Now's The Time

Music exploration

2011-10-11T17:25:00.003-05:00

I have been really enjoying using Spotify here in the past few weeks. It has renewed my interest in discovering new music that is out there. It is also nice to have a social aspect of building a playlist to share with others, and vice versa listening to shared playlist from your friends. My music tastes are pretty expansive in that I don't really "hate" any kind of music. Yes, there is music out there that I listen to less, but hate is a strong word. Plus when you get in a certain mood a certain genre of music is just fitting for that moment.

Here's some things I've been listening to lately. Mumford & Sons, new Gungor, new Ben & Noelle Kilgore, Pearl Jam 20, new duets album with Tony Bennett, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Dave Matthews Band etc. If you have anything that you think I should check out then please send it over to me!

I am glad to know my kids are also getting a dose of varied music genres. At night when they go to bed they ask "daddy can we listen to the jazz?" which we started a few years ago. It warms my heart to hear those words come out of there mouth. We also listen to some pretty cool kids music in the vehicles as well like Okey Dokey Brothers, Laurie Berkner, Wiggles, and some others I forget the names of. I hope to expand their music palette as much as we try to expand their food palette as well.

Well til next time,
SRN

My Sports Dilemma

2011-10-08T10:37:00.001-05:00

Right now is such a great time to be a sports fan. It is fall and you have post season baseball going (GO CARDS!), you have college football back in full swing, you have pro football going , pro soccer in US getting into playoffs, European soccer getting in full swing, & now NHL hockey starting backup. What a great time!

Problem I have is trying to devote time to them and watch sports beyond catching parts of games/matches and score lines. I know there are fans out there that follow one or two sports specifically, and for most that is football (American Football) in college or pro form or both. I on the other hand like all of the sports I listed above, and thus my dilemma of my sports viewing. I don't have time to watch all the games/matches like I used to before being married & having two kids.

So, what I get to do is rely on technology to help me. DVR and the web have helped me keep up with what I want to know. Others may want more, but this suits me just fine for now. Being able to fast forward through commercials and meaningless non-game/match related material helps me to keep up, and be efficient in my sports viewing. Watching games/matches online also is an awesome tool because some of the games I can't watch due to coverage in my hometown of Tulsa, OK. It is a new sports world for fans, and I'm just along for the ride!

Til next time,

SRN

Blog Updates

2011-10-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

So.. yes I have not updated this blog in quite some time, but I have been thinking perhaps I should dust it off and update the content. I will be starting to come up with some ideas on what to talk about, or perhaps use the style of my good friends blog and just write about anything that comes up. Aight.. be prepared.......

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

2009-02-07T12:20:00.000-06:00

RULES
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
One (U2)

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Get Real Paid (Beck)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Proudest Monkey (Dave Matthews Band)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Satan's Bed (Pearl Jam)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Behold A Lady (Outkast)

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
Fascination Street (The Cure)

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Natural Blues (Moby)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Exaltation (Matisyahu)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Jeremy (Pearl Jam)

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
Come Out and Play (Offspring)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Crush (Dave Matthews Band)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Rachmaninov Piano Concert #4 G minor - II - Largo (Howard Shelly & The Royal Scottish Orchestra)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Bigmouth Strikes Again (The Smiths)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Someday I Suppose (The Mighty Mighty Bosstones)

WHAT DID/WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
5 Years, 4 Months, 3 Days (Brian Setzer 68 Comeback Special)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Never Been Any Reason (Head East)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Bound For The Floor (Local H)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Honor Him (Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard Gladiator Soundtrack)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Take The A Train (Duke Ellington)

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
Autumn Leaves (Chet Baker)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Watching The Detectives (Elvis Costello & The Attractions)

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town (Pearl Jam)

BL final weigh-in results.

2007-04-03T20:16:00.001-05:00

BL final weigh-in results.
Current mood: happy
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

So, the final weigh-in for our Biggest Loser contest at work was yesterday. Several of you already know the results. Anyways, here's my stats.

Final Weight: 227.8 Body Fat %: 26.5
Begin Weight: 271.8 Body Fat%: 35.5
Total Loss: 44lbs and 9% Body Fat!

The results came down to a close percentage in both the weight loss percentage and the Body Fat % loss. Coming into the weigh-in I was confident that I may win the body fat part of the contest, and that it would be close on the Weight % loss. In prep for the weigh-in I didn't eat anything from Sunday evening 5pm until after the weigh-in at 1pm. At lunch I went to the gym and did my normal workout routine I do in the evening. Did the treadmill for 20 min, Leg weight excercise for 20min, 15 min on bike, 150 crunches, 30 min in the sauna. After a shower and rushing back to work I met all the guys for the weigh-in.

Jason ("the other guy") weighed in before I did since he was ready. I got ready and weighed in. We all knew it was close. Jason's final stats weight: 209 body fat %: 23.5%. The guys broke out the calculators to figure up the weight loss percentage and body fat percentage we had both lost. Jason ended up 17.717% down on weight and 9.5% down on the Body Fat. I was 16.188% down on weight and 9% down on the Body Fat. So, we had a winner. Jason ended up winning the contest in both categories and got the $1000. The next closest person had sadly lost only 7lbs. Jason, in a very nice gesture and cuz our friendship, gave me my $100 I used to enter the contest. I was very surprised, but he said that we both worked very hard and knew the hard work it took for both of us to lose 44 and 45 lbs.

So, thanks everyone for the support. I have updated my goal for the year. I had originally set it at 60 lbs for the year, but I have now upped it to 70 lbs. I had set, what I thought, a high goal of 50 lbs for the contest. I was rather happy with being only 6 from my goal. I wasn't as close on the body fat % goal, but I'm happy. Thanks again everyone!

Week 12 BL Follow-up

2007-03-27T21:32:00.000-05:00

Week 12 BL Follow-up Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
Weight: 232.0 Body Fat %: 27.4
So, we're one week away from the final weigh in. Looks like it's neck and neck with me and "the other guy". The other guy is Jason, a friend that I met at TU, that happened to start working at my job Red Man Pipe & Supply about a year ago I guess. I knew when the contest started that it would come down to me and him, and possibly one other person. The other person hasn't been a factor at either of the weigh in's. I think at the first monthly weigh in we had, Jason and I broke everyone else's spirits when we lost as much weight as we did. Right now we're both around the 40 lbs down marker, and pushing for those extra few lbs before the final weigh in. We both agreed to split the $1000 if we tie. I think both of us have worked hard enough that if we do tie, we feel we both deserve something. Of course that doesn't mean I'll be splitting my winnings. LOL!! Thanks again everyone. I'm only 20 lbs away from my goal for the year. I'm going to keep pressing on!

Week 11 BL Follow-up

2007-03-20T22:45:00.000-05:00

Week 11 BL Follow-up
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Weight: 236.2 Body Fat %: 28.0

Quicky update on how I'm doing. I was glad to hold even and go down a lil from last week. With not being able to workout because of my knee injury, and the fact that I had a good helping of corned beef & cabbage for St. Patrick's day. I was surprised. With April 2nd coming up soon I'm trying to push thru and hope to the end of the contest another 10lbs down from here. Being 226 I would be very happy to make it that far in 3 months. My goal for the year is 60 lbs from where I was at. So, I think I could definetly hit 211.8 which would be 60 down for the year. I may be able to push beyond that and hit 200. I'm just glad that I'm doing this for the right reasons. Family and health reasons are my main driving factor to keep going. Thanks for everyone that keeps giving me encouragement!!

Currently listening :
Kinks (The Ultimate Collection)
By The Kinks
Release date: By 11 June, 2002

Week 10 BL Follow-up

2007-03-13T23:06:00.000-05:00

Week 10 BL Follow-up
Current mood: determined
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

This morning I weighed in for my 10th week and I have finally made it to the 230's!

Weight: 236.8 Body Fat %: 28.4

Upon this good news I also had some bad news today. Sunday night I was subbing for another hockey team the Blizzard. Well, I had a really good game with 1 goal and 2 assists, but with 5 minutes left in the game I came in on the forecheck to get the puck in our offensive zone. The puck was near the boards and I was skating in putting on the breaks when my skate edge either hit a rut or something and my knee twisted funny and I felt it pop. Not good if you've ever read or had it happen to you. I stayed off the ice th rest of the game and went home and did the good ole RICE treatment. For those of you that don't know what RICE is, here ya go. Rest Ice Compression Elevation. So, I came layed down, iced it and wrapped it, and elevated my knee up with some pillows. Good thing. No swelling in the knee and I could/can still put some weight on it. The problem comes with planting and lateral movement, then I get this wonderful shooting pain in my knee. Went to doctor to follow up on a blood lab that I had, and he diagnoses me with a MCL sprain. I have 4-6 weeks before any more sports can be played. I'm praying and resting for a quick recovery and will be ready by our trip to the good ole SAV. GTR!!

Week 9 BL Follow-up

2007-03-07T03:43:00.000-06:00

Week 9 BL Follow-up
Current mood: energetic
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Weight: 241.2 Body Fat %: 28.8

Only two of us weighed at the "official" 2 month weigh in. I'm still behind the leader, but I have closed the gap on him. I'm now only .3 % behind in the percentage of weight loss, and .5% on the body fat loss. I think if I continue my weight loss that I'll over take him and win the contest. For the day of the final weigh-in I'm going to pull out all the tricks to make sure I weigh in at the lowest I can on both weight and body fat. Then after I win I'll go celebrate with a nice juicy hamburger or soemthing.

Currently listening :
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
By Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Release date: By 13 October, 1998

Week 8 BL follow-up

2007-02-28T03:23:00.000-06:00

We have our 2 month weigh-in on Friday for the contest at work. I'm thinking I'm doing pretty good. I didn't drop off that much from my loss from the 1st month. I know that it will be harder over the final month of the contest, and beyond. The weight loss has slowed down to "reasonable" levels of 2-3 lbs a week. Still working hard. Thanks everyone for the vote of confidence!

