Just dropping by to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas Day. Hope you get to spend it with someone special.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
The weather outside is frightful . . .
For anyone who hasn't been keeping up with the news, Oklahoma is currently recovering from the most severe ice storm and most extensive power outage in the history of the state. At one point over 600,000 homes and businesses had lost power and the estimated time for getting that power back was 7 to 10 days.. However, much of the power has been restored now, thanks to the round-the-clock efforts of the local repair crews and the 1000 extra repairmen who came here from six other states to help out. Other clean-up crews have been busy taking care of all of the downed tree limbs and toppled trees all over the city (and other parts of the state as well).
The storm started sometime very early Sunday morning and continued until late Sunday night/early Monday morning. I stayed inside and stayed warm, listening to tree limbs cracking and crashing to the ground all over my neighborhood and wondering when one of them was going to hit a power line.
Just after noon on Monday, my brother Tom called to let me know that his power had gone out, and he and my sister-in-law and niece came over later in the day to spend a few days (or so they thought) at my place. However, my power went out around 4:00 Tuesday morning, so we decided to head back to his house and try to use his gas stove to stay warm (which we did and it worked out pretty well). Later in the day a friend of his who still had power brought over his generator, so we were able to use a space heater instead of the stove and enjoyed some light and TV news as well. We camped out in the living room to be close to the heater and spent much of our time entertaining my niece (who was enjoying the extra company and attention), and we managed to have a good time in spite of everything.
Their power came back on Wednesday night, and mine was back on when I came back to check on things Thursday morning, so things are slowly returning to normal. I have a few downed tree limbs in my front yard, but that's the worst thing I still have to deal with as far as I can tell.
I've posted some post-storm pictures in my Photobucket account (just use the link in the sidebar on the right and look for my "Ice Storm 2007" album). All of the pictures except for the last one were taken on 12/10 at various times of the day. The last one was taken on 12/13 (just after I got home from Tom's house) and shows some of the tree damage in my neighbor's front yard (she has four trees and all of them lost most of their limbs).
The storm started sometime very early Sunday morning and continued until late Sunday night/early Monday morning. I stayed inside and stayed warm, listening to tree limbs cracking and crashing to the ground all over my neighborhood and wondering when one of them was going to hit a power line.
Just after noon on Monday, my brother Tom called to let me know that his power had gone out, and he and my sister-in-law and niece came over later in the day to spend a few days (or so they thought) at my place. However, my power went out around 4:00 Tuesday morning, so we decided to head back to his house and try to use his gas stove to stay warm (which we did and it worked out pretty well). Later in the day a friend of his who still had power brought over his generator, so we were able to use a space heater instead of the stove and enjoyed some light and TV news as well. We camped out in the living room to be close to the heater and spent much of our time entertaining my niece (who was enjoying the extra company and attention), and we managed to have a good time in spite of everything.
Their power came back on Wednesday night, and mine was back on when I came back to check on things Thursday morning, so things are slowly returning to normal. I have a few downed tree limbs in my front yard, but that's the worst thing I still have to deal with as far as I can tell.
I've posted some post-storm pictures in my Photobucket account (just use the link in the sidebar on the right and look for my "Ice Storm 2007" album). All of the pictures except for the last one were taken on 12/10 at various times of the day. The last one was taken on 12/13 (just after I got home from Tom's house) and shows some of the tree damage in my neighbor's front yard (she has four trees and all of them lost most of their limbs).
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday Postcard Blogging
Today's postcard:
The caption on the back:
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
GARY COOPER'S SADDLE. One of many famous saddles in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center located at 1700 N.E. 63rd, Route 66, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
The caption on the back:
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
GARY COOPER'S SADDLE. One of many famous saddles in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center located at 1700 N.E. 63rd, Route 66, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Taking A Break and Thanksgiving Greetings
I'm going to be busy with family and friends over the next few days (who isn't?), so I'm going to take a small break from posting until Sunday, maybe a day or two longer.
In the meantime, I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and a good weekend.
In the meantime, I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and a good weekend.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wednesday Postcard Blogging
Today's postcard:
The caption on the back:
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
1700 N.E. 63rd Street, Route 66, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Great Map of the West, 40x45 feet, Portrays Settlements, Trails and Historic Sites.
The caption on the back:
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
1700 N.E. 63rd Street, Route 66, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Great Map of the West, 40x45 feet, Portrays Settlements, Trails and Historic Sites.
Friday, November 9, 2007
TrickConTreat 2008 Pictures and Review
(Which I should have posted a month ago, but I did get it posted before the end of the year like I said I would.)
On Saturday, Oct. 6, I spent the day at TrickConTreat, a one-day horror/Halloween convention put on by the same people who work on SoonerCon (and held at Soonercon's current hotel, the Biltmore at I-40 and Meridian).
