VBS

Yesterday afternoon, C got a call from a Kinder classmate inviting her to come to the VBS at her church that evening.

VBS = Vacation Bible School

Out here, VBS also equals big business for the local churches. Kind of like Pledge Drive Week at PBS.

Anyhow, C showed interest in going, so I fixed an early dinner for the girls, and rushed out of the house to drop her off at 6 p.m. I got her registered, she found her classmate that had invited her, and all seemed well.

Until I saw that all the little kids in her group were carrying $1 bills in their hands.

I asked why.

To put in the collection plate, I was told.

Apparently, it was Boys vs. Girls to see who could collect the most money. The winner gets to hit one of the First Action Heroes in the face with a creme pie.

Fair enough. But I hadn't brought along my money clip. I'll be back.

10 block drive home. Get some dough. Get back. PK fell asleep in the car. Collect her in my arms, rush back inside. Make the cash handoff to C. All is well.

FF three hours later and we pick C up. She's obviously stressed out about something. Not your happy, bounding about 6-year old. Perhaps she's just tired, being an hour past her normal bedtime. We get her home, bathed, and ready for bed.

Time to cuddle over some books and discuss the day.

"What'd you learn at VBS tonight? Did you have a good time?"

"Well, not really."

Here is comes.

The classmate who had invited her to attend that evening, ditched her and didn't pay any attention to her all night. Nice.

The girls were way behind the boys in payola so Joseph, the First Action Hero of the night, "encouraged" the girls to step up their efforts. Hmm.

Finally, C was shaky with anxiety and felt like she had to stay up to think about who to bring to VBS tomorrow, since they were told that each person HAD to bring someone new the following night.

My daughter takes things like this pretty seriously and was so keyed up about it she was near tears just thinking about it.

So, whatever spiritual lessons or value she may have derived from the evenings festivities, were superceded by three somewhat negative factors.One, the fact that her friend only invited her to fulfill her "requirement" to bring someone to VBS, since once she got C there, she showed no interest in being with her.

Two, it all seems to be about the Benjamin's, and getting the kids to cough up more moolah.

Three, raising the stress level in innocent 1st graders by pressuring them to recruit others.
I understand the need and desire for any organization to recruit. I understand the need and desire for any entity to profit. I understand the misguided innocence of a 6-year old to mislead a so-called friend in an effort to please their elders.

I understand all this and more.

But my 6-year old doesn't, and frankly, doesn't need to at this stage in her life.

Tomorrow, we're going to the new Oklahoma History Center, then having a fun, family dinner with my wife downtown when she gets off work.

First Action Hero Joshua will just have to wait.

Milestone #492 - Etch-a-sketch

I enjoyed reliving a moment of discovery from my youth the other day thanks to a classic toy and my daughter's curiosity.

The inevitable aggregate of being the proud owner/user of the one and only Etch-a-sketch is the question...
"How does it draw like that?"I proudly demonstrated to my 6-year old the tried and true backandforth-upanddown-incrementalmovements technique of clearing the screen of all the "magic dust."

She has the technique.
She has the patience.
She has the drive and determination to peek behind the green curtain.

And now she knows how the magic works.


After dreaming the impossible dream and finding the buried treasure at the bottom of the magical drawing board, we checked out the How Stuff Works site and learned more about it.

We even found an online java-motored Etch-a-Sketch here


However don't expect to find the secret to java programming underneath this applet if you do the screen-clearing technique on this Etch-A-Sketch.

Weird beer laws

So, when the rest of the United States ended Prohibition, Oklahoma stuck to it's tommy guns...so to speak.
The sale of beer no stronger than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight was permitted because legislators classified it as a "nonintoxicating beverage."I'm a liquor lightweight, so I would beg to differ. Get me anywhere near drinking spirits of anykind and my asian blood throws a "histy fit."

Histamine that is.

Red blotches on my face, headache, blocked nasal passages -- the works.

Oh, I get immediately sleepy drunk as well, but that's a tale of a different beast.

Needless to say, I'm not a drinker.

However, I imagine most residents of my adopted state would wholly beg to differ with me and have adopted all sorts of names for the low cold beer alcohol content available in this state. My favorite among the popular nomenclature for trying to get drunk on 3.2 beer is "riding a rocking horse into battle,"
It's not just Oklahoma's faith-based roots that have kept prohibition-era laws on the books. Low-point beer distributors aren't interested in changing the laws because they would risk having to follow the more stringent ones imposed on liquor stores.

Oklahoma convenience and grocery stores cannot sell beer or wine coolers with more than 3.2 percent alcohol. Big-name domestic breweries, including Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors, brew lower-point beer for the Sooner State and five others. Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota and Utah also sell 3.2 beer.Nice to know were not alone in this....for now.
Liquor stores in Oklahoma can sell beer with higher alcohol content, but they have more rules to follow. For one, they have to sell beer at room temperature. Also, liquor stores are allowed to be open only from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday.I think Okies just need to learn to love a good Imperial pint of Guinness, or some good Belgian beer, which, people tell me, is so good you can drink at room temperature and it still tastes good.

Mennonites at the cement pond

We usually try to avoid the local aquatic center during weekends as the crowds can get to Disneyland levels.

Last Sunday, the girls were clamoring for a swim, so I relented, tucked as much of my gut as would fit into my swim trunks and took them to the pool.

We faced the usual crowds and then some.

But there was something quite different about one particular grouping of the crowd. Much different.

The men were playing a game of modified netless volleyball/waterpolo with oversized beach balls in the 4-foot deep section of the lap pool. They were all lean and tall, softly muscular, with the worst farmer tans I've ever seen. Strangely, their tan lines ended at their wrists and buttoned-up collar neckline -- like what you would get if you wore a three-piece suit to a 14-day straight tanning booth-o-rama.

A group of younger women, all wearing black head scarves that looked like fancy doo-rags with flowers embroidered on them, waded and floated nearby the men.

An older group of women donning the same black/embroidered doo rags, sat with perfect posture, quiet reserve, and not one apparent lick of envy for their pool bound partners.

Some further observations...

Apparently only the single, or unmarried females could partake of the wet and wild activities. And even then they had to wear their head scarves, black short pants (barely shorts, more like clam diggers), with a double layer of cotton t-shirts on top.

The men and boys all wore shorts pants as well. Black or khaki. Most of which tended to pull a little too far southward due to their high retention factor of the wetstuff.

Talking with strangers appeared to not be a priority on their agenda.

Not a one of them could swim. The teens all wore inflatable tubes around their waists. The men stayed it the 4-foot deep shallows. They all stayed way clear of the diving boards and 12-foot deep diving well.

I titled this entry as I did, under the assumption that this group of interesting and polite Sunday-go-to-pool splashers were from the nearby Mennonite enclave I know exists in the area.

But I may be wrong and way off base as to their origins, their nationality, and their cultural beliefs.

But I do know this. The non-waders seemed content in their place, the waders were having a ball, the youngsters were polite, and as a group they were picture perfect public pool participants.

On a personal note, I do believe they could benefit from a little dipping into a different type of pool...the gene type. It's a good thing beauty is only skin deep.

Just how many would be considered illegal?

From the recently published court records log in our local newspaper...

Wee Gah Wah - Chinaman

Last weekend, my family and I took in some local history at Fort Reno in nearby El Reno, OK.

One of the highlights of the fort grounds is the old cemetary. American Soldiers from many different campaigns are laid to rest here, some dating back to the late 1800's. Their families, many infants (high infant mortality rate back then), even some Buffalo Soldiers, are all buried within the sacred grounds of this frontier outpost cemetary.

Surprisingly, there are a few dozen German and Italian WW2 POWs buried in a separate section of the cemetary. The Fort served as a POW camp for a few years during the early-mid 40's and since it's a law that no enemy combatant could be buried with American soldiers (even those who died in the 1800's), the Axis POWs are in a walled off section of the grounds.

However, as I strolled the hallowed (and apparently haunted) burial grounds, I stumbled upon this lone grave against the north wall, off by itself.



Take a closer look.



Wee Gah Wah - Chinaman. How cool is that.
But, what an odd name I thought.
But, how nice that they buried him in the main cemetary, albeit far and away from any other tombstones.
But, still, for a non-white (who wasn't a Buffalo Soldier) to be respected enough to even get a burial and engraved tombstone, he must have been someone special. Especially given the plight and racism any Asian received during that time period.

Wee Gah Wah must have been one cool "coolie."

Meanwhile, back at the visitor's center, I cornered a period costumed museum docent and inquired about the lone Asian brother buried up on boot hill.Me - Was that his real name?

Docent - No, those were the only three words in English that he learned to say, or that anyone could understand.

Me - Wee Gah Wah were English words?

Docent - Yes, he was the fort laundryman, and he must have been pretty well liked for the Government to allow him to be buried in the cemetary with the soldiers and their families, not to mention they paid for an engraved grave marker.

Me - But, what does "Wee Gah Wah" mean?

Docent - We think he was trying to say, "We go wash." or "We got wash," but no one knows for sure.
I don't know, what do y'all think he was trying to say?