Weight: 244.0 Body Fat %: 28.8

VOTE FOR MELINDA DOOLITTLE!!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-21T20:41:00.000-06:00

Current mood: excited
Category: Music

TEXT "VOTE" to 5709

or call 1-866-436-5709

Currently watching :
American Idol

Week 7 BL follow-up

2007-02-21T00:40:00.000-06:00

Current mood: hopeful
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes Quick Update for this week.

Weight: 246.2 Body Fat %: 29.6

Week 6 BL follow-up

2007-02-13T22:20:00.000-06:00

Current mood: happy
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes Forgot to post last week. Here's the update for this week. I've been adding time to my workouts, especially on the cardio, and trying to work harder and keep up the weight loss.

Weight: 249.2 Body Fat %: 30.8

BL Month Weigh-In

2007-02-03T01:53:00.000-06:00

Current mood: happy
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

So, the good news was that I'm in 2nd place so far for the Biggest Loser contest at my work. My weigh-in stats for today. Weight: 255.6 -16.2 from start 5.960% loss, Body Fat: 32.5 -4% from start. I was ranked 2nd in both categories for percentage of weight loss and body fat loss. The first place guy was down 21 lbs and 5% body fat.

This is actually good motivation for me to keep it up. Even though it would be nice to win the contest, I really just want to get back being healthy and happy about my weight and body. I had fallen from a promise I made to myself, and now that I have 2 kids and my wife it makes it that much more worthwhile to get back into shape. I'm definetly feeling better and people already notice that I'm losing weight. So, that's a plus! Thanks for everyone encouraging me in my endevour.

Currently listening :
The Essential Charlie Parker
By Charlie Parker
Release date: By 03 November, 1992

Week 4 BL follow-up

2007-02-01T01:45:00.000-06:00

Current mood: anxious
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

So, this week the weight loss slowed down a bit. I didn't get to the gym as much as I would've liked. I'll just need to push thru this week and get back to the gym and working hard! Still reading Body for Life and it's a great book.

Weight: 254.0 Body Fat %: 32.3

Our group at work weighs in on Friday the 2nd for the month end weigh in. There's only one other guy that I think will give me good competition. We weighed in together a week ago and we were both around the same weight loss, but he had like one or two more pounds loss than I did. Friday we'll see who else is goin to put up a fight.

Currently reading :
Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength
By Bill Phillips
Release date: By 10 June, 1999

Week 3 BL follow-up

2007-01-24T20:16:00.000-06:00

Current mood: busy I forgot to post this up last night, but here's the update.

Weight: 254.9 Body Fat %: 32.9

In honor of..

2007-01-23T22:04:00.000-06:00

In honor of..
Category: Music

My old friend that was on American Idol tonight during the Memphis auditions. I have put Ms. Melinda Doolittle up as my top friend to let everyone know about how great this lady is!! She did make it to the California round!! So tune in and watch the show all you Idol fans and vote for her once you can!!

Help me support the American Heart Association

2007-01-19T20:22:00.000-06:00

Help me support the American Heart Association
Current mood: happy
Category: Life

Everyone knows someone affected by heart disease or stroke. For those I love, I will be walking in this year's Heart Walk. I have set a personal goal to raise funds for the American Heart Association and need your help to reach my donation goal. We are raising critical dollars for heart disease and stroke research and education.

You can help me reach my goal by making a donation online. Click on the link below and you will be taken to my personal donation page where you can make a secure online credit card donation. The American Heart Association's online fundraising website has a minimum donation amount of $25.00. If you prefer to donate less, you can do so by sending a check directly to me.

Your donation will help fight our nation's No. 1 and No. 3 killers—heart disease and stroke. You are making a difference. Thank you for your support.

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support American Heart Association - Greater Tulsa Division

Ice

2007-01-17T21:07:00.000-06:00

So, as most of you know, Oklahoma was pounded this past weekend with an ice storm. This has left everything covered in ice. So, today after work I decided to go strap on my skates and go out to the basketball and tennis court in our apartment complex and have some fun.

I walked over and strapped the skates on. I started skating around and it wasn't too bad. If I would've waited about an hour more the re-freeze would've been good. It was perfect for the puck and stick and practicing some. This was one of those once in a lifetime things that you just don't get to do in Oklahoma. The only bad thing was that my wife had the camera at her school, and I didn't get any pics or videos. Well maybe we'll have the camera before it melts off and get some pics and video. GTR

Week 2 BL follow-up.

2007-01-17T10:11:00.000-06:00

Didn't get to weigh in yesterday because I was pretty busy at work and had some training I'm starting yesterday - Thursday. I weighed in this morning though and I'm down a little. Surprised with the ice storm, I haven't been able to get to the gym and work out. The diet though probably helped keep some weight loss going, and doing crunches and push-ups at home. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the gym and workout. Luckily in the next two weeks I have 4 hocke games that I'm playing in, and that always give me a hour and half workout. MMMmmm burning calories is great!

Weight: 259.4 Body Fat %: 33.5

Week 1 BL follow-up.

2007-01-10T03:24:00.000-06:00

So, after the first week of dieting and working out these are my stats now.

Weight: 263.6 Body Fat: 33.8%

The group also added one more person to round out the total winner's pot to $1000!!

The Biggest Loser 2007

2007-01-02T14:22:00.000-06:00

So, at work we decided to have a contest for losing weight and body fat in 90 days. We have 9 guys that signed up and did the weigh in today. To enter the contest everyone had to pay $100. Winner of the contest wins the pot. So, $900 to the winner. I was one of the guys that entered the contest. My goal for the contest is to lose 50 lbs and get body fat down to half what it is now. I'm going to put my weight and body fat % down every week to keep my motivation up.

Current stats as of weigh in. Weight: 271.8 Body Fat: 35.50%

I have a good plan worked out for diet and exercise both and think I can win. Right now I'm the 2nd heaviest entry of the group. So, if any of you out there have any suggestions or motivation, please post and help me keep up for this 90 day contest. My goal for this year of 2007 is to be at 210 by the end of the year, so that would put the total weight loss goal at 61.8 for the year. I know I can do it!

Moose Team Picture

2006-12-03T22:56:00.000-06:00

RIP to a Jazz Legend.

2006-08-28T20:16:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday August 23rd, 2006 Maynard Ferguson passed away at 78 years old. Probably the last Big Band leader of the old era that has passed on. Many a jazz lover, player and especially trumpeters are saddened by the news of Maynard’s death. He will be remembered forever by many.

If you don’t know who Maynard is, you missed one of the best High note trumpet players of all time. Maynard could scream thru the high register with power and precision like few could on the trumpet. He has inspired many trumpet players to scream in the high register like could. Others may know Maynard’s version of “Gonna Fly Now” the theme from the Rocky movies one of his more main stream songs that earned him a Grammy nomination in 1978.

I remember the first time that heard Maynard. I was with my friend Justin Bell in his Mustang and heard this amazing screaming trumpet player. I had asked Justin who it was, and from then on I have loved Maynard’s music. I even remember later getting to meet him after the Muskogee Jazz festival in high school Me and Justin and a few others got to meet him. It was nice that he spent 15 minutes with the few of us since they had to get on the road to get to a gig the next day in Louisiana. These are things I will remember.

There will be a funeral in St. Louis after being cremated in his hometown in California, but I haven’t seen any details on the funeral. There is also a tribute concert that will be in St. Louis on September 20th. Here’s some info from www.maynardferguson.com You can also make a contribution to the Maynard Ferguson Scholarship online at The University of Missouri’s School of Music.

“Maynard Ferguson Tribute Concert on Sept. 20
August 25, 2006
The Maynard Ferguson Tribute Concert has been set for September 20, 2006 in St. Louis.
Maynard Ferguson Tribute Concert
September 20, 2006
Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center
(on the campus of University of Missouri – St. Louis)
8001 Natural Bridge Road
St. Louis, Missouri 63121
Details regarding line-up, ticket prices, etc. will be forthcoming. Stay tuned to the website for further information.”

Independence Pass

2006-06-26T18:24:00.000-05:00

This is a picture from our driving venture from Canyon City,CO, where we visited the Royal Gorge Bridge, on our ways to Rifle, CO to visit our friends. As we were about to leave the bridge we decided we didn't want to take the long way back and thru Colorado Springs and Denver and add an extra 2 hours to the drive.

So, with my FedEx thinking I look at the map and look for the shortest route that would get us to Rifle. We decided on the route and headed off. The ride was thru the mountains and along the awesome site of a flowing Arkansas River. For those of you back home in Tulsa, yes it really does flow pretty good and in Colorado the Arkansas has great rafting on it. Back to my story of the drive. The views along the drive were outstanding. For those driving enthusiasts out there it can match none other in the States IMO.

As we started heading north from Colorado HWY 50 by taking Colorado HWY 285 we were enjoying the great ride thru the Collegiate Peaks area of the Rockies. This area is also wonderful view and somewhere I would love to retire too when I get to that point or win the lottery. Wide U-shaped valleys open onto utterly breathtaking mountain scenery. Dozens of alpine lakes sparkle at the feet of striking rocky cirques. For startling, glacier-scupted high mountain spendor, this area has few rivals in Colorado. As HWY 285 turns into HWY 24 we continue to our destination of Colorado HWY 82 which would cut us thru Aspen, CO.

We get to HWY 82 junction and notice a sign that says "Indepence Pass Open". We get on HWY 82 and start making our way towards Aspen and I-70 on our "short cut". We had noticed we would be passing by Mt. Elbert, the highest point in Colorado at 14,433 feet. We had thought we would be passing between mountains on a nice byway as we had before. As we are going along the road is getting more windy, and my wife notices some vehicles going up a mountain. She says "surely" we're not going up that way too. Little did we know this pass ends up being the highest paved road in the United States. We start winding up the mountain and I'm pretty nervous as I have my wife and 2 sons in the car as we're driving up this scenic byway. My hands are sweating profusely and I'm wiping them on my shirt to make sure I don't have slippery hands and make a costly driving mistake. As we going up 5 different levels each one getting higher until we reach the summit of the paved road at 12,093 feet. We were so scared though that we didn't get our and take pictures. As we looked back at it later after we get into Aspen we are really kicking ourselves for not doing so. This was probably one of our only chances to view this great scenery, atelast for a fair amount of time until we get back up that way. The wife took great pictures and I'll add them to this post later or into a seperate post since this is starting to get rather lengthy.

