Moonburn

(Photo taken mid June)


It's been hot here in Oklahoma this summer. Yesterday we set a new record in Tulsa at a high of 107F. The sun burns hot during the day and now the moon is burning bright.

Skywatch Friday

Arkansas River Amphitheater

The Arkansas River Amphitheater on the west bank of the river during my Tuesday morning.

Watery Wednesday

The Tulsa Paranormal Investigation Team checks out the Ghost of Thomas Gilcrease

The Tulsa Paranormal Investigation Team ("TPIT") has been reading "Tulsa's Haunted Memories" by Teri French about the various ghosties and such that are haunting areas in the Tulsa area and we have decided to start checking things out. Our first assignment was to check out the Thomas Gilcrease Mansion on the grounds of Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum.

Here is TPIT's chief investigator, SuperPizzaBoy. You can tell by his folded arms that he doesn't believe in ghosts.



Supposedly Mr. Gilcrease floats, so to speak, between the Museum, his old house, and the gardens. Ms. French reports a high turnover among the guards. I can understand the house is old and looks haunted.



We couldn't get inside the house but we checked the gardens pretty well. We didn't meet him or any other ghost. Lots of windows, we felt we were being watched by somebody.



We had a little excitement when I saw something in the window looking back at me. Turned out, it was me. How do you like the hip hop style pants? At least I got them pulled up around my waist, unlike most people who wear them.



We had another brief excitement, but it was just SPB teasing his dad.

TPIT's official conclusion is that Mr. Gilcrease's ghost had taken Sunday off.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I'm hooking up with the Real Housewives of Oklahoma Into Your Neck of the Woods this week.

Ruby Running on Sunday

Sunday Morning I went out to run with some friends starting at the Jenks bridge.



I got there a little late. There are three directions that one can head. I thought they might be headed west so I went on across the Jenks bridge across the Arkansas River.

Guess What?



I didn't find them, but I had my camera, so this was my first Ruby Tuesday photo of the morning.


I went down Main Street. Jenks is a suburb of Tulsa and they have really spruced up their downtown trying to lure the suburbanites out of the malls and box stores.



It's a nice place to come and shop. I had it all to myself at 6 am.


Note the self portrait above. What kind of dufus uses their flash to take a photograph of something across the street. Three guesses, and the first two don't count.



Looks lke an ice cream shop but its just the local paper.

Want to relive the route with me? Sure you do, here's the map.

Check out lots of red themed photographs from all over the world at Ruby Tuesday

God Makes All Things Beautiful

"I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives,"

Ecclesiastes 3:10-12 (NKJV)

Baloney's Perfect Pairings

Scripture and a Snapshot

Geese Reflections

Sometimes I think that I shouldn't worry about a Zombies because geese are taking over the world.



Have you ever stopped by a nice serene pond and been mobbed?

Weekend Reflections

Gullliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

I have been reading "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift on my Ipod Touch for the last several months during the odd moments of time like waiting  in line. The book is a novel in four parts about the travels of Lemuel Gulliver to various parts of the world. The book was a real surprise for me. I had always thought of it as a children's book. The classic scene is Gulliver tied up by the Lilliputian's until they figure out that he doesn't mean to harm them.

(http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/galleries/literature/gulliverstravels.php)

There is this vague sense that things are all great at the end.

Wrong! The Lilliptutan's are a bunch of small minded people and Gulliver soon ends up in trouble. First he puts out a fire in the Queen's castle by urinating on it, drenching the Queen. That makes her mad. Second, he helps the Lilliputan's in their long standing war against the island of Blefusco but refuses to help make Blefusco totally subservient to Lilliput. He is sentenced to be blinded as punishment for this treason so he escapes.

Next he winds up in the Kingdom of Brobdingnag where instead of being twelve times bigger than the inhabitants as he was in Lilliput,he is twelve times smaller. He is found by a farmer who displays him for money. Gulliver ends up in the royal court and then the story gets kind of kinky. He is used as a kind of a sexual plaything and is molested by the women of the court, including a sixteen your old girl. Gulliver writes about how disgusting the giant naked women are. This part was a hoot. I wouldn't read it as a bedtime story to your kids.

(http://eroticarta2z.com/art/illustration_for_gulliver_s_travels.html)

Gulliver leaves Brobdingnag and has several other adventures. His final destination is the Country of the Houyhnhnm. The Houyhnhnm are a kind of a horse shaped beings. Their are human's there called Yahoo who are looked down upon by the Houyhnhnm as being base and menial and not good for much. The Houyhnhnm are very advanced and rational and listen with dismay as Gulliver tells them about Europe and how governments are run.

