," Bugs Bunny was my childhood Saturday morning hero.

He almost always won (okay, one time his tail was snipped off), almost always had a snappy comeback or one liner retort, and had the greatest opening line ever uttered by V.O. genius Mel Blanc.

Yet when my Grandfather from Hawaii visited us for vacation, and he huddled around his morning coffee while my brother and I absorbed weekend early a.m. cartoons, it was Wiley E. Coyote that got the old gent laughing.

I'm talking hearty, from his gut, teary eyed laughter. Everytime that wiley coyote would land at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in a "poof" of smoke, my grandfather's face, burnt brown from a lifetime of working in the blazing Hawaiian sun, would crack open yet another deep crevice and the joyous melody of childlike laughter would echo throughout our small living room.

And I remember watching him and enjoying his unfettered laughter as if it were yesterday. To this very moment, it's a memory I draw upon when I need a quick spiritual uplift.

I flashed on that memory the other night, as the girl's and I partook of our Thursday night after-dance class dinner routine. It's normally their eat-out dining choice, but somehow an emerging tradition is breaking through the barrier of free choice and they've been choosing to eat at the downtown burger g-spoon as of late.

Sure, the burgers are superb (onion fried, cooked through and through on the flat iron before being tossed onto the open grill for a quick flame-ridden charring...yum!) and the atmosphere is family-oriented and relaxed, but it's the glowing humongo-screen plasma displays at each end of the joint that I belief is at the heart of their once-a-week culinary dinnertime splurge.

Call me a tyrant, but dinner time at our house is a pretty old-fashioned, sit down with the family, talk and eat festival of family-time. "Please pass...," will get you just about anything you need table side, and the latest rule of conversation being limited to non-bodily function topics is seemingly taking effect -- not an easy task with a 9 and 5-year old.

Therefore, at the burger joint where the girls can catch some junk on the tube and eat it too (simultaneously in fact), well, that's too much a luxury to pass up for their once a weekly eat-out-a-thon.

I'm on pretty good terms with the owners and my ordering convention has become somewhat of a routine. I hand over the cash for the girls food, he hands over the remote for the tv in the back. Some people don't get that good a service at home.

While the girl's used to plead and beg for yet another Hannah Montana (or Suite Life of Zack and Cody, or Wizards of Waverly Place, or iCarly) viewing, I'll usually default to the familiar and less-sassy dialogue offered by the Cartoon Network Boomerang's nightly offering of the classic, Tom and Jerry.

Violent and PETA-unfriendly though it may be, it's visual humor and slapstick sight gags can still make me chuckle continuously, and genuinely laugh-out-loud at times.

I mean, c'mon, how many times can Jerry make Tom take a bite out of his own tail before you just have to bust a gut?

And from my vantage point, sitting at the back of the burger joint on a weeknight at dinner hour, there are more than a few adults and elderly folk alike, who seem to dig the physical comedy stylings of one tom cat's ongoing endeavor to make a snack of his best friend and lifelong animated nemesis, the mouse.

And my grandfather's spirit is sitting right there with me...probably wondering when the Road Runner toon is coming on?

What's stuck up on your ceiling?

2009-01-28T11:50:00.000-06:00

As old-fashioned as it seems, my Wife had a hope chest sitting at the foot of her bed since she was a young lass, growing up in OKC tract home 70's suburbia.

In it were stored items she collected and would use in her future adult days as a happy homemaker.

Her stints away from home in college and grad school tapped into the chest for daily use stuff - cups, bowls, plates, etc., but the chest and a few contents actually remained intact until the day we moved back to Oklahoma and her folks brought it up to our new digs.

Sure, the stuff she saved was tacky, and dated, and most of the practical items were already part of some landfill due to their use and abuse through my Wife's early adulthood days. But a few items remained, as did the chest, which now proudly sits at the foot of our oldest daughter's bed, awaiting the placement of items for her own future days.

Prize of the collection was a scrapbook my Wife had made, consisting of magazine clippings, articles, and advertisements, appropriately titled, "My Dream Wedding and Home."

Recalling that my Wife and I grew up in the heady days of the 70's and 80's, you can only imagine the choices she had to work with when designing her perfect wedding ceremony and future household.

It's a hoot.

Which brings me to the guts of this post, being, my Wife is a pack rat-tess of the highest order. And when I write order, I don't mean "ordered." Far from it. We have things she's been collecting since the beginning days of her hope chest -- all with the stated caveat of, "someday we'll use these for..."

I knew this quality of my beloved going into our marriage, and have therefore sacrificed some of my collecting desires (still have my Mad Magazine's but will have to put off adding anymore Precious Moments Beer Steins to my stash for awhile).

Her prophetic argument of using her collectibles for a practical and/or decorative use has proven correct just enough times during our years together, that her statement continues to remain valid. Thus her collecting continues.

Today's point of evidential order, the recently completed tin tray ceiling in our new upstairs playroom.

The raw material for the project were decorative tin trays (department store cafeteria items circa 40's-50's) that Wifey's been collecting (along with her once partner in thrift/collectible store crime, Traci in LA) for about 13 years now.

The first set she found in a thrift store for pennies, and once she found the next 4, 5, 7 and 12 in the set, the hunt was on.

Ebay was scoured.
No thrift store shelf was safe.
No antique mall booth was left unscathed.
And in the end, the final numbers came from Traci's Mom herself, donating her prize trays to the project.

Fast forward to a few months ago, when we found the trays in a box we were just getting around to unpacking, and the ideas started flowing.

The end result of my Wife wanting to have a tin ceiling of some sort in the house, combined with utilizing a beloved collection from her recent past, is the project/product you see here.

It took a bit of engineering and basic math to get it done, but my intrepid F-i-L who has yet to say "nay" to any of his daughter's wacky home decorating ideas, was up for the task.

I still need to do some touch up work on the nail holes and seams, but once that's done, the project should be complete. The lamp is a dumpster find, using a color scheme from both the playroom and the adjoining bathroom.

Big thanks go out to Traci and Tak!

Now if only I can find something decorative and practical to do with my 30-pin simm ram chip collection sitting in a shoe box under my bed...

Shall we dance, Bud?

2009-01-27T11:49:00.001-06:00

It's a strange tradition that didn't exist in the So Cal environs where I grew up.

Every time the weather folk on the local news stations here in the panhandle state start warming up their cold weather comedy routine for a winter storm, my Wife starts waxing poetic about her youthful evenings spent huddled around the old Zenith, waiting for the school closing announcements.

That's right. They actually close schools here for ice, snow, and bad weather days.

Now, don't get me wrong, living here now, I'm all for it. In fact, when they announce the school year calendar in the fall, the snow days are factored right into the schedule.

Course, this is only Oklahoma, not Chicago, or Fargo, or one of those little towns in Vermont that are impossible to pronounce.

Still, Oklahoma is no slouch when it comes to frequent bouts of the icy and snowy stuff. Occasionally there's enough around to make the roads relatively treacherous for rubber shoed vehicles, the air too frigid to take a deep breath, and the backyard which is normally a brown, dead mess during the winter to be covered in a blanket of white so beautiful, that wasting a day in class when the kiddies could be out in it, making snow angels, minuscule snowmen, and putting some miles on their Radio Flyer sled, almost a non-issue.

But it all stems from the scroll, the constant and never ending listing of names that all the networks roll across their televised real estate, alphabetically announcing what schools, businesses, and community activities will be closed the next day due to the slippery stuff.

During last nights evening news, a few of the surrounding communities had called in their school closings, but our community held fast. Then, on the 10 p.m. news, when the girls had gone to bed without the knowledge of a pending day off, we spotted our school's name and knew that somewhere in dreamland, our girls were doing the happy-snow-day dance.

We almost missed it due to the equally important announcement that the Bud Elder Dance Academy was closed down as well.

That's right, the Bud Elder Dance Academy.

Seems Bud Elder (not a dance teacher) has some clever, jocular friends, who derive some joy in putting one over on both their friend, Bud Elder, and the network news stations. Apparently some in the state media machine (my wife included), know from whence this gag originated, and who the focus of the friendly jib-jab is aimed. The only unknown is who is perpetrating the gag on a regular, snow-closing basis.

In the past several times we've had snow cancellations, we'll inevitably spot the Bud Elder Dance Academy closing and have a good chortle at the news programs expense.

Like most practical jokes, this one is made possible due to the frenzy caused by the change in weather. The news networks don't have time to check out the legitimacy of every incoming call or email therefore Bud Elder keeps sneaking past the News Intern whose job it is to take the info and type it into the text file for the scroll.

Still and all, it's both a comfort and a quick chuckle to see Bud's name in the scroll, reminding us that no matter how bad it gets out there, humor will always prevail.

Dance on Bud Elder, dance on.

Even the best of us get recalled now and again

2009-01-23T10:17:00.000-06:00

It came via snail mail as a pink and white cardstock mailer. The top was perforated for ease in tear-away access and the words "Recall" and "Notice" were featured prominently on the cover.

The gory details were as follows..."On certain (our year) and (our model) vehicles equipped with power windows, the driver and front passenger door glass bolts may loosen and come off, causing the door glass to separate from the window regulator...

...In the worst case, the door glass may separate from the window regulator, bind and shatter during operation of the power windows, causing driver distraction and/or injury."Okay, glancing at a popular tv actress picking her nose in her sleek 750li bimmer next to you at a traffic signal is distracting.

Realizing you left your chai latte on the roof of your car and watching it kersplash all over the rear window as you pull out of the mini-mall parking lot is distracting.

Refereeing a back seat argument between a 9-year old who knows it all and a 5-year old who is determined not to let the 9-year old dominate the dvd selection is distracting.

Having my window bind and shatter possibly causing serious injury...that's get-your-butt-off-the-factory-floor-and-send-me-a-pink-and-white-recall-notice-in-the-mail serious.

Well, sorta. Since when I first read this recall notice a few months back, the windows in Wifey's car weren't loose, nor were they rattling abnormally.

Until last week when we noticed that we were having to crank Casey and the Sunshine Band up to a 4 on the stereo to hear him tell us that he's our boogie man, our boogie man (that's what I am) due to the rattling windows.

Having replaced far too many car windows in my days (every car I've ever owned had a window smashed in at one time), I was fairly confident that I knew of which bolt the recall was addressing, and it would have been a 15 - 30 minute job at the garage of shade tree mechanics at the end of my driveway.

But how often do you get a free factory service from a major car dealer, all for the minor inconvenience of driving your car 30 miles to get there.

Besides, history has proven that on more than one occasion, my easy fixit jobs turn into major hassles and headaches when it comes to vehicular repair maneuvers - remind me to tell you about the time I had to pull apart the top end of my Nova's motor due to a dropped spark plug wire holder down a pushrod hole - ugh.

I called the dealer, made an appointment with a service dude named Brian, and after doing some research on the dealers website, packed up my laptop to take advantage of their complimentary wifi in their waiting lounge and caught an outbound tailwind out of my small town.

In exchange for the keys to Wifey's car I was given a salaried cheery estimate of a 2-hour wait to have both windows "fixed" and I made my way to the fishbowl service waiting lounge.

Like all waiting lounges in car dealerships, this one had the air of dread and anxious anticipation filling the air.

I decided to lend my happy homemaker hands to help ease the tension by making a fresh pot of coffee in what looked to be a shiny new industrial strength coffee machine. A brief forage through the adjacent cabinets provided me with a pre-measured coffee filter pack, and since the machine was hard-lined into a water filtration unit, all I had to do was hit "start" and we were off.

An uneasy looking set of elderly women made their way over to the beverage section where I was standing vigil over the still brewing coffee pot. One asked me if there was any Splenda around and I had to apologize that I hadn't found any, but there was the pink stuff sitting by the sugar and cream bar.

The other thanked me for "finally" making more coffee, using a tone that smacked of well practiced subtle sarcasm. It was at this point that I realized they thought I was a paid employee of the dreaded dealership where their 4-door sedan was being serviced, to which I quickly corrected the error of their observations.

As we all found our seats in the lounge, several others made their way to the coffee pot and before my styrofoam cup was half empty, the fresh pot was half gone.

I fired up my iBook which found and connected to the dealers open wireless network with ease and I was happily flying around the net cloud without a care in the world.

The peace was interrupted when a service rep (not mine) entered the double doors, drawing the glared attention of several waiting customers. Like a middle manager delivering pink slips, he was greeted with suspicion and ire as he proceeded to tell an old fella that the last place who installed his oil filter had jammed it on and in doing so, stripped the threads, so much so, that their ASE certified dealer mechanics couldn't "get it off using the standard methods."

You could almost feel the tension in the room mount as we collectively all expected the worst reaction from the now "screwed" truck owner. At the same time, the humanity level also seemed to rise as well for as a group we both felt his pain but also were grateful that it wasn't us preparing for a cavity search on our wallets.

My confidence that the factory service recall work being done on my Wife's car would be simple and painless was quickly slipping away, so I packed up my gear and made my way to safer, less tension filled waters -- the outdoor lot.

Filled with shiny vehicles, the new car lot offers the freshness of whole-hog capitalism, combined with the positive feel good emotions that the marketing gurus of car commercials offer up in spades.

Now, this being the economic downturn that it is, there weren't a slew of new car buyers buzzing around the lot on a weekday morning.

Still, a bored-out-of-his-gourd Salesman took the time to find me wandering up and down the aisles and engaged me in conversation.Salesman - You having your car serviced?
Me - Recall work.
Salesman - Really. Which one?
Me - Loose window bolts.
Salesman - That's a weird one.
[lull as we turned a corner]
Salesman - What year is your car?
Me - 2003
Salesman - Whoa, you ready to trade it in for a new one?
Me - A new what?
Salesman - A new model.He went on to explain to me that folks around here (I'm assuming he meant Oklahoman's) like to trade their cars in every 3-5 years.

I mentioned something about "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses" which he just smiled and enthusiastically said, "exactly!"

Basically, I told him that for a daily driver, I didn't feel the need to trade in a perfectly good car that I fully expect to roll past the 200,000 mark with ease in 10 years, just so I can have a brand new model every few years or so.

Then I told him I grew up in the Depression, seemingly explaining my thrifty ways.

Then I blamed his car company for making such durable, well made cars.

Except for the window bolts, that is.

Idaho on my mind

2009-01-21T09:36:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, Wifey and I had Facebook on our minds.

Her brush with the famous/infamous social networking site came via a Sunday morning sermon, the theme of which seemed to center on the importance of building a base of friends, whether from the present, the future, or even the past (which Facebook apparently excels at).

That last point -friends from the past- jiggled loose a molecule or two in my gray matter, as just the other day my brother informed me that a voice from our collective past had recently found and contacted him via his Facebook page.

We all have these types of friends. Hanging out buddies. Traveling buddies. Friday night movie, Sunday go to races, even double dating at times buddies.

But as buddies sometimes do, they move away,
get a new life,
in a new town,
with a new wife.

And guys being guys, we don't keep addresses handy for yearly Christmas card swappage, nor do we keep in touch with other old friends who in turn keep track of other friends for us.

Generally speaking, guy friends from the past, sadly so, usually stay guy friends from the past. The exception being the presence of females somewhere in the mix who excel at remembering important dates, knowing who gave what to whom, and where that darn address book is kept.

Yet because of my brother's unusual and uncharacteristic turn toward non-anonymity on the web (he works with middle school kids who apparently "forced" him into creating his own Facebook page), we have now learned that a high school/college buddy with pretty much the same background as ourselves, has made the move with wife and stepkids into the wilds of suburban Idaho to run, of all the crazy things, a diner.

Okay, it's not the same as being a fry cook on Venus, but it's pretty darn close.

I wonder what kind of entries HIS blog is filled with?

Wonder if he was ever called Ming?

Oh and no, sorry I don't Facebook. Heck, I won't even post my real identity on my blog, let alone plaster my mug and personal info all over the net so some diner-running-Idahoan buddy from the past can reach out and touch me.

Such a thing as fair money?

2009-01-20T23:12:00.000-06:00

As a kid the means I had for picking up some pocket change were slim pickins.

There was my allowance...$5 a week, more or less.

Christmas and birthday checks from generous family members would usually last well into the following month...if I rationed.

Nobody I knew had a paper route, or mowed lawns, or collected aluminum cans in shopping carts for extra change.

Heck, we were a bunch of privileged middle-class suburbia kids with little for basic need but much for unnecessary want.

Not until sometime slightly after my 15th birthday did I seek out and acquire my first real job -- bagging groceries, retrieving carts, and running for price checks at a local grocery store chain.

Part of the contract of being a parent is wanting to do better for your kids than your own parents did for you. Problem is, my parents did just fine by me, and if I were to have any aspirations of exceeding the financial support bestowed upon the youthful me, onto my own soon-to-be "needing more than lunch money" offspring, I would have to first take stock in what exactly is necessary, and what is excessive.

We've dabbled in chore based allowance, but since our 5-year old has not yet developed an interest in collecting greenbacks while our 9-year old is wild for the stuff, the effects have been vague and various at best.

The other day I overheard a couple of kids about my kids age talking about what they were planning to do with their "fair money."

Turns out every year they count on a certain number of their county free fair entries to take home prizes of varying levels and cash worth. As I recall, C's photographic and fine art forays brought home more than just some purple, blue, and red ribbons. She also received a check somewhere in the amount of 25 buckaroonies.

When reminded of her windfall of colorful ribbons and cash prizes at last years fair, she instantly kicked into go-baby-go mode and vowed to start churning out the fine art by the trunk load.

Nice of the free fair folk to encourage the arts. Our own small town N.E.A.

Here's a sampling from a recent trip to our small town's most excellent historic themed museum.

I think the kid's got an eye.

Bob's vs. Kip's

2009-01-15T10:58:00.000-06:00

Sherman, set the Wayback machine to the fateful summer of '88 where upon landing for the first time in the state the Choctaws called "the land of the Red people," I happily encountered a familiar face with a foreign name.

Bob's Big Boy was an iconic figure of my youth, inasmuch as I had still retain many fond memories of hanging out in his well lit abodes and dining on reasonably priced high caloric food items being served in his name.

In grad-school my then main squeeze/now wifey-for-lifey lived in the upper floor of an airport house a mere mile drive from the now famous Bob's '49 in Burbank. Our multiple forays into this most hallowed of all Bob's remaining dives were sprinkled with ample celebrity sitings (you haven't lived until you've spied Drew Carey downing several bowls of Bob's chili size), post-cineplex discussions, production meetings, and late-night/early morning double-decker burger dates.

