Halloween Run Down and Run

Last night was Freaky Fun Night at SuperPizzaBoy's school. Everybody had a great time.

We started out early evening with an almost full moon.



SuperPizzaBoy was a ghostbuster. He has his work cut out for him, the place was full of ghosts.



SPB's friend Nicholas was Zeus


SPB scarfed down some pizza. But, is that really news?



Sweetie was a Gypsy, a cute Gypsy. Sorry for the blurry photo Sweetie. I like it though.



There were games. I made this last year. It has seen lots of use at various events.



SPB's other friend Quinn got the Scariest Costume award. He scared me, I'll tell you that.



The joint was jumping!!


Sweetie helped organize the event. I sat in on a meeting with her and the other women organizing the event. They were amazing. You know, I'm thinking about that. I'm tired of hearing about Obama this and W that and Bill this and so on. How about we get Michelle and Laura together and let them run things.I tell you what, we would have decent health care and a balanced budget. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars would get figured out as well. We guys, we just need to be told what to do, and we are fine.

Hey, I'm not done! (Yeah, well I am you mutter) I ran a race today. The Tulsa Run 15k. Its my 16th. This won't take long.

Here is the starting line. It took me about 3 minutes to get here when the gun sounded.


I only took one picture during the race. This is at about 6K I think.


We finished in front of the BOK Center.


Runners get candy bars courtesy of Quik Trip. This year they had Snickers bars left so I grabbed a couple.


At the finish line we had a band led by Oklahoma's own Grady Nichols.



They had a very long line for the beer. I hate beer lines. I like it when you just mob the beer truck. I'm pretty good at getting to the front. I don't elbow anybody. I find a seam, turn sideways, and move through. Square up, find another seam, and repeat. Works wonderfully. Not much can be done with a line.

I got my cup of suds. I think they were running out. The people doing the serving seemed to be in a sour mood. Runners can be pretty demanding. We like to get our moneys worth of free beer.



So right now Sweetie is carving a pumpkin and we are going to go trick or treating tonight.

Cracker Rapper

Who says white middle aged guys can't wrap. From a family web site.




I rate it four stares out of four stars. (sic)

Halloween Prize

I generally ignore office parties and decorations and such but hey I love Halloween so when the office had a pumpkin decorating contest I decided what the hay, I'll enter.

So I bought a couple of pumpkins and a gourd and set them out..

And I won!



Now, don't be smirking especially when I say that they had three prizes and three entries.

A prize is a prize.

I am now an award winning pumpkin decorator.

Have you won any prizes lately? I want to hear the details!

Purple Skywatch

I was heading off to work one morning last week and had to pull off on a side road to take this purply picture. Skies like this are a nice way to start the day.

For other views of the skies above us, from all over the world, click on over to Skywatch Friday and join us.

Last Run

Last night I ran 5 miles on the Arkansas River. It was my last run before the Tulsa Run this weekend. It was also my last run before daylight savings time ends this weekend so next week's run after work will be without the sun. Last night started out dim at dusk and ended in the dark.



The river trail is lighted very well, the problem is that it is going to start getting colder. I've got all the high tech clothes where I can run in cold weather. I've run in temperatures down to about zero but it is not much fun. I'll be running lots more at lunch now, which is nice and more on treadmills which is horrible.

Anyway, come out to Tulsa Run if you are in town. It will be a party! Get all the info here.

Young Man - You are in Trouble!!!

Sweetie went off to her book group Tuesday night so SuperPizzaBoy and I did our monthly "Boys Night Out." They are not as much fun as the summer, early bedtime and all. Plus this time SPB has his first ever book report due early next week so we are trying to get a little bit done ever night.

Still, we did a few things. We went to Toys R Us so he could look at what they got. That consists mainly of reading the video game cheat books.

I saw something I had never seen before.



It is a Sponge Bob Square Pants television. Wow, the ability of science and technology to make our lives more meaningful and fulfilling continues to amaze me.

