Library Loot

Went to the library today and picked up:

"Brothers" by Yu Hua

"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb

"Eclipse" by Richard North Patterson

I'm currently reading:

"The Women" by T.C. Boyle

"New Moon" by Stephanie Meyer

"Emma" by Jane Austen

So I've got a lot of reading to do!

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

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

Honest Scrap Award

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

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

So here goes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Skywatch Friday

Sunset, Bixby Oklahoma

Stopped to take picture while fetching a Pizza

For great views of the sky from all over the world

click on over to Skywatch Friday

Yeah Whirlpool!

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

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

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

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

Isn't that the Sweetest Love Note Ever?

I'm not being sarcastic.

Best thing is. Only one little part left over!

Downtown Exorcism - Continued

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




I hope them rats leave soon.

Boys Night Out

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

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

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

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

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

Tonight we did something different!

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

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

So far so good.

Mellow Yellow Monday #1

These signs concern me. What's the deal? Are remote control 16 wheel trucks next? I don't get it.

For Yellow from all over check out Mellow Yellow Monday.

Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy, Nick's Law and What Else?

I had a whirlwind day last Thursday.

First I drove from Tulsa down to Oklahoma City for a meeting of Natural Gas and Energy Association of Oklahoma. They had the meeting at the Oklahoma History Center near the State Capital.

You could really tell that the price of natural gas is down. Not many people showed up. March prices for Oklahoma gas could be down in the $2.70 per million btu range. That is about 1/3 of last summer's prices, and its winter. Doesn't look good for the rest of the year. Also, the speaker was going to talk about Nuclear Energy in Oklahoma. To a bunch of gas folks?

Some people have told me that energy companies rig the prices. I tell them that the energy companies are pretty piss poor at it.

The Speaker was State Represenative Scott Martin of Norman. He is sponsoring a bill to facilitate nuclear power plants in Oklahoma. I think it is a good idea. That is for another post.

I kept thinking Scott Martin, Scott Martin . . . Seemed like he was involved in the Nick's Law controversy going on in Oklahoma. He is a Republican . . . Some Republicans' have suggested that Oklahoman's with autism and their families maybe need to move to some other state. That kind of bothers me. Maybe the politicians need to move instead.

Anyway I got home and googled Rep Martin and was very pleasantly surprised. According to this Rep Martin was one of only four Republicans who stood up to their leadership to try and bring Nick's law to the floor last year. So, I think that he is a good guy. I wished I had talked to him, but he had to go to a hearing, busy, buys, busy.

Speaking as a Republican, I have been wondering for some time now what they bring to the table, I mean, if you are not a big contributor looking for special favors in return for contributions. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to turn Democrat on anybody. But still I'm wondering.

I had other things to do so I didn't go through the Oklahoma History Center. I have done it before and I really recommend seeing it if you hadn't before.

I did go through the grounds though. Lots of oil and gas stuff there.

Drilling rigs of various vintages. Look at the sky, you wonder why I didn't want to stay inside?

A pumpjack, an older model. For pumping oil.

There was a geocache on the grounds. I'm sorry to report that I didn't find it.

Now, a boring blast from the past. I used to live close to the Capital in my pre-Sweetie days in an old neighborhood. So I went over there to take a look.

I loved this house. I signed a 1 year lease and left before the lease was up. Everything that wasn't nailed down was disappearing. I even caught a fine young coed from that great Methodist school, Oklahoma City University, stealing bricks from the back yard. She said she didn't realize that they belonged to anybody. She offered to put them back where she got them. Boy, that was nice of her.

I then left the city and headed west, to western Oklahoma. To check on some projects I helped put together commercially. In particular a couple of compressor stations.

Here is what one looks like. Isn't it a beauty? Ok, time to quit.

A Herd of Birds

Earlier this week I went out on what us oilfield trash in the energy business call a "foilage tour." My employer has some projects going on in western Oklahoma that I had a hand in so went to check them out. Not that I have anything to contribute to them at this point besides get in the way and impede progress.

I had finished looking at what I came to look at and I was taking the back roads home. I was on a gravel county road when I saw some critters out walking in a wheat field. I did a double take and saw this group of birds. I'm not sure what they are, herons or cranes come to mind, and I'm sorry for the quality of the picture but it is the best I have.