Going further back, as non-driving teens, my buddies and I would migrate on foot from Friday night high school football games over to the Bob's on Valley Blvd for a post-game snack and schmooze-fest.

The short two-block walk to Bob's provided the requisite amount of time needed to shake the computer punch card confetti out of your hair and boxer shorts while inviting and gathering up as many of the pre-driving age short-skirt adorned drill team members as possible.

The girls would order Tab-floats and share mega-platters of fries, we'd get Big Boy combos and triple-thick milkshakes and blue cheese dressed salads.

My well established youthful trysts with Bob's Big Boy was thereby shattered somewhat when upon studying the environs from the back seat of the Ford Econoline van that my then girlfriend/now wife's parents had procured me from the airport in, I spotted this place...

Now remember, this was pre-internet Google days, when one couldn't just fire up a browser, type in "Big Boy" and get all the skinny on the history and background of a restaurant chain. The mystery of how my beloved "Bob" became "Kip" within the span of 1300 miles and a short 2.5 hour flight time away rocked my "Never been to Heaven but I've been to Oklahoma," world.

What triggered this keyboarded memory down Big Boy lane was an online article recently forwarded to me by a former mentor and replacer of broken tools (thought I forgot about that, didn't you topless Mustang-boy?)

The article details how the current owner of the Bob's of my youth is showing some respectful props to the history of his establishment, even though the sites and smells of burger combos and milk shakes have long been replaced by bowls of Vietnamese noodles and boba tea drinks.

Thumbs up to the current owner...and I'll have a combo pho to go.

My life as a duffer

2009-01-13T17:38:00.003-06:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again, golf is the biggest waste of time and money the Scots ever invented.

Too bad it's so addicting.

Myself, I learned the finer points of the game via Osaki Tadamichi no Super Masters for the Sega Genesis during one fine spring break hanging with my brother and best bud at his sister's apartment in Tokyo.

My childhood bud was a decent junior golfer in SoCal and has remained a scratch player since his heady days as a teen link stud. Yet somehow he never managed to get me on a course or interested in the game until that dreaded electronic version for the Genesis game system invaded my psyche and convinced me that all there was to the game was club selection, wind direction compensation and making sure your back swing falls within the red zone on the tv screen.

I knew I had crossed a line when I found myself discussing the hole yardage, bunker locations and how cutting the dogleg to the right will end you up in that massive bunker on the 14th hole of the Pebble Beach Golf links.

Funny thing was, I had never played anything but virtual golf on anything but Sega Genesis, but to this old timer who had played courses all over the golden state, my rubber spiked talk was seemingly as good as my walk.

Fast forward to my cube farm job in corporate So Cal and I find myself cubed up with a bevy of fellow fluorescent light wage earners who had an interest in golf. Didn't hurt that our offices were a mere block away from a challenging 9-hole public that we could meet at and finish in the wee morning hours before our 8:30 a.m. nine-to-five day.

A fortuitous dinner with my scratch golfer buddy found me taking a quick 20-minute living room lesson on club grip, stance, and swinging technique and for the next 5 years I enjoyed weekly 9-holers with my coworkers, an occasional full round on a free weekend, and my very own set of graphite shaft club hand-me-downs from my buds Dad that were worth more than I spent on the tranny rebuild for the Stingray I was restoring at the time.

Fast forward to my move out of the office and out to the prairie with the clubs, shoes, bag and boxes of Titleist sitting dormant going on 4 years now. All my days on the greens (okay, more likely the rough than the greens, but I'm waxing poetic here), those missed putts, soaring drives, Caddyshack quoting contests and 19th hole diet cokes are stashed away like so many broken tees at the bottom of my carry-bag.

Relegated to the past, and doomed to stay that way until something (or someone) gets me motivated to seek the long drive and short putt once again.

Three letters...w-i-i.

That's right, Santa chose to bypass our wishes this year and brought the girl's that holy grail (for the moment) of video gaming systems, a Nintendo Wii. For those that don't know about this entertaining and interactive wonder of modern time suckage, go outside, grab a kid and demand to know how he or she "Wii's."

After you make bail for assaulting a youth, get one of your own and point your Mii to the Wii Sports Golf game and prepare to either swear off the game in utter frustration or fall-in-love with an old friend all over again.

Once I par'd the beginning, intermediate, and advanced 3-hole courses, then par'd the combined 9-hole and achieved my "Professional" Mii status, I was able to channel Kenny Rogers and knew "when to walk away, and when to run."

But it sure got me tickling the memory keys in my brain and there are times now when I watch my 9-year old on her way to becoming a scratch Wii golfer that I can hear my club's whispered calls to me from their spot in the cobwebbed corner of the garage.

My small town of 4380 people actually has what some tell me to be, a decent 18-hole course, complete with pleasantly sarcastic Starter, gas powered carts, and fairways with a solid layer of permafrost in the winter months that will turn my 150 yard drives into 230 easy.

Will Wii lead me back to the links at some point in the near future?

Doubtful.

But if by chance I do make it out there, I will have to change out the UCLA golf towel hanging on my bag for an OSU or OU one.

But, I like the bagpipes

2009-01-08T00:01:00.000-06:00

Caught this story on NPR during the holiday break and felt inspired to make sushi rolls for my family's New Year's Day brunch.

This particular story focused on an online poll conducted in the '90s and three dudes quest to create the most annoying song ever. "After gathering data about people's least favorite music and lyrical subjects, they did the unthinkable: they combined them into a single monstrosity, specifically engineered to sound unpleasant to the maximum percentage of listeners."You can read the Wired.com article from April '08 here, as well as listen to a stream of the "most unwanted song" in it's entirety.

See (or listen rather) if any of your favorite (or least favorite) song elements are included.

Here's a link to the composer's website where you may be so inclined to order the CD's of both the Most Wanted Music (boring, generic, soulless), and the Most Unwanted Music (genius, has a good beat, easy to dance to).

So, how pray tell does the hunt and production of the most Unwanted Music composition make me want to roll some sushi rolls for my brood?

Think about the last time you had sushi rolls and what strange, wonderful, and utterly foreign foodstuffs were contained therein. Yet when combined with sweet sushi rice, a sprinkling of sesame seeds, some farm raised and dried seaweed sheets and a healthy dipping of soy sauce and wasabi, becomes a melody of tempting taste and texture in your mouth.

Or gag food, depending on the adventure level of your taste buds.

That's Opry with a capital O

2009-01-07T00:01:00.000-06:00

If I got right up into your face and bellowed the words, "rodeo" and "opry" at you, what images would instantly pop into your most cultured and esteemed mind?

Yowza, same as me.

So it was with some skepticism and disinclination that I accepted my wife's invitation to join her and two fellow work mates for an evening fundraiser at the Oklahoma Centennial Rodeo Opry last week.

We dragged along the two kidkinz and my in-laws for good measure. Misery loves company, right?

The event was a fundraiser for one of the Opry Heritage Foundation's many worthwhile philanthropy's that are focused on developing young, talented artists and musicians. Everyone there who didn't pay for a seat or table was volunteering their time and efforts, including a most excellent band and surprisingly talented group of performers.

Surprising for me at least. Some of these folk are apparently staples of the thriving music scene here in the panhandle state. And it shows.

When I heard the theme of the musical selection for the night was "70's" I racked my brain to recall even one country/western hit from that era that I could relate to.-- Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy...was that in the 70's?
-- How about Devil went down to Georgia...that was considered C/W and opry material, right?
-- Please, no, not that Elvira song...But, since the ticket included a prime rib and fried chicken fricassee courtesy of the Stockyard City good-eats staple, the Cattleman's Steakhouse, my full belly and the fairly open minded iPod in my noggin was up for just about anything.

My wife somehow managed to scurry up some primo seats at one of the corporate donation tables up front, and were lovingly greeted by platters of homemade sweets, treats and baked-goods aplenty. Chocolate dipped strawberries were downed by the dozen by my two girls, while the rest of the table got down and dirty with the brownies, divinity cake, cookie crisps, dried fruit and nuts galore.

Resembling squirrels stocking up on acorns for the winter with our cheeks filled with goodies, the lights dimmed dramatically and the band fired up their instruments of wonder.

Hold on now. It wasn't what you think. At least, it wasn't what I thought. And come to think of it, it was so far and away what I think I thought, I actually thought to myself what I fool I was for thinking of not coming.

First tune up, a hopping version of Pick up the Pieces (The Average White Band) complete with visiting horn section and note perfect sax solo.

I don't recall in what order the rest of the songs were played, but one after another, the tunes of my AM/FM youth came flooding back along with multiple rolled eyeballs from my eldest daughter as I sang along with the vocals. Who knew my memory was still so crisp as the lyrics of each and every tune flowed forth directly from long forgotten synapses and often misfiring neurons.25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago
Delilah - Tom Jones
Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
Don't Stop - Fleetwood Mac
Soul Man - Blues Brothers
Got to be real - Cheryl Lynn
Proud Mary - Ike and Tina Turner
Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
Fire and Rain - James Taylor
I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
Midnight Rider - Allman Brothers
I want you back - Jackson 5
Takin' it Easy - EaglesOkay, not all of the songs are truly "70's hits, and I didn't really sing "I Will Survive," but I did bounce my head about a bit.

There were several other songs that were played and enjoyed, but now sadly lost to my foggy memory of the fun and jazzy evening

These Opry folk put on a great show, for a great cause, and if they can belt out these golden oldies with passion and fervor enough to get me out of the house and into a seat in the audience, then perhaps I'll be able to swing a night or two of their regularly scheduled more "Opry-like" entertainment.

Good vittles, great live music, C was called up stage to draw a raffle winner (not us, thank goodness, otherwise folks would be yelling FIX), PK stayed awake, my wife looked lovely and I got to spend some time talking vintage Cadillac with a genuine car fanatic (has over 28 in his collection). All in all not a bad gig.

Oh no not I, I will survive, hey, hey!

Tried to match it, seam by seam, but could not make them fit.

2009-01-05T13:17:00.000-06:00

So my 9-year old's first big sewing project with her birthday present Singer was done, signed, boxed and wrapped up in time for the holidays.

It went to my M-i-L for her birthday/Christmas present.

The material came out of a curtain swatch sample book that my wife found at a yard sale for a buck.

The manta ray design, although it reminded me a bit of a certain feminine product that advertises "wings", was inspired by a discussion between my daughter and wife involving the need for blankets to have gripping handles for ease in tucking and body wrapping on cold winter nights.

The blue, wool tie belonged to my M-i-L's daddy.

The love was all my daughters.

The Lost ThoughtI felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,
But sequence ravelled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.

Emily Dickinson

Call me a Croc convert

2008-12-30T00:07:00.001-06:00

There's a great scene in the classic 80's Baby-Boomer flick The Big Chill that resonates down to the base of my mildly corrected feet to this day.

William Hurt's character Nick, has just tried on a new pair of running shoes and passionately states something along the lines of, "These are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. I'm never taking these off. I want to be buried in these shoes."

I recently experienced just such a moment when I opened up a Christmas present from my in-laws, found these at the bottom of the box and slipped them on.

--Insert angelic clouds-parting sound from the opening of The Simpsons here--

Now, I've seen my small townsfolk of every size, shape, age and gender sporting these brightly colored rubbery excuses for footwear since moving here 4 years back.

Heck, my daughters even have a pair...or four.

But for whatever reason I never put finding a pair of Crocs that I could honestly feel "comfortable" wearing in public, high on my priority list. By comfortable, I mean, emotionally. Let's face it, neon footwear was no where near the job description I wrote for my feet so many years, and so many pairs of shoes ago.

In fact, my life in bare-footed footwear thus far has consisted of loyalty and devotion to what I've always called slippers. Depending on your age, race, and background, you may know them as one of the following:slippers
zoris
Jap slaps (sorry, gotta be part J to use this one)
sherpa slips
oriental hiking boots
geta
flip flops
sandals
slip slaps
thongs
jandals
pluggers
surfer flats
chappalsBut now that my tired and middle-aged hang-dog tootsies have felt the stimulating caress and Tigger-like bouncy-trouncy feelings of taking multiple steps across house and home in these wonders of modern Made-in-China barefootin' footwear, I'm afraid my slippers are likely to be relegated to the closet of never-again-wear

-- sharing space with such items as every promotional tee-shirt my old employer handed out celebrating inane corporate milestones, that Jackson 5 Victory Tour concert shirt featuring brother Michael front and center from 1984, and every hat ever given to me since my 5th birthday (I don't wear hats...don't ask, it's a big hair thing).

A quick scan of the official Crocs site reveals that they are offering a fur-lined (fake fur, easy there PETA), version of their bestseller.

Footwear with a "fuzzy removable footbed?"

I do so want to be buried in these things.

Greeting cards have all been sent...

2008-12-24T00:01:00.004-06:00

Words of assurance to all those in my family's ever widening circle of influence and one-time-a-year correspondence confluence...those Christmas greeting cards you send to us are well viewed and dare I say, scrutinized to the highest order.

Season's Greetings card traditions were few and far between during my youthful California green salad days. As a family we received plenty of pre-printed card stock cards with greetings appropriate to the season. Picture cards weren't quite the norm yet, and the traditional box cards weren't as yet massed produced en masse in the millions of varieties they are today.

Repeats were common. Photographs were rare. Annual "I can't believe it's been a year since our last Christmas letter" letters were yet to be unleashed on the card reading public.

Mother K would use the cards with the most vibrant colors and thematic tones as decorations around the elf and deer snow diorama village that would sit atop our built in shoe-rack. But the majority of cards were relegated to the rubber band pile, as craft making junk boxes had yet to be invented in our house.

Long about February or so, the cards would be discarded as a group exercise, having once been pressed into duty as holiday cheer via the US Mail, now being pressed together with a series of large and flexible rubber bands.

The dynamic for greeting cards in my in-laws family, and as an extension my own little family unit, couldn't be any further if we lived on Jupiter.

The daily celebration awaiting my wife during the holiday season begins and ends with the stacks of Christmas cards arriving via the post. I have learned over the years to collect them together and set them aside for her to lovingly pour over at her leisure upon returning from the trenches of her job.

She saves the envelopes for me, as it is my job to correlate, aggregate, parse and parcel the names, addresses, and offered contact information from each holiday correspondence sheath.

It's a dirty job, but sum bum gotta do it.

Memories and stories of past exploits flow freely as the cards are collated, the pictures are both ogled and scrutinized, the artwork examined (we have several artist friends who design their own cards), and the names and ages of offspring are registered and commented on. Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Seasons Greetings, Happy Holidays -- all are welcome, all are represented, due in part to our varied associations from our days back in LaLa land.

The entire process is repeated upon the arrival of each family member visitor to the house, ensuring that each card received gets more than it's fair and expected share of human interaction and attention.

The coveted cards are displayed on a gigantic wire rack wreath constructed in the orient for the sole purpose of making something out of nothing (or in this case a wreath out of used Christmas cards), exclaiming their murmurs and shouts of the joyous season to my family for a daily dose of holiday cheer.

Unlike days of old however, our old cards eventually will make their way to the craft materials box or to the paper recyling bins across the way.

Keep those cards and letters coming kiddies...

Canes of the candied variety

2008-12-23T01:24:00.000-06:00

I state with some equivocal authority that like most members of the male species, peppermint is not my favorite spice.

Spearmint, fine. Wintergreen, okay...unless while munching a wintergreen lifesaver you are mistaken for a Skoal Bandit user.

Those original Altoids - death mint.

Given that, candy canes have never been on my list of must-consume-during-the-holidays treats.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the iconographic symbolism that the traditional red and white cane of candy represents.

The aroma of a loved one smacking on the hooked candy is pleasing to my minds palate. I enjoy the visions of the holidays that the striped confection offers my ever shrinking grey matter. Heck I even love to watch them get mixed, cooked, and stretched on so many Food Network shows featuring the behind-the-scenes life of our favorite foods.

Just don't like to 'et 'em is all.

So what's the dilemma then?

My daughters.

To their youthfully innocent eyes, candy canes represent the most basic of good-li-ness that this particular season has to offer.

Along with all the fun and frolic the mere mention of the combined wording of "candy" and "cane" suggests, the appearance of which triggers all the enormity of a holiday wherein the overwhelming input of presents far exceeds even their spoiled splendid expectations.

Top that off with the obvious fact that candy canes are indeed candy, and well, you've painted a Normy Rockwell picture of the perfectly edible holiday icon.

Daddy be damned, candy canes rock in my girl's world.

Now egg nog, well, that's an entirely different beast, so don't go and get me started on that delicious monstrosity of raw egg, spices and milk.

A "ro-zu" by any other name...

2008-12-19T08:58:00.003-06:00

Wifey and the girl's were off on a girl's-gone-woody weekend with my M-i-L for their annual state park cabin getaway. I had my list of things to do to finish off the upstairs bathroom and playroom, but come the evening hours I felt the need for some proverbial time away from house and home.

I had been listening to NPR on the FM dial most of the day while toiling away upstairs and an ad for what was was deemed a unique staging of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was in production at a theater in the metro.

The Bard's R&J...what could possibly be done to this classic tragic tale of star-cross'd lovers to dub it unique?

How about...Tybalt with a samurai sword!

Yep, this funky staging of J & R's tale of woe was set in post-WWII Japan.

Other than the costumes and ethnic faces, however, nothing else was altered. No Jets and Sharks with dancing feet, no Leo DiCaprio gunplay, and no Zeffirelli nudity.

Okay, Tybalt and Mercutio were both slain with katanas instead of rapiers.

And hearing Willy of the Avon's post-Renaissance English spoken with a Japanglish lilt was at times difficult to grok and jarring to the senses. I did award bonus quirky points for the sushi rolls that Peter, Nurse, and the fair Juliet dined on while picnicking.

Still and all, the familiar storyline, characters, and staging was a comfortable fit and I was able to leave the world of my small town behind for a few hours and enjoy the buzz generated by live performances.

Catholics beat down the Methodist

2008-12-17T19:36:00.000-06:00

It was a fundraiser to fill the Xmas toy wishes of local children in need. A few bucks got you two different bowls of chili with all the fixins, a hunka-hunka wedge of a home-baked dessert, crackers a-plenty and a beverage.

Two different colored bowls (red and green) brimming with the reddish-brown meaty concoction for the ages awaited hungry chili epicureans in the downstairs multi-purpose room of our small town's historic Methodist church.

The red bowl chili was heavy on the ground beef while the green bowl selection held a satisfying mix of chunky and ground beef.