He is a pretty good kid and so I told him that I would buy him a Bakugan. Now, if you have kids of a certain age you already know what they are. If you don't then count yourself lucky! Basically they are little toys about the size and shape of a large jaw breaker (that dates me) that spring open when put on the accompanying metal card. There is also a cartoon that I don't understand. I think that it is a plot by Obama to drive us Boomers crazy since we are the only ones that are on to his plot to take our guns away and hand the USA over to Bulgaria.

Anyway here is what a Bakugan looks like.



They cost about $5 each. Cheap right, I guess. My customers are spending about $10 million a pop to drill horizontal wells 14,000 feet deep and pump 1 million pounds of sand and incredible amounts of water into the hole. If they are lucky and the geologist wasn't screwed up and if the driller didn't mess the hole up they produce natural gas at about $5 for a 1000 cubic feet. And then they pay companies like my employer to clean it up, compress it, and take it to market. Then they have to give the royalty owner about 3/16th of it, and the state takes 7% (The state and the royalty owners don't pay any of the drilling costs). At Toys R Us, they don't deliver the product to you. You have to drive your own car to get it. We pay the tax on it also. Maybe I need to get in a new line of business?

Anyway I promised him that if he worked on his book report then he could play video games until shower time so he opted to save time eating by going to Wendy's and grabbing some burgers and frostys.

We did that, got home and opened the garage door to pull in and this is what I saw.



What the what? Then it dawned on me. I turned him and said, "Son, have you been playing with the sink and counter top and not put it back where you found it? How many times have we talked about that?"

SPB said, "I didn't do it, a man came and took it off." and I said "And you just stood there and let him do it! Wait until your Mother comes home!"

He said "She knows about it, she was there!" I said, "We'll see about that."

Anyway, we are sinkless for a little while. We are getting new granite countertops. It will be interesting.

My World - Oklahoma Aquarium

My Sister and her husband came for to visit us in Tulsa this past weekend. We decided to check out the Oklahoma Aquarium in nearby Jenks, Oklahoma.

The Aqarium sits right on the banks of the Arkansas River. They have a wide range of exhibits that includes not only salt water fish and animals but fish native to Oklahoma. We had a very good time.

They had some jelly fish



And some very ugly fish



They some little cute colorful fish



As well as some big brutish fish



If you are not happy just looking at the fish they have some fish you touch.



Sorry for the blurry shot, lighting was kind of dim.



From left to right, my sister Ellen, my son SuperPizzaBoy, my wife Sweetie, and best ever bil Irvin.

Check out the Oklahoma Aqarium if you are in the Tulsa Area. Their web site lists hours, programs, and fees.

Check out "That's My World" to find out more about what is going on in our world.

Super Pizza Boy and his Creatures

SuperPizzaBoy loves his art class at school. He also loves mythical creatures. Last Friday he brought home his art projects including the mythical creatures that he created. We thought he would share them with you.



We are mighty proud of SPB.

Baloney Sunday Challenge - Ecclesiastes 11:7-8

Ecclesiastes 11:7-8
"Light is sweet,
  and it pleases the eyes to see the
     sun.
However many years a man may
     live,
  let him enjoy them all.
But let him remember the days of
      darkness,
   for they will be many.
   Everything to come is
       meaningless."
(NIV)

"The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown

Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code" has written another thriller and its a good one. Robert Langdon the famed symbologist is back in the middle of things, this time in Washington, D.C. and finds himself right in the middle of another deadly story involving solving puzzles involving ancient codes, ciphers, and secrets.

I'm not going to spoil things for you I'll just say that nobody is better than Dan Brown at creating impossible predicaments for their characters and then creatively getting them out of the situation. He is amazing.

This is only the second book I've read by Dan Brown, (I tried reading "Angels and Demons" but chucked it into the corner after the first chapter.) but based on this book and "The Da Vinci Code" it seems that there are three parts to his books. The first part is the basic story with the characters. He is great at that. Now I know his characters are pretty much one dimensional but that is the nature of the genre. We want action in a thriller and some butt kicking. This isn't literary fiction. The second part is science fiction. His science fiction is not the greatest. That is what caused me to throw "Angels and Demons" across the room and scare the cats. The third part is the religious/philosophical/spiritual side.