Eventually Gulliver has to leave Houyhnhnm and return to England. At this point he has been transformed from the happy go lucky adventurer to a recluse, disgusted by all contact with humans, even with his wife, whom can hardly stand.

The book is a great read. Swift is very imaginative and has a great writing style. I give it four stars out of five. It''s a classic. I'm going to miss it.

Does anybody have a recommendation for another classic for me to read?

Mayo Hotel Skywatch

(Pardon the blur and the reflections)

The Mayo Hotel is right next door to my office building to the north. A few weeks ago a storm blew through town and made it dark as night in the middle of the day. Their neon light came on it got so dark.

The storm looked mean and wet but blew through without a drop. All I have to show for it is this photograph.

Skywatch Friday

Satellites and the Truth About Bodice Ripping

I just love technology, especially satellite technology. My favorite hobby is geocaching. I'm going to take this space to again thank my fellow Americans for taxing themselves and taking out loans for billions of dollars so that I can find tupperware in the woods.



I'm not kidding, I really appreciate it!

I use a watch with a GPS that accurately measures just how miserably slow I run.



Many people can walk faster than that. I salute them.

Recently I bought a new car. A Korean Kia Soul.



It has Satellite Radio in it. I've had Satellite Radio in my truck, but I have more channels in my new car. It has a book channel where they actually read books. All kind of books, I'm listening to Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and Presumed Innocent by Scott Turrow. I've also listened to some Romance Novels which reminds me of the that sub genre "Bodice Rippers."

I haven't read one all the way through myself. I used to have a secretary who read them though. She would leave bookmarks with yellow stickies for all the "good parts." I would grab it and read the good parts aloud. The good parts sound hilarious when you say them aloud as opposed to reading them. I thought it was great sport.

They are still hilarious. All the pulsating, quivering, thrusting, gasping, panting, and grunting sound really funny spoken out loud. I wasn't thinking anything about it though until I saw yesterday morning that the esteemed Wall Street Journal had a video on Victorian Ladies Underwear and the research that some Romantic Novel Writers are doing on Victorian underwear so they can write Victorian "romance" scenes properly.

I'm all for following the truth wherever it leads you, but I'm not sure that this endeavor is going to go anywhere good. For one thing, have you ever seen Queen Victoria's underwear? (Warning this photograph is really disturbing.)

Anyway, you can see the video yourself below.



So what do you think? Do you demand historical accuracy in your reading or would you rather have a good story?

Jeannie's Garden II

Poking around my friend Jeannie's garden finding surprises big and small.

Sepia Scenes

Jeannie's Garden

Wandering around my friend Jeannie's garden Sunday morning.

Using my Takashi digital lomo camera set on a red tint.

Ruby Tuesday

The Pot Thief who Studied Einstein by J. Michael Orenduff

I just got through reading "The Pot Thief who Studied Einstein" by J. Michael Orenduff. It is a murder mystery set in Albuquerque, New Mexico featuring Herbert Schuze who owns a shop in Old Town where he sells  Anasazi pots. He also makes copies of such pots. Schuze is a treasure hunter who got in trouble as a younger man for digging up pots on public lands and expelled from the University of New Mexico. He still digs, he just doesn't talk about it that much.

This Pot Thief book, like the others, moves pretty quickly. Schuze is asked to make copies of three pots by a mysterious stranger. Later Schuze is asked to appraise a large collection of pots and finds that the same copies are in the collection. This of course makes him start questioning what is going on. Then somebody connected to all this turns up dead, and Schuze is the leading suspect.

This book won an "Eppie" at the "Left Coast Crime Convention" earlier this year, a national award for the "Best Humorous Mystery Novel." The book is very entertaining, Schuze has an ironic of life and a wide variety of friends and acquaintances, from Susannah Inchaustigui, his margarita drinking companion, to Detective Whit Fletcher who also has flexible ethics.

If you love New Mexico you'll love this book. Schuze cooks authentic New Mexican dishes (Tex/Mex will never seem the same after you have had New Mexican cuisine)  and his characters ring true.

This is one of four "Pot Thief" books. I have read the other three: "The Pot Thief who Studied Pythagoras", "The Pot Thief who Studied Ptolemy", and "The Pot Thief who Studied Escoffier." According to the Pot Thief Series web site, Orenduff is working on "The Pot Thief who Studied D.H. Lawrence."