Red was milder in flavor, with a touch of vinegar essence in every bite.

Green embraced it's spicier side by showcasing a welcomed inclusion of finely chopped onions and peppers.

As a control, I tasted each bowl as virgin samplings, downing a good portion of each before topping them off with equal portions of raw onions, hand-crumbled saltines, Louisiana hot sauce, and a sprinkling of coarsely grated cheddar cheese - my preferred bowl chili toppings.

Votes were cast using a double-blind taste test and the winner for best chili was chosen completely by total votes cast.

The Catholics won spoons down.

Variables I felt affected the outcome included the weather, as the digital mercury device was reading in the low-30's that night and the Catholic's chili was definitely leaning toward the spicier side.

Had the competition taken place in the heat of the Oklahoma summer, I'm convinced the Methodist's recipe of stewed meat and beans with the milder piquancy would have emerged victorious in the end.

Entertainment for the event included a discussion with the Methodist church's Youth minister who originally hailed from Boston. While we commiserated on what we missed
about our respective big city birthplaces and discussed the differences between Boston Baked Beans and Cowboy beans, the chili slowly disappeared from the kitchen and $800 was raised to brighten the December 25th morning of dozens of low income kidkins.

Grapevine rumor ensures me that the Methodist's have demanded a rematch.

Reading about small town living

2008-12-16T01:43:00.000-06:00

As awkward as it is for me to admit, when it comes to making a selection from the new fiction book shelf at my small town library, I instinctively reach for the male authored tomes first.

There is of course no logic to my bias, as female authors are vastly capable of sallying forth the goriest and glorious of my favorite gumshoe genre tales.

In my failed attempt to live my life as unbiased as possible, this is the one illogical bias of luxury for which I plead the 5th on.

Sure, I've read female authors before. Plenty of 'em.

Faye Kellerman comes to mind. Evanovich, Grafton, P.D. and J.A., Paretsky, and of course the grande dame herself, Agatha Christie...I know the names and have often been tempted, but when push comes to shove my hand always reaches for a sleuthing male author first.

Again, no logic.

Stretching my male chauvinist gray matter, I can recall the last book I read that was scribed by a member of the opposite sex. Tulsa based author Billie Letts' selection from '04, Shoot the Moon.

There is some logic here. Letts is an Okie. And while some not familiar with the wiles and ways of our panhandled state may feel that reading books written by, about, and set in and around Oklahoman's is tantamount to punishment gluttony of the nth degree, I call it cathartic information gathering.

Research if you will.

Along this vein, I happened to grab this book off the new selection shelf the other day, tantalized by the title...Ghost at Work (A Mystery)

A quick perusal of the jacket summary revealed three things that eventually led me to swap this selection for the latest Ender Wiggin selection from Orson Scott Card that had found a comfortable (albeit temporary) spot under my left armpit.

Small town Oklahoma setting.
Paranormal detective.
Murder mystery.

Ms. Hart had me from page one and although lacking in the testosterone laced rhetoric that I normally find comforting in a gumshoe novel, following the antics of a crime solving card carrying member of the afterlife was a hoot and and a hollar.

Even found a quotable paragraph that reveals a small town truth penned in elegant Okie prose...
Everybody didn't know everybody, but if you had any prominence at all, you were known. Even more important was the fact that someone always saw you. It was that simple. No matter where you were or what time or with whom or why, somebody saw you. Ghost at Work by Carolyn Hart (pg. 55)

Did Agatha ever write a story that took place in Oklahoma? Hmmm, I wonder.

Thanks for the instructions...I think

2008-12-11T17:55:00.001-06:00

I've always been a read-the-instructions first kind of guy.

I know I may be in the human population minority in this trait, but more times than not I learn something by reading the manual for a new purchase and the other times I find myself going back to the manual when something goes wrong with my initial usage.

Case in point, the daytime running lights on my wife's 4-door made-in-Tennessee import are on all the time, making it somewhat inconvenient when driving through the myriad of lighting displays that are all the rage throughout Oklahoma this time of the year.

I have never figured out how to disable the lights, and every time we find ourselves puttering through yet another spectacle of seasonal lights, I knock myself on the head and state out loud,"Darn it, someday I'm going to read that owner's manual and figure out how to turn off those darn daytime running lights!"

Writer's note - they apparently don't ever go off, and there is no built-in override for the sensor. There is a mod however, that I found on an online auto forum (Tech Service Bulletin EL011-00), as well as a mickey-duck kludgy way to temporarily trick the twilight sentinel.

Yep, instructions are your friend. Unless you don't understand Chinglish. Then, you're in big trouble.

Case in point, today while picking up a prescription at our local small town pharmacy, I was cruising the "gift" aisle (those Jean Nate after bath splash gift sets never get old) and stumbled upon this wonder of Made in China packaging. Pulling my digicam, I snapped these, being careful not to read the text, else the pics would be blurred and fuzzy due to my jelly belly rolled laughter.

A remote toy car that drives up walls! Speed Racer, eat your heart out. Who wouldn't want one of these?

Note the large font and bold lettering - this text must really be important...

Feeling feverish lately? Could be your improper use of batteries. And apparently hair is not something you want to wear when operating this toy.

The intended meaning of the grammar is semi-obvious, however getting only 5 minutes of playtime for 30-50 minutes of charging time seems a bit much to ask a kid to endure...or a grown-up at that.

I'm not sure if "charging under the guidance of adults in charge" is the best course of action here. These complicated steps seem better suited to 8-year old's who can program the clock vcr.

Though I find this stuff humorous as heck, I can only imagine what some Oklahoma prairieland farmer thinks after looking to the directions when the darn thing "breaks down" after 5 minutes of go time.

Is it any wonder no one reads instructions any longer?

And don't even get me started on having to keep a stock of mini-phillips head screwdrivers on hand just to change out batteries. Whatever happened to plain old plastic-flap-that-breaks-off battery covers on toys and electronic devices?

Batteries not included indeed.

Cribside karaoke

2008-12-09T10:49:00.004-06:00

While humming an Elvis Christmas tune to the slanted walls of the empty playroom and slathering on a final layer of mud over the tape lines, I further attempted to fill the quiet and stillness permeating the environment by tuning my portable to NPR's The Takeaway. A roving topic this morning centered on the lullaby in contemporary culture.

The guest was speaking of an online poll she had conducted examining the popular lullaby's of modern parents. The story was intriguing, the results are humorous and the discussion inspired me to jot down a note to my future daughters (the reason this blog exists) revealing the off-key top 10 tunage favored by their loving parents during their early childhood sleepy time rituals.

Out of necessity, our repertoire developed vigor and girth with our first arrival. Combine inexperienced and paranoid parents with a light sleeper and creaky hardwood floors (the arrival of area rugs accelerated the crib-sneak-away ritual immensely) and you have two tired parents with a karaoke list that challenges even the first season of American Idol.

I've included some YouTube links for the more obscure songs listed.DADDY'S FAVORITES
Yellow Submarine - Lennon/McCartney
In my life - Lennon/McCartney
Suspicious Minds - Elvis
I saw her standing there - Lennon/McCartney
That'll be the day - Buddy Holly
American Pie - Don Mclean (yes, I know all the lyrics)
Puff the Magic Dragon - P,P & M
Norwegian Wood - Lennon/McCartney
Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis
In the ghetto - Elvis
Jamaica Farewell - Belafonte
Ma-na-me-na (do-doo-do-do-do)

MOMMY'S FAVORITES
Just about any Pi Beta Phi sorority song you can think of, ad infinitum.
So how'd we do? Well, here we are, 9 years post our first child, and going on 5.5 years for our second and all I can truly state with any surety of fact and candor is that both of my daughter's can pick out an Elvis tune when played on the radio.

Thank, ya...thank ya very much.

Stick a fork(lift) in it, it's done

2008-12-05T17:33:00.002-06:00

As work progresses on our upstairs bathroom roof-raising expansion, we've somehow made it to the stage where we needed to get our clawfoot bathtub into place.

Seeing as how our local football team is tied up with their semi-final playoff game (good luck tonight fellas), and neither my F-i-L nor I was feeling the need to drink some David Banner gamma bomb juice and Hulk out, we resorted to hydraulic power and not-quite OSHA approved tub relocation practices.

Seems just about every farmer, rancher, fry cook and gas/and or oil worker in my small town has some piece of heavy equipment at their disposal. From wild and woolly riding mower attachments to mini-earth movers to hydraulic rammed hay bale lifting spikes, the mobile folks in my small town own just about any tool a fella could ever need.

Several of whom offered to bring their front-loader tractors over to see if the buckets would reach up high enough to make the tub transfer. But we eventually went with the idea of a local sculptor friend of mine who offered up his own personal forklift to perform the tub lifting duties we so required.

The forklifts solid rubber wheels sinking into the soft grass adjacent to our house was problematic, as was the close and dangerous proximity of the power line feeding into the corner of the house.

We managed to find a relatively safe spot to make the transfer, and after fashioning a couple of extension beams to the forks of the lift (a 4x4 fence post my F-i-L picked up along the side of a country road some time ago, and a run of weathered pole fence leftover by previous owners) the tub was hoisted, dragged, lifted and grunted into it's final service spot.

The 1920's era hotel-style clawfoot tub we picked up at an auction several years ago for a hundred bucks and change, and on which I grinded, stripped, sanded and primered, was then in place and ready for finishing.

The clawfeet have since received a coat of hammered steel finish pewter colored Rustoleum (to match the barn board wainscoting), while the tubs exterior has been bathed in several coats of peachtree pink (matching the bathroom ceiling).

As my friend fired up his forklift and made the turn down our driveway onto Main street, in my minds eye I imagined he popped the clutch, pulled a wheelie and cried out a hearty, "Hi Yo Silver, away!" leaving a man and his tub behind in the dust-filtered golden light of the setting Oklahoma sun.

Death in the back of a pickup truck

2008-12-03T01:26:00.001-06:00

My girls are very aware that my F-i-L (their grandpappy) likes to hunt for deer, turkey, duck and fish (okay, technically he doesn't "hunt" for fish, but I don't see why we "hunt" for other animals but not the swimming kind...wait, we do hunt for sharks and they swim, oh it's all so confusing).

But I digress. He likes to hunt and likes to cook and eat what he kills.

And the girls seem okay with it.

Perhaps they are still to young to have explored whatever ethical, anthropological and psychological stigmas that may exist regarding the practice of stalking and killing a wild beast for sport and nourishment.

Or it could be that their surrounding environment actually encourages the practice to the point of it being the norm.

Maybe they just like to listen to their grandpa tell hunting stories.

And even though as litt'uns they were as freaked out as I was by the bevy of stuffed wildlife that populate the den walls at my in-laws lake house, neither of them seem disturbed by the fact that the now stuffed creatures hanging up and out in their grandparents vacation home were once living, breathing creatures.

What could have been a pivotal moment in their lives occurred the other day as my F-i-L and B-i-L pulled into our driveway on their way home from a recent hunt and the girls caught a glimpse of a furried hoof sticking out from their pickup's tailgate.

It was a mature doe that my B-i-L shot for the meat, signaling the near future arrival of low calorie low cholesterol low fat venison steaks, sausage, and jerky (deer meat is too lean for a good burger) to our table. Neither him, nor my F-i-L spotted a buck they wanted to take. They are responsible and discriminate hunters and since both have bagged large "8-pointers" in the past they are only interested in bigger bucks with larger racks.

Nope, this doe was strictly for the consumption.

I watched with care and concern as my two girls took in the dead deer. My B-i-L was mindful to cover up the incision where he had field dressed the animal, so they only really saw the unmolested carcass.

At this point I could only spot innocent curiosity creep across their exploring faces. Nothing more or deeper emerged from their initial examination as they touched the soft fur, poked at the hooves, and ran their fingers along the snout.

Other than that, no CSI examination techniques were employed, or comments made other than a few emoted "ewwws" and quietly uttered "eees."

As I was looking forward to a deeper discussion on the dead deer with my 9-year old later that night during our bedtime tuck-in ritual, it was my 5-year old who surprised me with her unique grasp of the situation when she told me later that day..."Daddy, I asked Uncle S if I could have two of the feet of the deer to keep since the deer wouldn't need it [sic] anymore and he said okay..."Naturally, I asked her why she wanted to have the deer feet."To make the clip clop sound when I sing the sleigh ride song..."Apparently audio effects authenticity are important for my 5-year old. Hmmm, should I be worried about this kid?

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling,
Ring ting tingling too
Come on, it's lovely weather
For a sleigh ride together with you...

Our 1st winter of discontent...Santa skepticism

2008-12-01T00:00:00.001-06:00

Based on preliminary reports and early holiday season observations this may be our first Christmas with a skeptic in the house.

A Santa skeptic.

It appears the irresponsible revelation of childhood fantasy figures that occurred between some swarmy teenager camp counselors and a group of kidkins at camp last summer, has stayed with my just turned 9-year old.

When we were in the process of telling our 5-year old that we were going to see Santa (or one of his "helpers" dressed up as Santa...wink, wink) in a few weeks, our 9-year old chirped up loudly and stated that she wouldn't be doing the Santa gig this year.

So far she's been keeping quiet about the E! True Hollywood Stories behind the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and the Jolly one to herself...meaning we haven't discussed what she overheard while at camp last summer. In fact this recent incident was the first time we actually broached the subject, and so far she's keeping her "knowledge" to herself.

My wife and I are providing a united front and will keep the charade up for the benefit of our youngest...our biggest fear being the older sister pulls a Geraldo and dashes the childhood fantasies of her little sister in one fell swoop of her flapping tongue.

While some may say that 9 is plenty old to have the "talk" about the mythical creatures that populate the fantastical worlds of our girl's childhoods, still others say that 9 is plenty old to have the other "talk" as well -- the one that begins with an S and ends with an X.

This is new territory for us, so we're defaulting to how my in-laws handled the situation for my wife and her siblings -- to this day they haven't spilled the beans about Santa. And having two granddaughters to play along with to continue the fantasy only stokes the traditional fire.

But something tells me that in the sleep depriving hours prior to her long winters nap and the wee morning moments of Christmas morning, the logic, peer pressure, and common sense that is battling for control of my 9-year olds brain, will give in to the remnants of the magic that is childhood fantasy and the hope that only a child can feel via the innocence of youth.

Heck Virginia, if there really isn't a Santa Clause, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, then maybe you can explain the reasoning behind Windoze Vista being the best OS that Microsoft can deliver.

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight...

Why I married her

2008-11-27T20:42:00.007-06:00

Don't know what your signif other asked for his/her last birthday, but mine requested a couple of traditional items - a home cooked meal and a simple mode of transportation.

Not so unique you say?

Try saying these two words..."shabu shabu."

Pulling together all the fixin's for a traditional Japanese fire-pot meal is one thing when you have well stocked stores of food stuffs from the Orient a mere SoCal freeway interchange away.

Not so easy out here on the wilds of prairieland Oklahoma.

Still and all, with some careful planning, internet mail ordering, improvisational food preparation methods and a hint to the local butcher on the easiest method for cutting ribeye steaks into paper thin slices (slightly freeze the meat first), my wife had the meal she had been craving for since moving back to Oklahoma.

One down, one to go. Next up, a traditional and simple mode of transportation...

I kid you not. This is what she asked for, and ebay be-damed, this is what she received.

The inevitable question being, "What is your wife a clown or something?"

To which I reply, "What, your wife didn't walk on 8-foot homemade stilts, do handstands on a basketball, or ride a unicycle as a kid?"

She has yet to get the uni-legs of her youth back under her, but she's determined to get back on her single wheeled horse by the end of the holiday period, if not sooner.

And yes, I checked to make sure our health insurance card is safely tucked in my wallet.

Happy birthday, Wifey.

Wheel on!

Pursuing bowl shaped trivia

2008-11-21T13:57:00.007-06:00

It was a small blurb in our local small town news rag, barely 4 column inches long and relegated to the very bottom left hand corner of the front page. I myself glanced at it and recall thinking to myself what a shame it was nobody was vetting a team to challenge our local news rag staff.

See where this is going? Thought you would.

Last evening I received not one, but two calls from localz that I knew, inquiring whether or not I found trivia bowls of a trivial nature.

I chose to join the first team that called me, since I am associated with them through the non-profit .org on whose board of dir. I sit as a member. My teammates on the buzzer bench in all things trivia will be a local artist/businessman, a state cop, and an attorney.

The match is tomorrow and I'll be gearing up for it by ignoring any and all activity that involves taxing my gray matter and focusing my energy on completing the trim painting in our new upstairs bathroom's walk-in closet.

Nothing like some mindless brush stroking to prepare for the regurgitation of vast quantities of useless knowledge - just about the only kind my mind bothers with of late.

Results of the challenge will be forthcoming...unless I freeze on stage and can't recall even one of the states that borders Michigan, or who was it that's buried in Grant's Tomb.

Footloose for a new generation

2008-11-20T05:23:00.000-06:00

We had a few hours to kill between the end of school day and the birthday dinner for my turning-9-year old at my in-laws house down in the city.

I perused the yahoo movie listings and found a G-rated flick which the girls had been wanting to see, playing at the theater close to my in-laws, so off we went.

So now my life's journey had carried me to a darkened theater with my two very own moppets, watching Disney's version of teenage angst in music, dance, and song.

With it's catchy bubble-gum pop tunage and Dancing with the Stars inspired choreography, I confess to spending a great deal of the movie catching my two little girls digging the ride, moving their feet and trying desperately to memorize the song lyrics.

The strangest aspect of the entire evening was my realization that 1) we were watching a movie filled with attractive young folk on the big screen and there was nary a hint of skin to be shown
2) we were watching a movie filled with attractive young folk whose biggest dilemma is not whether to have sex with their boy/girlfriend before they leave for college and never see each other again
3) we were watching a movie filled with attractive young folk, none of which seemed at all insecure about a serial killer lurking in the shadows of their high school's locker room

Degrassi Jr. High this was not.

There was one movie highlight for dear old Dad in this musical of high schoolers and it came, in all places, during a moving and angst driven junkyard dance number. While the two male leads were hopping and bopping around their childhood hang-out, waxing philosophical on the simplicity and innocence of their youth, I spotted a junked '72 El Camino as one of the dance stage props.

It looked in pretty decent shape. Totally restorable. A good project car to be sure.

Wonder what junk yard they shot that scene in?

Before XBOX, Wii and PS3 there was...Singer

2008-11-13T14:50:00.001-06:00

To quote a line from the famous teen flick, Ferris Bueller's Day off,...