That third part is what proved very popular in "The Da Vinci Code." I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. It was only after the book had been out for a while did articles appear about how it was pretty much made up. Some simple research showed that it was almost completely made up. It had some grains of truth in it. But it was almost totally fiction.

"The Lost Symbol" has that element about freemasonry. It delves quite deep into it. I am not believing any of it.  So there.

Still this book gets four stars out of four. Read it.

The book has its own web site. Dan Brown has a web site also.

Sky Watch Friday - Missouri Botanical Garden

We took a road trip to St Louis last week for Fall Break. Our last day, while we were at the 150 year old  Missouri Botanical Gardens, the sun came out.



I think the glass is by Dale Chihuly, but I couldn't confirm it.

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

U2 Concert - the Day After - Classen Grill and Full Circle Bookstore

Sunday we went to the U2 Concert in Norman, Oklahoma. We spent the night in Oklahoma City. Slept in until almost check out time.

We had breakfast at the Classen Grill on Classen Avenue.



I've posted about it before and I'll keep posting about it. We had the Chinook eggs. Poached eggs on salmon patties with hollandaise sauce. It is tasty but very very bad for you. Oh, did I mention the baked cheese grits that come with it? Or the fresh squeezed orange juice you can get?

Here is the Roadfood.com entry for the joint.

Sweetie, patiently waiting for Yogi to move it!



Next we went up the street to one of the few remaining independent bookstores in Oklahoma. Full Circle Bookstore on Northwest Expressway.



Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to demonize Barnes & Noble or Borders. They are great bookstores. But there is nothing like an independent bookstore run by people who love books rather than just sell books. I am a huge library user but we bought lots of books on Monday. This place is a treasure. Check out their website.

U2 and Black Eye Peas Concert

The Yogi's have been traveling lately. Last week we took a fall break trip to Saint Louis and had a great time. Today though I'm talking about what we did after we got home from that trip. Sunday afternoon Sweetie and I left SuperPizzaBoy and his Nintendo DS in care of Nana and headed to Norman, Oklahoma to see the Black Eye Peas and U2 in concert at the University of Oklahoma.

Traffic was heavy all the way. It seemed everybody in Oklahoma except SPB and Nana were headed to the concert. We got there in good shape. Parking over a mile from the stadium was $15. You folks in New York City may put up with that but its a mite expensive here in the heartland. I hold Barack Obama personally responsible. I never had to pay that much for parking until he became president.

We got there early. The wind was blowing. Old Glory, along with the OU and Oklahoma State Flags were flying proudly.



U2 built this gigantic stage special for stadium shows. It is 165 feet tall and has a huge circular video screen and an oval track about 30 yards by 60 yards I woud guestimate. It certainly was impressive. Supposedly it took a week to build.



The tower contains lights and smoke machines. The legs each contained four light operators who were hoisted into place. That made for 16 guys who were locked into place with no visible means of relieving  themselves. They must have all been young. You can just barely see them below.



The Black Eye Peas came on first. They were great. I like them now more than ever. They seemed very personable despite their techno clothes and music. They have been together since the mid 1990's. They were very polished and gracious performers. Sorry about the pictures. We were not very close. Fortunately the stage had a huge video screen.




I was going to try and embed a YouTube video of the Black Eye Peas but that's not happening. Here is a link to their official You Tube Site. They have some very nice videos of many of their songs.

When they ended their set to a standing ovation the lights came on and the roadies redid the stage. It always amazes me how many people come up to remove stuff off the stage and put more stuff on.



Finally, the lights went down, the Band walked on the stage. Bono sang and Edge played, for hours. It was wonderful. Bono has such a clear strong distinct voice. Edge's guitar playing was amazing. He looks like a guy that just walked out of the woods, but his skill at the guitar is amazing.

Bono is such an accomplished performer. He certainly connected with his audience in central Oklahoma Sunday night. I have to say that it may have been the most emotional concert I've ever been to next to the Garth Brooks shows in Tulsa in the 1990's. In both shows the audience sang large segments of many of the songs back to the performers. It was an amazing give and take.

