Post Oak Lodge Trail Run

I'm kind of getting into Trail Runs now. I have runs scores of road races of 5K, 8K, 10K, 15K, 20K, half marathon, and two full marathons but today I finished only my second trail run. They are fun.

My latest was Sunday, the Post Oak Lodge Trail Run at the Post Oak Lodge located in the Osage hills overlooking the city of Tulsa. They had multiple events over two days a marathon, 25K, and a 50K as well as the 10K event I ran.

We ran through the woods



Up hills, I thought this hill was bad enough. See the poles on the hill further on? Those aren't poles. Those are people I'm afraid, that's where we went.



This is that hill on the way up.



This is the view. Just in case you are wondering. They didn't build all the downtown Tulsa buildings leaning to the right. That lean is courtesy of your photographer. I have software that would unlean the tilt, but I'm trying to keep it real on this blog. You being critical? Then you run up that hill and take a level picture.



The photograph of the sign didn't come out. It said something like Burger's and Beer inside! I ask you what kind of person would drink beer at 10 am Sunday morning? I can't imagine such a thing. It's too awful to even contemplate. Some folks are just beyond contempt. I'm just a saying. The idea. But what if somebody was all confused and thought it was Saturday. That's understandable.



Old Glory at the Finish Line.



And they had these fancy little metal doodads for finisher awards. Beats a finisher ribbon. I've got the greatest collection of finisher ribbons in the world. Now I've got a finisher paperweight. A NICE paperweight.



What do you get when you run in the mud?



Muddy feet that's what. The last time I ran in a trail race my shoes stunk for a month. I couldn't even keep them in the garage. I had to put them on the back porch. I've learned a lot about cleaning them. I think.

Of course I didn't run for the recognition, no glory, nor fortune, nor the free beer, peanut butter sandwiches at the water stations, the opportunity to play in the mud. You know what I ran for?



THE SHIRT!! Silly.

A nice New Balance technical long sleeve shirt in this case.

Nope, you can't have it. I'm being selfish.

Boy's Night Out - Hideaway Pizza and Oklahoma Aquarium and then some Ice Cream at Braum's

Last Tuesday Night was Sweetie's monthly book group meeting so SuperPizzaBoy and I enjoyed our monthly Boys Night Out.

To eat? What else, we had pizza. This time at Hideaway Pizza at 81st and Harvard.

SPB had the pepperoni, of course.



I had the Barbecue Chicken



Just in case you ever join us on Boys Night Out, you should know that we don't share the pizza's. Just so you so know. We rated the pizza's at Hideaway as four stars out of four.

Afterwards we headed over to the Oklahoma Aquarium across the river from Tulsa in Jenks. They had a promotion going on where they were staying open late that evening and admission was half price. SPB and I love a deal, and that's a deal.

The Aquarium is quite popular and it can get crowded on the weekends and hard to get close to the exhibits. Tuesday night we had the place to ourselves. Check their web site. They have promotions like this during the year. Off peak is wonderful.

They have several touch pools. On weekends you have to wait in line. Not tonight. Step up. SPB loves the touch pools.



They have loads and loads of exhibits. It can be mentally exhausting but we looked at all of them.







SPB wasn't mentally exhausted by the time we finished. He was ready to wrangle alligators.



The Oklahoma Aquarium is rated four stars out of four. Its a must see if you ever get to the Tulsa area.

We were hungry so we went to Braum's for some ice cream. I had the double of the double chocolate chunk cappuccino.



SPB had the Rocky Road



Of course we were immediately ratted out on Facebook by a friend of Sweetie's. I tell you what a couple guys out on town need a little space in order to have a little fun. Reminds me of high school in Eagar, Arizona. If I ever decided to pocket my lunch money and spend it on something else, my Mother was fully briefed by six other moms by the time I got home. That was before cell phones, the internet, texting, and all that.

Anyways, Boy's Night Out was a four star affair.

Tooth Fairy with Dwayne Johnson

Last week the family went to see Tooth Fairy with Dwayne Johnson, aka "The Rock."

SuperPizzaBoy liked it, I thought it was OK but not great. Sorry.

It's about this once up and coming hockey player who is slaving away in the minor leagues as a goon. He specializes in blindsiding opponents and knocking their teeth out. He meets a nice girl with a young daughter and a pre-teen son, and well you know, he does what he has to do to get the girl.



The web site is here. Its nothing special. Are studios cutting back on their web sites? There used to be lots of stuff, now they seem to be cutting way back.

I give this movie 1.5 stars out of 4. Go see the Spy Next Door instead. This one is not very good. Sorry.

SuperPIzzaBoy to Appear Live at Panera Bread on Tuesday March 2nd

(SPB performing at Panera, May 2009)

SPB's school, Town and Country School, is having their T&C spirit night at the Panera Bread on 15th Street (1624 East 15th Street, Tulsa, OK) from 5  to  9 on Tuesday March 2.