"I asked for a car, I got a computer..."
For my recently turned 9-year old, however, the line would be modified as follows,

"I asked for a Wii, I got a sewing machine..."
A Singer Inspiration to be exact.

She had asked for one awhile ago and has shown periodic interest since our recent stroll through the sewing craft displays at the State Fair of Oklahoma.

The hunt for an age and skill appropriate machine was on, with the ultimate decision being left to the balancing act of bank account vs. gift over-indulgence factor.

She was not going to get a Pfaff, that much we knew, however we wanted a machine that would survive through her initial learning stages yet be full featured enough to carry her into her more productive garment making phases ahead.

The Singer we chose seemed a reasonable, bullet-proof, time tested and quality-proven compromise, the purchase of which also helped me set a precedent for that dreaded day 7 years from now when C asks for her first car ("...a sweet little BMW or Honda S2000 would be nice...") and I come home with a '74 Dodge Monaco with triple-shellacked lumber bumpers, a 10-point roll cage, and a Navy surplus combination ejection seat/quick-deploy parachute.

Hey, I'll paint it whatever color she wants it...with flames even.

Anyhow, after a brief lesson on the operational and safety features of the rapid-fire "machine de la sewing," C took to it like a Kentucky moonshine runner to a V8 Ford and was turning out pillow after pillow for her Webkinz petz in no time. She has since graduated to piecing together a quilt -- of sorts -- made out of material from our scrap material craft bin (what, you don't have a scrap material craft bin?)

Since I wasn't able to take the new machine apart to show C how a sewing machine actually works, the net provided me with the necessary info and then some. Found this graphic on Wiki that shows how a lockstitch is made, which solved a riddle and provided mere minutes of animated pleasure for the girls and I.

I've actually mandated C to learn the machine well enough to give dear old Dad a lesson in the coming days. She seems more than thrilled at the concept of teaching me how to operate a "power tool."

Maybe my days of duct taping the hem up on my Dockers are finally over?

Coffee, donuts and draggin' Main with the Father

2008-11-11T06:41:00.003-06:00

The other morning on our Friday a.m. weekly donut splurge-fest, we sat in a booth adjacent to a group of elderly gentlemen in their late-60's who were dipping cake donuts and drinking joe with the young priest from the local Catholic church.

The conversation centered on the adventures of youthful splendor growing up in our small town, including country road drag races with their Daddie's Fords, cruising to the smaller towns just up the highway to meet some "townie gals" from a different school, and after-game garage parties that always seem to run out of drinks before they ran out of steam.

Heck, we and everyone else in the fried round dough haven were even treated to a live demonstrations of the "beer bottle dip" practiced by the local 50's greasers whenever Officer Wilson would cruise by the park on a late summer weekend night.

The highlight of the conversation, for me at least, was listening to a few stories of the young 30-something Priest's eventful teenagedom life as he relayed stories of "draggin' Main" with his buddies in a beat up Camaro in the small town where he grew up.

Recently, I heard a report on NPR's "Fresh Air" program centered around Episcopalian minister Barbara Brown Taylor and her new book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, wherein she describes her decision to leave her job after 15 years as a full-time minister due in part to what she called "compassion fatigue."

Listen to program here.

Think about it.

Being an ordained and recognized spiritual leader in a small town means you are on stage, on-call 24-7-365, with your compassion and sensitivity on display with every casual conversation you have in line at WalMart, every meal you take at someones house, and every piece of fruit or roll of bathroom tissue you squeeze at the grocery store.

While in a larger "market" men and women of the cloth, pulpit, and collar can more-or-less (depending on the chosen faiths prescribed practices for public appearance attire) make their clandestine way outside of the church grounds completely incognito.

Not so in a small town, where their faces are more or less on par in recognition factor with the POTUS-elect and OU Coach Bob Stoops.

Given that pressure and the awareness that a term such as "compassion fatigue" exists, I hope all of the dedicated male and female spiritual leaders in our small town take few mornings a month to dip a donut or two and let the air out of their proverbial collars.

Wouldn't do to have any of our local religious leaders go postal, or pulpital, as it were.

Just a little pinch will do ya

2008-11-06T08:55:00.002-06:00

While I suppose the 3rd graders back in our old San Gabriel Valley neighborhood are receiving pamphlets and informational flyers on "How to identify the weapon in your school mates gym bag," and "What to say and where to look when an Asian gang member approaches you on the street," out here on the central Oklahoma prairie, we recently found this informative brochure in our 3rd graders backpack.

Theorizing how many Dads and Grand Dads associated with C's class of 19 students are into the tobacco chewing habit, I'm thinking this particular brochure didn't find it's way into many family discussions once it made it's way home.

Our family, however, did discuss it, finished some of the word games and activities outlined in the brochure, and generally had a good time making disgusting noises as we mimicked the sputum discharge associated with "t'backy chawing."

A small town slumber party

2008-11-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

Things we learned from our first slumber party...What a badge of honor it is for a group of 3rd Graders to stay up way, way, way past their normal bedtime...only to be followed up with how they totally crashed and burned the second the first of their band of sisters dozed off to slumber city.

How loud a group of zizzed up on Dr. Pepper and chocolate birthday cake 8 and 9 year old's can collectively squeal...it's ain't Memorex.

The regret of having the party on a Saturday night meant watching the girl's trudge off bleary-eyed the next morning for 10 a.m. church services. Stuffing them full of chocolate chip and whipped cream topped flapjacks and waffles may get them through the first 20 minutes or so, but I imagine the wall will be smacked into just before noon.

Selecting the night that Standard Time returns (fall back) enabled us to entertain the girls for an additional hour. For some, this may have been an issue. For us, it just gave us an extra hour to get breakfast on the table.

3rd grade girls are very aware of the caffeine content of Dr. Pepper, plain M&M's and chocolate cake as well as the sugar content of Dr. Pepper, plain M&M's and chocolate cake.

3rd grade girls don't talk about boys yet...(whew).

Even though Grand Parent's say they wouldn't miss their granddaughter's birthday/slumber party for the world (or at least the birthday part of it), be prepared to sling a 12-pack into their trunk for when they get home and need to unwind their nerves a bit.

Our construction practices on the playroom and upstairs bathroom proved effective against a 7.5 San Andreas Fault temblor...roughly equivalent to 6 third-graders and two 5-year old's on a sleepover.

A hungry 3rd grade girl can actually out eat me, slice for slice, when it comes to pizza.

Cheese pizza outguns pepperoni pizza almost 2 to 1, and when buying pizza for hungry 3rd graders, always go with the more filling hand-tossed crust, as opposed to our family favorite but less substantial thin-crispy crust.

When the morning came the inevitable questions floated through the hallway and crept down the stairs into our ears as we prepared breakfast -- "Where's so-and-so...what happened to she-and-she...did they go home...what happened?, as the remaining slumberettes took stock of their merry band and noticed far fewer heads present and accounted for.

That cry at 3:00 a.m. (now on Standard time...body clock says it was still 4:00 a.m.) from the one girl whom we suspected wouldn't make it through the night, was not nearly as rude as it could have been...due to a unwittingly humorous remark uttered by my 5.5 year old this morning. As we privately relayed the story of how so-and-so woke up early in the morning, panicked when she realized she wasn't in her own bed and through the fog of REM sleep, didn't quite recognize where she was.

To which PK innocently replied..."You're at a sleepover, silly.

Last, but not least, for 9-year old's, square waffles out favored the Mickey Mouse shaped waffles 6:2.

Overall the girl's seemed to have a good time, and through tired and sleep deprived eyes, the birthday girl ushered a sincerest of sincere thank-you moments after our last guest had departed.

On to Thanksgiving!

Me, the girls and 1000 Flaming Skeletons

2008-10-28T19:58:00.001-06:00

Back in my grad school days a bunch of us would don some festive Mardi Gras masks bought at a discount from the local party supplies store and become spectators in the very wild and always surprising West Hollywood's Halloween Carnaval.

For the open minded throngs who frequent this drag-fest of the costumed drag-gest, it's an unforgettable sojourn into a world beyond the realm of even Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland...at least it was for straight-as-an-arrow me and my equally straight Oklahoma-native girlfriend (now my wife).

The best year we ever experienced was the parade which took place after the release of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (queue Abba music about now). No parade advertised as "off-beat" and irreverent has yet to match that particular Halloween night in West Hollywood.

Which brings me to our families recent parade experience at what many fellow Okie's have branded, the wild and wackiest Halloween parade that Oklahoma has to offer; Ghouls Gone Wild.

While the parade was far outside the pomp and circumstances norm for street festival fair in Oklahoma, both my Wife and I were sorely disappointed in the lack of outrageous costumes (okay, the 10-foot tall Aliens were pretty cool), and politically correctness demonstrated by the participants.

That's right. Not one drag queen dressed as Sarah Palin (or Tina Fey for that matter). Only one George Bush and one John McCain. No Obama's. No Biden's. No Sally Kern's. The corporate sponsored floats out-counted the others by 2:1 and the biggest jeer drawn from the crowd was for a local attorney, his name and law practice grossly gracing the side of the pick-up he was riding in.

Even Pasadena's daytime Doo-Dah Parade would score higher for satirical costumes and flamboyant hi-jinks than Ghouls's Gone Wild.

Granted, the parade was billed as a family affair, and both of our girl's had a great time -- even when the marching zombie's would charge at them, sending them screaming into our arms.

Still and all, the highlight and crescendo that the parade builds to with much deserved braggadocio is the March of the 1000 Flaming Skeletons, led/followed by the boneyard sponsor (and purchaser of the skeleton costumes), Wayne Coyne of the successful local band, The Flaming Lips.

There are plenty of YouTube clips featuring the march, but this clip captures it in essence and won't tax your DSL line to download it.

File this blog entry under, "Things to do in Oklahoma that don't involve OU, farming, hunting, or eating chicken fried steak."

Inglewood in 'da hood...serving up good Mex-dishes

2008-10-23T11:17:00.000-06:00

Here's what I knew going in...My In-laws had eaten at a new Mexican restaurant (to them) in the small (but growing at a staggering rate) town located about halfway between their medium sized town and our small town.

It was a family run joint, owned by two gents related through the marriage of one to the sister of the other.

One of the owners was from Chicago, the other was from California.

The food was reasonably priced and good. Different, but good.

And most importantly (to my In-laws), the queso was tasty.What we found upon our first foray into the drive-through pizza joint turned mex-rest was a little taste of the old school and a heaping helping of shared experience hospitality.

The owner, I'll call him Don (as in Don Diego de la Vega aka Zorro), upon hearing we were So Cal transplants like himself, pulled up a chair as if we were family and immediately launched into a discussion on his family history, our family history, the origins of his family recipes, and how he came to this growing Oklahoma town on the prairie, complete with introductions to all his family members that were currently working.

Before becoming an Oklahoma resident three years back, Don lived and worked in Inglewood, CA. Since I had spent a good deal of the summer of '95 in and around his neighborhood working on a movie (bad movie, good experience), we bonded over talk of this all-night taco stand, that corner store, and the many locations we shot at that he was intimately familiar with.

While we discussed, among other things, our shared experiences of our Okie-emigrant status, Don would occasionally whisper directions into his eldest daughter's passing ear and within minutes our table was adorned with items not on the menu, but culled from his own family's table favorites and prepared with speed and aplomb in the restaurant's kitchen.

When S mentioned her love for the fire-roasted green chile rellenos that my Step-Mom prepared, out came a sample of Don's favorite relleno-style dish. After some coaxing I admitted my missed cravings for North Hollywood street carnitas tacos with onion and cilantro relish and a red radish garnish. I was rewarded with a pork green chile verde version of my favorite sidewalk vendor dish that makes my lips curl just now thinking about it.

The fire-roasted mixed chile salsa that was his Mother's favorite was too good for words. When I suggested that he should include it on the menu, an astonished look crossed his face and he muttered, "sólo para la familia."*

What could I say to that? So I simply dipped another chip and munched away.

Don's favorite anecdote on opening a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma involved the numerous "research" trips he and his family took throughout the state, once they decided to open their own joint here. He summed it up in one word...."queso."

Which drew a huge laugh from my So Cal gullet, as I nodded and heartily agreed with him when he proceeded to tell the story of how his family members were surprised that every Mexican restaurant in the state served up the complimentary melted cheesy dip along with the table setting and glass of water.

When I relayed the story of taking my In-laws for dinner to Olvera Street in LA, and how my M-i-L was upset when she found out we weren't getting queso dip with our dinner, Don nodded knowingly and chuckled right along with me.

You Okie's and your queso...I mean it.

*-for family only

A big dog dies, an old man cries

2008-10-22T08:18:00.000-06:00

His owner was toiling away in the garage workshop, filling an order for several mounts that a taxidermist friend had asked him to make. Just a few deer head backing plates.

Nick was at his usual position in the corner of the garage. Not close enough to let the flying sawdust and debris from the radial arm cutter sprinkle his black coat, but near enough to his owner to feel secure in his presence.

This was his spot in the garage. He had a different one in the back of the pickup. Yet another one in the backyard by his house and pen. Still another next to his owner in the duck blind.

In the 12-years he had lived with his owner and the other pack members, he had retrieved a couple hundred ducks in barely frozen over ponds, eaten his fare share of kibble and then some, and most recently been on the receiving end of hugs and playful head pats from one, then another smaller versions of the human kind of which he shared his life.

But on this particular day, as his owner made busy in his woodsmith workshop, Nick laid his huge black head down, closed his eyes and left his owner/pack leader and family behind.

In between saw cuts and router bit changes, my F-i-L noticed his beloved canine companion hadn't moved in a bit and didn't see the comforting rise and fall of the beasts ample ribcage.

"Nick," he called weakly as he crossed the polished cement floor over to the worn carpet remnant in the corner.

"What's the matter old man?"

When it hit him, it was a slow motion moment. There was the inevitable moment of denial, followed by the jolt of emptiness and the pit of heartfelt loss. The tears came to the him soon after as he told his wife the news and prepared to bury his old friend in the backyard alongside the previous two canine family members.

I know this will be my F-i-L's last dog, as he's stated on numerous occasions that very fact, so a part of me can't help but wonder if some of those tears were shed in recognizing the passing of time along with the passing of an old friend.

In telling the girls of the death of the first real dog they ever grew to love as a family member, I found myself deluged with hastily drawn pictures of the big black Lab from my 5-year old, along with a nonchalant shrug from my almost-9 year old.

No worries, I knew that seemingly emotionless shrug would manifest itself as an earful of tearful come bedtime that night.

In closing, I myself find that I owe my F-i-L's big, black Labrador a small debt of gratitude.

He taught my girls at an early age what it meant to be a humane human.
He taught them how to respect, but at the same time how not to be afraid of big dogs.
He showed them how dogs can be more than a companion and family member, but can have a job as well.

Finally, he demonstrated how a wagging tail, when being wielded by a 125 lb. happy dog, can be a knock-you-off-your-feet-then-wack-you-in-the-head-as-you-fall weapon of mass destruction and giggles galore.

So long, Nick.

Good boy.

Arizona, take off your hobo shoes

2008-10-15T15:56:00.000-06:00

For this, my final installment of my snaps from our recent anniversary trip, I'm drawn to the lyrics of the classic good/bad song, Arizona by Mark Linsday (formerly of Paul Revere and the Raiders...yes THOSE Raiders whose biggest hit was "Indian Reservation").

Listen away in one browser tab, while scrolling through the final set of pics.

Go ahead...it'll make you popular.

Still more AZ pics and posts

2008-10-14T15:13:00.000-06:00

A well documented location on Route 66 in Holbrook, a well photographed roadside attraction, and a well worn subject. Still, use your imagination as I did when I snapped this bad boy and titled it, "Final image on the digital camera SD memory card belonging to a missing visitor to Jurassic Park."

Little letters on a big wall - truly a metaphor for the meteor crater on so many different levels.

I shot two versions of this photo...both with and without my lovely wife. Obviously, this is the version with her. Doesn't she have a killer smile? Well, doesn't she?

Sometimes a cool shot just presents itself. Course, sunsets and long shadows make things a tad easier on amateur photogs at times.

If a hotel room maid goes through the trouble of fanning out the top sheet in a box of Kleenex, then it deserves not only a snapshot, but a dramatic setting as well. I titled this shot, "Talking a box of tissue out of committing suicide wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, especially when it was crying and I wanted to hand it a tissue to wipe it's tears..."

AZ trip redux

2008-10-11T21:01:00.003-06:00

Back home in my small town in Oklahoma and pondering next years anniversary jar adventure to Alabama.

Before I do a Velvet Brown and move onto the next thing in life with neither regret nor remorse for that which we didn't get to do or see, here are the first in a series of pics and commentary, posted as promised. I'm not a professional photog, so just deal with the wonky composition as if you were seeing the world through thyne own eyes...if you were me. If you like these, there will be more. If not, it's the weekend so go out and enjoy the fall weather.

Taken on October 5, 2008..."Shucks, any ol' body can get an alky drink at the Big Texan...long as you was born today or later."

What kills me is that the Budweiser folk spent all this money and all that research time in coming up with a surefire, easy-as-pie method to help the sellers of it's product determine proper drinking age credentials. And all it takes to undermine the cost and effort is one doofus who opens the box from Anheuser-Busch and thinks, "ohh, pretty clock...with a built in calendar too!"

It's wacky haiku time...
A swallow swoops
parting the dark clouds
rooms to rent

"When the phone didn't ring, I knew the dame wouldn't call, and that I'd have to find a way to see to it that any other dame who walked into my office and sold me a sob story about her cheating husband and empty bank account, wouldn't be able to tell that I had a soft spot for sob stories. In my line of work, at $40 a day plus expenses, a soft spot like I have won't pay the landlord or keep the revolver in my pocket loaded with bullets."

VonDutch sees all, even from the back of a restored hot rod panel wagon.

Most RV drivers pull a small car or suv behind their rolling land giants, so when they find a suitable campsite, they can leave their home-away-from-home parked and use the car to bop around town in.

I like this guys bop-around-town vehicle much better.

Takin' it easy and letting the Eagles dictate our direction

2008-10-10T23:59:00.000-06:00

This a.m. we dined on the free continental breakfast musings that the McMotorLodge chain hotel offered with our paid room tab. While I poured, flipped and manned our pre-mixed and pre-measured waffles, S eavesdropped on the lively conversations occupying the geriatric rotunda taking up 99.9% of the remaining room in the designated free breakfast nook arena.