Burning Maryjo

Hundreds Of Marijuana Plants Destroyed Near Enid
ENID, Okla. (AP) _ Drug agents have torched 650 marijuana plants growing in southern Garfield County and northern Kingfisher County.

They were burned Thursday at a Garfield County shale pit northwest of Enid, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs said.

Agents from the bureau spend the summer going throughout Oklahoma eradicating marijuana.

The Oklahoma National Guard supports the effort, providing helicopters agents can fly in to search for marijuana.

Not all marijuana found is burned. Other plants in less-accessible areas are sprayed with herbicides to kill them.
I think "shale pit" is a law enforcement term for house party.

Bananas are code 11

Not to sound to critical of the produce selection at our local market (the only market in town), but growing up in LA, I admit to being a bit spoiled when it comes to having access to a wide selection of good, fresh fruit and vegetables.

Not so here.

But we adapt and deal.

So when I heard through the plum vine that current shipment of red plums were actually decent, I told C (who loves plums more than broccoli -- and she loves broccoli. Seriously, she loves broccoli) that we were market bound.

So here I stand, holding an ever expanding plastic produce bag, as my two girls fill it up with plum after juicy, luscious red plum.

Then I notice something. This plum has a sticker on it. This one does too. They all have stickers on them.

These stickers in fact.Back in the day, when I was a checker at my local Alpha Beta making $13.85 an hour, part of our training would find us memorizing dozens upon dozens codes for every single piece of produce our store would carry.

Bananas were code 11. Plaintains were 12.
Head lettuce was 25. Romaine lettuce was 26.
Red plums, 35, Black plums, 36. Pineapple, 42.

You get the idea.

The more years you put in behind the register, the more codes and types of produce you would find yourself remembering.

I could tell the difference between a red onion and a red shallot.
Red delicious, Jonathan, McIntosh, Rome Beauty - all red, all apples, all different codes.
Tangerines, tangelos, mandarins, navel and juice oranges - all sweet, all orange, all different codes.
3 lb. bag Russets, 5 lb. bag White Rose, 10 lb. bag Yukon Gold - code, codes, codey-code-codes.
Water, Winter, Musk, Cantalope, Honeydew, Casaba, Cranshaw, Canary, and even Santa Claus - melon - code, melon-code, melon-code.

It was a learned art form which many lesser checkers never quite mastered.

This was in the days before bar coded packaging, scanners, repetitive stress disorder, credit cards, atm / debit cards, keypads or identity theft.

I learned on an old Sweda cash register (you remember those don't you? Big, brown, mechanical and you needed to have fingers of steel and a strong punch to add the totals up -- tink, tink, kachunk, KACHUNK!).

By the time I was made a full checker, I had graduated to an S18 5-high computerized register. Enter the need for codes.

Every checker had to visually approve all checks and verify the ID and phone numbers
And if you wrote a check, be sure to have your ID ready or you can get one off our check cashing cards (which would pre approve your check up to $250).

Every grocery item had a price tag on it. Every piece off produce had a corresponding code.

And every plum was pure.
And every plum was virtuous.
And every plum felt no fear of it's skin being invaded by a gummed up sticker bearing the cheat sheet code for the checker to ring it up with.

Kid's College Part 2

You may recall that C is taking a painting class at Kid's College this week.

Yesterday, she announced that her teacher is a Professional Pet Portrait Painter who asked that all the kids bring in a snapshot of their pet for class the next day. She was going to help each student paint (on canvas) a picture of their pet from the snapshot.

Here we go again.

C was all frantic because we didn't have a picture of Choo choo, her one and only pet -- goldfish.

Now, Choo choo has been a member of our family since C was 18 months old -- she's 6 now. Pretty good life out of a feeder fish from the Petco. I should have a picture of him. I do have pictures of the girls with Choo choo's clear 1-gallon abode wherein one can barely make out a silvery/yellow object in the bowl. However, if you didn't know the silvery/yellow blip was supposed to be a live goldfish, you wouldn't know the difference.

C goes into panic mode. Not only does she not have a real pet, but the pet she does have, is not all that photogenic. I don't have a digital camera with an optical zoom (digital zooms suck), so I had to resort to using the still function of my video camera to get a good close-up of her fish. At least he/she/it held still long enough for me to get some decent poses.

Off I go to my iBook, where I imported the 640x480 still to iMovie, exported it as a still frame, only to be printed out on our 600dpi laser printer.

Here are the digital results.




The printed pictures C ended up taking to her class were much muddier, grey and white laser printed renderings of an aging $.39 feeder goldfish that is no longer gold but more transparently flesh in color.

Ever the trooper, C took the non-photos of her non-pet into class and ended up doing a pretty good rendering of her beloved scaled soulmate.

Her teacher told her that the pose she picked (center) was a unique angle for a fish and thought that it captured the spirit of her aquatic buddy in striking detail.

Bless her Professinal Pet Portrait Painter heart.

Kid's College Part 1

This week the girls are attending a week of Kid's College at a nearby community college.

PK is taking a class called "Nurture your Nature," taught by a horticulturist, where she'll get to play with worms, plant plants, examine snails, and discover the joys of dirt.

C is taking an art class, as well as a hip-hop dancing class. More on that later.

Yesterday was the first day, and as nervous as the girls were with a case of first-day-of-class jitters (remember that?), I employed a "getting acclimated to new surroundings" technique which has worked for me in the past. They both behaved liked little ladies and settled right into their routines.

C dove into her art, PK dove into her dirt.

I hung out outside PK's classroom with the latest issue of Hot Rod, and a copy of the community college's schedule of classes -- always on the lookout for an interesting class to take...hmmm, Course 1251 - "Intro to the Windows Operating System"...that could be good for an hour long nap.

While perusing the catalog and keeping an eye on the clock, I got to witness the painful exploits of a father trying to convince, cajole, and con his whimpering 3-year old son into joining the other kids in the $30 class he was signed up for.
Be my brave little guy, will ya.
You'll have fun, look at the other kids in there.
None of them are afraid.
Where's my brave little soldier?
Don't be shy. It's okay to be shy, but this will be fun.
You wanted to take this class.
I'm getting angry now.
Your mommy is going to be really disappointed in you.Man, this poor Dad tried every hook and crook in the book.

Finally, he resorted to the final of final parental ploys and said, "do you want me to call your mother?" The brave little guy nodded.

After a lengthy talk via Motorola Razr with his working Mommy, the young lad contentedly marched off behind his frustrated father to the waiting pickup truck in the parking lot. Off they went, leaving a little bit of the father's patience behind, as well as their $30 enrollment fee for the class.

The "getting acclimated to new surroundings" technique that works pretty well with my girls may not work for every kid in every similar situation, but it seems to work for my girls and I'm happy to have discovered it.

My 6-year old is at that stage where she is nervous for all of 2 minutes in this situation. After that, she's made a friend and is buzzing in the newness of it all.

When taking my 3-year old into an unfamiliar setting, I ger her there early enough so she can establish her own space. After finding her room, and selecting a chair to her liking, we set up some familiar objects (backpack, jacket, whatever) nearby and she gets comfortable with herself in her new surrounding.

By the time the rest of the kids start arriving, my daughter is acting like the gracious host at a dinner party, inviting the kids in, making them feel comfortable, telling them her name, and ensuring they have a place to sit.

I've watched her do this several times and as long as it works for her, it works for me.

Course, this may be how Martha Stewart started on her road to being the hostess with the mostess.

Like coming home

Yesterday, PK and I killed some time at one of the few indoor-mega malls that are within a 2-gallon drive in my civic.

This particular mall has the only Apple Store in the entire state of Oklahoma.

You may (or not) recall that sometime back when I was contemplating finding employment here in the Sooner State, that I had a quasi-interview with Apple for a position at the not-yet-built-Oklahoma-Apple-Store.

Employment aside, our foray into the white and glass odyssey that is every Apple Store I've ever been in provided that familiar sense of belonging, camaraderie, and technical comfort I always feel when surrounded by all things Apple and Mac.

Before distracting myself with the latest MacBooks, G5 Quad dual-core processor towers, Cinema Displays and the wall-O-iPod accessories, I directed my 3-old to the waiting iMacs setup at a centerstage table just for ankle biters such as herself. She found the round, black, cushy chair to her liking, grabbed a nearby mouse in her itty-bitty little hand and found a familiar friend in Dora the Explorer.

Apple places these kiddie iMac tables in the direct center of the store, allowing parents and siblings direct view of their miniscule relations as they themselves peruse the store. Safe and comforting.

This, as Guy Kawasaki would say, is doing things the Macintosh Way.

In addition, a young Applette donning the requisite white Apple logo'd black polo shirt, hangs out by the kiddie table to render assistance, turn down volumes, solve riddles of software, and practice her conflict resolution skills on feuding future Mac owners.

As PK played, and I browsed, drooled, fantasized, and all but made love to the 17" MacBook Pro I was hammering on, I noticed a small herd of folk starting to gather round PK's personal space.