The stage, or "Spacecraft" as Bono put it certainly helped bring the show more visible to us up in the cheap seats. The huge video screens and loud clear sound that it made possible made the show feel much more intimate than you would expect from a stadium concert.







U2 Trailer for their concert series showing the stage.


Either one of these shows would have rated a four stars out of four. Both bands on the same night indescribable. I have to say that as much as I love the Black Eye Peas, U2 was very special. It was a bucket list performance for us.

"Splinterheads" the Geocaching Movie

Splinterheads is a new movie coming, maybe. It might be the fifth best movie ever made. I'm pretty sure of that even though I've never seen it. (Chinatown, Cars, Down With Love, and Dr. Zhivago hold down the 1 through 4 spots, forever.)

I am not even sure this movie will even make it to Tulsa.

I don't care, its going to be great, trust me.

You know how I know?

Because it involves Geocaching.

Here is a Teaser.

It is about more than geocaching. Here is the trailer.

The secret is out now. The reason I love geocaching has nothing to do with being outside and using gadgets that get satellite signals to find stuff. Its all about the women taking their clothes off in their lust to find caches. Its all ruined now. I'll have to take up scrap booking or something like that. Do they still have lessons on that.

Check out the web site. Who knows what the distribution plans are?

Reading a Book a Day

Do you like to read?

Do you like to read a lot?

Could you read a book a day?

Could you write a review a day for the books you read?

For a year?

Longer?

Nina Sankovitch can and does. Look at her blog. Read All Day. It is simply amazing.

What hooked me on her blog is this, excerpted from her September 20, 2009 update about what makes a good book:

"I usually know within the first few sentences of a book that the writer has the magic to hold me tight while transporting me far away; I know almost right away that I will stick with this author -- or NOT -- through the whole book, that I am sunk in good and hard no matter whether I am made ecstatic with the journey or uncomfortable with the truth or sad with the reality or turned on by the randy bits and disgusted by the yucky bits, I am there for the duration, and beyond."

That's me exactly. I can tell right away if I am going to like a book. I may decide to read it even if the first few sentences grab me, but I won't like it very much.

What about you? Can you tell immediately if you are going to like a book or does it take a while for you to decide? Tell us!

When I am sick, or on a beach vacation, I can read a book a day. Nothing else is happening though.

I have enough OCD that if I got started I could keep going.

I wouldn't be messing with Facebook anymore. Boy that would be a big loss. Right? Wrong.

I wouldn't watch the Dallas Cowboys any more. Yeah, I'm trying to think what I would miss from that.

It would be the only thing I blog about. Don't laugh!

No more geocaching. As Sweetie cheers.

How about you?

Could you do it?

Would you want to do it?

What would you have to give up?

When are you going to start?

"Backspacer" by Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam, that old grunge band from Seattle released Backspacer September 20. I went ahead and bought the thing without knowing any of the tracks and have been playing it over and over.

It has a couple songs that I really like "Unthought Known" and "Force of Nature." There are not any songs that I dislike. The cd just doesn't have anything that makes you want to play a song over and over again. You can go to the bands web site and listen to 30 second samples of the songs.

A "Making of Backspacer" video on Youtube. Pretty interesting.



My negative comment about the cd is the quality of the recording. The music is mushy and not very clear. I use the same car cd player that I use for everything else. The same mush quality comes through on the web site when I play the samples. What's the deal?

All in all this is a sound but not spectacular rock CD. I give it two stars out of four. Which is still good. Better sound quality would have made it a 2.5 star cd.

LJ and Chrissy Go at it

We have a male cat, LJ, about a year old. He is the bottom critter on the totem pole in the Yogi household. He is the only male animal we have and he struts around and tries to boss the ladies around but they ignore him. He tries to take one of them down every once in a while, especially Chrissie, our Main Coon who is the Queen Critter of the house.

Here is there latest battle of the cats.




Better luck next time LJ. You need to get a little bigger. She has too much leverage on you.

"Fearless" by Taylor Swift

Sweetie and I went to see Taylor Swift in concert a couple weeks ago. I didn't recognize many of the tunes because I didn't have the latest CD "Fearless." So I bought the CD and the songs are great but I swear I hadn't heard many before except the melodies are similar.