The widescreen LCD tv hanging precariously in the corner of the nook was blasting the news of the latest DOW droppage, and it was fun to listen to the ongoing debate in the room about the upcoming election and who was voting for whom and why whom was voting for him.

Filled to the brim with far too many baked goods and not nearly enough fresh fruit, we left our room card key behind and journeyed to the old section of Cottonwood in search of the soul of the town. We found it a mile or two down Main Street, well away from the glare of the chain motels and WalMart supercenter parking lot lights.

Stopping at a sprawling antique and collectible haven known as Larry's Antiques on Main, both S and I hooted and hollered at each other from one end of the lot, to the second floor of the barn, to room after room of just plain stuff.

This rooftop parking lot of rusty relic'd pedal cars was too good not to digitize.

One item in particular caught my eye, but alas, there would be no room in our import truckster's bonnet for such an elaborate and awkward Arizona souvie...

Leaving Larry's behind, I spied this sign and snapped a shot of it as reference...for an identical sign that I someday plan to build and erect on the front lawn of my Main Street house.

Course, I'll swap my small town's name for Cottonwood...and maybe make Buzz and Todd a little more animated. And paint the Vette the correct shade of blue.

Eventually making our way to State Highway 17 northbound took us to 1-40 where a half tank of petrol later, we found ourselves exiting onto Winslow's stretch of Route 66.

Finding THE corner was easy, as the Mother Road guided us there on her Winslow loop with all the care of a, well, a mother. We hopped out of the car, plopped ourselves down in the plaza and drew next years anniversary destination state from the jar. The corner itself was alive with visitors and shutterbugs, anxious to become one with the lyrics of a 30+ year old song written by Jackson Brown and performed by the band that brought us such classic hits as Hotel California, Sunset Grill, and Tequila Sunrise.

With several cheesy poses of ourselves with the statue, and S standing astride the "flatbed Ford" pickup truck parked next to the plaza, we took our jar (now with one less slip of paper in it's belly) and buzzed over to nearby Holbrook for our traditional wedding anniversary meal...pizza.

The town of Holbrook boasts not only one of the last surviving Wigwam Motels, but also the only exclusively Italian eatery (unless you can claim Pizza Hut as Italian) within a days drive of the AZ/NM border.

Unfortunately, the restaurant wouldn't open it's dinner hour doors for another hour, so we went in search of Holbrook's public library to sit and ponder our next years anniversary state pick. My library sniffing gene proved pinpoint accurate once again as it only took a few right turns and several more left turns to locate the town's public library. I pulled my iBook and shared the joints wifi access, while Wifey got down to brass taxes with the library's copy of Cottage Living.

The hour we needed to kill sped by in record time and our chops were a'lickin for some pizza pie. Now, while some may have theorized that our choices for enjoying a "good" pizza may have seem limited by our location of the moment, the Mesa Italiana restaurant on Holbrook's main drag surpassed our expectations for both product and experience.

The crust was a hand-tossed variety, with minimal bubble burns, indicating someone was actually watching this pizza being baked, as opposed to just sticking it into a conveyor belt oven. The mushrooms were fresh, the veggies sliced, not diced, and the sausage, while served as chunks instead of sliced (my preference) was spiced and flavorful.

We ordered enough p-pie for a filling meal with a few slices left to occupy the togo box and we were once again off.

Bombing straight through the AZ/NM border, with a gas and sip stop in 'Que-town our stamina finally ran out in Santa Rosa where the bright red neon sign of the Sun 'n Sand Motel on 66 beckoned our road worn bodies to it's vintage bosom.

So here we sit, lying in bed, finishing off the rest of our pizza from dinner...just as we did 10-years ago this night.

Oh yes, for those interested, for next years trip we pulled yet another A-name state, Alabama.

We call them... Super Tacos

2008-10-09T20:26:00.000-06:00

The utter stillness of the national park was just the ticket for our previous two nights of not-quite restful sleep. Yes, my wife's 4 a.m. call of the wild introduced a bit of discomfort as the chilly night air rushed into the tent and down to the bone, but once that call was taken, the early morning agenda was open and the phone lines were cleared.

After listening to the modern day morning camping chorus consisting of the beep-beep-beep of backing up motorhomes, an errant car alarm or two, and the whipping flap of 20 lb. ravens hovering nearby in hopes of stealing a campers breakfast, we broke camp, took $2-for-8-minute hot showers at the convenience center a short walk away, and found our way to a nearby cafeteria for way-too-much breakfast at way-too-much prices.

Still and all, we saved a few bucks by camping out the night before, so the splurge didn't bother us, knowing as well that we'd probably skip lunch as the national park foodstuff weighed heavily in our gullets.

The last stop in our Grand Canyon tour was at the Watchtower. I hadn't been snapping as many snaps in and around the GC as most of the other tourists we observed during our stay, but something about the Watchtower brought some life back into my shutter finger. Indulge me a bit and let me post a few here...

Side note here, a great drive leaving the GC area would be via the easterly Desert View drive, and down the hill past the Little Colorado River Gorge. Spectacular views out of every window, tight curves, smooth pavement, and 65+ speeds the entire time.

Growing somewhat weary of ruins and natural wonders, we opted instead to head into the fantastic Red Rock Canyon for a visit to the artistic colony known as Sedona.

The drive down the RR Canyon was full of twists and turns, narrow at times, and dangerous as all get out, only because its so very hard to concentrate on the road when the scenery outside the windshield is utterly breathtaking.

As long as it took to get into Sedona, once there, S and I couldn't get out of town fast enough.

Sedona may be loved by the folks who live there and the busloads of tourist and art seekers who flock to the place every season of the year, but whatever historic remnants of the small artist colony ever existed are now buried beneath the heavy-handed strokes of commercial developers, faux-southwest designers, and million dollar hillside homes that Mary Colter would gasp at with utter disdain.

As did we.

For a town that sits in such a naturally magnificent setting, boasts a roster of some of the Southwests master level artists, as well as a rich history worthy of the great cities in the country, it has become a soulless place.

But, I don't live there, so just ignore my ramblings. Sedona-ites would probably scoff at my small Oklahoma town as simple and soulless as well.

We made our way to the city of Cottonwood which has a far removed section of the towns old Main Street that seems to be undergoing a small nostalgic resurgence. We stopped at a wonderful antique junk shop that was closing it's doors in 5 minutes, that we'll be visiting in earnest when it's doors open in the morning.

S wanted a tub to bathe and relax in tonight so our accommodation choices were limited to chain hotels. Awhile back we passed by a Jack in the Box, a fast food chain that hasn't yet made it to OK, that originated and is quite popular in SoCal. The menu is typical fast food burger and fries fare, but Jack offers something called the Super Taco (now known as the Monster Taco) that is a unique taste sensation.

You Super Taco eaters know of what I speak.

So yes, for dinner we entered a state of denial and bought a 6-pack of the nasty, greasy, deep-fried pseudo-Mexican treats in a slip-out sleeves and finished the bottle of muscat from our campfire last night.

Hey, we're on vacation.

"a gnat that lands on the ass of a cow chewing his cud..."

2008-10-08T19:03:00.001-06:00

Alas, no supernatural sounds disturbed our REM sleep last night...however the unnatural man-made sounds of the every hour-on-the-hour Sante Fe rail trains, the drunken college kids hanging out at the bar directly below our room until 2 a.m., and the jackhammer crew several blocks away working from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. straight (yes, I said a jackhammer crew), made for a restless slumber.

Add those disturbances to the half-actualized state of consciousness I slept in as I listened for a phantom bellboy knock at the door, and you'll grant me this word of advice...when staying at the Monte Vista in Flagstaff, get a room on the northeast corner of the building. You may be closer to the haunting dead, but much further away from the sleep depriving living.

Jackhammering at 2 a.m....I kid you not.

We slept in to make up for the lost hours of the evening and barely made it out for 10 a.m. checkout. Trucking out of town on Flagstaff's weird hodgepodge section of Route 66 we found the world's slowest gas pump just outside of town that S theorizes was purposely jimmied to get patrons to come in and c-shop in their c-stop.

The Mother Road kinda disappeared in this area so we hopped on the interstate and found our way to a waiting booth in Old Smokey's Pancake House on Williams' Route 66 nostalgic business loop. Scanning the gluttonous platefuls of food that the other diners were feasting on, we again decided to split our meals and just order what most citizens would consider a single serving breakfast.

Say one thing about breakfast offerings from Route 66 diners, they don't skimp on the portion sizes.

The breakfast burrito with refried beans and single plate-sized buckwheat pancake that Smokey's served up was enough to feed our entire family of 4, let alone the Wife and I.

Rolling out of the town dubbed, the Gateway to the Grand Canyon, we made a 65 mph beeline for what many consider the greatest natural wonder of the world and this middle-aged couples first glimpse of it since our family camping/road trip days of our youth.

Taking in the IMAX flick at the heavily commercialized National Geographic Grand Canyon Visitors Center was fun on many different levels of the entertainment scale.

First, the flick itself offers views of the canyon that only birds and ultralight flyers get to see. Second, the IMAX format was made for swooping aerial canyon shots, POV river rafting footage, and panoramic intervalometered pans of the canyon and surrounding sky.

Finally, sitting among busloads of tourists from all over the world as they marvel, ooh-and-ahh at both the Grand Canyon footage and the huge you-are-there IMAX film format is first rate entertainment in and of itself.

Now, back when we planned this trip, our original intention was to tent camp a few nights in the Arizona outdoors to save a few bucks and air out our camping stuff which had been sitting unloved and unused since FreeWheel back in June. However just about everyone we queried, including those online, told us that if we hadn't made campground reservations ahead of time, there was no way we'd find an open spot within the Grand Canyon National Park.

Yet here I sit in our Coleman 9x9 tent in spot #203 in the non-hookup section of the Mather Campground less than a mile away from the south rim itself. The Park Ranger who checked us in told us that only about 65 of the available 320 spots were reserved and we'd be relatively on our own.

Psyche.

Dinner tonight was a similar thrill ride, as we were told by so many folk that the dining experience of the famous restaurant at the El Tovar resort on the South Rim was reserved for those who made arrangements weeks or even months in advance.

Upon asking, the El Tovar Dining Room hostess told us that if we wanted, she could seat us in 30 minutes with a table that looked out over the rim, and had a perfect view of the sunset over the canyon. Sure it was only 5:00 in the afternoon and the sun wouldn't be setting for another hour, but by the time our creme brulee and decaf was making its way to our table, the uppermost peaks of the canyon's south rim view were getting their last licks of the Arizona sun.

About the GC itself, I'm not going to attempt to tap into my limited public school education vocabulary to describe how magnificent this canyon is, and how fortunate we are to have such a wonder within the borders of our country. Danny Glover said it best in the Lawrence Kasdan's feel-good 90's flicker..."Man, get yourself to the Grand Canyon."

Note - also the source of the line that titles this particular blog entry.

One last observation before the last of our seven dollar rick of store bought firewood goes out and I duck into our tent for what I hope will be a snuggly night amid the ancient pines and fellow campers in our area.

As we searched for a precious parking spot in one of the miniscule lots situated at the top-of-the-hill resorts on the rim, S spotted the now familiar Bullitt Mustang sitting in a much coveted spot beneath the shade of a twisted old pine tree. As I circled the aisles we spotted Mr. Bullitt and his Mrs. making their way from the rims edge toward their car. We exchanged waves and smiles of familiarity and he motioned in that unspoken language of drivers everywhere that if I wanted his spot, it was mine for the taking.

A few minutes later as I pulled into the spot recently vacated by the '68 and prepared my senses for the visual feast awaiting mere meters away at the canyon's edge, the sound of the pristine Mustang accelerating down and away from the parking lot rang in my head like an old friend.

Karma is a wild and crazy thing.

As the stars grow brighter and the skylight is replaced by the ground glow of the three-quarter moon, there are a few hearty tent campers around us (even though the spots directly adjacent to us are empty), enjoying the 40 degree night time lows and listening to the silence of the night - without the benefit of a passing freight train, without the rancor of martini swilling coeds, and without the melodic beating of an early morning jackhammer crew.

The Napa Valley muscat and dark chocolate truffles we purchased at the local supermarket (strange to buy wine in a supermarket again) were the perfect fireside nightcaps.

Bears don't like truffles...do they?

First one to say, "now that's a big hole," wins.

2008-10-07T22:52:00.004-06:00

Chapter 2 of "Okie's are everywhere," occurred at the ticket booth for the Meteor Crater attraction. S was wearing her "Oklahoma - Native America" button up long sleeve while turning over our $30 entrance fee to the nice lady in the ticket booth.

Eyeing the embroidery on her blouse, she cheerfully queried, "Where in Oklahoma are y'all from?"

You guessed it, she was from Enid and after a few minutes of holding up the line, it turns out we knew some people in common.

Tickets in hand, we walked a few steps to yet another uniformed Meteor Crater employee, only to find that he was born in Lawton and still had family back there.

Add these two to the desk clerk at the Blue Swallow Motel whose son lived in OKC, the diner at Joe and Aggie's whose Mom lived in Hugo and the owner of the Rainbow Rock Shop that spoke fondly of time he spends in Hobert visiting friends, and you've got our states panhandled shadow stretching way beyond it's odd-shaped border.

Wifey and I enjoyed "experiencing the impact" at the "world's first proven and best-preserved impact site on earth." The guided tour/hike along the rim was interesting, I managed to say "...now that's a big hole," almost 12 times in a non-sarcastic tone and we found ourselves invigorated by the 64 degree, slightly breezy Arizona autumn atmosphere.

A short road trip after climbing down off the crater rim found us pulling curbside at Flagstaff's historic Monte Vista hotel. A mere 1-block north of Route 66 in Flagstaff's historic downtown, the MV is purportedly one of Arizona's most haunted hotels.

At check-in, S innocently asked the desk clerk if the room we were staying in was haunted, to which she replied, "oh, well yes it is...is that all right?"

Okay, so the fact that she readily admitted the room was haunted was fun enough, but the matter-of-fact tone in which she admitted it was either a well-rehearsed marketing strategy or a spooky reality check that the desk clerks at a haunted hotel must deal with for every patron.

After checking in and dropping our bags in our second story corner room known as the Zane Grey suite (he apparently stayed in this room on several occasions), we took to the streets and alleyways of the historic district, meeting yet more Okie-expatriots from Edmond (antique and collectible shop), and Norman (gift boutique), taking in some iced lattes from a sidewalk vendor, and finding a 50's era Zane Grey novel in a used book store for my room-themed bedtime reading tonight.

We found a tasty Thai joint for a massive meal of coconut/lemon grass soup and spicy eggplant then retired to watch replays of the Presidential Debate.

So here I sit, blogging wirelessly from the Zane Gray room waiting for a knock at the door.

A knock at the door?

Before reading any further, click here, scroll down and read about "The Phantom Bellboy."

The number on our door is 2 - 1 - 0.

"Room service..."

Stalking a speeding Bullitt...Mustang, that is.

2008-10-07T21:52:00.000-06:00

The morning found us slightly drowsy from the semi-regular trains passing in the night. Seeing as how the Holbrook section of the Mother Road is a mere block or so from the train tracks, and our hotel was situated on the Road itself, the price we paid for nostalgic lodging and supporting a Route 66 business was a few hours of semi-interrupted sleep from the semi-regular trains passing in a semi-atypical night.

Luckily, our day was looking to be a semi-relaxed day of big hole viewing and mountain town strolling.

Couldn't leave Holbrook without a few snappies of the dino kaffee-klatch at the Rainbow Rock Shop in Holbrook, but once my digital camera was begging for mercy from the jurassic head-shots, we pulled up stakes in search of a jackrabbit. And we found it, just outside of Joseph City. Here it is.

No really, HERE it is, the Jackrabbit Trading Post, yet another Route 66 icon.

We bought a magnet and a shirt, took a few snaps, and ran into a fella whom we've dubbed, "Mr. Bullitt."

Our previous encounter with Mr. Bullitt and his wife occurred last night while exiting Joe and Aggie's Cafe. They were parking and going in, we were belching and coming out. I immediately noticed the vintage '68 GT fastback in "Bullitt" Highland Green as it pulled and parked into the same small lot where our import family truckster sat.

Mr. Bullitt exited his car, looking more like an accountant from Koekuk than a cool and streamlined lieutenant in the SFPD (although the tag on his car read "LT SFPD" - awesome), but he saw me oogling his ride and responded to my rapid fire questions with the ease and acumen of an enthusiast, not just some Barrett-Jackson deep pockets collector.390?
Yep.
67 or 68?
Early 68.
325 horse?
It dynod at 290 last year.
Toploader?
(Nods) I was going to put a T-5 it it, but it's still sitting in my garage.Trust me, this is the stuff car guys crave.

FF to this morning and this time the roles were reversed...the Bullitt couple were leaving the Jackrabbit and we were just arriving. We exchanged a few comments about how I wouldn't think of stalking Angelina Jolie but I would happily follow a Bullitt Mustang across Route 66, then I paused a few seconds before entering the curio shop to listen to the 390 powerplant motor and shift onto the old Mother Road asphalt.

A sweet sound indeed.

However, the story doesn't end there. A mere hour later as we turned into the parking lot for our touristy destination of the day, the Meteor Crater, there sat the highland green beauty.

This was the last glimpse of the classic 'stang that I would get for the day, but for now and forever, the image of my most favorite version of the Blue Oval pony car motoring down my most favorite version of America's black top will keep the gray matter in my noggin happily occupied.

Don't let your dog tinkle on these trees

2008-10-06T21:13:00.001-06:00

We had a surprisingly quiet night on Tucumcari's stretch of the Mother Road and arose to a light sprinkle and gentle breeze. The popcorn we consumed at the Odeon Theater the previous night while chuckling our socks off at the Coen Brothers latest offering (Burn After Reading, two thumbs up), had left our stomachs hours ago, leaving room for some major huevos rancheros (Wifey) and chorizo egg scramble (moi) at Kix's on 66.

Thanks for the rec on Kix's, Ron.

A quick stop at the Tee Pee Curio shop a short walk away and we were on our way, Arizona bound once again.

Our aim for the day was the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park at sunset, so we had to put our heads down and push New Mexico's 75 mph speed limit to the edge.

The trip down the interstate was impersonal and uneventful, with the exception of a disappointing stop at Cline's Corners due to a power outtage that shut down their water pumps.