Students from Town and Country will perform starting at 6 PM. SPB is going to sing a couple songs including his favorite, "You've Gotta Pick at Pocket or Two" from the Musical Oliver.

The whole Yogi family will be there at 6 PM, me, Sweetie, and of course SuperPizzaBoy as well as the world's greatest MIL and wonderful Grandmother, Nana. Come out and say hello. We'd love to see you.

As a little bonus to T&C, if you eat at Panera during Spirit Night the restaurant will generously donate 10% of the proceeds to Town and Country School. Just tell them when you order that you are there for the Town and Country Spirit Night.

Just as a little teaser, here's a clip from the film Oliver.



We hope to see you there.

Town and Country School is a private school whose mission is "to improve the lives of students with learning differences by providing a nurturing environment for academic, social, and personal growth." ( I have to add that they do a darn good job of it also!)

A special shout out to Panera Bread for opening up their restaurant for this event. The students (and their parents) really work hard to get ready for this event.

Cardinal Rules

Son and I refurbished and refilled an existing bird feeder and added a couple more. We haven't had much so far besides a starlings and sparrows. The other day we a bunch of cardinals showed up. We had so many we had to step in and organize things a little to make sure that everybody got fed.

Of course the Ladies go first



and then the Guys



For those that could behave themselves we had a coed seating



We are having fun with our feeders so far.

Of course, there are the party crashers. They were attacking from all sides.

From the Top



The Bottom



And the Side



What do you do?

Skywatch Friday

View from my office window this week.



From a couple weeks ago

For other images of the sky above us from all over the world check out Skywatch Friday

New Office

How do you like my new cubicle?



There is plenty of seating available. The ventilation and lighting systems are great.

These are my new coworkers. They are taking their lunch break.



Drop in sometime.

"The Scarpetta Factor" by Patricia Cornwell

Just finished reading "The Scarpetta Factor." I wish that I wasn't so cheap. I get almost all my books from the library and they only let you keep one two weeks if somebody else is waiting for it. So I checked this one out three times over the course of a couple months to finish this book.

There is not a whole lot of action in Patricia Cornwell's books but there is lots of tension. She really takes you into the heads of the characters as they try to solve the various murders that come to light. It's just incredible really. I put off reading her for so long because I thought she was just a chick book author. Well my loss, and I've got a big backlog to read.

The book is about Doctor Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner, and her posse of assistant district attorneys, detectives, friends, and relatives who chase after evildoers. I give the book 3.5 out of 4. I recommend it, highly.

Juke Boxes

One of my favorite bloggers Jen of "Are You There God, It's Me Generation X" had a post the other day about our disappearing record stores. It made me all nostalgic about record stores and record albums and such as that and mourning the loss of record stores and the role music plays in our life. It seems like most music these days is listened on to on Ipod's and not really shared. Everybody is doing there own thing.

SuperPizzaBoy had occasion to visit the Tulsa History Museum the other day and, guess what, they had a working juke box that one could play for free.



So SPB picked a song and then hit the letter and the number to play. The machine gave a good solid "KATHUNK!" with each press and we heard Frank Sinatra's "My Way." Of course SPB being himself picked the next song by playing hitting two buttons at random and so we got the Partridge Family or somethin.

When I was the age SPB is now we lived in Price, Utah. We had a favorite Mexican food restaurant in the nearby coal mining town of Helper. We used to go to the restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night and there was a always a war going on. They had a juke box and some of the local teenagers would put their quarters in to play what my Mother called "Wild hippie music." The older's would complain and the waitresses, who were older, would turn the volume down by some knob on the back of the machine muttering "I don't know why them kids play there music so loud." As soon as they went to the back, the kids would jack the volume back up. And on it would go.

Maybe that's where I developed my love for chaos and conflict? Anyway, I thought it was great.

Anybody else out there miss juke boxes?

Satellites and Sculpture in the Gardens of the Philbrook Museum of Art

The Philbrook Museum of Art is one Tulsa's great treasures. It not only has fine art inside the building but very nice gardens with a wide variety of sculpture outside.

They have recently added something that now makes the museum perfect. They have their own geocache. Geocaching is fully described here. Basically, you try and find a hidden container given its coordinates. The Philbrook geocache is named "muse" and its geocache page is here. It is a mystery cache which means that the coordinates given are not the actual coordinates. To get the actual coordinates you have to solve a series of puzzles which involve collecting clues from the various sculptures in the gardens at the museum. It is fun.

So I used my lunch hour to go find it one pretty day last week. What a treat.



"Prayer" by Alan Houser, a native American artist. You know, four months I had never heard of him, now I see his work all over the place, including our Oklahoma license plates.



The Tempietto on the grounds. I like that word. I hope to use it playing Scrabble one day. That would be worth a lot of points.



They had two satyrs, this one and a male. I like the female satyrs best for some reason.