You see her show is a Rock Concert!! and the CD is Pop. So even if you have the CD you have to go see the show.

Her voice was a lot more full and dynamic live. On the CD she sounds quite frankly like a whiny 18 year old girl singing clever but whiny songs.

I give the CD 3 stars out of 4. Which is still great, and she is only going to get better as she gets older, if she keeps her head on straight.

"A Place in the World" by Mary Chapin Carpenter

I bought this CD used. It came out in 1996 but it is still great. She has such a soft silky voice and is very expressive. In the years since her voice seems to gotten a tad fuller and a little lower. She has matured very well.

I give this four stars out of four. Get it on itunes!

Check out her web site. She is still out there performing.

"Fresh Horses" by Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks has been retired for some time now in a suburb of Tulsa. There has been lots of Garth sitings in and around town and all the people I've talked to that have run into him describe him as totally unassuming and friendly. So I'm happy that he has retired. I suspect though that he has just a twinge of anxiety, not much, but just a little itch that he can't scratch. He can rest easy now."

I heard that just a few minutes ago he bust into his house with the big news:

"Hey Tricia darling, guess what, Yogi finally reviewed my Fresh Horses album from 1995 and he likes it! He gave it four stars of four!" "Yeah, he liked ALL the songs." "I was so worried little Darlin." "Now I can quit for good. My whole life has merely been preparation for this positive Yogi review. My life is fulfilled."

"I know he's a nerd twerp, and he bought the cd used, but he is cheap darling, he won't buy my new ones so he bought an old one." "Ah forget it Tricia, you just don't get it. He couldn't borrow the cd from a friend because he doesn't have any friends."

Check out Garth's web site.

You cannot live in Oklahoma without loving Garth Brooks. He is a heck of an artist and a very generous person.

Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger's by Tim Page

Those of us who are parents of children who have Asperger's Syndrome, a variant of autism, have lots of worries. We worry about their social life and fret about their friendships. We worry about their education (boy do worry about their education!) We worry about the various therapies that are available and whether we have made the right choices. Parents of children who have special needs of any type worry a lot. And that's on top of all the normal worries that any parent has about their children.

Most of all we worry about how they are going to make their way in the world once we are gone. We want them to be financially secure, fulfilled in their work, and happy. We worry about what they are going to do.

We hear that various historical figures may have had Asperger's Syndrome like Ludwig van Beethoven, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, and Jonathan Swift. That  lifts us up but how does fascination with Bakugan and Sponge Bob Square Pants translate into being the next Albert Einstein? Most of us don't expect Einstein we just want them to have a job and be self supporting. A spouse would be great, kids would be wonderful.

Some of us parents hunger for stories of those that have made their way. Tim Page is one of those guys. He is in his mid 50's and he didn't get diagnosed until a few years ago. Tim is a Pulitzer Prize winning music critic. He has written a  book that talks about his life from early childhood until he got out of college.

He had it kind of rough. He had no social skills or instincts at all. He never felt connected to his peers or his family. He didn't do that well in school in fact he got thrown out of one. He made it though. It wasn't pretty. He consumed lots of acohol, smoked dope, dropped acid but he still made it. He had an intense interest in music.

He started by playing his parents records over and over and learning all about them. And it went from there. He also made home made films as a child. He had a creative spark and drive and he never gave up.

This book is great. It is not a "pretty" story about how overcame his disability by hard work and help from  teachers, pastors, sunday school classes, the Bible, boy scouts, sports, and a paper route. It is about a bewildered kid trying to figure out why he didn't fit in and who had a passion for music and pursued it. He had loving but also bewildered parents. He had various adults take an interest in him but Tim Page made it on his own.

How much better can we do now that we know how to diagnose and treat youngsgters with Asperger's Syndrome? A bunch I hope.

This is a great book. If you want to read the story of somebody who has Asperger's Syndrome this is good. He doesn't provide any great insights into therapies or advance any theories he just tells his story. The book is well written and compelling. It is short. I read it in two days. Sweetie is reading it now.