There were other groups further out in the field walking around also. I have seen these birds in rivers standing alone looking for something to eat I always presumed.

Now, I know that birds come in flocks not herds. These birds looked like they were in a herd.

Thanks for visiting. For pictures of critters from all over please check out camera critters.

Supplement! Fishing Guy and a few other people said that the birds were sandhill cranes. I googled them and looked at the pictures available and to this unexpert eye, I think they are right. I found out from the International Crane Foundation site that sandhill cranes are the most populous cranes in the world and it is also the oldest bird species still surviving (10 million years+). Fishing Guy also pointed out that a herd (flock) of cranes is a sedge.

Thanks Fishing Guy for taking the time to let us know what the birds are.

Thanks guys, I love learning this kind of stuff.

Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell

I just finished "Scarpetta" by Patricia Cornwell. Baloney at "That's Baloney" asked me if I had ever read her. Another friend Diamond Girl was also a fan. So I had to try and I'm glad that I did.

In my book reviews I don't try and examine how the book helped me explore the inner realm of my outer consciousness, or wait, is it the other way around? Oh, darn I forget. Nor do I worry about the plot, unless it is cheesy. I just try and report if the book is a good read. A good read is a book that just grabs you and makes you read it. Necessary are good characters, a believable story, and a smooth writing style.

This book is a good read and is not cheesy. The plot is not for the faint of heart. But hello, the lead character is a medical examiner. You got a weak stomach go read something else.

This book rates 3.5 out of 4 stars.

I recommend it highly. It has been out for a while. I got my copy readily from the library. Don't buy it!! Its a great book but go to the library, get a card, get the book.

Late Afternoon

Late Afternoon from deep in the woods near Chandler, Oklahoma.

I was on the turnpike headed back home when I noticed on my GPS that there was a geocache that needed finding. It was on a hillside in a tree. It took a while to climb to the site and a long time for me to spot it.

I looked up and saw it was getting late. Time to head home.

Check out Skywatch for pictures of the sky from all over the world.

Facebook Privacy Rules Primer

I am on Facebook quite a bit. Not a whole lot. Unlike some friends of mine, I can quit anytime I want. Anyway I missed the big controversy where they tried to change the terms of service but there was a huge outcry from their customers so they reverted back to the old terms of service overnight.

The Geek blog, Lifehacker, recently had a link this article on allfacebook.com, an unofficial Facebook online guide. I suggest that anybody who uses Facebook a lot read the article especially those of us who work outside the home and have work friends and personal friends. I thought they were all the same. There are ways to differentiate privacy settings between different sets of friends. That was news to me.

If you are Facebook user, I definitely recommend reviewing the article.

Heavy Duty Manly Stuff

Well I've blogged about cats and dogs, kids, and auction baskets. Sometimes I have to let my inner engineer geek side come out. Below are pictures from a customer who is upgrading a refinery and had to get this big widget over a highway via a temporary bridge.

I think the guy sitting down must be the project engineer. Sitting down far away from work is usually the best use for an engineer when actual work is going on. Usually engineers have negative productivity during this kind of thing. Not only are they not doing anything, they prevent other people from working. So planting him down in the grass like a flower is a smart move. The risk you run is him filing a workman's comp claim for chiggers or fire ant bites on the butt.

Man I wish I knew how much that bridge cost, let alone widget. I bet they ordered all that early last year when oil was over $100 a barrel.

I wonder how much that trailer cost it is sitting on. I hope it has good brakes. That thing gets rolling downhill uncontrolled it could ruin somebody's whole day.

Don't you just love this kind of stuff?

I'm Yogi and I am a Blogaholic

72%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I'm pretty much useless for anything else these days. Just ask Sweetie.

Running and Daydreaming at Night

I got a kitchen pass to go run after work tonight. Thanks Sweetie. I didn't have my running stuff at work so I didn't run on the river. I came home changed and ran on the Creek Turnpike trail.

I was all excited. A geocache needed found also. If I run and cache then I have to blog it. So it was running, caching, and blogging tonight. I also take my ipod. Full blast: Metallica, Bride, Blink 182. All that music will rot your brain. I wouldn't listen to it if I were you.