"She's 3", I answered upon arriving behind the crowd of 7 people (the Applette, an elderly couple, two teenage girls, an expectant Mother, and a young boy who I theorized was just trying to get as close to the teenage girls as possible).

From the looks I received from the elderly couple, I was not to be believed. Seizing the chance to show not only what my daughter could accomplish behind the mouse of a Mac, but what a Mac could accomplish in the hands of a 3-year old man-child, I pressed on.
PK, how old are you?No answer. She was helping Dora pick the correct animal to mimic to get up a tree, and was not to be disturbed.Sweetie, how old are you?Still no response. Oh no, my daughter is a go-bot already.Sweetie, I'm asking you a question.Rather quickly, I saw her move her cursor to the "Time Out" icon at the bottom of the screen and click on it. Once Dora is safely paused, she turned to me and said,

"Daddy, I'm free." -- note, she still has some issues with her "th" sound and it often comes out as the "fr" sound.

Lessons learned here:

Don't mess with my daughter when she's helping Dora

While you may think that having your 3-year old show proficiency on a computer would be helpful for the Sales staff, keep in mind that her unsociable behavior while displaying said proficiencty may prove more damaging.

A teenage boy flying solo is no match for teenage girls traveling in pairs, no matter cool he is.

Yarrgh, Davy Jones be turning in his grave

It's not often I sit in a McDonald's watching my 3-old navigate the human habitrails and have a hearty chuckle while reading her Happy Meal box.

But the level of absurdity displayed on the thin cardboard container of fast food was almost too much for my middle-aged grey matter to comprehend.

This week, Mickey D's is cross promoting the new Pirates of the Caribbean flick with all the blustery vigor that only the mouse and the golden arches could muster.

What tickled my flap-doodle funny bone were a series of politically correct, white-washed, homogenized pirate riddles that someone somewhere was paid good money to think up and commit to paper.





Somewhere in pirate afterlife land Captain Morgan is spillin' his rum, Red Beard is getting a shave, the Jolly Roger is getting a facial, and the Dread Pirate Roberts is telling Buttercup, "...as you wish...but first, let's eat some fish."

It it weren't for the cool inflatable swashbuckling cutlass Happy Meal toy that I instantly inflated and gave to PK to go and torment the other kids with, my pirate swaggering afternoon would have been scuttled for sure.

Hotspots R' Us

On my last trip back to So Cal, I brought along my iBook.

The brood and I camped out at my Mom's for a few nights, and my Dad's for a few nights.

Mom lives in a tri-level condo in a 60-unit complex deep within the San Gabriel Valley.
Dad lives in a two-story house on a cul du sac just north of San Diego.

Mom has an SBC Yahoo 384K DSL line.
Dad has dialup.

We stayed upstairs in both places.

At my Mom's, my iBook found no less than 4 unsecured wireless networks. I had my choice, so I found one that seemed faster than the others and used it the entire time I was at my Mom's. It was named "linksys."

At my Dad's, my iBook found only 2 unsecured wireless networks. Both were of equal signal strength and speed. I used the one labeled "netgear."

Here in my small town, I now know of 6 unsecured wireless networks within the town's limits, 2 of which are within sniffing distance of my home office. Just the other day I found another hotspot while parked at our local Sonic, ordering a breakfast burrito (no cheese) and a Sonic Sunrise.

A future project will be to do a street by street sweep of my small town to find out just how many of my neighbors are "sharing" their wireless networks.

Between the pages lies pure gold

Friday is movie day at our local library. The sign up sheet fills up fast, so you gotta get to the library early on Monday to ensure your seats for the upcoming showing at weeks end.

Last Friday's movie was Stuart Little 3.

Our small town library actually has one of the nicest, flat-wide-large-highdef-wallmounted tv's in the city courtesy of a generous donation from the Friends of the Library group. Deep pockets, this group. Good taste in gifts too.

So, we arrived early to get good seats for the girls. They got their cup of microwave popped corn and room temperature cherry flavored juice boxes, settled into their chairs and were ready for the show.

I took my laptop and found a quiet spot in the corner of the geneology section.

No wireless access at our local library, but I was confident that I could go a few hours without checking my email, and that if I needed access to any information that my research required, I was, after all, in a library.

Sooner than expected, I found myself needing to check out a few quick facts to support the piece I was writing.

"Flashback," I thought, as I had to physically get out of my seat, access the libraries materials database via a smart terminal, find the referenced book, take said book back to my table, only to spend the next hour searching for the particular piece of information I needed.

I faced down this archaic information storage device (book) with grit and gusto. No wikipedia. No google. No "find" function. No "search" capability. I turned page after page after page.

I had to use my eyes, my brain, my fingers even, to actually READ, SCAN, and SEARCH for a single particular passage in this hard bound collection of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages.

EGADS!

To add insult to injury, when I did find something that could possibly have been relevant data, I couldn't just copy and paste the text into an outline formatted text file for editorializing and editing at a later time and date.

No. I actually had to WRITE down anything and everything I thought may be relevant to my research.

I was flustered beyond words. My eyes were sore. My brain hurt. My mouse hand was twitchy and my confidence in my own note taking abilities was shaken down to the core.

My, how quickly our study and research habits have changed.

Lazy?
You bet.
Spoiled?
Absolutely.
Thankful to be living in a time where I have near instantaneous access to the world's largets library of information?
Oh brother, where art thou?

I feel good, I knew that I would, now.

Took the girls to see a matinee of Garfield, The Tail of Two Kitties.

The movie itself bears only the slightest of relevance to the theme of this blog entry, but I did want to mention in detail all of the positive aspects of this particular cinematic event.1. Jennifer Love HewittThat being done, let's get on with this blog entry.

On the way home from the frolicking feline film, James Brown's explosive funk classic, I Got You (I Feel Good) came blaring through the Harmon-kardons in my civic. As any red-blooded American of taste, class, and culture would do, I proceeded to sing along with the Godfather of Soul at the top of my severly limited vocal range.

Immediately, C chirps out, Turn it up Daddy, I love this song!

Out puffs my chest as fatherly pride and genetic induced joy fills my soul to think that my daughter, at so young an age, would begin to appreciate the music that is the foundation for my preferred selection of tunage - funk, soul, rhythm and blues.

Even my youngest, at a mere 3.5 years old, seemed to be enjoying the rhythmic stylin's of the "hardest working man in show business."

At 2:46, the short song ends and I relished in the glow that is/was my daughter's milestone of her musical development.

Then she adds, "I love that song. It's from the first Garfield movie, that we have on DVD."

Sigh.

I fear that all of my daughter's references to the music of my youth...
-- the music which provided the dramatic and comedic soundtrack to my life...
-- the music that still inspires the passion within me to try and capture the sweet birds of my youth...
-- the music that took me through the hardest and sweetest of times...

...will be the background music for an animated lasagna eating cat, a rugrat gone wild, or a yet another Disney character ripped off from the Brothers Grimm.

Oh well, I'll always have Earth, Wind, and Fire. Play it again, Maurice.

Ultimate Radio Contest Giveaway

S was chuckling as she retold the following tale to me.

Her daily drive is a 110 mile round trip. During that drive time she catches up on phone calls, listens to books on CD, plots out her workday/week, and peruses the local am/fm radio bands.

On the way home the other day, she found herself listening to a local FM-Clear Channel-owned top-40 station.

A loyal listener with the determination of a wolverine defending it's fresh kill against a full grown Kodiak bear, listened to the station for 12 hours, wrote down the song and artist of the hour for each tick of the little hand, and managed to be the 24th caller into the station at the zero hour.

Her reward for this phenomenal feat of human endurance, dogged determination and H.G. Wellian time-suckage were NOT the following:

An all expenses paid trip for her entire family to Hawaii.

Two front row seat tickets to a Toby Keith concert complete with backstage passes.

Limousine ride to the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo (home of the 72 oz. "if you eat it in an hour it's free" porterhouse steak).

A Vespa

Nope.
For her efforts, this intrepid woman won dinner at IHOP.

For 2.

She was thrilled.DJ - "Who are you going to take?"
Winner - "My teenage daughter...it's her birthday."
DJ - "How old is she?"
Winner - "She's 16 this year!"Happy sweet 16, sweetie, and pass they syrup.

The dog, the frog, and the turtle

"We're going to find a turtle and a frog," were the last words my wife said, closing the side porch door behind her.

Small cardboard box in one hand and plastic cookie jar in the other, she intrepidly strolled to her car, with our oldest daughter in tow.

It was Turtle and Frog Race Day at C's Campfire USA camp and my intrepid wife was determined not to let our daughter be left out of the festivities.

She drove a few miles to our local lake, and sure enough, found an 8" terrapin crawling across the road. Into the box he/she went. We'll call him "Stumpy" -- the reason being will be revealed later.

The frog was harder to come by. Later that night, C finally received one courtesy of the mother of a fellow Campfirette. We'll call him "Bluto." He was the second biggest bull frog I had ever seen.

So, C was animal'd up for her impending races the following day and happy as can be.

So, where does the dog come in?