Attendance was okay, but lower than I expected, even for a first-time, one-day convention. The probable culprit was the OU-Texas game; I'm surprised that the con was scheduled for the same day as a major football game, but it's possible that that was the only date that would work for the hotel, or the staff, or maybe both. Hopefully, they'll be able to avoid having the con on the same weekend as the game next year.
The dealer's room was small but had a good selection of new and used books and movies, t-shirts, toys, artwork (by my friend Kevin Hopkins), and a few other things, and the four authors who were there (Craig Wolf, Steven Wedel, Bill Allen and my friend Bev Hale) had tables in the outer lobby where they were selling and signing books and visiting with congoers. There were also four local clubs/organizations that had display tables: the Oklahoma Space Alliance, the Ghostbusters: Central Oklahoma Division, the Colonial Marines (an "Alien" fan club), and an animal rescue/welfare group whose name escapes me at the moment..
Activities included two tracks of programming, one primarily for adults and one for kids. The adult panels were focused mainly on Halloween themes: horror readings, a history of Halloween, monster make-up, planning parties, decorating pumpkins, and paranormal investigation (which I planned to attend but didn't and I can't remember why). The two panels I did attend were a writers' panel on "What's Happening in Horror and Fantasy" and a panel called "Horror Hosts" with Dr. Fear (Brian Young, a radio and cable horror host from Enid) and Count Gregore (John Ferguson, who became the country's first horror movie host back in May, 1958, and has hosted several local horror movie shows over the years).
There were two other activities that I passed up: a "Zombie Ball" (an "adults-only" costume dance) on Saturday night, and a ghost tour of Ft. Reno in El Reno on Friday evening (which I'm hoping they have again next year because I heard it was a lot of fun and I'm sorry I missed it this year).
Overall, it was a good event and I'm already looking forward to next year (the theme for which is "A Tribute to "B" Movies," and I'm eager to see what sort of movie-related guests and activities they have planned).
(The handful of pictures I took at the con are posted in my Photobucket account, the link to which is in the sidebar on the right.)
On Saturday, Oct. 6, I spent the day at TrickConTreat, a one-day horror/Halloween convention put on by the same people who work on SoonerCon (and held at Soonercon's current hotel, the Biltmore at I-40 and Meridian).
Attendance was okay, but lower than I expected, even for a first-time, one-day convention. The probable culprit was the OU-Texas game; I'm surprised that the con was scheduled for the same day as a major football game, but it's possible that that was the only date that would work for the hotel, or the staff, or maybe both. Hopefully, they'll be able to avoid having the con on the same weekend as the game next year.
The dealer's room was small but had a good selection of new and used books and movies, t-shirts, toys, artwork (by my friend Kevin Hopkins), and a few other things, and the four authors who were there (Craig Wolf, Steven Wedel, Bill Allen and my friend Bev Hale) had tables in the outer lobby where they were selling and signing books and visiting with congoers. There were also four local clubs/organizations that had display tables: the Oklahoma Space Alliance, the Ghostbusters: Central Oklahoma Division, the Colonial Marines (an "Alien" fan club), and an animal rescue/welfare group whose name escapes me at the moment..
Activities included two tracks of programming, one primarily for adults and one for kids. The adult panels were focused mainly on Halloween themes: horror readings, a history of Halloween, monster make-up, planning parties, decorating pumpkins, and paranormal investigation (which I planned to attend but didn't and I can't remember why). The two panels I did attend were a writers' panel on "What's Happening in Horror and Fantasy" and a panel called "Horror Hosts" with Dr. Fear (Brian Young, a radio and cable horror host from Enid) and Count Gregore (John Ferguson, who became the country's first horror movie host back in May, 1958, and has hosted several local horror movie shows over the years).
There were two other activities that I passed up: a "Zombie Ball" (an "adults-only" costume dance) on Saturday night, and a ghost tour of Ft. Reno in El Reno on Friday evening (which I'm hoping they have again next year because I heard it was a lot of fun and I'm sorry I missed it this year).
Overall, it was a good event and I'm already looking forward to next year (the theme for which is "A Tribute to "B" Movies," and I'm eager to see what sort of movie-related guests and activities they have planned).
(The handful of pictures I took at the con are posted in my Photobucket account, the link to which is in the sidebar on the right.)
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Wednesday Postcard Blogging
Today's postcard:
The caption on the back:
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
1700 N.E. 64rd Street, Route 66, Oklahoma City, OK
The American Flag and the Flags of the sponsoring seventeen Western States.
The caption on the back:
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
1700 N.E. 64rd Street, Route 66, Oklahoma City, OK
The American Flag and the Flags of the sponsoring seventeen Western States.
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