Spring is Almost Here

Getting to be less bare trees all the time around here in northeast Oklahoma.

Skywatch

Evening Run on the Arkansas River

Watery Wednesday

Strong Armed Sign

Signs, Signs

New Lighting

What do I find when Sweetie and are looking for new lighting in a lighting store that has thousands of lights?



Aren't they beautiful? The only two barstools in the place.

Maybe it would be a little less overwhelming if I went looking for lights in a barstool store? Think so?

No, we didn't get the barstools.

Ruby Tuesday

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Rodrick Rules

On a cold, windy, rainy, Saturday afternoon Sweetie, SuperPizzaBoy, and I met up with several of SPB's school friends and their parents to see Diary of Wimpy Kid - Roderick Rules. (Kudos to Sweetie for putting together the get together!)


Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules Online Trailer

If you have never heard of the Diary of a Wimpy kid then you don't know any pre-teenage boys. The movie is the second of a series based on books by Jeff Kinney. I haven't read any of the books but SPB loves them. (They have sold 42 million copies!)

The book is about the trials and tribulations of seventh grader Gregg Hefley who contends with his older fiendish brother Rodrick and a bratty spoiled younger brother as well as a couple of unreasonable parents (including a dad who like most movie Dads is portrayed as a goofball, sniff).

I thought the movie was fun. It covered preteen infatuations, an off again-on again friendship with an older brother, hapless parents trying to maintain control, but featured mainly the constant embarrassment of the never never in between land of a seventh grader. I think the book resonates pretty well with both kids and parents.

Check out the website. Lots of information, fun, and games there. You can even wimp yourself. Here is the wimpy Yogi.

Nice legs, heh? And I took a little artistic license and gave myself some hair and shrunk my gut a little bit.

I give the movie a three out of five. SPB rates it an emphatic loud, yelling five out of five. Its a decent movie for both kids and parents.

Two Toned Weekend Reflections

Last week SuperPizzaBoy and I snuck out to the Fairgrounds for the Car Show. There is nothing shinier than new cars under lights.

There is something about a nice two toned paint job that is really nice. They had the class two tones.



And the cute two tones.



And the utilitarian version



And the family values version



(I really like the coral color)

They even had two tone cars for a mid life crisis



Or this



Do you suppose that this Corvair pickup is unsafe at any speed?



(I didn't even know that they made Corvair pickups.)

And how about this for cool?



Oh, and they had a bunch of shiny new cars at show with friendly salesman and models in short skirts, high heels, and big smiles. These old cars didn't have any of that, they had old guys with lawn chairs.

Weekend Reflections

The Pot Thief who Studied Escoffier by J. Michael Orenduff

"The Pot Thief who Studied Escoffier" is the fourth crime novel in a series by J. Michael Orenduff. The book is officially debuting at the Left Coast Crime Conference in Santa Fe starting yesterday. Mr. Orenduff was nice enough to give me an Advance Reader Copy of the book.

This book, and the whole series, features Hubert Schuze, a pottery shop owner who both lives and works in the Old Town section of Albuquerque. Schuze is a little bit of a renegade. He kind of has an attitude about laws that he doesn't like such as prohibitions about against digging up antiquities on public lands. He also doesn't really trust the authorities too much so when he is accused of crimes such as murder he takes a very active role in proving his innocence.

This time Hubert gets himself involved in a new Austrian themed restaurant starting up in Santa Fe. He starts out as an artisan making ceramic chargers but ends up hip deep in the management and cooking after the restaurants shaky start. Oh yes, he is the chief suspect in two murders so while taking care of the restaurant he is also solving the murders.

In the meantime he heads back to Albuquerque to have happy hour with his friend Susannah to discuss life, restaurant management, crime solving, and various other matters. Schuze doesn't really conduct his life or solve murders in a linear, logical, stepwise fashion. Things just kind swirl and eddy as he covers this and that but eventually he figures everything out.

This book is marinated in New Mexican flavor from start to finish. It is all about the journey and not so much the destination. It is a leisurely, pleasant, and intelligent read. Orenduff has a smooth writing style that makes it all go down easy.

I give it four stars out of five. You don't need to have read the other three in the series for this one to be a good read.

Check out the Series Website.

Smokey Sunset

Firefighters fought grass fires all day yesterday here in northeast Oklahoma. We need some rain!

Skywatch Friday

Little Twerp

It looks to me like somebody has a chip on their shoulder. I really couldn't find any connection between twerps and chickens on Google so I don't quite get this. It makes a striking sign though, especially for a car wash.

Signs, Signs

Chesapeake Boathouse

On the banks of the Oklahoma River (aka North Canadian River) near downtown Oklahoma City sits the Chesapeake Boathouse.



It is designed by architect Rand Elliott to look like a racing shell with oars.

Watery Wednesday

Tulsa's Hanging Tree

I want to show you a tree. An historic tree that I can see right from my office. What I have to say about it is a little graphic. So if you are little delicate you may not want to read any further.



Do you see it? Tucked in there on the other side of the BOK Center, where the NCAA tournament was playing this weekend, next to the Inner Dispersal Loop. It is not in a good neighborhood. Lots of abandoned buildings, the county jail and the Day Center for the Homeless are right down the road. Lets go get a closer look.