About two miles from where I started, this is the cache site. Its not on the sign or around the sign, in the ground, or anywhere else.



Its in the power pole. What's up with that? How do I get it out? Its snug. I need a tool. I don't have any tools. Why should I need a tool to get a cache? Oh well, I don't have any cheese to go with my whine. What can I use?

Aha, there is a tool! Its not a snake, its a stick.


Extract the cache. Look at the log. You can't see it. The dork that took the picture over exposed it. That's why.
The cacher before me was "CCATBQFM"
It means
Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars.

Everybody knows that.


What a perfect evening Sweetie. Thanks.

Scaled Back Dreams - Pythian Building

The Pythian Building in Tulsa, sometimes called the Gillette Tyrell Building started construction in 1929. Originally it was going to be a 3 story office building with a 10 story office tower. That topped with a penthouse. The stock market crash happened though and the owners did not build the hotel tower. This story sound familiar?

The exterior is mildly interesting if one knows what to look for. There is a lot of tilework set into the terra cotta. Really it is a an understated building on the outside.


The interior is another story. It is L shaped and has spectacular tilework on the floor and walls in shades of blues, reds, and creams. The ceiling of the lobby has a fake skylight that uses etched glass.

The tiles are durable also. I am told that the floor tiles have never been replaced. The building is fully occupied and the present owners are taking very good care of it.

The detailing of the tile work is wonderful. No two patterns are alike.

I'm told that this type of Art Deco decoration is called "zig zag." Sounds good to me.

A local architect, I cannot remember his name, likened the effect to a 3D persian carpet wrapped around you. I loved that description.

To see other visions of the world check out "My World."

Pink Panther 2

Valentines Day 2009 - Sweetie and I took SuperPizzaBoy and his buddy Nick to see Pink Panther 2. Steve Martin steals the show in this entertaining movie which works both for both the parents and the kids. (Sweetie might disagree with me. Lily Tomlin has a cameo role where she tries to teach Inspector Cluseau about being politically correct so SPB and his buddy learned about "ogling women." Tomlin does a great job describing what not to look for.)

Martin is over the top and I loved this movie. It has a great web site also complete with games and downloads.

I give this movie 2.5 stars out of 4.

Making Progress

For Christmas, son SuperPizzaBoy got a black and white kitten. He named him "LJ" and declared LJ to be his "Only Son." So Sweetie and I instantly became grandparents a few years earlier than what we planned. SPB loves LJ, and so does everbody else in the household.

Except Chrissy our 20 pound maine coon who only likes me, and not that much either. She can, and often does, swats LJ off the bed with one swipe of her huge claws.

Lately though, she is letting LJ lay nearby, as long as he stays still. She won't play with him though, maybe later.

To see other pictures and read other stories about both wild and domestic critters check out Camera Critters.

Bodean Seafood for Valentines Dinner

SuperPizzaBoy had a sleepover at his friend's house Friday night so Sweetie and I went out to eat to celebrate Valentines Day a day early. We went to Bodean Seafood. One we have not been there since they moved to their new location across 51st street from their old location. Two we had a very generous gift card that we had got as part of a basket we purchased at a fundraiser last week.

Surprisingly I was able to make reservations after work for 8 pm. We got there a little before. Their old place across the street was nice but a little cramped. This new place is very spacious with a very airy feeling. The waiting area is kind of small but they have a very spacious and attractive bar area.

The dining room is very large and very attractively decorated. The table are ordered in rows and columns rather than a more random arrangement. In a quiet place it could make it seem like you have no privacy but the night we were there the place was very lively. It had a feeling of energy rather than being irritated.

Our server was very inobtrusive but there whenever we needed her. She had a lot of customers to take care of but took very good care of us.

Sweetie ordered the "Pecan Wood Grilled Mahi-Mahi" they came with Goat Cheese "smashed potatoes" She reports that the fish was very good but the smashed potatoes were ok.