After reaching the summit we continued to make our way down the Indepence Pass going down in elevation. The drive didn't really get much easier until we reached just outside of Aspen. At times there was only a single lane and drivers have to be very cautious and patient thru this "lower section" of the pass. We reached Aspen and drove around for a bit, but didn't stop and get out and look aroud any as we needed to continue on to Rifle. So, there's the story of our great Independence Pass scenic byway trip.

Again, If you're a driving enthusiast you would love the great views from Canyon City, Co going west on HWY 50 towards Salida, then making your way north via HWY 285/24, and then cutting thru the Independence Pass HWY 82 towards Aspen. Please don't be afraid to get out at the top and take some of the best pictures you'll ever be able to take while you're living. You won't regret it like we have been for not stopping.

Patrick at Royal Gorge.

2006-06-26T12:59:00.000-05:00

Patrick at Royal Gorge.

We visited the Royal Gorge Bridge before we headed to visit with our friends in Rifle, CO. We had a wonderful time visiting the bridge and tingling all of our senses as we walked on the highest suspension bridge in the world. Below the bridge a "mere" 1400 ft above the Arkansas River. Other facts on the bridge as quoted from the website linked above.

About the highest Suspension Bridge
• Construction on the world's highest suspension bridge began June 5, 1929, and completed Nov. 1929
• Length: 1,260 feet (384 meters)
• Width: 18 feet (5 meters)
• Main Span: 880 feet (268 meters)
• Towers: 150 feet high (46 meters)
• 2,100 strands of No. 9 galvanized wire
• Weight of cables: 300 tons
• 1,000 tons of steel in the floor of Bridge
• Walkway: made of 1,292 planks of deck; about 250 are replaced annually
• Original cost to build: $350,000 with a cost today of about $20 million
• Bridge will support in excess of two million pounds
• Listed on the National Historic Register

If you happen to be in in Colorado it is definetly a great site to visit. For the thrill seekers out there they have a great bungie sling thing that slings you over the canyon. I couldn't bring myself to ride it, and the wife would never let me either.

Colorado Springs

2006-06-25T18:12:00.000-05:00

Colorado Springs

This pictures is from the Sunbird Restraunt in Colorado Springs, CO. We were in there for a wedding for our friend Dana. The restraunt the wedding reception had a beautiful view of the mountains. Below is a better picture taken from my digi camera.

Tulsa's New "Fantastic" Mayor

2006-05-25T13:45:00.000-05:00

I thought this was rather humorous post by Michael Bates about our new Tulsa mayor Kathy Taylor. Ms. Taylor is sending letters out from herself and her campaign manager asking for people to donate money, or even donate more money to her campaign that just finished recently with her winning the Tulsa Mayor seat over out-going mayor Bill Lafortune.

Is it me or does anyone find this type of move to be odd? He campaign is already finished, but she is still asking for money to help her pay the "deficit" from her campaign loan that she gave herself. So, basically Ms. Taylor decided to help supplement her campaign funding with her own money, just because she can, but she wants Tulsa residents to pay that back?

In the 2 letters that Michael Bates posts the wording too, here her campaign manager says:

Kathy will serve our community steadfastly and is already working tirelessly to improve Tulsa. She believes deeply in Tulsa's potential. It is my hope that she will not have to focus on campaign funds and be distracted from important city business.

So, you're telling us that you can't focus on important city business until your loan to your own campaign fund is paid back? This is just great. Why have I never thought to do this? I have always wanted to get into the political realm, but thought to do so in Tulsa I would need to be of wealthy decent. Maybe I can use this tactic when I do decide to run for something.

Here's another great quote that follows along with the same I posted above, but this time from Ms. Taylor.

As with many campaigns, we still have a few loose ends to tighten up. I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm asking you to consider sending another contribution so we can finish this cycle and start working on the true needs of the city.

Again she's telling us she can't work on city needs until this "loose end" is tightned up. Well, maybe you should decide to take the salary for the mayor position that you recently decided to forfeit if you need the money to tighten up those "loose ends."

I have never been one to really be a political poster, but this move by Ms. Taylor just irks me. I look forward to the next election when we can boot her and her cronies to the curb. Hopefully the city of Tulsa is not in shambles by then.

Moved

2006-05-13T10:17:00.000-05:00

I have decided to go ahead and move my blog posting over to My Space. The friend features it has compared to blogger at this point just make it the better place to post my blog at. If you haven't checked it out I think you would like the different features it has. So, if you want any new blog posts you know where to go now.

Boooo

2006-04-03T10:19:00.000-05:00

So, today was the ladies first day back to work after 7 weeks off due to our second baby. The good news is that she only has 8 weeks of school left, but at the same time she wants to enjoy her quality time with #2. He is getting bigger everyday and will be 2 months old on Thursday. He had a little adjustment period that last about 5 weeks where he would be fussy in the evenings when our oldest son and I came home. He has since gotten used to his surroundings. Her mother is over watching #2 at our apartment, and we really appreciate all that she does for us. Anyways, here's looking to the summer time!!

First time out..

2006-04-01T11:05:00.000-06:00

So, last night we went out for our first date since number 2 came along on February 6th. My dad and step-mom came over to watch the boys, and they were thrilled to be watching them. They were happy that they were the first to watch them while we went out on a date.

We headed out to the ice rink to go skate. The lady hadn't been skating since high school days so she was rusty. She however picked it back up rather quickly. She stumbled a couple times, but never did fall like her brother did when he went skating with me. I keep telling her that she could play hockey, but she's not close enough to that yet. We had a lot of fun skating for about and hour. Skating burns lots of calories so at the same time you're having fun, you're also getting a great workout. She felt it the next day.

After the skating session we headed to Applebee's to eat and talk a little. It's so much better to walk into restraunts nowadays. Oklahoma recently implemented sticter smoking laws in restraunts that has the air clear when you're eating now. Applebee's used to be one of the smoking restraunts that I disliked going too, but now it's much more enjoyable. The food was pretty good and we had a good server that was helping us. We also got to watch some Dallas Stars game that was on TV while we were there. We're looking forward to doing it again.

Hockey Pictures..

2006-03-28T19:55:00.000-06:00

Here's a few pictures from my last hockey game. We finished off the winter season with a win 6-2. The team I play for may have gotten the last playoff spot for this season, but it is still being determined. Here's a sample of me on the ice for those of you that have been asking for one.

tired

2006-03-23T01:06:00.000-06:00

Man it has been a busy month and half since my last post, but it has been rewarding at the same time. I look forward to things slowing down a bit so I can post more on here. Anyways, work going good, new baby getting good and settled in, and hockey is going ok. Learning lots of new things all over. Also, keeping me in a semi-tired state at times. Looking to be able to relax soon. Thanks for all who have emailed me and wished us well.

Whirlwind of things..

2006-02-17T12:35:00.000-06:00

So, it's been a while since my last post, but it's been pretty busy at home, at work and various other things. Last Monday 2/6/2006 my second son was born at 12:21 in St. Francis Hospital. He weighed in at 8lbs 3oz and 20 inches long. He was just a little bit smaller than our first son. I took off work thru Thursday, and really only worked a half day on Friday. I spent this time off being with the lady and the new boy.

We brought #2 home on Wednesday afternoon for the first time, and when we got home the place smelled horribly. While we were gone the aparment maintenance had our bath tub re-surfaced because it had been peeling up. Well this smell was really bad. We had to open up all the windows and get this chemical smell out of the place. With it being mildly cool this was not great for a newborn baby. The rest of the night he was a fuss bucket and we got very little sleep. He was pretty grumpy into the next morning. I stayed home again to help the lady out. The house was still smelly, but was getting better. That night #2 slept better and we were able to get some sleep so we could go to the doctor in the morning for #2's first doctors appointment outside of the hospital.

We went into our pediatrician's office and #2 was getting yellow with jaundice starting to set in. Doc took a blood test and later while I was at work the results were that the blood count was too high. They ordered a special light bed from a medical company and they delivered it that day. When I got home #2 was in the bed all light up like a space alien. (I'll have to upload a picture later). We had him on this bed the whole weekend, and they came and took his blood once a day to check the blood count. Monday went back to the doctor and his count was good and they took the bed back. Now the fun starts of trying to get a baby on a routine so that mom and dad can get some sleep. This has been more challenging with #2 than it was with our oldest son, but he's still pretty good.

During all of this I also had 2 more hockey games that I played in on Thursday night and Sunday morning. Man was I soar on Monday. I'm not used to playing 2 physical games in that short of a time span, but it's for the best. I'm enjoying the great workout it gives and in the past month I've lost 10 lbs already. So, I want to keep shedding those lbs for couple more months until I get to my goal weight.

Other good news that did come last Friday came at work. I went in around noon after the doctors appointment and dropping our oldest son off at daycare. My boss was asking me how everything went, and asking how I wanted to handle the days I took of for sick or vaction days. He then closed his door wanting to talk about some more things. DUHN DUHN DUUUUUUNNNNNNNN (usually the door closing is not a good thing) So, he says that me and my co-worker have been working really hard over the year and he had finally worked got some things approved on the raise i had asked about. He tells me about a new position that they had created for me and starts talking about the job info and the title. After about 10 minutes of talking he then goes "Oh I forgot to tell you the pay." So, he slides over a little sticky note that had the position title and the pay. I was rather surprised and was happy that I've been rewarded for the hard work. So, now I'm the Systems Administrator here at work and have a nice new window office and new PC and the works. My co-worker also got a promotion and I'm happy for him as well. We will be both glad to move on up.