The tree has always looked alive to me in a scary kind of way. This tree is known locally as the Creek Hanging Tree. According to the book, "Tulsa's Haunted Memories" by Teri French, between 15 and 20 people were executed by hanging from the tree between 1870 and 1889. One time three cattle rustlers were hung at the same time. I read somewhere else, but cannot find the reference, that the tree is right next to the original railroad and  a passenger train pulled through right after the execution and the sight of three men hanging there made quite an impression on the train passengers. I don't know if that is true but it makes a good story.



Tulsa portrays itself as a very sophisticated city. It is, we have the Philbrook and Gilcrease museums, Opera and Ballet companies. It is also home to the Tulsa Race Riot which some call the worst ever in the United States. Machine Gun Kelly and Pretty Boy Floyd spent some time in the area. Tulsa has rough side in its history that I find fascinating. The hanging tree is one of the remnants.

That's My World

TATUR Snake Run

The Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners ("TATUR") had their annual Snake Run on Saturday. This run is a little different. Most runs one runs a fixed distance and how you place depends on how fast your ran the fixed distance. Everybody runs the same distance but different times. In the Snake Run everybody runs a fixed time and tries to maximize the distance. There were two times one could pick, three hours or six hours.



It is also a trail race not a road race, run on a relatively flat area of Turkey Mountain. They had two loops, The big loop was about four miles long and a smaller half mile loop. The idea is to run the big loop as many times as you can, when there is not enough time for you to run another big loop you run the small loop until the gun goes off. You get no credit for partial loops. So there is a little bit of a mental edge to the run.



Of course being a Trail Run they make even the parking fun. See the cars way down the hill on the left. That is the parking area. Everybody is walking up the hill to get to the start.



Race Director, Ultra Runner, fellow blogger, and geocacher and all around good guy, Ken, aka Trail Zombie.

He and Brian of RunnersWorld Tulsa started the race and off we went. Brian is a good guy also. He told me that he peeked at my blog every now and then. That is how I know he is a good guy.



I just love trail runs. You get to run through the woods! What's wrong with that?



I had planned to run just two loops or eight miles but I settled into a pretty good run walk rhythm that I carried on through the whole race. I would run 0.20 miles or about a 1000 feet and walk 0.05 miles or about 250 feet. I had my GPS running watch so that's how I knew how I was doing.



So I just put my brain on autopilot and let the watch tell me when to run and when to walk. So I was able to get into my trancelike meditative state and just be in present. I had only two hiccups to my trance. I tripped on root and fell. Nothing messes up a trance like a face plant into some dirt. Also, somebody was handing out little liquid energy drinks. I tried it and lucky for me I was close to a comfort station so I could get a little comfort. That stuff ran right through me. I was able to get back in the groove pretty quickly into my trance.



So I didn't take too many photos. I finished two big loops and then started running the small loops. I think I must have run about 8 or 9 of them. I hadn't seen the results yet so I'm not sure how many I ran.



I finished my final small loop 2.76 seconds before the gun went off, so I didn't waste any effort. When you are as old and fat as I am, you darn sure don't want to waste any effort. I was very pleased with my effort. I haven't run 12.45 miles since the 1990's when I was running marathons (ok, only two marathons) and a bunch of half marathons. So I'm thinking about training some more and maybe runnning the half marathon part of the Oklahoma City Marathon coming up later this spring. Maybe a 25K trail run. Maybe I have a few miles left in me.



I got a nice participant medal for my effort. As you all know, I am the king of participant medals. One of these days I am going to just buy my a trophy just so I have one. The young man who won the three race ran 25 miles. Incredible, he ran almost marathon distance on a trail with rocks, roots, and stumps.



TATUR and RunnersWorld Tulsa certainly know how to put on a race. They had all sorts of goodies during the race and after there was barbecue beef sandwiches, soda pop, malted barley flavored gatorade, brownies, chips, all sorts of stuff. A bunch of volunteers showed up and worked hard making sure that everything ran smoothly. Trail Zombie and Brian were here, there, and everywhere making sure that everything went well.

Of course, I had to make my way back to the parking lot. I had a lot of chores at home to do. Sweetie took this pic of me working hard.

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

Earlier this week I took a day off and the family drove up to Pawhuska, Oklahoma to visit the Tallgrass Praire Preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy. It was my third trip there in the last year but neither Sweetie nor SuperPizzaBoy had seen it before.



They have bison, lots of bison, all over the place.





They have grand vistas of sky, rolling hills, and trees.



There are also birds, including this (What I think is a killdeer?)



She was yakking at us. We must have been too close to a nest or something. We left here alone.



The Preserve, formerly a working cattle ranch, has oil wells, apparently existing in harmony with the bison.

And there were spring breakers photographing everything in sight.



Including each other



The preserve encompasses 39,000 acres much of it the bluestem grass that the bison love to eat. Here is a link to travelok.com with some more information and describing how to get there from where you are.

On the way home to Tulsa, well outside the Preserve, we came upon a prairie fire. It was spectacular.



It's been dry and windy lately. Hey smokers don't be tossing your butts out the window!



We also passed this ranch gate. We're guessing it is to the ranch home of the Pioneer Woman. But that is just a guess. If you have never checked out her blog you need to. It is something else.



Camera Critters

Weekend Reflections - Oklahoma City Memorial II

I know that this is not a cemetery but it is a place of rest, sadness, and remembrance.

Weekend Reflections

Braking for the Sun

Skywatch Friday