Translation... no working bathrooms. Luckily a state run rest stop a short 3 miles down the road saved the day, reinforcing the family mantra, "Never pass an opportunity to pee when you're on the road."

We made the mineralized tree stump filled national park in plenty of time (picking up an extra hour due to Arizona's strange avoidance of the spring forward/fall back time change) to get a good three solid hours of game time in before the parks closing time.

Wifey and I strolled through the ruins of the Puerco Pueblo dating back to 1200 AD, stretched our imaginations attempting to decipher the petroglyphs viewable along the walking paths, and marveled at the amount of petrified wood still remaining after so many tons of it were hauled off since the site became such a popular tourist attraction.

Leaving the petrified forest as the sun did its final dip below the horizon behind us, we trekked on over to nearby Holbrook for a meal and crash pad for the night. Alas, there was no space at the famous Wigwam Motel on Route 66, but Wifey and I ended up having a nice conversation with the daughter of the man who built some of the unique teepee themed hotels, including the one that she and her family had been running since it was built.

We told her about our stay in a Wigwam motel a few anniversary trips ago in Kentucky, and our day trip visit to the Rialto location back in our So Cal days. She said we were the first couple she had met that had actually visited all three of the surviving wigwam motels (hard to believe, but there you have it).

Saddened but happy to have made even a small connection with a Route 66 icon, we then made our way up the road to another old Route 66 motel known as Brad's Desert Inn. I highly suspect that Brad no longer owns or runs the Desert Inn, but the fella who signed out the room to us was no friendlier than he needed to be, our room was no more luxurious than it needed to be, and the trains running nearby were no more rumbly than they needed to be.

Dinner on Holbrook's stretch of the Mother Road presented several historic choices to us, however we chose Joe and Aggie's Cafe. I tried the beef and bean stuffed sopapilla slathered in their specialty green chile sauce while S chose the local favorite cheese crisp with ground beef topped with the same amazing family recipe green chili sauce. Both were utterly unique and utterly palate pleasing.

While getting the lowdown from owner Joe on the visit to his joint by John Lasseter and Michael Wallis during their Cars prep, we met up with a fellow So Cal road traveler who was heading toward Hugo, OK, to do some work on a house he owns there in circus town Oklahoma, USA.

Sure it's a small world, but something about Route 66 attractions seems to bring us all together.

Bedding down with a Swallow in Tucumcari

2008-10-05T17:07:00.001-06:00

Greetings from Room #2 at the historic Route 66 attraction, The Blue Swallow Motel.

Wifey and I have once again left the environs of our small town to venture across our great nation in search of all things kitschy in celebration of our wedding anniversary (10 years).

Long suffering readers of YASTM are in the know to our annual October tradition, but those of you who aren't, click here for a summary and recap of just what the heck is going on.

This year, we're Arizona bound.

After a crocodile tear-filled farewell by my 5-year old and a hearty "Don't forget to bring me a present..." backwards salute goodbye from our almost-9-year old, we piled into the import family truckster, topped the tank off with $2.99 a gallon 10% ethanol dino juice and rolled out of Dodge early this morning, the sight of my in-laws waving at us in the rear view mirror.

It took about 4-hours of constant conversation between Wifey and I to make up for the last few days of lost time we've not been able to spend with each other due to the ramped up directions our lives have taken as of late. By the time our vocal chords were growing weary of yapping, our grumbly stomachs and terminal hunger for cheesy-Americana at it's worst/finest, found us pulling off the highway and into the acres-and-acres of free parking belonging to this establishment.

You guessed it, the Big Texan in Amarillo, home of the free 72 oz. steak (if you can eat it in an hour, along with a salad, baked potato, friend shrimp and soft-baked roll the size of...well, Texas.

No, we didn't attempt the freebie cardiac angina meal, opting instead to share the 12 oz. ribeye, salad (with a dressing from the past called, roquefort - ask your grandparents kiddies, they'll remember this dressing), rolls, and a baked potato (with all the trimmings and then some) the size of well, again, Texas.

Several bigfoots, um, I mean gentlemen were in the throes of attempting to secure their free meal while we dined, and even though I'm all for gluttony of the culinary kind, watching these fellas down their chow was more consumption than I needed to witness. Still, it was fun to hear the guy with the HAT periodically yell out that table 57 had 12 minutes to go, while table 3 was down to his last 7 minutes.

Leaving the Lone Star state and it's impressively large (but still tacky as McMansion tract homes) Visitor Centers behind, we made a protein-fueled beeline for the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico.

Pulling off I-40 at Tucumcari's Route 66 access road, Wifey and I breathed a collective sigh of relief to be back in the land of ancient blacktop, motor court hotels with neon signs, and curio shops offering nothing of what you need, but everything of what you want.

Tucumcari's stretch of the Mother Road has certainly seen better days, but in the 45 minutes or so it took us to cruise up and down the town's 66 drag, and stumble upon the vintage Odeon Theatre in the old downtown district where we'll be spending a few hours tonight catching a flick, that tingly sensation of being submerged in something bigger, older, and cooler, pleasantly oozed out from behind our mini-mall and gated-community flooded senses.

Checking into the Blue Swallow Motel was painless.

Parking our 4-door import into the garage adjacent to our room was effortless (although how Howard "Happy Days" Cunningham fit his 4-door Desoto into one of these garages is beyond me).

And popping open my iBook and finding 3 bars of open wireless service via the Blue Swallow was priceless (even got 2 bars from the Motel Safari across the street).

Cubic feet, not square feet

2008-09-29T07:39:00.001-06:00

The last time I did anything major to a structures roofline in my possession was back in SoCal, where we were surprised by a visit from our friendly neighborhood City Inspector who told us in no uncertain terms that the "addition" we were making to the roof of our rear patio cabana would need to be certified and inspected...for a fee.

Basically, we were adding a pitch to a flat roof of an open-air structure used for outdoor entertaining -- that was it.

After paying $50 for a permit, spending 2-hours at the City Clerk's office to obtain said permit, and shelling out another $50 for the final inspection certificate, I was made very aware of the "protective services" that our local government agencies were providing.

Which was why I was slightly gunshy when I first started researching the provenance of my small town historic home, and made a stop into the office of somebody whom I thought was the City Inspector. Basically, I was in search of any permits on file that had to do with the expansion that was done on my house sometime between 1895 and 1947.

There were, of course, no such permits on file. Back then, if you wanted to add a couple rooms and an upstairs sleeping porch, all you needed was the lumber and gumption to do it.

I was further told that even today, I'd only need a building permit and inspection certificates if I were building an additional 100 square feet or more to the house.

100 SQUARE feet...good to know.

And now, for some much anticipated views (for us at least) of the completed construction as it currently sits. The felt is on and we're dry and ready for any early fall storms that may befall us.

Location where our mini-deck will someday be built...facing westward for sunset viewing and stargazing.

Here's an interior view of a small section of what will be a playroom for the girls. You can see where the old roofline was (diagonal cut on the left wall), the small hallway entrance that we built leading from the playroom to the bathroom, as well as the future bathroom in the back, which is the room that we raised the roof up 54".

Finally a before and after view of how much change a little roof lifting and build-out can do.

Total cubic feet added - plenty enough for a 12'x17' bathroom with a standard 8' ceiling, a small hallway leading to said bathroom, and a 14'x24' playroom for the girls to spread out and slumber party in.

Total SQUARE feet added - approx. 15 square feet (the hallway)

The House of the Four Gables (with apologies to Nathaniel Hawthorne)

2008-09-26T06:50:00.000-06:00

When last we visited our intrepid house construction/restoration/expansion ants, the new gable roof had been constructed, with the old hip roof beneath it counting its last moments of existence after 113+ years of dedicated service keeping the wind, rain, snow, sleet and hail from intruding the sacred confines of the home within.

While the family and I took in a day at the OKC Fair, my F-i-L decided it would be a good day to demolish the old wall. Upon our return, we found the view out of the rear of the house to be astoundingly wide open...

Fast forward two full days and a new vertical 90 degree wall complete with 6' glass doors and a hallway leading from the back playroom to the newly raised roofed bathroom is completed...

Finally got those shingles nailed down on the extended roof sections...using a ladder hung from two ropes as scaffolding that only the Flying Grayson's would be brave enough to sling a roofing nailer around on...

Completing the total enclosure of the new addition, we went up top and decked, felted, installed rolled roofing and flashing on the flat rooftop -- an addition of 14' to the roofline.

The final shots of the completed project are forthcoming, as my F-i-L and I take a much needed period of r&r, now that were back to being sealed, safe, and secure from the Oklahoma outdoor elements.

Ford F-150..."rubbish?"

2008-09-24T21:15:00.004-06:00

As I meander on my regular route to and from the girl's school, from and to my small town's supermarket, and by and by the myriad of other errands my debit card and I share on a daily basis, I couldn't help but notice the growing "used truck lot" that has blossomed in the old WalMart parking acreage.

The once proud collection of bedded and high-cabbed vehicles of choice round these parts are relegated to sit with their headlights and front fascia facing the road, beckoning any passing motorist to stop and give them a looksee.

Since the gas prices climbed above $3 a gallon here, the "lot" has filled with more and more big-motored dino juice guzzlers, seemingly as a reaction by their present owners to thin their own driveway herd.

The majority of the "For Sale" monsters carry the venerable blue oval, including a few of the "best selling vehicle in the world," the Ford F-150 pickup.

Sad to see people parting with their trucks as a reaction to the high gas prices, but not sad enough that I didn't enjoy a recent viewing of my favorite televised reason to both love and hate the Brits, known as Top Gear.

Generally speaking, the blokes on Top Gear don't like any cars "we" Yanks build (even though one of them owns a classic Mustang), and this clip from a recent episode wherein they review a 2nd Gen, 380 hp Ford F-150 Lightning Edition is a great example of how a pasty Brit can sling insults on a venerable American institution such as the F-150, but do so in a thoroughly entertaining manner.

Personally, the knowledge that I could still enjoy their good humored ribbing at my/our expense, signaled that perhaps the same open-mindedness that allows me to love and appreciate cars from not only the Big 3 but from all over the world, will continue to serve me and my sanity well, here in the small Oklahoma town that I lovingly call home.

Turning a hip into a gable

2008-09-19T22:04:00.000-06:00

"Okay smarty pants, now that you've raised the roof and have created an all new room where there once was a 3' tall one, how are you going to get to it?"

Why, we build out of course.

The hip roof that dominates the rear section of the upper floor of our 113-year old domicile is too slanted for its own good. So we decided to remove it, replace it with a flat wall, complete with sliding 6' doors, and an outside deck for the girls to get their 2nd floor view groove on. This wall will also be the jumping off platform for a short hallway that lead to -- dun-dun-dun-daaa - the newly raised roof room.

Not yet fully recovered from last weeks roof raising, my F-i-L showed up early Monday morning all fired up to begin the build out, figuring if he could work through the pain then I sure could.

The roof extension was hairy.

The side wall extensions were scary.

The hip room tie-in over the new hallway was ghastly.

The plating, papering, and shingling of the oh-so-slanted new roof was downright terrifying.

This last shot gives you an idea of just how much roof we're adding and how much of a build out the rear room/hallway/deck will encompass.

The demolition of the old hip roof section, build up of the flat wall that will be replacing it, and hallway jutting out over to the new bathroom is yet to come...

Right hand, meet the left hand

2008-09-18T21:22:00.000-06:00

Converge is a word denoting the coming together of at least two things.

Therefore, a company that spends a good amount of money promoting their corporate identity and it's name, Convergys, should at the very least know what it's right and left hands are doing.

It all started with an email from an online friend whom I met via this blog. She was interested in pursuing some work-at-home opportunities and turned to me for some succor. After some research, I turned up several companies that offered phone/computer based jobs where all one needed was a dedicated phone line and net-accessed computer to work as a remote (home based) call-center agent.

Basically, say you call Big Faceless Company for technical help, or to order a sweater vest, or with a general question regarding that non-narcotic male enhancement solution you've been receiving emails for, and instead of sending you to some in-house call center, your call gets switched to inmates at a low-security prison or perhaps even to India where you'll be speaking to some guy named "Damon" aka Rahjneesh.

If you're really fortunate your "very important" call will be sent to the next highly-paid, highly-trained and highly-hidely-ho "home working professional agent" complete with Plantronics headset and 1.5 mpbs download speed net connection.

When I started to dig deeper into Convergys' perfect "Home Agent Program" world, the cracks on the happy faces of the generic employee jpegs at the website started seeping through the digital make-up.

First off, Firefox tossed this message at me when I wanted to find out more about the "application" process...

Since Microsoft hasn't released a version of IE for Mac in 8 years (good riddance, I say), the lack of programming support (and let's face it, code writing skill) was about to be revealed on Convergy's Windoze lemming-like faces.

Further digging revealed that they only supported Windoze clients for their Home Agent workers, claiming that their "software" would only work on Microsoft based systems. Um, software such as Acrobat Reader, Flash and Windows Media Player...all of which do work on a Mac. The topper was the propaganda video they stream off their site labeled, Benefits

See, the retired teacher sporting the sporty headsets, sitting in the sparsely decorated room taking calls and seemingly having a ball doing it...is working on a Powerbook. A MAC Powerbook. Running an OS that isn't supported by Convergys.

Onto the Contact Us section I went to send an email pointing out the discrepancy with a slightly sarcastic reminder of the definition of the word "converge."

To their credit, the email response was not immediate, but timely enough (24-hours).
Response (Mariam) - 09/15/2008 04:28 PM
Dear Prospective Applicant,

We do appreciate your interest in our Convergys Remote Agent program.

To answer your question, no our systems are not all web-based and that is why "Windows" systems are required. Our platform is not compatible with Mac systems. Please review our requirements below.

Our videos are based on the benefits of working from home and a disclaimer is announced in the beginning of our video that reads " Actor portrayed not actual Convergys employee".

Best Regards,
Home Agent Team"Actor portrayed not actual Convergys employee" = you will not be this happy working as a Home Agent for us, because we chose to hire actors to portray our employees since our actual Home Agents would not accurately present the image we'd like to sell you in this cheesy video.

Having previously worked for a big corporation that was often clueless in it's marketing, employment practices, and benefit shenanigans, I'll always hoot for joy (with a quick sigh of discouragement) when stupid stuff like this falls through the cracks and ends up as blogger fodder.

"O" fans unite!

2008-09-15T07:42:00.004-06:00

The family unit and I were truckin' along the smooth cement floors of the dying mall a few towns north of us when a middle-aged fella came storming out of the Steve and Barry's that was having it's $8.98-an-item store closing sale.

He was sporting the requisite crimson and creme ball cap with the bold OU labeling, matching shirt, soiled chinos and off-brand sport shoes. Beneath his shirt lay the protruding gut of too many beers while sitting on too many barcaloungers while watching too many team sports contests on his tv.

Immediately I saw my wife put as much of herself between OU Fan and the girls who were happily skipping along, keeping track of the ratio between empty mall stores and occupied ones. She herded them in my direction and it wasn't hard to detect why she had executed such a defensive move....OU Fan was rabid.

Never did like OSU...worst school in the world far as I'm concerned....never supported them and I never will..." were the basic tenets of his jocular rave as he passed by the orange and black Cowboy section that Steve and Barry's displayed at the front of their mall chain store.

Not being from here, and having little to no exposure to what a "typical OU fan" was before relocating to the panhandle state, I may be a bit more impartial to what my Wife's family characterizes as a "typical OU fan," - local(s) who never set foot on the OU campus to attend classes, let alone any institution of higher learning beyond the 8th grade.

To be fair, my in-laws and kin-through marriage (least those we maintain contact with) are self-labeled Oklahoma fans - meaning they cheer for whatever Oklahoma team is playing, be it TU, OCU, OSU, OU, or the myriad of other campuses with the circular letter of their home state embedded in the representative school name acronym. To my knowledge, they share an equal amount of diplomas from colleges spread throughout the state, including a smattering of degrees from both OU and OSU.

Given that, I'd have to say that they're pretty much just "O" fans.

Even during "Bedlam" they hoot and holler for each team that scores a touchdown, just happy to see someone getting some points on the scoreboard and make for an interesting game.

So why then do they (my local extended family) as a group, propagate the negative stereotyping of OU fans as loudmouthed, uneducated, beer-swilling, narrow-minded, haters of anyone who doesn't bleed crimson and cream?

Can't answer that for them. Perhaps just rooting as an Okie is enough, seeing as how the state as a whole is still struggling to find some respect in the nation's minds eye.

But guys like OU Fan at the mall seem to back their claim up time and time again. Heck, Ross the Intern on the Leno show found some slightly humiliating OU fans at last years Red River Shootout that ranks up there with the best shirtless/toothless/twister-took-my-trailer post-tornado local news clippette on YouTube.

Back at the mall, once I determined that OU Fan was relatively harmless and not of any immediate danger, I smiled and waved at him like any good OU-lovin' compadre of the sports paraphernalia would do and cheerfully hollered out, Hey, what year did you graduate from OU?" to which he answered with surprising articulation and verbal acumen, "I wouldn't waste my money on going to college, get real."

Getting real over here, thanks. How's your reality treating you?

My friend MB (who has more education that any one person needs, but it's his real world experience, high IQ and moral character that has carried him forth to his perfect life) has an enlightening take on the whole "my team beat your team" mentality that is pervasive in certain segments of the world's population (face it, team fanaticism outside the US puts our OU/OSU rivalry to shame).

In his blog posting, he muses, "I have always bristled at people referring to "their" team. (No, you just pay them for expensive merchandise with their logo. As far as I know only the Green bay Packers can be "their" team because people own shares for them.)"

"I just don't get the concept of the taking credit for others work just because you watched. Be it "our team won" or "we won so many medals"

...it was them, you sat on the couch."

Near poppage for tossing a fictitious ciggie

2008-09-12T11:09:00.000-06:00

Well, the long arm of the law in my small town was bound to catch up to me sooner or later, and sure enough last week my wild ways found me looking down the barrel of a citation book and ball point pen.

It was strange to be buzzing by the high school football field on a Thursday night, but since the first game of the season was scheduled to be a night-before-Friday-night lights game, we chose to let the girls attend their first dance lesson of the fall instead of cheering for our small town's gridiron gladiators.

So there we were, cruising by the field, craning our necks to be rewarded with the sight of our team having secured a 20-0 lead in the first half, when I caught a glimpse of a patrol car in my side view mirror.

I didn't think much more of it until a minute later when, after I had navigated a perfectly signaled left turn, I found myself pulling over to the sights of the flashy-flashies in my rear view.