So, there you have it. I'll have some pictures up soon of #2 and hopefully get some more rest this weekend. GO USA at the olympics!

Skating with bro-in-law.

2006-01-29T14:22:00.000-06:00

Bro-in-law skating.

After my first game, my wife's brother said he could skate and wanted to get out and play hockey like I am. So, last night I invited him to come skate with me at the public session at the Oilers Ice Center. I was thinking we could have a good time and also get a nice workout at the same time.

We head out to the rink and strap on our skates and head to the ice. At first he looked a little wobbly on the skates, but I gave him the benefit of doubt cuz he hasn't skated in a couple of years. Then came the time to stop, and BOOOM! He goes into the boards like a madman and falls down. I didn't have my cam phone on that one, but pulled it out knowing he would do it again. Eventually he did have to try and stop again, but this time he did a great figure skating pirouette. I joked that he would be a better figure skater than hockey player. Eventually I caught him trying to stop, and this picture was what I caught!

Really he wasn't too bad skating around once he got his legs under him, but he definitely will need to work on that stopping. Stopping is definetly the hardest part of skating, and it took me a good 3 months before I somewhat perfected it. I still am not that great at stopping, but I'm definitely getting better as it goes along. By next season he may be good enough, with lessons that is, to play in the adult league with me.

2nd game

2006-01-27T16:35:00.000-06:00

So, last night at the wonderful hour of 10:15 pm I had my seond ice hockey game with my team. I still had the pre-game jitters like last week, but not quite as heavy since I got that first game out of the bag. We played against the Shockers, a team of guys that have been playing together for a decent amount of time together. I know a few of the guys from Tulsahockey.net, and was looking forward to playing against them.

First period started of pretty good, and we seemed to start out like we had finished the first game we played. After 20 minutes of play we were up 3-1. We had several good chances in the period, so the game was looking to be a good one for us as a team. Most of us have not played together on the same team, and of course this being my first team I haven't played with anyone. This week we also had our goalie in net. Yipee we have a goalie!!

We start into the second period and everything is going along pretty good, we have a few chances and they have a few chances at scoring. About half way one of their players gets a penalty called against him. The captain of the Shockers was arguing with the ref and supposedly was throwing out some choice words, and the ref didn't take kindly to that because he had done the same thing 1st period on another penalty agains them. So, ref blows a penalty against their captain, who on the way to the penalty box is still arguing the call. He slams the door to the penalty box and says a few other things, and finally the ref had enough of whatever and kicks him out of the game. WOW! Fireworks flying at a for fun adult league! I didn't see the penalty that the guy was arguing, and didn't really hear what he was saying, but at this level of play the refs are out their to have fun just like the guys playing the game. This however lit a fire under the other Shockers players, and they went on a good scoring streak to finish out the 2nd period with them up 5-3. We had several breakdowns in our defensive zone, and our goalie was starting to tire out.

3rd period comes along and we're all getting pumped up to hopefully make a comeback and score some quick goals, but at the same time we also didn't want them to score a goal or two quickly. However, that's what happened. They came out and got a couple of quick goals making the game 7-3. We were getting down about some of the mistakes we were making, but I think we're also getting used to each others play styles, and it was definetly noticeable tonight. We finally got a good break away chance on a turnover at center ice, and our guy fired the puck past their goalie to make it 7-4. So, yeah some momentum back to us! Waa waaaaaa.. Nope.. They scored another quick 2 goals making it 9-4 with about 8 mintues to go. We finally started getting some chances on net, but just weren't capitalizing on them. Their goalie was guarding the lower half of the net rather well, and we needed to get some shots up on him, but it just wasn't happening. They got a couple of late goals to seal the deal at 11-4, and by that time our goalie was pretty worn thin.

Overall I think our team has potential to gel together, but we have to get more games under our belt to do that. I'm still working on my skating skills, since I've only been skating for 3 1/2 months, and hopefully that will make be a better player. Atleast it will help me be in better defensive position to make a good play. I would rate my play last night as a F. For every 1 good play I made, I would make 4-5 bad ones. It will come though with time. I'm working hard to get better. Looks like we have this coming off without a game. I'm going to try and work more on my skating, and hopefully get out to a pickup game to work on game play.

Welp, here's to the upcoming weekend for everyone. Hope it's relaxing, and I hope that the Tulsa Oilers come home with 4 wins in the next 5 days! Go Oilers!!

Top ten reasons Geeks make good fathers

2006-01-24T13:07:00.000-06:00

I got this from another persons Blog that is has some funny insight about being married to a geek. You'll have to check out her various posts, especially the one about how it isn't always easy being married to a geek.

1. LEGOS. The Geek is really more of a Man-Child than an adult. In their minds, they are still 10. They freakin' still love to play with their legos, and have never grown up. I have one friend, WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS, that still has legos in his room. He doesn't have kids. Just legos. Of course, my children love legos and Steve will lovingly spend hours playing legos with them.

2. VIDEO GAMES. Due to the whole Man-Child thing as stated in #1, the Geek loves video games. And he's good at them too. My husband is the hit of all the kids' friends because not only can he talk video games, he plays them too. If my children get "stuck" while playing their Gameboys and bring it to me for assistance, all I can do is feebly hold it and say " Mommy doesn't know how to play this." Daddy, however, can beat the game.

3. MATH. A huge plus here. No matter how old they get, Steve can still help with the math homework. My ability to be of assistance is going to last another few years before *I* end up throwing the math homework across the room in disgust.

4. SMART KIDS. Smart Geeks make smart children. Although for the most part, it's great to have really intelligent children, when your just turned two year old is using the word PREPOSTEROUS correctly, it makes for some difficult times as they get older. I literally spend a large part of my time scheming to stay one step ahead of my oldest child.

5. UP ON TECHNOLOGY. The beautiful thing about having a Geek for a parent is that you aren't wondering what your children are doing online. You *KNOW* what they are doing online and you can limit it if necessary.
It's fabulous peace of mind.

6. SCIENCE FAIR PROJECTS. Children of the Geeks always have the coolest science fair projects. And you don't have to cajole your Geek into helping. You'll find him fiddling around with the science materials whether you asked him to help or not.

7. TOY ASSEMBLY. You will never, ever have to spend six hours of your life, that you will never get back, trying to assemble some 2,000 piece toy at 3 am on Christmas Eve again. The Geek can do it in minutes flat. Usually without the directions. Whereas I have tried to assemble toys and said "Mommy has to go to the bathroom" just so I could escape and scream into my pillow in frustration, if the Geek is around, he can take it right off your hands. I now just say "Daddy is really good at this, let's wait until he gets home."

8. GADGETS. Never again will you have to wonder what that new electronic toy is that all the kids have. In fact, your Geek will probably already own it. The problem arises when the Geek won't share with the children. "Daddy, I want a digital camera." After the child leaves the room: "I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on a digital camera for him, he's too young." I say "Let's get him a cheap one." Steve looks at me as if I just said Aliens are invited to dinner. " To have it take crappy pictures?" He scoffs and walks away in disgust. No sub-par electronics in this house! How dare I suggest it.

9. SMART IS COOL. Having a Geek for a father instills the message into your children that smart is cool. They idolize Daddy. Hopefully, they'll want to grow up to be just like him.

10. BEING IDOLIZED IS GOOD FOR YOUR GEEK. Course, you have to be careful that his head doesn't get TOO BIG. That's why I blog. Gotta keep his ego in check SOMEHOW.

Myspace

2006-01-22T10:56:00.000-06:00

I really like Blogger, but I also like My Space. They have some features that I wish Blogger would include into their service. Like friends list, and some of the various networking things you can do on it. I don't blog on their because I just link to my blog here since i started it up before I got on myspace. However I have hooked up with some old classmates that I haven't talked to in awhile, and that's the cool part about myspace. That's my advertisement for the day, go check it out.

Time nearing

2006-01-19T12:56:00.000-06:00

The lady and I have started going to her weekly doctor's appointments together. If you don't know we're expecting #2 boy here within a month. The appointment we had yesterday she has shown signs that she may be further along that anticipated, and it has been this way for about a month that she's shown the signs. The lady is doing very well health wise, and has gained the minimum amount of weight they want for a healthy pregnancy, which will make it easier for her to lose after the baby comes.

Patrick is getting to be really smart little boy. He is learning to count, and has his letters down really good. The lady and I are happy we decided to put him in daycare this year, because he has shown great signs of learning while there. We've also been talking to him about his little brother that will be here soon. We think he's understanding that he will have a baby brother soon, and we can only hope he will be a great brother like we think he will be. Anyways, that's the update I have for now.

1st game

2006-01-15T23:04:00.000-06:00

So, I woke up this morning knowing I had my first ice hockey game at 3:15 pm today. At that point I was pretty calm and collected. I did wake up at 8 am before the lady and the boy. I stretched out a little bit, because I was kind of soar from skating the previous day. As the time inched closer to 3:15 I could start to feel it. The butterflies...

12 pm comes around and I start taping my sticks since I hadn't done it yet. The boy loves when I get the sticks out, and wants to run around the house with them. It gets to 1:30 pm and butterflies are really kicking in..

I head up to the rink to go over some quick skating stuff with my skating teacher. I've only bee skating since October 1st, but this was my goal to get to this point. This day. I got up to the rink and skated a few laps before my teacher could head out with me. We worked on my stops and turns, and transistioning from front to back skating. I'm still working on backwards skating as I haven't perfected it by a longshot.

3:00 rolls around and I go back to the locker room to finish putting my geat on. I'm playing with the Molson Export team this season because me and two of my co-workers were put on the team since they needed a few more players. Unfortuanetly we didn't have but six players today at first, but we were lucky 2 guys were up at the rink early and filled in with us. We also did not have a goalie. So, I'm thinking.. "O great this is going to be sooooo fun." Also thinking we'll get our butts handed to us sine w have no goalie. To my shagrin we're also playin a 99% womens team called Glory. They have one guy on the team, but the rest are all women and some a couple of younger girls. This is a "no checking" league so it shouldn't matter.