I had the Yellowfin Tuna with chilled Soba Noodle Salad and a soy reduction and wasabi sauce. The tuna was cooked "rare" with a sesame seed crust. It was delicious. I'm become a big fun of this type of "almost raw" tuna. It had a fresh clean taste and I loved the sesame crust. The wasabi sauch on the side helped keep my sinuses clear. One advantage I have found with rare tuna is that nobody ever asks me for a bite. For my part once I started eating raw oysters when I first moved to the Texas gulf coast years ago, I'm pretty much game for anything.

I loved the soba noodles. I had never heard of them before Pei Wei's came to town several years ago but now I'm a fan.

The meal was delicious, the portions were generous, the prices although a bit high for the Yogi family budget were a good value for the food. The dining room atmosphere was energetic and light. We really enjoyed ourselves.

I rate this place 3 and half stars out of four.

Full Moon

The weather has been wild in Oklahoma the last couple of weeks. We had a warm spell, then an ice storm, then it warmed up, and then we had rain storms and tornadoes.

In the midst of all this we had a full moon. I was outside one night taking the trash out or something and looked up in the sky. We had a full moon and low thin clouds racing from the south, just hauling ass, as us Okies put it. It was beautiful. I went inside and got my camera and wasted a bunch of electrons trying to get the moon in a gap.

Check out Skywatch for other pictures of the sky from all over the world.

Award

Becky from Operation Read Bible awarded this blog the "Your Blog Is Fabulous" award. I was thrilled. I'm also embarassed because she gave it to me two weeks ago and I haven't passed it on yet. Recipients are supposed to write five things that you are addicted to and then pass it on to five other blogs.

I love Becky's blog. She is an awesome reader and book reviewer. I wanted to do a bible reading challenge but I didn't want to do it in a year. Her bible reading challenge is much more flexible in the schedule. I'm going to get the Bible read, just not in a year.

My addictions

1. Geocaching, as my few readers know. I love looking for, finding, and hiding geocaches. If you don't what it is check here. Lately I've been evangelizing and winning converts.

2. Blogging. I love writing them and reading them. I think blogging is wonderful.

3. Reading. I read all sorts of stuff. Fiction, non-fiction, magazines, cereal boxes, web sites. I love it all.

4. Coffee - I drink it by the gallon. I love it.

5. Dallas Cowboys - What can I say. I'm hopeless, they are hopeless either. Moving into a billion dollar stadium next season. What up?

Now, I get to pass the award on to five other people.

1. Bobbie and Julie of Friends of Bobbie Armour. A more courageous couple you will never find.

2. Kathy of Oklahoma Book Lady. She is the book lady and the photography lady to and is very generous with her comments.

3. Nick's Law & Autism Legislation in Oklahoma - I don't think the author cares about awards, but he cares by our kids.

4. Dana of Dana of Oz- US expatriate living and working in Australia. She hasn't posted in two months but she is one of my three smartest and best looking nieces. If this looks like nepotism, it is. I am very proud of all three of my nieces, Dana, Mary, and Jillian but Dana is the only one with a blog.

5. OkLawStudent of Dysfunctional Didactics . I have no idea what a Didactic is but I love this offbeat blog.

Bids, Baskets, Bites, and Prime Numbers

SuperPizzaBoy's school had a fund raiser last Satuday night. It was a party. Each of the classes had put together a basket and you bid on each basket in a silent auction format. Everybody spends a lot of time and attention putting their basket together and decorating the table that it sits on. Below is the table that Sweetie decorated. It and the basket she put together is based on the television series "The Office. The typewriter is courtesy of Nana, SPB's grandmother.

Oh, the food. Each table has food. Lots of food. Almost all of it is good, but bad for you. I never have figured out how things can be good but bad at the same time.

SPB goes to a private school and things are a little different. They have a Halloween party for example. A few parents don't like it but most don't seem to think that we are raising legions of devil worshippers. Christmas is allowed! Wow. I'm digressing again, I'm sorry, I'll get to the point: We could get a glass of wine! I only had one, after all I was driving, but it was great.

I'm really off track. See all the stuff on the table? It now belongs to the guy on the left. Me. Sweetie says no more silent auctions for me. She is so mean sometimes.