I give "The Pot Thief who Studied Einstein" four stars out of five. It can hold its own against any of the best selling murder mystery novels I've read.

Lomographic 3G Cattle

A couple weeks ago we visited my wife's "old home place" the ranch. A cousin  of Sweetie's is running cattle (as we say in Oklahoma) out on the ranch under the 3G brand.



Of course, I take all my cameras with me including my ultra low tech cheapie toy Diana Mini Lomographic analog film camera that can shoot half frames, to take the cheapie concept one step futher.



The thing about cows ( and you can write on the back of a postage stamp what I know about cows, and most of that would be wrong) is that they always show up if people show up.

That is it for the Lomographic Photographs, the rest are digital.



They have a couple of rescue donkeys. Here is Kim, the faithful girlfriend, feeding Juliet, one of the sweetest donkeys, you'll ever meet. Kim showed up at her boyfriend's family reunion and fit right in. Kim was styling with the hat and the cowboy (cowgirl?) boots. She was a good sport.



It was well over 100F that day, so SuperPizzaBoy hung out in the four wheeler with his uncle Glenn.



Sweetie was in her element. She loves all critters, except snakes. I can tell you that if you are snake, you would be wise to steer clear of Sweetie. Cows, kittens, babies, and puppies, Sweetie is the best friend that you will ever have.



This is Tyler, Kim's boyfriend. He is a Marine artillery officer. When things get hot, you want to be where Tyler is, you don't want to be down range.



Wesley, Tyler's younger brother. An extremely nice young man.



There is Sweetie, taking charge, making sure that everybody has enough to eat. It's the Mom's of the world that keep things going if you ask me.



Yeah, well, more of the same. Sweetie is number one among the 3G herd.

Who's number one in your herd?

Camera Critters

What is Lomography?

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

"Desert Solitaire" published in 1968 is a nonfiction work by Edward Abbey mainly describing his work as a seasonal Park Ranger at Arches National Park in Utah in the 1950's. It is considered a classic in environmental literature and one of the best books describing the deserts of the southwest. He can wax poetically about the idea of wilderness and the silence of the desert but he is a hell of a story teller as he describes some of the misadventures of the uranium miners and ranchers in the desert and some of his own adventures in the nearby Glen Canyon and Grand Canyon. He lives alone but pines for the company of a "good friendly woman."

Abbey was not very politically correct and lashes out in all directions. He bashes all the major religions of world including atheism. He is considered anarchists. He is a fellow graduate of the University of New Mexico and was the editor on the school newspaper until he posted a quotation from Louisa May Alcott, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." Whereupon he was fired.

I give this book four stars out of five. I bought it for a quarter at the Central Library. It is a quite yellowed paperback. If you want it, you can have it. Just let me know.

As an aside check out the blog Geogypsy by my blog friend Gaelyn. She is a seasonal Park Ranger at the north rim of the Grand Canyon National Park. I don't think she is an anarchist but she is definitely an environmentalist. Read her blog and find out for yourself what kind of "-ist" she is.

Sunrise Skywatch

It's been warm here in Oklahoma lately so more and more people are finding out what our sunrises look like.

What's your weather been lately?

Skywatch Friday

Early Morning Arkansas River Run

Tuesday morning I ran four miles early in the morning along the Arkansas River trail here in Tulsa.



The trail is on both sides of the river is extremely photogenic.



Who'd of thought that Tulsa makes a great River City. I had it all to myself that morning.



Well, except for one guy that is. We didn't bother each other at all.

Where were you Tuesday morning?

Watery Wednesday

The Passage by Justin Cronin

"The Passage" by Justin Cronin is a story set in the near future. The military discovers a virus in South America that confers upon people who get the virus some amazing powers but with awful side effects. So lets see if we can modify the virus to keep the amazing powers but eliminate the side effects. Hmm, we'll use condemned prisoners to experiment on. As the experiment progresses, we need a child, lets go find a recently parentless child.

Well, they find the little girl, but something goes wrong, terribly wrong. An all out war ensues, civilization crumbles quickly, except for a few outposts where humans have lived for decades using antiquated technology to survive. They have tall fences and wind energy powered lights to keep the beasts at bay. Can they keep the lights on forever?

This is a great summer read. It is long and absorbing. It is about courage and survival. Give it a shot.

I bought my copy from Tulsa's Central Library for a dollar. Somebody had broken the binding. Doesn't bother me. If you live in the Tulsa area and want to read it, I'll give it to you! Just let me know.

I rate this book four stars out of five.