3:15 game starts. We come out on the ice playing with 6 skaters the whole game, and one of us tries to stay back as a goalie. We started off pretty bad and they scored 3 goals pretty quickly. I was the one trying to stay back and get in the way of the goal, but that wasn't the best idea since I've not really stick handled on the ice before. I have played ball hockey for about 10 years, but it's so much different being on the ice on skates doing it. We finally "lit the lamp" with about 5 minutes left in the period. Glory then scored another to make it 4-1 at the first intermission.

I had a large contingency of supporters out to watch the game, since it was my first. My dad and liz, the lady and the boy, my father-in-law and mother-in-law and brother-in-law were all there. Second period starts and I play more back at the goalie spot, and it turned out to be ok since i blocked 5 or 6 shots that period. However they did score one more goal, but we got 2 really nice goals to make it 5-3 after two periods.

Third period starts and we're all joking about just having fun and giving it our all. What comes of this could be a big shock, but we just had fun. We came out the third period and tied it within the first five minutes. So, we're sitting at 5-5 and after 5 minutes of playing back and forth with no goals scored, we go up on a beatiful wrist shot that lifted over the goalies glove for the other team. We add another goal to make it 7-5, and then 30-45 seconds after that Glory scored. We take a timeout to get a breather and everyone get a good drink. I'm playing on defense at this time and with about 3:30 left in the period Glory breaks into our zone, and miss a few shots, the puck goes into the corner and their guy breaks from the corner towards the goal, passes it, and then proceeds to check our guy pretty good. Play stops and they call a penalty on him, but somehow I also get called for a penalty. I was near our guy when get got checked to the ground, but even then we shouldn't have gotten a penalty either. I think it was lucky they took me off since it was my first game, and I wasn't playing great compared to my teammates, but I did good for first game.

Remember it's 7-6 and now 2:20 left in the game. Faceoff in our defensive zone. We end up clearing the puck out of our zone and get a breakaway. One of our guys darted up center ice and made a deke or two and put the puck in the net to make it an 8-6 game. The rest of the game was like tennis. Back and forth. We luckily didn't let them get anymore shots off, and won the game 8-6 without a goalie. Yipee! I have to say that I have a new respect for the game now that I've gone and played it. Hopefully I can continue to improve with each game, and will eventually be able to score a goal. I will take a win though anytime!

Weekend recap

2006-01-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

We stayed busy this weekend around the house. We did go over to my dad's house Friday night for some chili. My step-mom also invited her family over and we all had a good time. One of my new step-sisters has 3 younger girls, and Patrick loves playing with all of them. Oh to be that young again.

The rest of the weekend we stayed at home and did a lot of cleaning up. We finally had time to take down our Christmas tree we had up this year. We also moved our room around to get ready for #2 baby to come and cleared out of several storage containers we had in our apartment and put them in our storage locker.

We did have get to head to the Tulsa Oilers game on Saturday night. The Oilers were playing division rival Wichita Thunder. This year the Oilers have been abyssmal at home only winning 4 games. Yet they have the 2nd best road record in the league behind the Colorado Eagles. Coming off a 3-2 shootout victory Wednesday in Colorado, we anticipated the Oilers coming home and having a great game against the Thunder. They normally are since the Oilers-Thunder rivalry goes back awhile now.

Wichita came out strong going up 2-0 on two power play goals after Curtis Voth went in for 2 minor penalties. This set the tone of catchup all night. Really other than that mistake the game was even. The Oilers eventually lost 5-3, but some bright spots were there. The Oilers put a season record 50 shots on goal. However, Sebastien LaPlante had his "A game" all night, and the Oilers missed 3-4 WIDE OPEN shots on goal. Sometimes that's the way the puck bounces.

Speaking of hockey. Tonight started I started my floor hockey league at my church. I was placed on the "Red Wings" this year. I have been playing floor hockey since 1992 and always have fun doing it. It is especially nice after working all day and being able to run around and blow some steam off and have playing a game I've grown to love sine 1992. This weekend on Sunday I'll be making my debut in ice hockey at the Oilers Ice Center. I've only been skating since October 1st, so this will be tough at first. I think what I will benefit from is having played floor hockey for all these years, or atleast that's what I'm hoping. It will be fun.

The new year...

2006-01-05T09:34:00.000-06:00

You know around this time of the year everyone has a renewed sense in their life to do something, make things better, set goals, meet goals, etc. I am no different than most of these people. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and in turn haven't been keeping up here. As a person gets older things have new light shed on them every year. O what it would be like to have this knowledge when I was younger.

Anywhow, we had a fun New Years eve celebration with some friends, the Cooper's, and celebrated with some drunken operation game. Yes Operation the game where you pick the insides out of a game board. Basically the idea was for whoever was taking the inside out of the game board, if they buzzed the game board they had to drink a shot. I had to drink several of these and this in turn made the game funner. I actually did better after a few in me than with nothing. Angie just drank ginger ale or fresca since she's now 7 weeks away from #2.

As the clock for the new year got closer we finally flipped on the TV to watch Dick Clark's Rockin New Years celebration. Dick Clark was back doing the show this year after missing last year due to a stroke. He however didn't sound like the Dick Clark of old. He did look good though and it was nice to see him on TV again. Someday we'll head to NYC for the celebration some new years eve.

As we are now 5 days into the New Year I look forward to a great 2006 and hope that everyone can say the same.

Good Christmas trip.

2005-12-29T20:51:00.000-06:00

We headed out of town and made the trek to Memphis, TN to visit with Angie's parents for the Christmas holiday. We left Friday afternoon the 23rd since we both had the day off. The drive was rather easy and was surprisingly not that much traffic for a holiday driving day. The whole way there we worked with Patrick on saying everyone's name. He did really good while we were there.

We were the first to arrive at Angie's aunt and uncle's house. They have a boxer that was going crazy and was excited to see someone new. He was really agressive friendly, and would jump in your face to lick it all over. Angie's parents then arrived close to midnight and her grandparents a short time after this. We went to bed awaiting the next day.

On Christmas Eve we all spent time together as a family and ate breakfast and then we broke off doing different things. Angie and I went to the store so we could get items for our breakfast casserole we were making for Christmas morning. Towards 1pm we all gathered back together and went to Aunt Kathy and Uncle Eddie's church Hope Church for a candelight service. We had a great time at the church and they had an awesome praise and worship service with lots of Christmas hymns and what not.

"Under the direction of Bruce Carroll, Hope Church has developed one of the most dynamic worship programs in the nation. Every weekend over five thousand people are ushered into God’s presence through the outstanding music that he and the Hope Band provide."

If you are ever in the Memphis, TN area you should check out this great church. You will love the praise an worship if you do go. Later after church we went home for a family dinner. We had a great smoked ham with all the various sides. We finally hit bed and called it a night after a long day around midnight.

Christmas morning I woke up at 4am with Patrick. We went downstairs and met up with PaPa, Angie's dad, and sat down for awhile. Patrick found his hockey stick and puck and started hitting it around the living room. Fast forward 2 or so hours and I put the breakfast casserole in the oven so that everyone could enjoy it when they woke up. Everyone started to wake up and move on down to the living room. I guess the smell of the cassrole was waking them. =p We passed out presents and then we all sat down for breakfast before opening them. Breakfast was great and everyone complimented Angie and I on the casserole. We spent the rest of the morning and some afternoon lounging around. We went out for a bit to get our of the house. We went back to the house so that we could have Christmas dinner. This time we had a smoked turkey with all the extras and trimming and side dishes. Angie and I made our way out to watch the Chronicles of Narnia: Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe since we had all the babysitters possible in one place. We enjoyed the movie, but though that it was missing "something". I haven't read the books in some time so not quite sure what that "something" was. We again headed to bed around midnight or 1.

Monday I hung out with Uncle Eddie, Grandpa Joe, and AJ (Angie's brother) and we headed to the Fox and Housnd Pub and Grill to play some pool. I was wearing my Tulsa University sweatshirt and people were giving me the dirty look the whole time there. Memphis University was starting their bowl game about 30 minutes before we took off, and thus the place was packed with Tiger fans. This year TU moved in the Conference USA, and were considered to be bottom of the pile team in football. To my happiness the Golden Hurricane wone the C-USA football title and will be playing New Years Eve at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis against Fresno State. Now if only the basketball team would pick back up to it's old sweet sixteen days. The new coach that was an assistant at Michigan State should help this, but they are starting off slowly. Hopefully next year they will get into the new coaches style. Anyways, spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and went to bed somewhat early at like 11pm.

We woke up Tuesday and packed up the car and started the trek back to Tulsa. The drive back was busier than the drive up here, but it was still pretty easy. We made our traditional road travel food stop of Ruby Tuesday's. We can't wait till one comes to Tulsa finally. That was about it for the trip.

Holiday times are great.

2005-12-21T11:18:00.000-06:00

So, this is the time of the year at work where everyday there's a tray of some sort of food in the break room. Usually there's a couple of trays of cookies, couple trays of other finger type foods. Basically stuff for you to snack on all day while being your productive worker bee self. When you're trying to stay good and eat light, and get back into hocky shape now is not the time to have all these snacks laying around tempting you.

Last night we did some of our Christmas shopping looking. Basically Angie showed me what she's interested in this year, and I showed her what I'm interested in. Then we'll later go without each other to pickup each others gifts. This will be one of the first years that we've given each other a larger gift. We usually keep it light, but I went out on a limb already and purchased a nice gift before she had even taken me last night to show me stuff. It was good year this year and she deserves a good gift. Patrick will also make out well this year. We've already started geting his gifts from family outside of T-town. Thanks everyone for your thoughts for us during the Christmas and holiday season.