Lets see, I won 6 baskets: The fishing basket, complete with with three fishing rods, including a pink one for Sweetie. The spaghetti basket, the photo basket which includes a new digital camera, and a micro camera (oh!), the weaved basket (done by SPB's class, I had to get it, right?), the Bookworm basket (of course), and the Patio basket!

The good news, I got a lot of great stuff. The bad news, we have to pull SPB out of school, we can't afford to pay tuition any more. He's a smart kid. He'll be ok.

I knew that it was going to be that kind of night for me. How did I know? Because my assigned auction id number was 23, a prime number. I love prime numbers. They are so mysterious and very auspicious for me. I could bore you to tears with the beauty of prime numbers.

Lunchtime Skirt Lifting

When the intensity at work lifts a little bit (believe me, the intensity of the energy business is lifting a lot) and if the weather is good, then I like to relieve the tension by leaving the office and finding a few skirts to lift.

I don't like to lift just any skirt, just those where there might be a reward for me. Plus not all skirts want to be lifted. You just can't go around lifting just any skirt and expect to get away with it. Some people take offense when you start lifting their skirts.

But anyway, last week I find out about a skirt that didn't mind being lifted and where there was a guaranteed prize for doing so. I talked about it at work and a coworker, Mrs. T, said she would give it a go.

So off we went to lift a skirt. It took a while to find the right skirt. Once we did, T went for it. I've never got a picture of a skirt being lifted before so this was a first for me, so it was kind of double the excitement.

So here it is:

Yep, the geocache was right there under the lamp skirt.

We had a lot of fun and will do it again!

Pre - Valentines and then a little Geocaching

One thing our church does this time of year for couples married over 50 years is present each wife with a corsage. They are delivered the Saturday before Valentines Day and the couples are specially honored the next day in church

Getting the corsages to the wives is a big undertaking requiring lots of volunteers. Sweetie and I have been doing for several years. It is pretty cool because the women love the corsages and most of the time we get invited in to sit for a spell and talk with these couples. We love it. These folks have quite the stories to tell.

This year Sweetie couldn't go. She is the co-President of SuperPizzaBoy's school and she had to work on a fundraiser Saturday night. So I went. It was still nice but not as nice as having Sweetie along. Maybe next year.

I consoled my lonely feelings by finding a couple of geocaches in a local park. The first was a toughie but I finally spotted it. I'm not going to tell you which geocache it is because I want you to spend 20 minutes in a park trying to act not like a pervert while a bunch of Society for Creative Anachronism folks are battering each other with wooden swords.

SCA is an awesome organization because only they are more dorky than geocachers.

Camera Critters #1

Last weekend on a warm sunny day we went for a walk. We took Abby and Ginger on a new dual harness. After a little discussion between them about who is going to go on what side it worked about very well. Changing directions continued to be an issue.

Then we went to pick up son, SuperPizzaBoy, at his friend Nicholas' house. Nicholas has chickens and a guinea fowl. The guinea is the alarm system for the rest of the flock and he was sounding off when Ginger and Abby started giving the flock a good barking from the car.

There are also a couple sheep. They don't get too excited about anything.

The family has a pair of peacocks but they were being camera shy that day. Maybe next time.

Check out Camera Critters for photographs of animals from all over.

Charles Darwin's Birthday Coming Up, Lets Celebrate!

Charles Darwin's 200th birthday is February 12, 2009. It is going to be quite the celebration, at least in some quarters. Check out http://www.darwinday.org/ for one.

Darwin of course originated the Theory of Evolution and explained it in his book "The Origin of the Species" in 1859. It was based on his voyage in the HMS Beagle to the Galapagos Islands in the 1830s. He took 20 years to fully develop his theory.

His theory emphasizes natural selection or the idea that favorable traits have an advantage in future generations of the species.

The theory has survived much investigation and has been modified by research over the years. His theory of Natural Selection is the foundation of modern Biology. It has withstood the test of time and in this Christian's mind is totally compatible with the Bible including the creation stories in Genesis.

The gold standard of a scientific theory is that it can be used to generate testable hypotheses. Natural Selection can and has done that. Creation Science and Intelligent Design although appealing do not generate testable hypotheses and thus do not qualify as scientific theories.