Well, yet another stray dog (#4) ended up on our front porch the other day. He was small, black, poodle/terrier like, hungry, skinny, flea bitten, with matted hair and a friendly disposition. C named him "Shadow."

The girls immediately took to "Shadow" and try as I might to keep him moving along in his quest to find a new home, the love and attention the girls showered him with were no match for my stern threats.

The following day C came home from camp and instead of immediately announcing that "Bluto" had hopped his way to camp victory, that "Stumpy" didn't end up running his race because he/she only had 3 legs, or that her blue ribbon bull frog had died on the ride home, she frantically looked around the yard and screamed,

"Where's Shadow?"

"Shadow is gone sweetie. "

Here came that face...

"A nice man came by with a pickup truck, whistled to Shadow, who came running to him."

Here comes the quivering lower lip.

"He jumped right into the back of the man's truck and crawled into the open cage...like he knew exactly what to do."

Of course the part I omitted was the fact that the nice man's name was Rodney, and he's our small town's animal control officer whom I had called a few hours earlier.

C did her best to rationalize that Shadow must have known the man and that the man would take better care of him this time around. But as we all know, even the best lies we tell ourselves aren't always the most convincing. She cried for a few minutes, feeling more sorry for herself than for Shadow, I suspect.

Here's a given. I fully intend to get a family dog someday.
Here's another. I live in a place where we can pretty much find a wild turtle or frog on demand.

Hairless wonder

The other day at the pool, a little kid came right up to me and asked me where all the hair on my body went.

While I'm not completely void of body hair, my genetics dictate a noticeable lack of the fuzzy stuff when compared to the majority of caucasoid homo sapiens around here.

I told the kid it made me swim faster by making my body more streamlined. Like a dolphin gliding through the water.

Then he looked down at my definitely non-streamlined stomach and gave me a smirk much too sophisticated for a 7-year old and walked off.

Next time I tell that lie, I'll have to remember to suck in my gut a bit to be more convincing.

Damn kids.

I am not dead, I only play dead

The local race for our District Judge is heating up as rumors are flying, accusations are being slung, and election placards are starting to dot the landscape of our fair city.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, this letter appeared in our local paper...



It's good to know that our hanging judge won't be using the bench for anything other than passing judgement and handing down sentences anytime soon.

A similar letter appeared in the paper a few weeks before the last mayoral race. The mayoral challenger was on full-time oxygen (carts around his tank that feeds him fresh o2 directly to his nostrils) and felt the need to address concerns about his health to the voting public.

While on the one hand, I'm glad that the senior members of our town, regardless of existing health conditions, are still interested in actively participating it the public service arena.

On the other hand, what's next?

Letters from their shrink attesting to their sanity?

eMails from local authorities stating how clean their criminal records currently stand?

Memos from their pastor/priest/minister saying what a good Christian/Buddhist/Muslim/etc. they are?

Handwritten notes from the desk of their relatives, friends, neighbors, partners proclaiming that the rumors of their cow tipping fetish has been grossly exaggerated in the press?

Library geek

PK is with my in-laws at the lake house. C is at her Campfire USA camp for the day. I just dropped off S at work and needed to stick around the city, since I have to pick up C at 3:30 p.m., then S at 6 p.m.

No sense making the 100 mile roundtrip more than once today, so I'm hanging out in the Oklahoma City Downtown Library (aka the Ronald J. Norwick Downtown Library), just a few blocks from S's building.

Ask anyone who knows me well and they will attest to the fact that I'm a closet library geek. I blame my mother, who would proudly take all the credit.

THE STACKS
According to their website,"The new Downtown Library is the newest library of Oklahoma counties sprawling Metropolitan Library System. With its innovative children's area, expanded book collection, and high speed Internet access, this state-of-the-art library is a great place for Oklahoma County families."4-stories of steel and glass with so much ambient light pouring in from the street that I resolutely doubt the need for the fluorescent overheads.

On a weekday morning, there are still plenty of free seating/studying areas by the enormous windows, all of which are equipped with an array of available power outlets strategically situated within my iBook's powerblock 6-foot cord limit.
I'm sad they tore down the original Carnegie Library built in the early 1900's that sat a few blocks away from the current library.

I'm happy they didn't tear down the 50's modernist library erected in it's place (even though the city now uses it for office space).

I'm sad to find several roach motels in hidden corners of the wonderfully spacious, comfortable reading room - complete with 270 degree panoramic view of the west.

I'm happy to find tasteful and decorative Frank Lloyd Wright inspired patterns on the industrial strength carpet.

I'm sad to find security cameras just about everywhere (so much for sneaking a quick romantic interlude in the non-fiction section).

I'm happy to find the quietest hand blow dryers I've ever experienced in the sparkling clean bathrooms.
THE TOUR
I take a complete, unguided and undisturbed tour of the building and stop on the east side to watched construction workers erecting the steel super structure of a foot bridge that crosses over a street from a parking garage to the library.

My tour takes me to a spot by the panoramic windows on the 4th floor in the Reference section 560.3 - 613.28, where I plop down on the blonde wood and black holed chairs, and open my iBook.
"Would I like to join the mlspublic wireless network?"
"Yes," I click.I'm on.
My emails come rolling in. My browser feels fulfilled and dexterous, even being 55 miles from it's home network.

THE VIEW
It's a "not-yet-July" sunny summer day out with adolescent puffy clouds dotting the sky and momentarily blocking out the sun, keeping the ambient temps at about 89 degrees.

From my semi-private cubicle, I have an almost 180 degree view of the Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center (where the amazing Chihuly exhibit is housed), the Oklahoma County government building and the historic Park Street 5-lane boulevard.

The downtown city Trolley rolls past, it's exterior design harking back to the early part of last century, yet underneath roars an ethanol burning powerplant.

A pair of cops in shorts and roller blade helmets roll by on their Segways. One gets stopped by a pedestrian in need of directions.
The cop pulls out what looks like a small PDA and is apparently accessing some sort of information kiosk application.
Now he's handing the lost walker a map, and showing them how to get to where they need to be going.

Segway City Cop is down with the tech, baby.

I wish I had my digital camera.
I'm watching a street worker riding a two-seated golf cart with what appears to be a large vacuum canister mounted on the rear section.
Protruding out of the top of the canister is a large, flexible, clear hose, about 11" in diameter 12' in length.
The hose runs over the drivers head, pivots on a metal arm, and terminates in front of the driver at street level.

By working the metal arm and swinging the hose around, the driver can pick up just about any stray piece of litter or trash that he can maneuver his little cart toward.

People wave at the street sanitation engineer as he drives by, apparently as surprised to see such a contraption as I am. He appears to be enjoying his work.

How cool is that.

THE EXODUS
It's time to meet S for lunch. Gyro's at a nearby greasy Greek stand today. Mmm, ethnic food for a change.

As I exit I stop to talk to a couple of the steel workers wailing on a girder as long as my house and as rusty as the frame on my old '64 Malilbu convertible that I bought over eBay from a guy in Chicago.

One of the workers is grinding a weld, the other was laying down a beautiful bead on a joint. I compliment him on his weld. He asks if I'm a welder.
"No," I tell him.
Then he asks if I worked at the library. I guess I looked the part today.
"No," I tell him, "I'm just a library geek."

Big city survival guide

A colleague from S's office is moving to LA to become a documentary filmmaker.

I know, I know. There are a dozen valid reasons why someone who wants to be a documentary filmmaker should NOT move to LA.

But she's young, has never left Oklahoma, and the glittery lights of the Industry look pretty bright from way out here in Okie-land. It's only when you get into the trenches of show biz do you see the filth, greed, insecurity and relative insignificance of the movie business as a whole.

So, S did what any good friend would do and sent her on her way with a hug, wishes of success and safety, and an appropriate going away present.

The Los Angeles County Thomas Guide.

In the days before in-car/portable GPS, Mapquest, anywhere access to web browsers, wireless hot spots, cell phones, Palms and Blackberry's, the only way to find your way around in the sprawl known as Southern California was to ask directions (yeah, right) and the Thomas Guide.

Saavy Angelenos still carry one in their car, although it may be 20-years old and completely out of date. However, just knowing that little book was riding shotgun always made me feel secure in my driving adventures into the unknown arteries and avenues of LA/Orange/San Diego/Bakersfield and Ventura Counties.

The crowd that had gathered around the table as the future traveller thumbed through her new map book, marveled at how sprawling LA was. Then S kicked the legs out from under their chairs when she mentioned the 4 neighboring counties that have their own Thomas Guide editions, all just as big or bigger than the LA edition.

Heads were spinning.

I see from their website, that Thomas Guides are nov available for the following areas:
Northern & Central California
Pacific Northwest
Arizona
Washington, DC Area

Ahh, the select lucky few to benefit from this wonder of both ancient (book) and modern (satellite accuracy) technology.

Good luck J-Po and hold on tight. It will be a bumpy ride.

The '39 Chevy 2-door sedan

On the main highway leading to my folks town 35 miles southeast of us, sat this vehicle...