Oilers vs. Wichita Thunder

2005-12-17T23:20:00.000-06:00

We again made the trek to the Tulsa Maxwell Convention Center to enjoy another night of Tulsa Oilers hockey. Tonight they played against heated Northwest Division rival Wichita Thunder. Attendance to the game was much better at tonights game over last nights. The game got of to a great start with the Oilers jumping out on top 2-0 in the 1st period. Jaro Cesky and Jim Dahl both put in power play goals in that period. Dahl's night was only getting started, and so was our powerplay!

In the 2nd period the Oilers and Jim Dahl again capatalized on the powerplay going up 3-0 six minutes into the 2nd. The Blunder... Thunder finally got on the board off Joe Blazneck's blast on the powerplay. This would be the Blunder's only powerplay goal of the night against the Oilers who have one of the better penalty kill teams in the CHL. Later in the 2nd Kris Wiebe got a lucky bounce off the boards and was able to put it past Oilers goalie Marco Emond. The Oilers then answered back towards the end of the 2nd when Jaro Cesky break free made an awesome glove side deke and then put the puck stick side to score his 2nd goal, and 2nd shorthanded goal in as many nights. Jaro finished with 2 goals and 2 assists, extending his scoring streak to 5 games. In the streak he's had 4 goals and 7 assists. GO JARO!!

Heading into the 3rd with the 4-2 lead the Oilers powerplay again worked its magic when Jim Dahl deflected a Mario Joly slap shot past the Blunder goailer. This rounded out Dahl's great night with a hat trick and push the Oilers lead to 5-2. The Blunder answered back pretty quickly when Wiebe deflected a Ryan Fairbarn wrist shot over Oiler goalie Marco Emond's shoulder. For the second night in a row the Oilers then settled in and staved off a empytnet rush from the opposing team, and another goal to win the game 5-4.

The Oilers looked much better in tonights game and skated hard all 60 minutes. The Thunder are a great team, but we seem to have their number this year. (minus the hand pass goal game) The Oilers also have won two home games in a row and pushing their home record to 4-5-1 and 11-9-2 for the year. With the Colorado Eagles also losing tonight we have picked up some room in the division. The OKC Blazers still stayed hot and beat the Memphis Riverkings 4-2 tonight, and stay ahead of the Oilers by 4 points but also have 2 games in hand on the Oilers. The Oilers now head on the road for the next 3 games playing the Colorado Eagles 2 games up in Loveland, Co, and then head to OKC on Christmas day for a game. Hopefully they can come back to town December 27th with a five game winning streak and pushing the team into over drive coming into the 2nd half of the season.

Patrick also got a puck that went over the glass early in the first period and was holding on to his "my hockey" the rest of the night. He even passed out in the car on the ride home holding it. When we got home he wanted it in bed with him. Another good night of hockey fun!

http://www.pointstreak.com/prostats/boxscore.html?gameid=227583

http://s89104936.onlinehome.us/images/Hockey/12-17-2005/

Oilers vs. Riverkings

2005-12-16T23:58:00.000-06:00

Tonight saw the return of Curtis Voth to a Tulsa Oilers uniform. #23 is famous for his record breaking season for Penalty Minutes. He was one of the most fierce fighters around the Central Hockey League when he was on the ice. He once broke the jaw of Peter Arvantis in one of his many fights. It will be interesting to see him on the ice again for the Oilers.

The Oilers have not played very well at home this year with a 2-5-1 record at home. They have been stellar on the road however, coming in with a 7-4-1 record away. Tonight really looked to be a similar home performance, but they did come away with the win 2-1. The goals both came short handed for Jaro Cesky and Jim Dahl. Dahl put a great deke on Riverkings goalie St. Vincent to put the puck in glove side and the game winning goal. The Oilers then settled in the defensive zone for the last 3 minutes and staved off an empty net for the last minute and half to win the game. This moves the Oilers to 10-9-2 for the season.

Tomorrow night the Oilers play host to the Wichita Thunder in another Northwestern division game. Looking forward to the game, and hopefully the Oilers can push their home record to 4-5-1. The games against Wichita are always great rivalry games. The Oilers and Thunder are 2 of the original 6 CHL teams with the CHL made its comeback in the early 1990's. The rivalry had taken a back burner in recent years, but now that we are in a division with them again the games are back to the rivalry status it once was. Looking forward to heckling Volp or Laplante tomorrow night. If you're at the game come by and say hi in Section 6 row E seats 12 and 11.

Pictures from tonight's game.

Wakeup..

2005-12-14T22:04:00.000-06:00

So, here's some random links that I've put together...

http://s89104936.onlinehome.us/images/Hockey/11-27-2005/

http://s89104936.onlinehome.us/images/Hockey/12-02-2005/

http://www.tulsaoilers.com/

http://www.red-man.com

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php?s=1&u=g0&lang=EN

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6606594615176808055&q=break+dance

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2738798088550444648&q=hockey

You can tell..

2005-12-01T22:23:00.000-06:00

It's that time of the year when the posts on blogs start to slow down. People are busy with lots of things. The holidays are here. The times of parties every weekend for all your friends, your co-workers, your work, your spouses work, etc. Thru the hustle and bustle of the season people forget their blogs. I have done this for awhile as you've noticed, but it's all good.

We had a good Thanksgiving break last weekend. I had Thursday and Friday off, and Angie had Wednesday thru Friday off. We had my dad and his new wife over for Thanksgiving along with my wife's brother and my new step-mom's mother. I cooked the turkey with a great fennel seed rub that I used last year as well. Angie and I woke up "early" on Thursday to finish the rest of the side dishes for the meal. We had a great time eathing all the food. We later went out to Utica Square for the lights on Festival they have every year.

The rest of the holiday break was spent relaxing and visiting with family and friends. We also had a wedding of one of our good friends that we attended Saturday. Congrats Rachel and Dennis! Unfortuanetly the relaxing break had to end and back to the grind we all go. It's always hard to go back to work after a long break. It has been hard to stay focused at work all week because of this. I'm glad it's almost over though.

Weekend update.

2005-11-14T11:55:00.000-06:00

So, it was a pretty decent weekend. Friday night I went up to the ice rink and skated for about an hour with one of my co-workers. In January we'll be playing in a mens hockey leauge, so we're trying to get our skating legs back under us.

Satuday was my first day off in about 3 1/2 weeks. I used it to pretty much do nothing but relax and look at some different stores for Christmas ideas. Went by Best Buy, Super Target, the mall, etc. Patrick was got sick later in the evening so we stayed in and took care of him.

Sunday I had to go into work for about 4 hours in the morning to help with some database migration that we completed yesterday. Also moving some new servers into different server racks to clean up locations of various servers and get them on faster networking switches. After I finished up with what I needed to do I took off to pickup some various groceries at Target and went home and grilled some hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages. My father and mother in-law came by to eat with us. After that we decided to go to the circus. Carson & Barnes was in town this weekend and all five us went and had a good time. Patrick even got to ride one of the elephants. We have some pictures and I'll put them up later and add a link to the pictures. Overall a pretty good weekend. Now back to the grind for this week.

Busy

2005-11-08T09:42:00.000-06:00

Been pretty busy at work and working lots of overtime. We're in the middle of several hardware, software and network upgrades that affects quite a few systems in the office. Looking foward to having this all completed by the end of this month. So, if you don't see much from me that's what the deal is.

Tulsa Oktoberfest 2005

2005-10-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

Tulsa Oktoberfest 2005

We went out to the Tulsa Oktoberfest again this year and had a great time. As always the Der Bier Garten tent, aka the big tent, was packed out when we went people standing on the tables dancing, drinking and just having a great time.

The food is great and lots of choices to get. Of course your standard sausages were there bratwurst, knackwurst, Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes), Schnitzel, kraut, Kassler Rippchen (grilled, smoked pork chop), Strudel, and warm german potato salad.

This year was the 23rd year that Tulsa has celebrated Oktoberfest and in that time it has became one of the top 5 U.S. Okoberfest celebrations. It is considred to be the best Oktoberfest west of the Mississippi river. I have to concur each year we go out. Thanks again for the great time!

Patrick is ready for hockey..

2005-10-20T22:04:00.000-05:00

The Tulsa Oilers start the season tomorrow and we're ready. Patrick and I was going around the house with our sticks passing the puck back and forth to each other. Looking forward to hockey season starting for the Oilers, and for the next mens league to start for me. Gooooooooooooooooooo Oilers!

Movie night..

2005-10-16T00:34:00.000-05:00

Angie and I decided to take a break and go see some movies tonight. We dropped Patrick off at grammies Marj's because we don't like to be "those parents" that bring their kids that can't be quiet or sit still. Patrick likes to move right now and this year with him in daycare her parents don't get to see him as much as the previous 2 years.

After dropping Patrick off we went to the The Tulsa Cinemark theatre off 71st a hwy 169. We started with Elizabethtown a romantic comedy from Cameron Crowe. This movie started off slow, but in the end it came together. Angie and I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend for a date night. The soundtrack for the movie is awesome as well. I found myself enjoying it as much as the movie.

Secondly we went to see Serenity. I had heard much fanfare on this movie and was looking forward to it. I had not seen Firefly the TV series like most of the people that was giving good reviews tot he movie. However, I was not as impressed as my friends who were giving these great reviews. I was amused by some of the dialogue, but on the whole I thought the movie felt like a TV show. We had pulled our famous pay for one and stay for a 2nd movie, and we were glad to have not paid for Serenity. I don't think we'll see a return of the TV series though because the movie looks to not have done well. To bad for you fanboys.

Looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

Gamer in training

2005-10-13T22:16:00.000-05:00

Patrick is ready to pwn dad at some internet games. He loves sitting in my lap while I play the various games I'm into. UT2004, Battlefield 2, Counterstrike: Source, etc. He also likes to move the mouse and hit the keyboard. Soon he will be owning up everyone. Look out for red jr.