Immediately I turn to my wife with my best, "what'd I do?" expression, followed up with a staccato scattering of rhetorical questions..."was I speeding...did I not signal...is there something hanging from my nose?"

And the most important question, keeping in mind that I'm a resident of a small town, "I wonder which of the half-dozen or so officer's, most of whom I know, is pulling me over?"

Turns out my wife and I spent more time explaining the higher concepts of law enforcement and the finer points of how to react when being popped by a cop than we did explaining to Deputy Babyface of the Sheriff's Department that neither my wife nor I smoked and even if we did, we certainly would not toss a used ciggie butt out of the window.

After a quick check under my car to ensure my exhaust wasn't dragging (the plausible explanation I offered for the "spark" that Sheriff's Deputy BF claimed to have spotted coming from my car), we were given a pleasant "You folks have a nice evening" toodaloo and sent on our way.

My opinion? It was game night in town, Sheriff D BF spied a slightly lowered rice-rocket putter by, heard the non-stock exhaust note and thought he'd see what kind of trouble was stirring behind my Oklahoma legal 25% VLT window tint.

I still chuckle to think about his brain toot when he peered in to find a middle-aged stay-at-home-Dad and his nuclear wife and two doe-eyed daughters in dance tights and ballet slippers staring up at him.

Wifey says I need to get an "adult" car. I don't know, do these things happen to pick-up truck driver's in my small town?

Da roof, da roof, da roof is...5-feet higher!

2008-09-10T21:38:00.002-06:00

Sometime between 1895 (pictured above, the earliest known image of our house was published in a special edition of the local newspaper) and 1947 (the year the family whom my in-laws are friends with moved into the house and provided us with valuable information on how the house was laid-out mid-last century), the owners of our home added on.

The addition included a side entry covered porch, a long spacious room (27'x17') and a small bedroom (17'x10') which had an identical sized room built above it as a screened-in sleeping porch.

When we moved in, the larger room had been broken up into a laundry room, bathroom, side entrance hallway and coat closet. Only recently has this room been completely gutted to the studs and has become our mudroom/laundry room/kiddie art studio.

Last year, the low-ceilinged (7') small bedroom became our downstairs bathroom, complete with 8' ceilings, separate shower, vintage clawfoot tub (restored by moi) and multi-media viewing room (don't ask).

Still with me? Okay then, located above the just mentioned downstairs bathroom was a low-ceilinged (7') sleeping porch-turned storage area that has now become an 8' ceilinged space-soon to be upstairs bathroom, complete with a 3' crawl space between it and the bathroom directly below it.

How then, did we turn two stories with a total of 14' vertical feet between them into two 8' tall rooms with 3' of crawlspace between them (do the math...) for a grand total of 19 vertical feet?

We raised the roof of course.

Well, first off, we raised the ceiling in the downstairs room just over 1'.

Then we floored in a 3' section above that room to run plumbing, electrical and heat/ac ducting. That left us with just over 3' for the top floor room as pictured below.

And since even a fully grown Hobbit would have trouble bathing, showering, and applying make-up in an upstairs bathroom with 3' ceilings, our only option was to do this...

I'll not bore you with the particulars and play-by-play analysis of just how my F-i-Law and I accomplished this task, but I will say it involved many hours of planning, four manually-operated mechanical farm jacks, oodles of lumber, massive amounts of sweat, hundreds of 3 1/2 inch air gun inserted nails and a ton of my F-i-Law's good 'ol Okie guts and gumption.

Oh, and a couple of hefty guide poles that made our neighbors and passers-by wonder if we were indeed filming Children of the Corn Part 8 (yes, there have been 7 CotC flicks).

There's more to this epic that includes a goodly amount of wind, daily rainfall accumulation, my fear of falling from ladders above 19' in the air, exhaustion, hammer-hand fatigue, an air nail gun that kept losing it's trigger, and my F-i-Law's first taste of VitaminWater ("This water tastes kinda funny..."), but after a very long day and anticipating some rain and wind overnight, we arrived here...

Then here...

Then here...

And my Elky sits here...

Why blog about this? Basically it's just an excuse to let you know why I haven't been blogging much here. Pretty good excuse, huh?

Rock-lahoma?

2008-09-03T08:38:00.003-06:00

What is your state's official rock and roll song? Don't know? Loser.

In my adopted state's State House there currently sits Resolution No. 1047 which states:
WHEREAS, the Oklahoma Legislature has adopted a State Folk Song (“Oklahoma Hills”, Jack and Woody Guthrie), a State Country and Western Song (“Faded Love”, Bob Wills), and an official State Song (“Oklahoma”, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II); and

WHEREAS, Oklahoma has been home to many exceptional rock and roll performers and song writers and no official Rock and Roll Song has been adopted; and

WHEREAS, the people of Oklahoma should be integral in selecting the official Rock and Roll Song; ...So basically we (OK taxpayers) have funded a website wherein anyone (are they checking IP addresses to ensure all voters are local...what about Okie's living abroad, or in other states, can they not vote?) can select among the 10 songs culled from the MASSIVE herd of rock and roll songs penned or performed by Okies past and present.

Go here to vote and listen to full versions of all the nominated songs.

Go ahead, you know you want to. I triple-dog dare you.

There are some rockin' songs on the list and as much as it pained me not to vote for The King's tune, I went with the thoroughly karaoke-appropriate song that I've been singing out loud since kiddiedom, never realizing that I'd indeed get to Oklahoma way before I ever got to Spain.

Strolling downtown with skeletons and dirty laundry

2008-08-28T15:46:00.007-06:00

Another meeting of my small town's Planning and Zoning Commission and another appearance by yours truly to solicit support for my ongoing downtown historic walking trail project.

A little background music, Maestro...

Upon my arrival over three years ago to my central Oklahoma town of 4380, one of the first community organizations to snag my warm Stay-at-Home-Dad body was a local non-profit group that was building a series of walking trails around and through my small town. The folks running the show seemed sincere and committed to their cause of promoting a "healthy and active lifestyle" for the fellow citizens of their beloved burg so I gave them my support and a-ok and have been involved with them ever since.

In fighting the good fight to revive and maintain the integrity of our old Downtown district, I came up with the idea of erecting historic markers along the sidewalks and alleys of our old Main Street district, in an effort to generate some interest in the pioneering buildings and people who preceded my immigration to our burrough on the prairie.

Turns out we were able to secure some private donations for the project and before I knew it, I was spending a great deal of time in our local library, scanning hundred-year old microfilmed issues of newspapers looking to generate some tidbits of text for the proposed downtown markers.

I know, I know, "Jack, next time you get a bright idea just put it in a memo!"

The research turned out to be more fun than I had anticipated. True, I wasn't Nicholas Cage searching for a map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, but delving into the lives of those who have come before satisfies the voyeur in me in a relatively harmless manner.

Okay, so maybe I stepped on a few toes of local historians who I initially turned to for fact checking and instead received more than a few raised eyebrows and muted harrumphs.

And its possible I may have inadvertently uncovered more than a few inaccuracies in some local myths that have been bandied about the population as facts and givens for so many years.

But if it gets a few more people walking downtown, generating an appreciation for this town and those people who built it, then what's a few exposed sores and picked scabs among community members?

So I get myself all dooded up (clean shorts, clean shirt, combed hair, etc.) and ready to present my case to the P&Z board to allow the non-profit I work with to install our next set of historical markers on the city sidewalks... when what do my wandering eyes did appear, 3 Board members...one short of a quorum.

Let's just reschedule the meeting for...next Thursday at noon, that okay with everyone here, okay fine then...."

Hey, even in my small town, fair is fair and a quorum still means majority rules.

Crab-itat for sale...cheap

2008-08-27T21:53:00.000-06:00

A few weeks back S attended a campaign watch party for her friend and took along PK as a guest.

The party was hosted by the largest campaign contributor and "backer" of the candidate who lived with his wife and family in a ritzy house on a ritzy street in a ritzy part of town in a ritzy part of the state.

S came back from the party with two things on her mind...1) she was convinced even more that the politics of her friend and the party he represents are no where near her political leanings and 2) an entire Hannah Montana bedroom for little girls is entirely possible given enough time, money, and parental indulgence...um, support.

PK came back from the party obsessed with hermit crabs.

Seems the 5-year old little lord Fauntleroy of the house had an Aaron Spelling size habitat full of healthy, happy and hyperactive hermit crabs that PK couldn't keep her eyes and hands off of.

I know, I know, the same red flags that start waving when I hear the words "fresh sushi" and "Oklahoma" in the same sentence were sparking up a storm in my mind when I thought of getting the girl's a set of hermit crabs of their very own.

But, summer was winding down, and their back to school stuff had all been bought and paid for, so what could the harm be in few little exoskeletoid friends to depend on us for their very existence?
.
.
.
.
We buried the first one a week to the day after we brought him...her...it home.

PK had named him/her/it "Don't Kilpatrick," since it had Patrick Star painted on it's shell and every time the girls would spot the Kilpatrick Turnpike sign as we enter the toll road nearest us they'd merrily chant out, "Don't kill Patrick!"

We buried the replacement for the first one a few days after it arrived to ease the suffering of my 5-year old in crab-mourning.

We then buried the second of the original pair (named Miley, as in Cyrus) a few days later.

What's discouraging the most is that I read every dad'gum website there is on how best to care for and provide an ideal environment for those dopey little crabs, and still they popped off on me like I was intentionally waiting for them to just die.

I mean, we can keep a $.39 goldfish alive for over 7-years running, and our dog is approaching her 2nd birthday relatively unscathed (we did find a big ol' nasty tick on her the other day and enjoyed pulling it out and scorching it to death via the hot Oklahoma sun and a 4" magnifying glass), so why did our crabitat become a rectangular plastic biodome of death?

School has provided a welcomed distraction for PK who still seems to be sidelined every now and then with PTCDS (post-traumatic-crab-death syndrome). Oh, the tender heart of a 5-year old.

The 8-year old? After she watched me pull the rotting crab carcasses from their shells and put them in the ground for their burial rites, she commented that it had been several months since we went to Joe's Crab Shack and wanted to know if we could go sometime soon.

Nice.

Color her purple, the free fair arrives

2008-08-22T00:01:00.000-06:00

Since I'm about 4 generations and thirty-six mindsets away from getting my kids to enter a livestock entry of any kind into our small town counties free fair, they instead opt for the arts and crafts competition in their zestful quest to snag a blue ribbon or two.

Generally speaking, the competition for art and crafts in the junior categories isn't as populated as one would think it would be in a small central Oklahoma town. Guess most of the kids are out feeding their heifers and tending to their lambs.

Still and all, C managed to enter 2-acrylic paintings, 2-colored pencil drawings, 5-digital photographs and a glazed ceramic plate she made at art camp a few weeks back.

PK, being of Kindergarten status and relegated to compete in the 12 and under category for her art camp ceramics, entered a baked clay and glazed mask that resembled a fox, and a glazed ceramic plate as well.

Tonight we trekked on over to the exhibit building to see how the girl's entries fared and were kinda blown away by the large numbers of participants vying for ribbons this year.

Nice to see folks picking up their paint brushes, dusting off their 35mm cameras, firing up their ovens and diving into what must be the cutthroat category of the entire free fair, the handmade quilt category.

PK won her first ribbon ever with her fox mask, and even though her plate was skunked, she took thoughtful solace knowing that her sister's plate (entered in the same category) won a blue ribbon. Okay, maybe thoughtful solace isn't the correct phrase.

Try seething jealous sibling rivalry.

All of C's art work won ribbons of varying colors and levels which seemed to reinforce her somewhat pessimistic theory (for an 8-year old) that all she had to do was enter something in every category for there to be a partial payoff, given the odds she was looking at.

Kinda like my college days theory of asking out 100 beautiful women out on dates, with the odds being in your favor that at least one or two will say yes.

Pathetic, I know. Don't think I even got out of the teens on that one.

Onto the digital photographs, and since a wise Chinese fortune cookie once imbibed that a picture is worth a thousand words (more so in my case since I'm relatively illiterate), I'll let my 8.5-year olds 5-megapixel photos do the talking...

Blue Ribbon, Junior Division - Unretouched digital, Nature category, Grades 1-4
Taken with my Kodak C330 5-megapixel digital camera at my Uncle and Aunt's backyard garden in Petaluma, CA on our recent trip out west. I asked C why she chose to shoot this one in black and white and she said, "it just looked better that way."

Blue Ribbon, Junior Division - Unretouched digital, Still Life category, Grades 1-4
Same camera, same garden in Petaluma, same trip out west. This photo is the third in a sequence of photos, starting wide, then closer, and finally this extremely close shot. She titled it, "What a bug sees".

Blue Ribbon, Junior Division - Unretouched digital, Animal category, Grades 1-4
Our pooch Franny is a favorite subject for our little shutterbug daughters and even though I had originally dismissed this photo as being too out of focus for fair contention, S insisted the capturing of the expression in her eye, albeit fuzzy, was worth another looksee. It's an odd angle indeed and apparently good enough for blue and gold.

Reserve Grand Champion, Junior Division, Grades 1-12
For the lighting in our mudroom we went with a threesome of those aluminum clamp on lights you can get in the hardware store for $5. A little matching paint and some inventive wiring and we were set (energy saving low wattage bulbs of course). C sought a more artistic interpretation of our hanging mudroom lamps and received a footlong reserve grand champion pink badge and ribbon for her "flash-off" efforts.

Grand Champion, Junior Division, Grades 1-12
She literally freaked out when she saw the huge purple badge and ribbon on her flower photo. Actually, one of her school friends came running up to her the moment we crossed the exhibit building threshold and told her that she had won a purple ribbon. C was floored and almost near tears as she escorted us over to see her prize.

I can't say enough about this photo, taken with that same Kodak 5-megapixel camera at my relatives spread in NorCal. How the sun spotlights the flower. How she composed the shot for the flower to be slightly off center. The patch of light in the unfocused dark background on the right along with the vibrant greenery on the razor sharp left. The diagonal split of light and dark separating the frame and creating a sense of depth and contrast for the flowers environment. I'm just astounded she took this shot. Even if it was purely accidental, we should all be lucky enough to fall into such photographic fortuitousness on occasion.

And if there are any naysayers that doubt an 8.5-year old actually took this picture, you'll have to contend with the half-dozen or so relatives who witnessed C taking the garden pictures, then watching my cousin's mega-inch computer monitor as he uploaded her pics off the SD card and onto his hard drive.

Big thank-you's to my Uncle T, Auntie K, and Cousin K in Petaluma for tending such a wonderful garden, then letting the girls go wild in it. I'll be sending pics of C standing with her ribbons and prize-winning photos taken in your yard if and when I can get C to give me back the camera.

Wherefore art thou onion bagel?

2008-08-21T09:03:00.000-06:00

I'm ashamed to admit it, but here goes.

The first bagel and cream cheese I ever ate was out of a refrigerated vending machine on the campus of what would become my undergrad alma mater.

There, I said it.

It was wonderful experience which to this very day, I can recall vividly the explosions of foreign taste and texture wreaking havoc with my tastebuds.

I bring this up because since those days when my friend Randy and I were taking college extension-type classes to "get ahead" during our early high-school years and would scrounge the campus vending machines for contraband nourishment, I have managed to avoid eating nothing but bakery fresh or at the very least, prepackaged "bakery-aisle fresh" bagels.

With the levels of modern consumable transportation and fast food service gluttony reaching near perfection in this country, there are literally no excuses left for why a person should be subjected to satisfying their onion bagel and cream cheese cravings from a refrigerated or frozen environment.

Now, when I say onion bagel, I'm talking ONION. Not just some dried onion flakes sprinkled on the top in the last few minutes of baking. The onions need to be lovingly folded and made as one with the circular doughy delicacy. Ideally the top should be sprinkled with freshly oven-carmelized slivers of yellow onion, the tallest of which made crispy by their proximity to the heating elements in the horizontal surface toaster (never toast a bagel in an upright...yikes).

These are the onion bagels with which I spent my youthful adulthood eating, and these are the onion bagels of which I thoroughly craved.

Yet, here I was in my small town looking at the plain, blueberry and raisin bagel offerings that my local grocery store and Walmart bread aisles had to offer, and facing the fact that it was either settle for a non-onion flavored packaged store bought bagel of passable caliber, or face a possible interface with a low-to-medium quality onion bagel a mere 60 miles or so away at a Dunkin' Donuts or Panera Bread (they don't make onion bagels, but their Everything variety is decent) in the city.

Then I stumbled upon the frozen food fridges at my local super market and the sight of a green Lenders label jogged my memory. Lenders -- frozen -- bagels.

And green was their chosen color for their onion variety. (Why green?)

Now, why would I choose to go with a frozen bagel over a "fresh" packaged one from the bakery aisle? It was that green label. I figured if I was going to eat a bagel to satisfy my cravings, it might as well be the variety for which I wanted. Frozen or not, it was somebodies interpretation of an onion bagel and I was going to give it a shot. A long one.

Which later found me sitting in my kitchen spreading garden vegetable Kraft brand "schmear" over the freshly thawed frozen onion bagel, and flashing back to my first bite oh so many years ago.

I had come full circle. My life journey is shaped like a bagel.

You say tomato, I say Toyota...

2008-08-12T11:21:00.004-06:00

The other night S caught me chuckling at a commercial airing between Olympic events on NBC.

The ad was a flashy corporate-made spot for Ford wherein the authoratatively-voiced announcer proudly stated that "Ford now matches quality with Toyota!"

Not better than. Not exceeds. Not even edges out by the slightest margin.

Ford "matches" Toyota.

Now, I'm not going to go into the study that revealed such figures, and truth be told, I couldn't care less whether the blue oval car and trucks of today rate higher or lower on the quality suckage meter than any other car or truck out there.

I'm currently po'd at Toyota because of their built-in obsolescent design of the front wheel bearings on the 5-year old model my Wife drives.

Without getting too technical, wheel bearings are one the many components on a modern consumer internal combustible motor vehicle that should be made serviceable by the average to above average shade tree mechanic. If greased often and correctly, wheel bearings should last 50-100K miles without incident.

Needless to say, when I started hearing the unmistakable sounds of a bearing starting to age on the passenger side front wheel on Wifey's ride, I jumped on the net only to find out the harsh truth of what it was going to take to switch the $25 culprit out.