I think part of the problem some people have with evolution is the word "theory." To a layman a theory is just kind of a guess. It is a gut feeling about something. Its like, "I think the knock in the car is due to bad gasoline." So when they hear the word "Theory of Evolution" some people think, the school wants to teach our kids about a theory, not anything that means something.

To a scientist for an explanation to get to the status of theory it has to pass huge hurdles. It has to be self contained and verifiable. It has to pass peer review and become widely accepted. For example, the "Theory of Electricity." Nobody has ever seen electricity, so how do we know it exists? Its just a theory. It may be just a theory but it lights, heats, and cools our buildings, powers our computers. The world's economy, to a large degree, depends on this stuff that is "just a theory."

You can learn a whole lot more in this article in Scientific American.

Skywatch Friday - A bare glimpse of blue sky

Spring may be on the way, who knows?

To check out skies from around the globe go to Skywatch Friday.

Ready, Set, Run 2009

The Autism Center of Tulsa ("ACT"), formerly the Tulsa Autism Foundation, is having their annual 5K Race and Fun Run on May 9, 2009 at Hunter Park in Tulsa. It will be a certified 5K race and a very fun Fun Run. A good time will be had by all. The Yogi Family will be out in force including SuperPizzaBoy, who as some of you know has Asperger's Syndrome, a type of Autism.

To quote from the ACT web site:

"The Autism Center of Tulsa was founded in 2005 with the mission of meeting the needs of individuals and families affected by autism and related neurological disorders to improve quality of life. The Autism Center of Tulsa provides programming that supports its mission in a variety of ways, including community awareness and outreach, early screening and intervention, safety, parent and professional information and training as well as family support and on-site resources."

The Yogi family has benefited from the various ACT programs such as the Family Fun Nights, educational seminars for parents. They also have a resource center. They provide lots of support but they do not advocate any particular treatment approaches thinking that is best left to the parents and doctors of the children involved.

If your family has somebody diagnosed with Autism or if you know somebody else affected by the disorder please check out the web site and call them. They are very helpful.

As part of this race the Yogi family formed a team, "Logan's SuperPizzaPeople," to help out with the fund raising. To help SuperPizzaBoy get motivated to raise money we've thrown him in jail and we are not letting him out until he comes up with a $1000. I know that some people may think that is a little harsh but SPB doesn't really mind except we we are not letting him play video games.

You might check out the link. There is picture of him in jail. If you don't feel led to give, he would appreciate any supportive comments that you may have. If you do feel led to give I would appreciate it very much, not only for the money which will go to good uses but also to reduce the noise level in the house. We messed up and put his cell way too close to the house and he is yelling really loud. I can hardly hear myself think!

My World - Boston Avenue Methodist Church - Tulsa

In a city full of Art Deco treasures the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, downtown at 13th and Boston, may be the crown jewel.

It was completed in 1929 just in time for the stock market crash. The church was almost foreclosed on and converted to a movie theater but was saved when a group of businessmen chartered a flight to Kansas City and convinced the mortgage owner not to proceed with the foreclosure.

The two architects were Bruce Goff and Adah Robinson. The building features a 225 foot tall tower containing church offices, bells, and a prayer room. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

As nice and innovative as the exterior of the building is, the interior is stunning. The stained glass especially is spectacular. The church offers tours of the building at the conclusion of the 11 AM Service on Sundays.

One thing I love about Art Deco is the detailing. Below is a detail of the south face of the building showing three Methodist circuit riders on horseback.

Surf over to My World Tuesday to see unique photographs from all over the world.

Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience

Saturday afternoon the Yogi family again ventured to downtown Tulsa to the BOK Center. This time to see "Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience." (Click the link if you have time, the production' web site is awesome).

Walking with Dinosaurs is an outgrowth of the BBC Series with the same name.

This is a great show. The technology used is amazing as the dinsaurs look lifelike. They walk dynamically and in balance, the muscles ripple under the skin realistically.

I could go on and on but the short story is that we loved this show. The narrator of the story (a faux paleontologist with what looked like faux face stubble) did a great job of explaining what was going on all the while dodging the creatures as they maneuvered around the floor of the arena. The dinosaurs roared, some very loudly, the music was great. This is a first rate production.