Hockey

2005-10-13T14:07:00.000-05:00

So far hockey season has been great. I've been watching a free preview of NHL center ice and have been enjoying several games I wouldn't normally see. This week the Central Hockey League, which local team the Tulsa Oilers play in, opened up training camp for the 05-06 season. Next Friday October 21st the Oilers open play against the new team in the league the Youngstown Steelhounds from Ohio. Tulsa is one of the original teams of the CHL that revived itself in 1992. The Tulsa hockey scene has seen quite a boom since the Oilers came back. Angie, Patrick and I can't wait until next Friday so we can sit in our section 6 seats on the ice and watch some hockey again. Go Oilers!

St. Louis. The arch

2005-10-11T14:34:00.000-05:00

St. Louis. The arch

This was on our way home from our trip this weekend. I've been trying to get my moblog stuff working and out of the blue today I got my message about it finally coming thru. Even one that I sent in 2 weeks ago came thru now. Good times on that. Well now that it's working I can do some moblog stuff too.

Grampies and Patrick

2005-10-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

Grampies and Patrick

My dad came by a couple weeks ago and watched Patrick while I went ice skating. We went to eat some food and then have some frozen custard at Freckles down the street from our apartment. My dad had fun spending time with us, and I was glad he was free to watch Patrick during that time.

Headed out of town..

2005-10-06T18:40:00.000-05:00

We're taking off tomorrow morning for Du Quoin, IL this weekend to visit with Angie's family. Her Grandma Rose is turning 75, and were heading up for the birthday party. Du Quoin is about an hour outside of St. Louis and close to Carbondale, IL. Pretty much in the middle of farming country. Lots of corn fields and the such. Everytime we visit I'm glad that we don't live their. No opprotunities to advance out of that lifestlye unless you just get out of it. I'll be "unplugged" all weekend, except cell phones and digital camera. So, I'll take plenty of pictues for my faithful blog watchers. =)

Tulsa State Fair

2005-10-03T13:23:00.000-05:00

We decided to head out to the Tulsa State Fair yesterday afternoon after not going since 2001. Now we know why we didn't goes the past 4 years. It's full of people and they're all, how should I put this nicely, trashy people. The fair is full of rednecks, cowboys/farmers, and lots of trashy people. Walking around with a stroller was even more of a headache than we wanted to deal with. The outrageous prices: $8 admission, $5 funnel cakes, $4 dollar drinks. I mean it is just crazy. Free parking that took over 45 minutes to get too. Gee Gee Tulsa State Fair. We probably will not go back again until Patrick is older.

On a good fair note we watched a co-worker of mine and friend of ours during her horse show, and she did really good in both the rides we watched and she did good in her othe rides earlier in the day. She came out with 2 first place and 2 second place finishes. Congrats on a good day of showing pdiddy.

Adios Casa Bonita..

2005-09-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

Well, sad news hits Tulsa as Casa Bonita is suddenly going to close this Friday.

I will miss this "great" family mexican restraunt. The uniqueness of the restraunt was the draw, and now many a Tulsa State Fair goer will have to find somewhere else to eat at. I'm sure they will still be busy the next two days as the fair starts, but it's sad that it's going.

Weekend bliss

2005-09-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

So, it's been over a week since my last post, and I know most of you have been hanging on the edges of your seat for an update. So here we go...

Past two weekends have been really good. Nice and relaxing times, but had some good fun with friends. A couple of Saturday ago the 17th a group of friends I've known for awhile met up for some football playing. We all had a great time getting outside and playing, but I know all of us felt that weekend warrior burn in our bodies the next couple of days. The rest of the day we relaxed at home and watched some movies on HBO.

Sunday we ran around town to the mall and various other places doing some shopping for friends birthdays, anniversaries and new births. We had a lot of fun just being together the 3 of us. We got home little late in the afternoon and Patrick finally was wore down and took a nap. We didn't wake up in time to head to church that night. I then met up with a couple of other friends, Fever and Coopseville, for a cigar and pipe smoking session. It had been awhile since meeting up together as a group so we all got caught up on each others happenings. We agreed we will start having a pipe night in the fall, but even though it's fall now the weather has been too warm to smoke a pipe. Looking forward to the weather cooling down so we can get this going.

Last work week was busy again as usual. My group is in the middle of several projects and that keeps us busy especially since our normal work load can get is pretty up and down, and it's been on the up lately. Usually things start to slow down towards the end of the year, but this has been different we've been on an upswing of things to do.

This last weekend Angie was in a OFLTA conference and I was taking care of Patrick. Saturday when she got home we went and picked her mom up to watch Patrick and we went to the movies to see a couple of different movies. First we saw the hilarious move The Forty Year Old Virgin. If you haven't seen this movie it's a must see comedy relief movie. We then stayed for Corpse Bride which was also a good movie. Angie was surprised something so dark could be so beautiful. Tim Burton does great work and Danny Elman's score was fantastic as usual.

Welp that was an earful or and eyeful and now you're all caught up. =)

Busy Week

2005-09-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

It has been a really busy week at work this week and that has led to my downtime in posting. We have several projects in my group that are coming into finishing phases and we're pushing to get them done on our projected goal dates. I'm glad that the winter months are coming on, because that's when our group usually slows the work pace down. Looking forward to a good weekend with some friends and family.

You can smell it in the air...

2005-09-11T15:05:00.000-05:00

Fall is coming. This has became one of my favorite times of the year. The weather is cooling down, the plants and trees are looking beautiful before they start changing colors for the wonder fall foliage. Last year we had the great timing of being up in Boston, MA and Portland & Old Orchard Beach, Maine during this time. Sometimes Angie wish we lived up that way, but with the cost of living so high compared to here in Oklahoma it makes us definetly think twice. We can't wait to visit up there again and hope it's sometime soon.

Next month you have Oktoberfest celebrations all over the world, but in Germany they start September 17th in Munich and ends October 3rd this year. Tulsa's own Oktoberfest celebration runs October 20th-23rd this year. We always have a good time drinking, seeing the german bands, and eating the various foods. Since Angie is a German teacher we run into some of her students who get extra credit for going. We can't wait till this one comes around. Look forward to a great fall this year.

Daily Gas Prices.

2005-09-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

Prices have now moved to around $2.88. GTR

DCI Tonight!

2005-09-06T18:34:00.000-05:00

ESPN2 is airing the Drum Corps International World Championships tonight at 10est/9cst. If you love drum corps or are intrigured by marching bands and want to see a high level of marching tune in tonight!

Daily Gas Prices.

2005-09-04T09:44:00.000-05:00

Gas prices have moved down and are now hovering around $3.05 for now.

TU vs Minnesota

2005-09-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Went to the TU Football game last night. If you're a sports fan you may have caught the game on ESPN2. Minnesota put a thumping on the Golden Hurricane with a final score of 41-10. TU just couldn't handle the size and speed of the Gophers last night. Just too overmatched. TU will have another tough game ahead of them when they visit the OU Sooners next week. It was nice to see a good crowd out at the game last night. Tough non-conference schedule for TU, but hopefully it will make them tougher for the conference games. GO TU!

Daily Gas Prices. 9-2-2005

2005-09-02T11:23:00.000-05:00

Still hovering around $3.19-3.29 for now. I haven't been out though since I got into work this morning.

Daily Gas Prices.

2005-09-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

$2.89 around Tulsa.

*edit* $2.99 as of 1pm CST.

*edit* $3.05 as of 5pm CST.

*edit* $3.19-3.29 as of 11:45pm CST.

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

I know most of you have read all about the damage caused by this recent hurricane, but I want to implore you to help out in anyway you can. Donate some canned food, money, time, or blood. The Red Cross is a great place to start. I myself went in and donated blood and we also dropped off several canned food items for a drive here in Tulsa. I pray that things get fixed quickly in New Orleans so the water levels can start going down and they can start the rebuild. Also, for all the other hard hit area's around New Orleans and Mississippi hope people are able to be safe and get back to their lives as soon as they can.

August birthday's..

2005-08-26T07:56:00.000-05:00

So, I missed my post for the day yesterday. I'm sure you all missed my great wisdom, complaints and stupidity right?

Well yesterday for lunch I went out with several co-workers who have their birthday's in August. Every month my company takes everyone with a birthday that month out for lunch. Yesterday we went to Logan's a new restraunt here in Tulsa. I had some hope for the place since they're a roadhouse grill with steaks and all that pizazz. I like a good steak. After going though I was rather disappointed withthe food and atmosphere. They just copied several other steak places like Texas Roadhouse and Lonestar to name a few. I just don't see the novelty of peanuts laying all over the place in a steak place. I ordered a 12oz ribeye and I have to say this thing hade so much fat I could hardly find the actual meat part of the steak. I know that the ribeye is prone to having some fat on it, but I have never had one this fatty. I had the fresh vegetable and the "loaded" mashed potatoes. The steamed broccoli was good, but the "loaded" mashed potatoes were cold and dry. The other thing that was good was the desert. I had the PB&Fudge Ice Cream Pie. It was rather delicious desert and the only highlight of the trip other than conversing with my co-workers. I just have to say I'm glad I wasn't picking up the ticket because I don't envision me going there if I'm picking up the tab.

After I got back to work after a full lunch the office was incredibly hot. I was sweating pretty decently while doing my work. Guess the A/C in the building decided to take a puke and the temp had gone up about 10 degrees in the building. It luckily didn't go up anymore because one set of air conditioners were still working. Good times. Luckily I didn't feel like napping after such a big meal and was able to get a good amount of things done.

Wife and I are going to see the Brothers Grimm tonight. She likes the eye candy and I just want to get out of the house for the evening. The boy will be staying over at her parents house and we'll have a quiet evening together. Good times!

Things I'm looking forward to in the fall.

2005-08-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

Hockey.
College Football.
Hockey.
Lost.
Hockey.
Cooler weather.
High School Football.
Hockey.

9 days until the Tulsa Hurricane kickoff the football season. ESPN2
10 days until the B.A. Tigers kickoff their football season.
11 days until the OU Sooners kickoff the football season.
11 days until the OSU Cowboys kickoff the football season.
42 days until the St. Louis Blues kickoff the season.
58 days until the Tulsa Oilers kickoff the season.

Movie Quote of the day.