It's a 1939 Chevrolet 2-door sedan. Not the most popular classic to hot rod or restore, but I have seen them at rod shows and they clean up nicely. From what my F-i-L tells me, it's been sitting on that trailer for over a year. No takers at the bargain basement asking price of $3,000.

I'm not in the market for a project of this scale right now, so I just logged it for future reference on the flash rom in my brain and didn't think anymore of it.

Back in April, S meets a woman at work that is really cool and really nice.
We'll call her Terri.
They get to talking and it turns out that Terri's husband is looking for a hobby and is kinda into old cars.
We'll call him Bob.
Turns out Bob has never restored or rodded a car before, but he was looking for a project to learn on/work on.
Bob and Terri are DINKS so they have plenty of disposable income.

Hearing of a fellow potential hot rod enthusiast, I pulled several photos and listings of "roadside projects" that I had been collecting since moving here (always on the lookout for some rusting vehicle sitting in a barn or out in a field), and thought about sending them to Bob, but somehow never got around to it.

As the seasons tend to do, Spring turned to Summer (car show season) and I told S we should meet Bob and Terri at the upcoming NSRA rod show. A few emails later, we had arranged to hook up with them on Saturday (it's a 3-day show).

Long story short, we didn't end up going on the same day so we never got to meet and greet.

However, Terri calls S that Saturday night and tells her that Bob is seriously looking at a '49 Dodge Wayfarer he found at the show that day. I had never even heard of a Wayfarer, but okay, if that's what he wanted.

End of story. Or so I thought.

The next day (Sunday) we were driving home after visiting my in-laws and I noticed that the '39 Chevy and trailer were no longer parked by the side of the road.

Figuring that the owner took it to the rod show to sell it, I wished him good luck, and thought to myself, "there's another project temptation removed from my wish list."

The following Monday, S emails me from work and tells me that Bob didn't end up buying the old Dodge afterall

Instead, he bought a 1939 Chevrolet 2-door sedan.

I'm thinking, there is no way an amateur with little to no restoration skills, let alone rodding skills, would buy that rusty old '39 Chevy that I saw sitting by the side of the road. I mean, it would be a huge project for ME with my meager skills, let alone someone with no experience at all.

Curious now, I sent the pics I had taken of the rusty '39 to S and she sent them to Terri.

You guessed it. It was the same car.

File this under, "life is a very small used car lot."

Here's what a '39 Chevy could look like restored. This is a 4-door sedan that was at the LA Roadsters show for Father's Day, but you can get a general idea.


Bob has a long way to go.

Cancel your subscription

This vitriol of fundamentalist paranoia appeared in our paper in the letters to the Editor column.

Kudos to the Editor for printing it and allowing the public to get a taste of what types of people populate our world.

Let me get this straight..
The most caring people are athiest's at bars...got it.
Easter Bunny is a sex goddess...got it.
Church on Sunday, no good....got it.
Santa is satan...got it.
Athletes are evil...got it.

The best part of this sewage spewage is in the first line of his letter.

Seems his hatred for the "rag" of a newspaper and it's satanic views wasn't strong enough to get him off his non-athletic a*s and make a phone call to CANCEL his subscription.

My name is K, and I am an addict

My Mom sent me the LA Times from last Sunday.

Remain calm now. I'd been in Oklahoma over a year now. Sure I miss my family, friends, and food stuffs that can only be found in the city limits of a large, multi-cultural metropolis.

But it was only a newspaper. What harm could it do?

Granted, it was the LA Times, which is not always known to present both sides of the story, but for the most part, the majority of the paper was harmless babble, classifieds, feature stories of ladies who lunch while nursing their twins, and dogs that no longer bite after intensive therapy with a trained canine psychotherapist.

Then, innocently tucked away into the Sports section was the doom in newsprint that haunts my waking moments and torments my nocturnal nightmares.

The Fry's ad.

8 full color pages of it.

17" LCD monitors on sale for $129 (after a $90 mail-in rebate). 100 count spindles of DVD-R's for $19.99. iPod accessories to fill the largest of grocery shopping carts. Flat screen TV's, CD's, DVD's, vid games, hard drives, soft drives, medium-soft drives, newspaper drives, warm summer drives with the top down and the radio on.

You name it, Fry's has it. An electronic geeks wonderland of consumerism and 20-year credit card debt.

Dallas would be my closest Fry's location.

A 4-hour drive seems a small price to pay to satisfy my need for an e-ticket ride to geekeyland.

Please keep your flesh-eating-fish to yourself

Apparently someone has been dumping their unwanted aquarium pets into our local lake, as I don't believe this particular species of piranha are indiginous to central Oklahoma.



Turns out the Pacu is a herbivore cousin to the piranha and won't feast on the limbs of any unsupecting, partially clad coed on summer break.

Might make for some interesting fish fry's in the future.

Longing for a long one

Call me crazy but I actually miss the long west coast rain storms that just sock in the city and hang around.

Storms here are more dramatic, more intense, more exciting, but quite short lived.

Which, most times you're thankful for their spurt-like behavior, as pretty hefty damage often accompanies any drawn out affair.

Storms in LA are often times lingering and will stick around for days on end, hardly ever overstaying their welcome.

They have a cleansing effect on the city, washing away the surface grime and grease and momentarily driving the worst of the worst indoors.

The air smells clean and fresh, albeit for a few brief moments.

And afterwards, your car isn't covered in Oklahoma red dirt road muck.

Dowsing

My Father-in-law told me about his Father dowsing for a well on their farm when he was a kid. He didn't claim to understand how it worked, but was adament that it did indeed work.

I need to get into this. I really do.



Think of the possibilities.

...by any other name, is still smog

Yesterday, the weather guy said the metro area (55 miles away) was under a First Stage Ozone alert.

Young children and elderly should try to stay indoors.

Don't run your a lawm mower if you have to.

Try to car pool, don't leave your car engine running.

See a doctor if you notice respiratory issues.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is an Ozone Alert their way of telling us that the heat inversion layer has trapped high levels of carbon and other particulates in the atmosphere...

Better known in LA as a SMOG ALERT?

Baseball ball

I'm not a big organized sports fan, but baseball stadium food is unique and part of the whole ballpark experience, therefore I will watch some live hardball when given the opportunity.

This last weekend, my in-laws treated my family to a night at our local AAA club ballpark.

Our Oklahoma City Redhawks took on the visiting Albuquerque Isotopes.

I've been to maybe a dozen professional baseball games in my life, 2 of which were in the very ballpark in which we were sittiing, but even I know of some truths that are absolutes at ball games.

Close your eyes to take a short between inning nap and the jumbotron camera guy will find you in the crowd.

Hot dogs are better with the brown spicy mustard (hides the nasty flavor of all those meat fillers) and ketchup

The side of the stadium you have tickets for will ALWAYS be in the sun.

Catching a foul ball is nearly impossible and reserved for the "that only happens to some other guy" category.

Once again, the fates proved me wrong.

I caught a quick snooze and no one saw me on the big screen.

Our ballpark is having a special promotion featuring dogs from other major league ballparks and I got to eat several Dodger Dogs with onions, relish, mustard and (hold on hot dog purists), ketchup. Heaven on a foot long bun.

Our seats were in the sun, but we moved up to the top of the bleachers and found some shade. The breeze started blowing and by the 4th inning, the temps dropped into the 70's.

Top of the 7th inning, an Isotope foul ball heads up to our section. C runs for it but a fella about my age gets to it first.

He then promptly and without any fanfare, handed the ball to my 6-year old daughter.

She didn't even bat an eye, but held it high above her head as she had seen done many times by other lucky fans with foul balls. Her face flashed on the jumbo tron with a smile as wide as the equator.

Is it me, or only in Oklahoma would a fella give the foul ball he caught to a 6-year old girl who he didn't know from Adam.

I thanked the generous Redhawk fan as we left the stadiium, our team winning that night and completing a 4 game sweep of the Isotopes. He just nodded and flashed a most satisfied smile.

A small town fishing contest

The local outdoorsman group sponsored a fishing tournament for 5-15 year old kiddies this last weekend at our local lake.

C won her division (5-6 year olds) for the most total fish caught
She pulled in 8 fish in the 4-hour contest. Her closest competitor had 5 fish.
Total tally was as follows:Black Bass - 2
Channel Catfish - 2
Bluegill - 4The other winner in her division pulled in a 2 lb. black bass for the largest fish caught prize.

C won a Zebco 202 rod and reel combination, a fully outfitted tackle box complete with objects completely foreign to me such as Aberdeen Snells, Billy Boy Bobbers, Barrel Swivels with safety snaps, and an assortment of brightly colored gooey wormy thingys, jelly-like thingys, and shiny-hooky thingys.

I told you I'm not much of a fisherman.

Now C has two rod/reels and I'm still borrowing my Father-in-law's pole and tackle.

A few years back, when they shocked our little lake, they pulled out over a dozen 5 lb. black bass, and several 8-plus pounders. My F-i-L tells me that may be approaching a state record.

Maybe C will let me borrow one of her rig-a-ma-jigs.