In a nutshell...jack the car onto jackstands, remove tire, remove brake caliper, remove rotor, loosen steering tie rod, loosen strut, loosen control arm, remove steering knuckle/spindle, have machine shop press out old bearing/hubs, buy new bearings, have machine shop press in new bearings/hubs, replace all components, get front end aligned (for safety).

Or take it to a shop which has a special impact gun press kit that can remove and install the bearings into the steering knuckle on the car (negating the step of removing all the steering components, thus also negating the need for a realignment) but get charged out the wazoo for that convenience.

At dealer rates, we were talking about a $300 - $500 dollar job minimum. The regular mechanic we use (an honest to goodness honest mechanic) is swamped and couldn't fit us in for two-weeks - that's the problem with good/honest mechanics. Word gets out of their quality and honesty and suddenly the whole world is in line before you.

So, I was faced with spending an entire day or two (includes driving to the city for a machine shop that could do the pressing work and finding an alignment shop) doing an Fix-it-myself job, or finding a different shop.

In my time of need, I turned to a Honda specialist shop I had luck with before, knowing full well that they would probably not be able to help me directly, but could possibly point me in a well-informed direction.

First, a little background.

Back when I first moved to OK, I had decided to address the intermittent A/C issue that my Civic was experiencing and took it to one of the Honda dealers in the city. Their incompetence was the stuff that urban legends are made of, but luckily through the grapevine of online ricer message boards I found this place.

C'mon, a Honda shop O and O'd by a former NOPI XBOX Cup Champion (Pro 4 Cylinder), and Honda fac tech since the 90's, here in the middle of domestic car Machu Picchu.

Long story short, he fixed my Civic's A/C in one visit (the dealer techs were still scratching their sweaty bald heads after 4 trips to their shiny service bays), tuned the frack out my D16Z6 single OHC VTEC 4-banger, and gave me a list of parts he could find both new and slightly used that would help my little ricer in the handling and green-light-go department...(wink-wink) just in case I was interested.

Back to my Wife's Toy wheel bearing issue. A quick phone call to Matt at Alternative led to a friendly "bring it on it, we'll take care of it for 'ya," which then led to me dropping the car off that day, which finally led to my Wife happily humming down I-40 to work this morning in her car.

So in retrospect, I'm really not all that po'd at Toyota. Least they did the right thing by making their cars similar enough so that even a Honda mech tech can fix them.

"Can you dig it?"

2008-08-11T08:28:00.005-06:00

The small Oklahoma town my wife grew up in was just a tad larger than my small town is now.

A few years back when we were on the hunt for a small town to call our own, we briefly toyed with the idea of looking at houses near where she grew up. However in the intervening 18 years since she had fled the panhandle state, her little town had sprawled to a staggering 12,000 townsfolk and no longer offered the small town experience that she now craved for our family unit.

Her childhood memory scrapbook is filled with swim lessons at the local park pool, tromping off to the "boondocks" with a piece of raw bacon tied to the end of string to catch crawdads down at the creek, and holiday parades where she knew just about everyone marching or riding a float.

And dance lessons at the Moose.

Moose lodge #1785 that is.

In the 23 years we've been together, I thought I had heard every painful (there were many) and triumphant (a few sprinkled in) tale to be generated from her pre-teen tap, jazz, and ballet dance classes at the Moose.

Not quite.

After cheering for, then screaming with the American men's 4x100 Freestyle relay team as they bested the trash-talkin' rival French team by 8/10ths of a second, S went to take a soak in a hot water filled clawfoot where she learned the news that Isaac Hayes had passed away (yes, we have a tv mounted within optimal viewing direction of the tub...don't ask). For reasons unknown to me at that moment, the news of the passing of the creator of the "Theme from Shaft," sent my wife into a quiet funk.

It was more than a few moments after hearing the news that I heard my wife break out into her own melancholy rendition of Mr. Haye's wonderful but lessor known, I just don't know what to do with myself."

Okay, what's the story here?

Turns out she had practiced and performed an emotional jazz routine to this song as an impressionable small-town dance student. Isaac's soulful lyrics and to-the-bone singing style must have resonated deep within her, for even 30-something years later, she did a total recall on the entire song, beginning to end.

When asked, she could only remember a few of the dance moves that went along with the song, but the lyrics were imprinted into the depths of her soul.

Now, I'm forever teasing my wife about what I've always considered her limited "soul for soul music," seeing as how the soundtrack of her formative youthful years was filled with REO Speedwagon and Journey.

Then out of the past comes the deep baritone voice announcing that perhaps there is some "soul for soul" in my Wife after all.

Rest in peace Isaac. Enjoy your jam session with Jimmy, Elvis, Buddy, John, George and all the others.

The politics of friendship

2008-08-08T22:22:00.000-06:00

My Wife has never been very political in public, yet the true value of her friendship was on display a few days before this last round of local elections.

In 102 degree heat, she was out canvasing a far off neighborhood in support of a friends bid for an OK House Seat.

A friend, I might add, who was not a representative of her chosen political party.

Some may say she's a hypocrite. Some may cry foul for her blatant disregard for the sanctity of the multi-party political system. Some may even say she sold out for her own non-political but personal gain.

I say "shut up and go vote."

As if on cue, this article recently appeared in our local news rag that just oozes further proof that every vote counts, especially here in small town Oklahoma.

Deciding an election by pulling a name out of a hopper...what'll they think of next?

Who needs Nascar...we have GRASCAR!

2008-08-05T00:01:00.002-06:00

It's too long and convoluted a story to tell how my Wife and I recently found ourselves at a relatively local lawn mower racing event, but there we were and here I am now to blog about it.

Lawn mower racing. Go ahead and say it, "Okay, here's a rednecky sport that had to be invented by a bunch of Coors Light swillin' good ol' boys not rich or talented enough to drive in Nascar."

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.

Invented as a competitive motorsports event in Great Britain (of all places), it's grown in popularity in the States and even has a national governing body, the U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association.

This particular GRASCAR event was held on a city owned lot on Route 66. Admission was free, they charged $10 to race, $5 for a pit pass, and a local burger joint had their mobile kitchen there to serve up sumptuous onion fried burgers to the hungry lawn mowing masses. It was a family friendly affair, no alcohol sold or served however there were quite a few tailgaters present that brought their own refreshments.

I'm not sure the event we attended was a sanctioned race by the USLMRA, but there were actual rules and categories/classes that were being adhered to, and the safety measures taken were respectful of the speeds that these ex-grass munchers could attain.

Don't believe me, check out this iMovie I cobbled together while at the event. It's about 17 megs, so be patient.

Oh, and pay special attention to the last few seconds of the video. That's S at the controls, participating in an actual race that evening in what they advertised as the "Powder Puff" lady's only race.

How someone talked her into strapping on that helmet and getting on the back of a mower was beyond me, but considering she had pushed a mower maybe 3 or 4 times in her life and had never ridden on a riding mower, let alone drive one, I thought she did pretty well. Okay, okay, the magic of editing has her taking the checkered flag, but she came in 4th place...same place she started.

The inevitable question being, is there possibly a GRASCAR overhead valve twin powered mowing racer in the works behind all those hot rods parts at the back of my garage?

Well, if I can't convince C to get into Junior Dragster racing anytime soon, then perhaps a few wins on the GRASCAR circuit may get her interested in learning how to drift her Daddy's El Camino and maybe find her way into road racing.

Hey, it could happen.

Flying bird kids spotted at the library

2008-07-31T15:19:00.000-06:00

The kid was clutching two books against his chest as if they contained the key to all closed doors and the answers to all of life's questions.

He entered the inner double doors of the library, the sound of the cool climate controlled air rushing outward as he shuffled around the sensor towers and made his way to the back of the line at the check-out counter.

He was clean cut and appropriately dressed for a 13-year old boy in the midst of a hot summer in prairie land Oklahoma. His eyes reflected both the twinkle of excitement and fatigue of use as he placed both books on the counter in front of the teen-aged library page at the counter.

Unfortunately, the female page with emo-influenced fashion tendencies seemed more interested in moving the line along than sharing in the excited boys enthusiastic attempts at engaging her in a discussion on the books he was turning in.

When he queried the page on whether or not she knew if there were anymore books in the series he just read, she promptly pointed to the terminal nearest him and told him to look it up himself.

I was saddened.

Not by the page and her lack of literary compassion for the young reader. She had a job to do, a line of people to attend to, and probably received dozens of requests a day to engage in conversations on one book or another.

No, what saddened me was that I knew that the boy, who had obviously been enthralled with the series of books he was reading, would find no further books in the series.

The story in the books he returned and was now actively seeking to continue on his literary adventure was about a group of human-avian hybrid kids (known as the flock). That's right, flying kids. The series was James Patterson's award-winning and best selling Maximum Ride series.

Our library has all 4 books in the collection. The boy was returning the last two in the series, meaning his time flying with the flock had come to an end.

He had nowhere to turn for more adventures with the Flock. Nowhere to look for more danger and intrigue. Nowhere to go to continue his literary flight of fancy with Max, Fang, Nudge and the rest of the group.

I watched him walk over to the young adult section and zero in on the shelf location where the first and second Maximum Ride books were located. He picked the first one up and paged through it, hopeful to find some tidbit of text he had missed on his initial read, or perhaps the motivation to read again what he may have read several times over again.

He was floundering and I had to do something.

Recall that I was familiar with the Maximum Ride series and once I finished them way-back-when, I too sought out writings by the author who had created such a fun series. Turns out James Patterson actually created the flying kid characters in two earlier novels that were mega hits with his target reader audience - adults. It was the success of these two novels that inspired Patterson to recreate Max and her flock in a series of novels for young adult.

I went and plucked the two earlier novels off the shelf, recalling the moment I had discovered them some years ago, and the excitement I was feeling at that time.

Now, the weirdness of approaching strangers in my small town has worn off some, but all those years with my stranger radar up and humming hasn't quite shut down. However I had a bigger picture to think of, so I found myself walking over to the new fiction collection where I approached the woman whom I assumed was the kids Mom. I didn't know her, but after a few pleasantries she must have recognized me because she said, "Oh, you're PK's dad, aren't you?"

Children are our common bond between all men...and Soccer Mom's.

The ice broken, I proceeded to tell her about the first two books that Patterson had written (not for young adults) that involved a similar group of flying kids that her son may enjoy reading, now that he's finished the first four books.

She seemed thankful, although somewhat confused since I neglected to mention that I had been watching her son meander around the library since I spotted him in line with the Maximum Ride books -- seemed a little creepy and stalker-ratzi to me. I handed her the books and reminded her that unlike the young adult series, these two were written for adults, but that there was nothing in there worse than Harry Potter, only these kids swear in English, as opposed to Harry and Ron who swear...in English. The Queen's English that is.

Oh, shut it ya wanker.

Anyhow, I suggested she give them a quick glance over herself, or at least keep a close eye on the kid as he read them, in case something should come up he doesn't understand. To which she reassured me that her son understands more than she ever did at his age thanks to Wii and XBox 360.

Truth.

Later on, the kid sought me out and with a big sh*t-eatin' grin on his face and thanked me for telling him about these two books. As much as I was dying to have a sit-down gab-fest about the Max books with him, I could see he was anxious to get in the car and dive right in.

My parting words to him were that the young adult Max would return in about less than a year in a new novel, and there is a pretty good web presence for the novels if he had internet at home.

Should have mentioned the growing online fan fiction movement for the Max series. Could be I was looking at the next Hemingway?

Helping the "one" get through

2008-07-30T16:09:00.000-06:00

Spotted this trailer pulling through town the other day and actually did a double-take when my brain thoroughly processed the graphic and text.

A trailer full of swine reproductive hope, that's what that is.

What have you spotted driving down Main Street in your town lately?

The art of lying

2008-07-28T13:20:00.001-06:00

In St. Augustine of Hippo's book, "Of Lying," he divides lies into eight kinds, listed in order of descending severity:

* Lies in religious teaching.
* Lies that harm others and help no one.
* Lies that harm others and help someone.
* Lies told for the pleasure of lying.
* Lies told to "please others in smooth discourse."
* Lies that harm no one and that help someone.
* Lies that harm no one and that save someone's life.
* Lies that harm no one and that save someone's "purity."

Had I been sitting with the good Saint Auggie, I would have added a few footnotes to his scholarly thinking tome that included a few rules, such as the following:

Assume everyone knows you're lying.

If you believe it, it's not a lie (credit George Costanza for that one).

Try to know who you're lying to, before lying to them.

If caught lying, admit it with a disarming smile, then quickly move on.

Apparently, the Service Manager at Bob Howard Toyota in the big OKC, needs to brush up on his Big-L skills.

The other day my F-i-L went to drop off his pickup for a timing belt change at one of the mega-car dealerships near him. Ever the thrifty consumer, he had let his fingers do the walking and found that this particular Dealer was offering a special on major services (such as a timing belt R&R) so he went against his better judgment and took it to them, instead of to his usual mechanic.

The Service Manager acknowledged the phone quoted price and all seemed well and good as he handed the keys over and walked off, until he mentioned the dreaded, "vehicle safety inspection," the he'd be ordering performed on the truck..at no charge of course.

Of course.

Yep, it was the old Columbo fake-exit gotcha.

Long story short, the timing belt was changed out for the price as quoted, however the "free safety inspection" revealed over $2,000 in additional work that their certified mechanics strongly recommended be done based on their thorough 25-point look-see under and around my F-i-L's 12-year old pickup.

I don't think I'll be able to regurge in writing everything my F-i-L said they wanted done but somewhere in there was a transmission fluid flush, front brake pad replacement, rotor turning, rear brake adjustment, brake fluid flush, leaky valve cover gasket, fuel injector cleaning, a broken license plate bulb and a partridge in a pear tree. Additionally, they wanted his permission to remove the fuel rails and visually inspect the fuel injectors, "since a Tundra this old would surely have some "gunk" (their word, not mine) built up."

So, he pulls the Service Manager aside and asks to see a mechanic to go over the truck, point-by-point to discuss the estimate.

Not their policy, but in this case, he'd make an exception.

So, the mechanic comes over, and he apparently looks younger than the laptop I'm writing on right now. But he's got the ASE patches on his shirt sleeve to prove he's been fully trained and doesn't seem the least bit stressed about having to "face the customer."

They go over the points one by one, as the Service Manager nervously nods, thinking he's gonna make enough commission off of my F-i-L's pickup to pay his gym membership that month -- when things start to go terribly wrong.

The mechanic is actually so apathetic to the questioning about the "strongly recommended" services some other mechanic suggested, that he all but admits he thinks my F-i-L's T-100 is in great shape.

To which the Service Manager corrects him and says, "Uh, it's a Tundra."

To which the mechanic retorts, "That truck over there...is his truck, and it's a T-100."

To which the Service Manager does a double take and says, "A T-100...what's a T-100?"

Quoth St. Augustine, "rookie."

Winter view of my house courtesy of Google Maps

2008-07-25T11:45:00.003-06:00

Last year, C's 2nd grade teacher made pretty good use of their in-classroom SmartBoards and Google Maps net tech and turned the combination into an exciting lesson in "the world is a small place and getting smaller every second due to the internet."

C came home fascinated by the technology that allowed us to see our house from a satellites p.o.v. and was even more marveled when I showed her that she could now see a streeside view pic of our actual house via Google Maps.

In case you haven't checked it out in awhile, type your own address into Google Maps and see what video grab of your house the Googly-eyed SUV driving personnel took of your humble abode. Heck, if they made it to my small town, they may have made it to yours as well.

Own own domestic square of small town Oklahoma appears to have been vid-grabbed sometime last winter, as the trees are bare, the grass is brown, and not a dropped leaf is in sight. At least it's a sunny day and the Elky is sitting proudly in the driveway, beckoning middle-aged muscle car aficionados traveling down our street to mutter to themselves, "I knew a guy who had one of those in high school..."

For obvious reasons I won't post the vid-grab of our house in this post, but I will gladly invade the privacy of the person living in our old house in So Cal and post their pic.

It looks to have been taken some time ago as well, since I know the construction going on at our old neighbors house has been completed for some time.

I do miss our palm trees out front, and the sound the dead, dried 26.5 lb. fronds would make as they broke loose and smashed to the ground in the middle of the night..sigh.

Another day, another year older

2008-07-24T14:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, my 45th birthday ended with a phone call from some grad school buddies who were hanging out in the Big Apple where one of them teaches at NYU Film School, and the other was in town to shadow the show runner on one of the many Law and Order tv shows (I don't recall which one). He's directing a Cold Case (another show I've heard of but not seen) and was absorbing as much episodic TV / shoot 10-script-pages-a -day-mojo as he could before his tv drama directing debut in a few months. Meanwhile the NYU professor is off to Ethiopia to shoot a documentary he's been hired to make...helps that he's actually from Ethiopia.

Oh the glamour.

Earlier in the evening I cooked up a couple juicy ribeyes on the grill, bacon stir-fried some green beans (from our garden) and made a big pot of sticky rice for my birthday dinner with the family unit. Pepperidge farm coconut layer cake for dessert along with a single big ol' candle to blow out and wish upon. Big present from the girls was a crayon drawing of Lightning McQueen from PK (which looks suspiciously a lot like my El Camino - score), and a hand-sewn collage of the letters in my name on a felt cloth from C.

Actually, the best present from C wasn't a tangible gift, but a symbolic one -- earlier in the day she checked out and started reading the first book in the Maximum Ride series. Sure she's only 8.5 and this book is written for 10+ year olds, but she's been reading two levels above her grade all year now, and boy-oh-boy, what a great series to dive into. A proud papa-is-a-book-geek moment to be sure.

Oh the pride.

Let's see...before dinner and presents the girl's went with some friends to the local movie house (they saw Space Chimps, featuring Okie, Kristen Chenoweth). While they were munching popcorn, I mowed and edged the side and backyard. By the time they got home the temps were in the low 100's so I put away the mower and ran inside for a Powerade slush (nothing exotic, just stick a $.79 bottle of PowerAde in the freezer and let it sit for an hour).

Earlier still I woke up extremely late (burned some midnight oil on a project in the works) and took the girl's for a veggie omelette downtown followed by a trek over to the library for the last day of the kid's most excellent Oklahoma Summer Reading Program.

So that was how I transitioned to the next year of my life here in my small town.

A final note of triumph (or tragedy, depending on your point of view), my Wife called me today to remind me that the "country club" (be sure to say that with your best Thurston Howell the Third voice) where my in-laws are taking us to dinner tonight for a belated birthday celebration, is trousers mandatory. Meaning, no shorts in the dining room.

I have to wear long pants.

Oh the horror.