This was my most startling find. I came up on it and I thought, "The leaves are huge, and they haven't fallen." It's actually a sculpture. There are four "trees" in all in the piece, you can see two more up the hill to the right. You can barely see the fourth at the top of the hill." The leaves are glass attached to the steel "tree." I loved this. It is titled "Oklahoma Autumn" by Eric Baker.



This piece is called "Negative Tree" by Menashe Kadishman.

Other various images from that noon hour.



Did I find the cache?



Of course I did, but the fun was in the looking, the finding was just a bonus.

My wonderful MIL, Nana, got me a one year membership to the museum for Christmas. I'll be spending a lot of time there. Outside with my camera when the weather is nice.

For other views of our world please check out "That's My World"

Titus 3:3-5

The cross above looms over Interstate 35 north of Oklahoma City. It was erected several years ago by a church. I remember that it was kind of controversial at the time but I think everybody is used to it by now. I mean it sits on private property and doesn't have neon lights or anything on it so, what does it hurt.

In my own mind I've turned it into a memorial for a good friend of mine who was hit by a car and died while jogging on a freeway frontage road a few miles away. He was one of the nicest guys I've ever known. A devoted family man and a much loved friend and colleague by almost everybody that knew him. He died over a decade ago and I still cannot believe he is gone and miss him very much.

One thing I know is that one day I, and many of his other friends and certainly his family, will see him again.

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,
he saved us,
not because of righteous things we had done,
but because of his mercy.

Titus 3:3-5 (NIV)

For other pairings check out That's Baloney

New Car Part Tres

Well, we cut a deal last Saturday and we got Sweetie a new Honda Pilot and we picked it up Monday. Joe the Salesman and I negotiated all day by phone on the price. Much better than negotiating in person. Gives you space. When always needs space when negotiating. We are pretty happy with the deal we got. Joe's boss told me that I was an excellent negotiator. I told him, "I bet you guys were yelling KA-Chinng, and doing back flips you made so much money off of us." Never give an inch is my motto. I'm sure they made a nice profit.

Anyway, when we picked it they had the gas tank topped off and the car was detailed. They didn't have to do that. I've driven more than one car off a lot on fumes.

If you need a Honda I would recommend Don Carlton Honda here in Tulsa without reservation. Ask for Joe, he's the guy in the picture. He is very low key and doesn't play your typical car dealer games. If you try them and they don't treat you right let me know. I haven't awarded a "Burn in Hell" award in a while. They burn me, I'll burn them.

The Great Backyard Bird Count of 2010

Hey I thought I had the perfect idea for a family event last weekend. The Great Backyard Bird Count of 2010. Hey all we had to do was count the number of various species of birds that were in our backyard over a minimum 15 minute period last weekend. How hard could that be? I thought it would be our first step to greenness. I am thinking that birdwatching would be a great companion to my hobby of geocaching. I'm out in the woods a lot so might as well multi-task when I'm there.

We started the bird count Sunday afternoon with our two helpers.



I'll give them this, they were focused.

We didn't have a whole lot in the 30 minutes or so that we watched. I counted about 12 sparrows. A couple of these:



I think it is a common grackle starling, based on comments by several readers I went and checked my resources again and I think because of the pale spots the bird is a starling. And that was it for the count.

Earlier in the week, and thus not in our "official count" we had a couple of these,



Which I think is a male cardinal, along with a sparrow.

And one of these,



Which I think is a female cardinal, and was my favorite.

So, we and the cats had some fun and I learned a few things. One thing I've learned about the internet is that there are all sorts of knowledegable people out there and I'm depending on them to let me know if I misidentified the birds.

Check out Camera Critters for more photographs of critters from all over.

The Coolest Guy in the World

No, despite what you think, its not me.



Can you do any of his stunts? I mean successfully?

I'm working on a video of my own. So stay tuned.

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

This book is a novel about Liam Pennywell who studied philosophy but ended up getting laid off from a job teaching fifth grade at a second rate private school. He is at the age where he decides to downsize and moves to a newer, smaller apartment in a different area of town. He goes to bed in his new apartment on his first night and then wakes up in the hospital and has no idea how he got there.

He is very troubled about this gap in memory and sets out trying to find out what happened. And he finds something else.

Liam is a guy who lived his whole life without really engaging with it. I know people like that, do you? This book is about them.

I thought it was very good.  I give it it three stars out of four.

Skywatch Friday

Jenks Aqarium near Tulsa across the Arkansas River at Sunset

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

Photograph of a Moron at the Mayo Hotel

 I work in a building adjacent to the  newly refurbished Mayo Hotel. The Hotel features a very nice penthouse that apparently has access to the rootop. This afternoon we noticed the young man you see above standing on the ledge. He has a buddy, that you can see to the through the pilasters taking his picture. Yesterday, fellow blogger Tulsa Gentleman had a post with a photograph about the penthouse.

I called the front desk of the hotel and told them what was happening. They said they would check into it.

I'm just glad the dummy didn't fall. At least I don't think he did.