The King IS the letter E

School let out last week and we've been sorting through all of C's schoolwork..what to keep, what to toss

A keeper item was her practice letter notebook. Each day, they would take a letter and draw items beginning with that letter.

The letter "E" stands out.

Good to know I'm having SOME positive influence on my daughter.

A full recovery

A few days after my little procedure, I received a card in the mail from the nice nurses who saw me through it all.

Small town people doing small town things.

Finding treasures at "The Cut"

On the final day of our Memorial Day weekend at the lake, we anticipated smaller crowds overall, so we all piled into the boat and headed for the sandy beach area known as "The Cut."

We could spot our destination at a great distance as we motored towards it. Silver bullets, and lights of many types and brands twinkled on the approaching sand bar.

Silver bullets as in Coors lights cans.

Lights as in Bud Lights, Miller Lites, and Amstel Lights.

Piles and piles of empty beer cans and bottles greeted our beachhead landing.

People are so disgusting and disrespectful. Some people even went through the trouble of putting their trash into plastic bags, but still left them on the beach area.

We found a semi-clean area a little ways down the beach and settled in. The girls swam, floated, played in the sand, while I fished with my trusty Sonic Rooster Tail. My wife and her folks treasure hunted along the shore for arrowheads, pieces of pottery, lures, and what not.

Non ill-gotten booty
C found an HP 5 megapixel digital camera floating in the water, along with a Motorola cell phone. Neither were functioning, but I did remove the battery from the cell phone (works fine in my wife's work cell phone). The digital camera was trashed, but it did have a 512 meg SD storage card which I removed, cleaned up and inserted into my storage card reader. It booted right up onto my desktop in iPhoto.

Score.

Alas, there were no photos on the SD card of families happily enjoying the lake, of dogs with bandanas tied around their necks, or of drunken coeds in various states of undress.

Either the freshwater bath "cleaned" it of images, or the owner lost the camera overboard before they had a chance to get some digital memories recorded. So, I reformatted it and plugged it into C's digital camera for an additional 1.5 hours of mpeg4 movies. Color her happy.

Party at "The Cut"
There must have been quite a party at "The Cut" the day before we got there, indicated by the number of single guys in boats and jetski's that came bombing into the area, only to turn around disappointed at the site of our solitary family among the empty beer cans and burnt out bonfires.

Sorry guys, no party here today...yet.

Sure enough, a boat full of young turks showed up, with the token bikini-clad girlfriend and token dog, who chose to don a doggie-visor instead of the neckerchief bandana.

They pulled in, stereo blaring, beers in their hands, whooping and hollering as only young Spring-Breakers (or Memorial Day breakers in this case) do.

We chuckled as they drunkenly stumbled out of the boat and into the water.

We started to packed up our gear as they pulled their cooler of beers onto the beach.

We stared in amazement as they pulled out and unfolded 40 gallon trash bags and began to pick up all the bottles and cans on the beach.

Wait, what was wrong with this picture. These young, party-animal, beach-going, sunburnt, beer-koozie carrying lakesters were cleaning up OTHER PEOPLE'S TRASH!

We all climbed in our boat and as we struggled to get ourselves pushed off the sand, one of them came over and gave us a push, saying, "that's all right mate, I got it for ya," with an unmistakably Aussie accent.

They came from the land down under to enjoy our shark-free lakes, drink our watered down beer, and clean up our good old American trash.

Take a hint, people. This world wasn't made for you to trash it up.

G'day mates.

A fisherman, I am not

We spent Memorial Day weekend at my in-law's lake house.

It was a fun-filled American weekend of seadooin', fishing, exploring, digging in the sand, looking for pottery and lures, swimming, boating, cooking out, and napping.

I fought the fish and the fish won
After securing a license at the local bait/tackle/gas station/convenience store for a double sawski and a fin, I grabbed a 6-foot rod donned with a Sonic Rooster Tail and headed for the boat dock for a some alone time with my finned and scaled friends.

Bluegill was the fish of the day, even though a black bass and a channel cat paid my pole a visit.

I also witnessed the tenacity of a fish who didn't want to be caught, nor would stay caught.

After an amazing fight (I'm not much of a fisherman, remember), this big old bluegill refused to give up the ghost, even after being pulled from the water and plopped into my 5-gallon bucket.

That bugger stuck his head out of the bucket, gave me a look, and jumped right out of the bucket. He flopped around on the boat dock for a few seconds, only to find his way back into the clear of the open water beneath the boat dock.

I swore at him for just a second, but laughed at the realization that his will to live his life on his own terms was a lesson to us all.

I wished him well.

C prepares for her first fishing tournament
C and her grandfather will be taking on the local ankle biter anglers in her first fishing tournament a few weekends from now. She's determined to get her picture in the paper holding up a big string of small mouths and crappie out of our local lake. This weekend was her first opportunity to "practice" for the upcoming tournament.

Using her new Zebco 33 spincast reel and Made in Taiwan Angler rod, C caught a huge appaloosa catfish with her first cast.

The rod and reel was her kindergarten graduation present from my in-laws.

The catfish was longer than her leg.

She followed the catfish with several small bluegill, a black bass, and a channel catfish.

Now if I can only get her to remove the hooks, I can get some quality fishing time in as well.

The view
The view at the lake improved by ten fold this weekend as the neighbor's college aged daughter brought a bevy of her friends down to the lake for the weekend.

I'm happy to report that bikini sizes are still shrinking in direct proportion to my nearsightedness.

Why we don't like the lake on holiday weekends
We cursed the moronic boaters and jet-skiers who came too fast and too close to the boat dock, ignorant to the damage and discomfort their wakes can cause.

Too many teens behind the wheels of watercraft, too many watercraft in the water, too many uncorked exhausts on rumbly V-8's. While I enjoy the sound of an uncorked exhaust on a radically cammed 4-stroke internal combustion motor, my enjoyment level goes way down when that motor is on a boat instead of a hot rod, and it's rumbling by at 2 in the morning.

I don't get how the government boys can put restrictions on how loud we can make our cars on the streets, but there are no restrictions on decibel levels on the lake.

Later, we took a quick cruise over to the beach area known as "The Cut" but the crowds of "Girls Gone Wild" partiers on small boats tethered together chased us back to the safety and quiet of our boat dock.

More on "The Cut" later...

Battle scars and the secrets they reveal

Yesterday I had an early morning appointment to have a "procedure" done at my small town hospital.

We left the house at 6:40 a.m. for a 7:00 a.m. appointment.

I was 15 minutes.early.

So, I found a comfy chair and waited around in the front receptionist area for 10 minutes.

Who happened to walk by but the CFO of the hospital who S and have spent time with at auctions around town. We met him and his family when he first moved to town a little after we did. He lives just down the block from us. We talked for 5 minutes, then he walked me over to the patient check-in window.

The receptionist was one of the office workers from my doctor's office and didn't take long to gather my information. She then walked me over to where my procedure was to be done, just down the hall to pre-op/recovery.

The nurse who brought me my gown was the mother of a girl on C's softball team. We talked about their first game taking place that night while she inserted an IV and took my BP and vitals.

She handed me off to two other nurses who prepped me further, made me comfy on the table and talked me through the procedure. One of the nurses was a mother/parent I knew from PTO. The other was the grandmother of the girl who babysits for us on occasion.

The Doc came in...my family practitioner. He got settled, started in on the procedure and I was out.

Woke up to the kindly face of yet another nurse. Wait, something was wrong. I didn't know her nor did she know me.

Nevertheless, she gently guided me to the recovery room next door. We chatted while she pulled my IV out and I feasted on a delicious blueberry muffin, juice and coffee. You guess it, the muffin was homemade.

After I started to feel human again, I told her that I had planned on walking home, since I only lived two blocks away.

She insisted on driving me home and a few minutes later, I was sitting on my couch, drinking ice tea and trying to remember everything that just happened.

9 hours later, I was siting on the front porch, eating 50/50 bars with the girls and enjoying the cooling evening temps.

My doc had come jogging by on his nitely 5-miler and stopped to talk and visit with the girls. He told me how well my procedure went and then warned us to get inside before the bugs got too thick.

Glass is half-full people are now thinking, "wow, what a friendly and neighborly medical experience that was in your small town."

Glass is half-empty people are thinking, "now everyone in town knows what procedure you had done, the results, and about that little scar you have on your butt."

Such is life in my small town.

Least they don't know how I GOT that little scar on my butt.

For whom the roads toll, it tolls for thee

Coming from the land of CalTrans, 4-level interchanges and miles and miles of freeways (that's FREE ways), I'm somewhat stymied by the idea of a toll road.

I get it, sorta.

People want to build a road.
People don't want to be taxed to pay for the road.
People agree to a toll road.
People think, "once the road construction is paid for, the toll will drop considerably since road maintenance is cheaper than initial construction."

They why does the toll on toll roads never go down?

Good Looker, Bad Looker

My wife is a conundrum when you seek to define the word "looker."

To me, she's a looker. Meaning to say, she's an attractive woman.

A hottie.

And she's getting more attractive with age, developing that classy air that women get (the lucky ones with good genes) as they leave the tethering bonds of youth behind (good riddance).