2005-08-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try something new and see how it works out. Everyday I'm going to post a new quote from a movie. Whoever comments and guesses right can then in turn email me a movie quote and I will put it up the next day. If I don't have a new quote by 12pm CDT then I'll put one of my own up. I know this will probably go nowhere, but I thought I would try it out and see how it goes. Gonna kick it off easily. I know a lot of people that should know this, but lets see if they actually will post it.

"See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna staht doin some thinkin on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certaintees in life. One, don't do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library"

I like

2005-08-18T16:10:00.000-05:00

I like cream cheese and bagels in the morning.
I like oatmeal as well.
I like steak.
I like chicken.
I like cigars.
I like a cold Shiner Bock.

Good times should be had by all. What do you like?

Picture catchup

2005-08-15T23:11:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile, actually never on my blog, that I've given some links to various pictures we've taken of family gatherings or other happenings we've been too. So, here they are for all my blog readers.

Patrick's 2nd Birthday
A friends birthday party
Dad re-marries and Liz's 50th Birthday in one!
The Wiggles Live!
My 28th Birthday
Enjoying time with Angie's grandparents
Angie's Uncle Jeff's 40th Birthday!
The drive home

Good times..

2005-08-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

We just got back from our family vacation last night around 11:30pm. We had a great time while we were away. Last Wednesday we make the long drive up to St. Louis to watch the The Wiggles for Patrick's birthday present. We had a lot of fun watching The Wiggles Live and the Savvis Center was a great arena to to be at. We had pretty decent seats, but not right up front which was sold out when we purchased tix. Patrick had a great time, but at first didn't realize what was going on. After about 15-20 minutes he figured it out and was dancing along with the songs like he does at home.

After the show we drove up to DuQuoin, IL where we visisted with Angie's family. Her grandparents from both her mom and dad's side live up there, and both wer greatful to see us. Especially being able to see their great-grandson. We had a wondeful time and was able to relax and talk with family and have some good times. We also celebrated my 28th birthday while we were there.

The only thing about vacation, for the working person, is coming back to 80+ emails and a pile of work that needs to be done ASAP!! I've been pretty busy today at work and can't wait to get home already to play some Battlefield 2.

Funny stuff

2005-08-09T23:26:00.000-05:00

If you're a gamer or have ever wanted to get "into the mind of a gamer", then check this site out. http://www.purepwnage.com/ They have some quite hilarious moments that tries to characterize gamers and gaming. Even though it's pretty funny it can be true which is sad in away. I think of myself as a gamer, so go away noob.

#2...

2005-08-08T16:28:00.000-05:00

My wife and I have received some good news that we are expecting our second child. We are looking forward to having the responsibility of parenting two children, and teaching them to become respectable young people as they grow up. Child number two’s due date is February 21st, 2006.

Angie and I would like to thank all the people that have given so much to us already in ways of raising our 2-year-old son up. Special thanks goes out to my mother-in-law, Margie, who has taken care of our son wonderfully these past two years.

NHL back on the Ice!

2005-07-14T12:14:00.000-05:00

On the 301st day of the Lockout the NHL and NHLPA finally agreed to a new 6 year CBA. I'm glad they've finally go their heads out of their asses and got something accomplished. However I bet next season the attendance will be abissmal. I have read and talked to so many fans who said they will now boycott the NHL for a year since they have done that to the many fans of the game. Canada is probably relieved of the play being back in action next season as their economy thrives when hockey is being played. Go Blues!

Tour de France

2005-07-14T12:05:00.000-05:00

I hope that Lance Armstrong can pull thru on his "last" Tour and win his 7th in a row. However the problem that I have now is all the stupid people trying to "be like Lance". If you're 100lbs overweight please do not get in a speedo and ride your bike around like Lance. Please do not talk like you know about riding a "tour" when this is the first time you've put your fat ass on a bike since you were 12 years old. Please do not jump on the Lance bandwagon and start wearing those yellow wrist bands. YOU SUCK! BE ORIGINAL!

AMD Files Antitrust Complaint against Intel

2005-06-28T13:57:00.000-05:00

I was reading on Anandtech.com about the antitrust suit and they sure do make some bold claims. Of course ones that I'm sure they believe to be true. Why would they file suit if they weren't? I think they have a good case against Intel and hope they do win the case. Intel's pockets are deep though, so we'll see. Some of the notes off Anandtech.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- June 28, 2005 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced today that it filed an antitrust complaint against Intel Corporation ("Intel") yesterday in U.S. federal district court for the district of Delaware under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Sections 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act, and the California Business and Professions Code. The 48-page complaint explains in detail how Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel - including large scale computer-makers, small system-builders, wholesale distributors, and retailers, through seven types of illegality across three continents.

"Everywhere in the world, customers deserve freedom of choice and the benefits of innovation - and these are being stolen away in the microprocessor market," said Hector Ruiz, AMD chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer. "Whether through higher prices from monopoly profits, fewer choices in the marketplace or barriers to innovation - people from Osaka to Frankfurt to Chicago pay the price in cash every day for Intel's monopoly abuses."

Marching...

2005-06-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

When I was in high school and college I had the great opportunity to be in marching band. Now I know a lot of people do not consider marching band a sport, but I will argue that point against anyone. I know that other sports may seem harder, but if you went to Broken Arrow high school and marched for the BA Pride you would know otherwise.

This summer more people will see this “new sport” on ESPN2 with the airing of the Drum Corps International World Championships. I have hoped for ESPN to pickup on DCI for a while since they’re now airing such “sports” as darts, spelling bee and poker. Will bringing drum corps style marching to TV clear the air on marching bands? Probably not. Will it bring new fans to the genre? I sure hope so. ESPN is a great avenue to further the idea of marching band and drum corps, and I hope that you will tune in if you are unable to make it to the 2005 World Championships in Providence, R.I., and Foxboro, Mass August 9th-13th. Please check your local TV schedules for the airing, which should be towards the end of August.

If you’re in the Tulsa area you can also get a local flavor of drum corps marching by going to the BA Pride sponsored Drums of Summer.

This year's show will take place Tuesday, July 26, 2005 and will feature:
· Santa Clara Vanguard
· Madison Scouts
· Bluecoats
· Boston Crusaders
· Glassmen
· Southwind
· Phantom Regiment

yawn

2005-06-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

I wish I could go home and sleep... Work is holding me back from this.. I wish I could nap while at work. I still like my idea about American companies having a nap hours for employees. Maybe should stop going to bed at 12am - 2am, because when 5:45am rolls around to wake up I would feel better? This is another reason why I'm so lazy updating my blog. O well...

The count down begins

2005-05-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

For many people the count down began many many months ago, but for those of you who are just starting your count down to Revenge of The Sith what took so long?! This is only going to be the best of the prequel Star Wars movies, and dare I say the best of all six of the movies. I had the luxury of already seeing Episode 3 last week via a hookup at the movie theatre I worked at while in high school and college. I'll just say it was AWESOME!! So, for all those people that have been waiting for the culmination of the Star Wars movies dress up and get ready for the long long long lines to get a good seat. May the force be with you.

Weekends..

2005-05-16T11:25:00.000-05:00

Why does the weekend never last long enough? Is it me or does everyone agree that even if the weekend was 5 days and the workweek was 2 days that the weekend wouldn't be long enough? The reasons everyone likes the weekends abound. They like to sit around doing jack shit, they like to hang out with their family, they like to clean up the house (*cough* yea right *cough*), and do various other things.

I for one like to hang out with my wife and son. My son is closing in on two years old and he's a riot to be with. Loves to go outside and ride his tri-cycle, explore new things, see lots of new things. This weekend he got the please of going to his first parade. The Rooster Days Parade is a parade that my wife and I marched in several times thru our years in band. He was enthralled with all the things going on in the parade the bands, clowns, cars, fire trucks and LOTS of candy. He got more candy at the parade than he did trick or treating this year in our neighborhood.

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. Saturday night I got to go out with "the guys" and play some Xbox, drink some beer and eat lots of pizza. Sunday we went to the Marie Callenders brunch and were really surprised at how good it was. Mind you it was no Flavors Sunday Brunch, but it was quite good. Speaking of Flavors, dang you Michael Fusco for not having your Sunday Brunch anymore. You had the best eggs benedict ever! O well I guess your Tulsa Chef of the year award 15 of the last 16 years has gotten to your head.

Add this to the "would be nice list"

2005-05-10T16:46:00.000-05:00

You know everyday after lunch around 30-45 minutes after you get back to work, and you start to feel your eyelids get heavier and heavier? Well, I sure do just about everyday of work. I think that corporate america should wake up and realize that us workers need a 1 hour nap time. You know how much more our work days would be productive if we had an hour of nap time in it? Shoot I know that I could get lots of things done with one. Now only if I can convice my boss of this concept.

Mothers Day

2005-05-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

Happy Mothers day to all of you wonderful women out there that put up with us for 20+ years in your home, and some of us thru our whole lives even when we got married. I would like to raise a great big stein of beer in your names.

P.S. Mom you need to answer your phone so I can tell you happy mothers day.

Revelations..

2005-05-06T09:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched a Star Wars fan film called Revelations and it wasn't that bad. For a home brewed movie I thought it had some decent effects and it had a pretty good story line. The weak part in any home movie is the acting, and this wasn't any different.

Speaking of Star Wars. Who in their right mind is not excited to see the final prequel Revenge of The Sith? I know that alot of fans were downed by episode one and maybe even episode two, but I think Lucas has finally gotten back to the "root" of Star Wars and this could possibly be the best Star Wars movie of all 6.

I'm also eager to see what the new live action Star Wars show and the new comic are going to come up with. I can see them both being really good or really bad. Hopefully some of the story lines will come from some of the book authors and we can see some pretty cool shows.

Well, enough about Star Wars. Let's get on with the day.

Testies.. Testies... 1.. 2.. 3..

2005-05-05T15:23:00.000-05:00

Welp, Guess I'll see how often I can NOT update this.