But, she's also a bad looker. Meaning, if she is looking for something, I will always manage to find it before her, after her (when she's left the room in a huff), in spite of her, and much to her dismay, sometimes sitting right in front of her.

For all you pessimists out there who think I'm writing this post to get myself out of the doghouse, or trying to butter up my darling wife to convince her that I really do need that Tig welder, back off slowly and carefully.

Surprisingly enough, S very rarely reads my blog and then, only when I forward her the link. If you were to ask her what the name or url of my blog was, she'd draw a blank.

Sure, she's bookmarked it, but don't ask her to find it in her endless list of her browser's bookmark menu. That would extort her to call upon her looker skills.

Taking us right back to square one.

Bathroom reading and beyond

Normally, my day is pretty packed and the only book reading I can fit in is while T.C.B in the throne room or during the few moments between having just climbed into bed and entering REM sleep.

My wife can tell when I'm really into a particular book as I disappear for longer periods than usual behind the bathroom door.

I'm into Guy Kawasaki's book, The Macintosh Way, right now.


In a nutshell, the buddahhead brother spells out his views on the zen of evangelism and the values needed to produce a great product.

It 's a great read, Macintosh fan or not.

I developed a deep sense of respect and awe for the Senior Software Developers I had the pleasure of working for and with at my last job. The things they could do with the jibberish that is computer code language was an artform of an anatomically nonsensical but wondrous level.

These were all software engineers who could and would write code for many different platforms, and many different program applications, but for whatever reason, they made the conscious and educated decision to write Macintosh software.

Me, being an avid Mac user and enthusiast, fit into the Mac evangelism efforts within their world with little discomfort. I applauded them at their passion for the platform. I envied them for their knowledge and skill with the multifaceted levels of the operating system. I enjoyed their good humored joking at the Windoze developer's expense.

They shared a passion for the platform and for developing software for our users to extreme levels at times, and sacrificed their time, pay raises, promotions, sanity, and ultimately, their positions, for their convictions and belief that they knew what was best for our Mac customers.

They did it the Macintosh Way and taught me a valuable lesson about doing what you feel is right, no matter what the consequences may be.

To Dave, Stu and Herb, the OG Mac Team -- thanks for letting me play software engineer all those years.

I'm a better person for knowing you.

The Man - taking names and kickin' some tail

Fire up iTunes and play your favorite summertime songs while you read this article.My iTunes summer list includes the following:
Summertime Blues - Brian Setzer
Summertime - Fresh Prince / DJ Jazzy Jeff
All Summer Long - Beach Boys
Summer (Summertime is here) - War
Summer Lovin' - Grease Soundtrack
Summer Breeze - Seals and Crofts



Yep, even out here we got the cars that go boom, the kick-the-can mufflers on rice rockets, diesel pickup trucks with 4" open exhaust pipes, and skater dater teenagers hanging out in front of the Catholic Church until midnight on a weekend.

A few violations I would add to the list in the article:

Maximum visits to the all-you-can-stuff-in-your-already-bursting-OU-teeshirt-Chinese-Super-buffet will be limited to 42 trips, after which, you will be cited for public nuisance.

Lane changes without signalling or warning of any kind by an elderly person in a Lincoln Towne Car or similiar tank-like vehicles shall be limited to 22 within a 2-block distance.

Any cowboy hat wearing individual that is found to have more than 18 packets of Skoal, Copenhagen, or any form of smokeless tobacco wedged between their gums will be taken into custody and questioned. Their spit cup will be confiscated, after the suspect is forced to drink down it's contents.

Any homeowner caught outside their home before 5 a.m. working on their yard or firing up their mowers/edgers/trimmers/hole diggers/rototillers or any other garden appliance will be subject to both public envy and ridicule from their neighbors. See also under "Tailpipe exhaust noise ordinance for single-stroke hand-held devices."

Online eyewear

I lost my third pair of glasses since moving here.

I'm not a full time glasses wearer. Mostly for driving at night. But occassionally I will wear them during the day when I'm going some place where distance vision is imperative. Car shows. Automotive swap meets. The dump.

This last pair disappeared off the fender of my Father-in-law's trailer that I used to haul a load of house restoration debris to the dump with.

While unburdening the trailer of it's load, I took my glasses off, put them on the fender, and went about my business.

Never to be seen again.

Off to google I went. Input "discount eyeglasses"

Found several sites. One or two looked promising.

Selected one because they had Asian models on their "select your glasses" page. Relevance is important.

I entered my prescription figures, my pupillary distance, selected a frame style based on my head shape, facial dimensions (I even had the option to upload a picture of my face to give me a "virtual picture" of what my selected frames would look like), chose a color (black), material (metal), lenses (single vision,polycarbonate), tint (none), option (springy hinges), selected Paypal to pay for it, chose expedited shipping, clicked "submit" and I was off.

That was late Monday night. They arrived first thing Friday morning.

They fit perfect, look decent, came with a nice case and cleaning cloth, and work just fine. Best $40 (includes overnight shipping) pair of glasses I ever bought.

Heck, it's the only $40 pair of glasses I've ever bought.

If I'm cross-eyed in a month or two, I'll let you know as well.

Pop Quiz

C brought this school work / art work home the other day. It was apparently part of her critical thinking curriculum, but I thought it was more appropriate to her art-in-15-minutes curriculum.



Take the pop quiz and see how you score.

Morning - Does C's illustration depict the following:
A) Her eating breakfast
B) A Hermoine Granger clone making the opposing chair dance with her wand

Afternoon - Does C's illustration depict the following:
A) Her being driven home from school
B) The Oscar Meyer Weinermobile making a surprise visit to an organic farm in Oregon

Evening - Does C's illustration depict the following:
A) Softball batting practice with her slightly annoyed Daddy
B) A reenactment of the scene in The Warriors between the Baseball Furies "sissies" and the Warriors.

Night - Does C's illustration depict the following:
A) C having a wonderous dream of being a mermaid
B) An episode of Extreme Makeover gone bad as the patient dies and leaves her body as a she-fish beast.

Can take the boy out of the city...

Growing up in the city hasn't worn off of me and I've still got my radar turned up on high. More so, I think because I'm very conscious of letting my guard down due to my growing perception that it is safer here.

I still look around the parking lot before getting in or out of the car.

I still do a perimeter check around the house at night before going to bed.

I still don't have our phone listed in the telephone directory.

I still am shocked when perfect strangers make eye contact with me on the street.

I installed motion sensor security lights around the house, put some lamps on timers, and still use Vinnie and Mandy as window dressing when were not around (our mannequins).

The other night, I took C to the Escape School Seminar which was taking place at our local high school gymnasium.

By habit I took a second to make sure the "coast was clear" before getting into and out of a car.

This entails a quick scan of the parking lot for potential baddies or jackers lurking about before leaping into the car and strapping down the kiddies. This had become a habit since realizing how vulnerable parents are when preoccupied with securing their brood in the vehicles.

Mind you I don't always do it, but most of the time, in a wide open area of public access, I will perform the perimeter check.

The other day C mentioned to me that her friend Kori noticed my parking lot ritual when we took her to the movies awhile back. Of course, C asked me why did I do it.

Kid's don't miss a thing.

Wonder when my instinctual need to do so will wear off...if ever.

Lidsville

S started seeing her Grandmother's items posted on eBay by her relatives last week.

I don't know how she figured out that her relatives were starting to auction off her Grandmother's stuff, but somehow she did and ended up adding many items on her "Watch List."

While eBay is the perfect place to make a few bucks on stuff your Grandmother left to you, or stuff that you "claimed" you wanted after Grandma died, it's pretty pathetic to get caught doing so.

My wife is not a confrontational person by nature, so she quietly bid on a few items to get them back.
Pretty sad.

The majority of the family was relatively decent and courteous with the divying up of Grandma's stuff. It appears to be the small "trailer park contingency" that was causing the most trouble. Nothing against people who live in trailer parks, mind you. Some of my best friends live in trailer parks....okay, that's a lie. But I'm sure trailer park living has it's own benefits.

The garage sale to sell whatever was left of my wife's Grandmother's belongings after the vultures -- um, I mean relatives descended like locusts -- um, I mean claimed their momentos, took place a few weeks ago.

The one collection that not one familly member claimed as their own, was Grandma's collection of plastic container lids.

Margarine containers.
Cottage cheese containers.
Spreadable honey containers.
Egg salad containers.
Potato salad containers.
Tupperware tops to long gone containers (the lids always outlast the containers).

Lids of every shape, form, color and design, that all formed one function.
They kept a lid on things.

In contrast, when we cleaned out the kitchen cabinets in my Gram's house, we found dozens of sushi-to-go foil trays, plastic yogurt lids, and about a thousand of those little green pieces of plastic cut and shaped like a sprig of grass that you get when buying made-to-go sushi.

Must be a Grandma thing.

About Grandma's lid collection...

No, S didn't take them home.
Yes, they sold at the garage sale. $5 for the entire 18-gallon bin full.
No, the 18-gallon bid didn't have a lid.

How's that for irony.

Roof diving

I've done it.

You've done it.

We've all watched it happen to other people as they do it.

It has happened since mankind invented the to-go drink and the moving vehicle.

Heck, I bet even Pa Ingalls did it with a cup of joe in a tin cup placed on top of his buckboard.

I'm speaking of the dreaded "putting-your-drink-on-the-roof-of-your-car-then-forgetting-that-it's-there-only-to-remember-it-as-you-drive-off-and-hear-the-sound-of-it-splashing-down-the-back-window-of-your-car" syndrome.

For short I'll acronym it as "pydotroyctftitotriaydoahtsoisdtbwoyc." Yes, that's much simpler and easy to remember. Sort of rolls off you tongue, doesn't it?

I've done it more often as a parent than as a non-parent. Hustling to get the kiddies inside, strapped in, settled down and secure is no small feat. It's the distraction level of the moment that gets you every time.

In addition to drinks I've seen dayrunners go flapping off a roof, important papers and business cards heading south for the winter.

Have also witnessed backpacks go booking, Palm Pilots go plummeting, 3-ringed binders bounding, and the very rare but always worthy of a huge "oh crap" full-on-open briefcase explode in a shower of office supplies as it catches some air and looks for the hardest place to land.

While embarassing and inconvenient these experiences may all be in the anonymity of a busy, bustling city street, the level of humiliation goes up 10 notches when the dreaded pydotroyctftitotriaydoahtsoisdtbwoyc occurs on Main Street, downtown in my small town.

Nothing much happens downtown, but at lunch time the restaurants and shops are abuzz with activity as locals, visiting workers from the nearby businesses, and just passing through folk stop and nourish their noon time hunger cravin's. About 1 p.m., people start heading back to work and meet and greet familiar folk as they get back into their cars, trucks, work vans, etc.

This is not the time ot allow pydotroyctftitotriaydoahtsoisdtbwoyc to enter your life.

I did. It happened. I heard about it later that day.

From several different people.
On several different occasions.
At several different stops during my days routine.

At WalMart - "How's that car wash doing for ya?"
At the grocery store - "Well, ain't you got any drink holders in yer car?"
Dropping off C at her Wed. night activity - "Dr. Pepper makes a good car wash, does it?"
Picking up C at her Wed. night activity - "Heard you had a little accident."

And my favorite one, from the Chief of Police himself, whom I ran into at the recent Escape School for Kids seminar - "You know, I could have given you a ticket for littering." Cop humor. Funny.

I'm standing by, watching the local paper to see if the incident turns up in the Daily Doin's section.

Fake ID and the Curse of the Munchies

Lesson # 1 - No matter how steady your hand is and no matter how sharp the point on your Sharpie is, changing an 87 to an 82 is not possible.

Lesson # 2 - When you get the munchies and have to stop for a Snickers bar, put your money in your front pocket, and your stash in your back.

Why I'm afraid to drive at night

Back in LA, I loved to drive at night.

Windows down, sunroof open.
Elbow resting steady on the side.
Cooler air temps chilling your brain.
FM blaring tunage.
Traffic is light.
Reflections of oncoming headlights performing unknown balletic movements on my windshield.
The glow of the millions of lights in the city illuminating the night sky for miles and miles.

The only time I would be afraid to drive at night is when I was with my family, and we had to pass through some questionable areas of the city.

Having a reliable car helped.
Having grown up in So Cal and knowing where to avoid at night helped.
Having a cell phone so I could instantly call 911 helped.
Packing some heat helped (kidding).

But driving out here at night, on the lonely deserted country roads, with spotty cell phone coverage and miles between farmhouses, generates a primordial ooze type of fear in me, much different than anything my past experiences of driving in the city has prepared me for.

This particular scenario scares me to the core...



If it were up to me, all cows would be genetically engineered to produce a leather that displays the same qualities as highly reflective paint. Bet they'll taste better too.

Turnpike from hell

Here in the land of the Red Man (the natives, not the tobacco), we have many much needed, well maintained, and enjoyable to drive 75 m.p.h. toll roads. They are fast, relatively empty, and due to the cost of building toll booths at each entrance/exit, they are virtually void of on/off ramps.

Last week was C's kinder field trip to the OKC Zoo. The 5 classes of kinder kiddies rode the buses. The parents, grandparents and assorted relatives caravaned behind the diesel spewing black and yellow transports.

We left enmasse from the school parking lot. I stopped for gas, figuring I could easily catch up to the rolling kinder road show with ease, even AT the speed limit.

Mistake count, number 1.

Those buses and soccer moms hauled A*S.

In the 20 minutes or so that I stopped for 8 gallons of dino juice a complete window wash and squeegie, pee break for PK, and a Propel water for me, the hellonwheels caravan covered enough ground to disappear from site -- and site here in the flattest state in the union is quite a distance.

No problem. I was informed by the school before we pulled out that the buses would be taking the Turnpike (toll road) to save time. Bonus was that I knew they would eventually end up at the zoo, and I knew how to get there, having been there many times before.

That's 2.

Long story short, I ended up going 20 miles out of my way, due to the fact that the toll road heading to Tulsa that I mistakenly merged onto had no nearby exits. Well okay, it had one.

20
miles
away.

I arrived at the zoo to find my steaming mad 6-year old, her arms crossed and foot tapping an angry showtune, standing with her concerned looking teacher.

She was the absolutely last and final kinder student from her school to enter the zoo.

I tried to make up for my tardiness by buying her one of those "machine-made-wax-sculptures-pressed-instantly-before-your-eyes-into-the-shape-of-a-gorilla" zoo souvies, almost immediately upon entering the zoo.

That's 3, and he's out.

Wax cracks. Wax breaks. Wax melts. Wax gorillas should be purchased upon exiting the zoo, not entering.

Darn toll roads.

Bass Pro flyer outtakes

Taken from the pages of a recent sales flyer delivered to our door courtesy of the nice folks at Bass Pro Shops...


A nice attempt to get me to shell out some big bucks (or at least apply for Bass Pro Shops credit card) and buy a boat. But look carefully and the comedy will reveal itself...


Let's play,, "who doesn't belong in this picture?" Hmm. Nice looking tanned and toned fellow in the back. Good hair, pretty boy face. Pretty lady next to him, nice body, good tan, good hair, great smile. Up front sits an attractively tanned and coiffed young lass as well.

It's the driver who bugs me. I know it's for safety reasons (may even be the law), but he's the only one wearing a life jacket, is pastie white in complexion, not toned, not tanned, borderline geeky, and definitely an outsider to this snapshot of lakeland pleasure.

And now, let's scroll back up and examine the happy family enjoying some frolicking fishing fun in the top photo of the flyer. Everyone seems to be having fun, but something struck me odd about little Junior at the back of the boat.

"Take that, ya darn fish."

Is not a fish, a pet?

The other day, C came home all bummed out.
I asked her what was up and she showed me a drawing she had done in class. It was a 3"x3" square portrait of her pet fish.
Is that Choo-choo?

Nods.

It's a good picture of him.

Nothing.

Why did you draw a picture of Choo-choo?

Silence.

Was that for a class project?

Nods -- a tear starts to form and the bottom lip quivers in painful, 6-year old agony.
Later we got the whole story.

The class was learning to draw a bar graph. Each student drew pictures of their pets on a square and then put them bedside their names on the large bar graph running left to right on the back wall.

This being a relatively rural community, kids drew pictures of their cows, sheeps, pigs, goats, horses, chickens, snakes, assorted rodents and marsupials to go along with the typical family pets -- dogs and cats.

Some kids "pet bar graphs" were as long as the panhandle.
Some were colorful, and vibrant, and full of farm and ranch living.
Some were exotic and strange and as multi-faceted as a Petco in the city.

C had this solitary image in her pet bar graph...

Choo-choo

Dave E -- even though I LOVE my new magnetic pickup too, do not, I repeat, do NOT send an animal of any kind my way....unless it's dead, frozen, and edible.

Harder than it looks

I'm not going to say much here, since I can't draw a straight line to save my life, and I know this must be a harder job than it looks. All I can think of is that ODOT must use the back country roads to train their new line painters.

Pew-wee vs. Pee-yew

My wife claims to have grown up saying "pew-wee" whenever her or any member of her familly ran afoul of a foul odor.

I told her recently that until I met her, that expression hadn't been a part of my vocabulary vernaculer. Instead, we always said, "pee-yew." She didn't and couldn't believe it.

Course, my overly educated and walking-thesaurus Mother, would never use slang if she could avoid it. Her phrase when confronted by odiferous odors was, "oooh, stink!" Sometimes a smell would be so egregious to her senses that it would make her speak the dreaded J-word for such things, muttering "Kusai!" beneath a covered nose.

C prefers "pew-wee." She's a momma's girl. PK copies her. Course, since my teen years, my one and only phrase that covers this situation, and many others has been a simple, "duuude."

So will the "pee-yew" varaint of my youth become extinct in my family unit's lexicon of linguistics?

Pee-yew vs. Pew-wee -- what's it gonna be?