College Football and Dokken

Busy weekend!! Went to the office on Friday and found out that we are now going to have a Promotions Crew, similar to what I was Managing for the Sonics. The thought was that we were going to have Non Profit groups come in and help with giveaway distributions but the decision was finally made to bring in our own staff. I am in favor of this as it is much easier to manage people when they are truely your employees. Harder to tell someone to tuck their shirt in when they are a volunteer and will possibly never see me again at the end of the game. The bad news is that I now have 9 days to go out and hire 35 people. Normally I hire 10-15 new people per season over the course of a month or two and I am using a network in Seattle of people that I know and trust. I will definitely have my work cut out for me this week. I will be making many phone calls tomorrow trying to find applicants and setting up interviews. Good times.

Friday night I got my first taste of Bricktown on a weekend. Went out and had dinner with 6 of my co-workers (all former Sonics employees) at a nice little bar/restaurant. Afterward we went to a good bar in Bricktown called Drinkz and hung out there for a few hours and were joined by a couple more employees. It was a good environment. I don't like night clubs and this was just a regular place with rock music being played in the background. Bricktown is much more vibrant on the weekends as many of us have noticed that there isn't much night life around here Sunday-Thursday, although that is fine with me.

Saturday was my fun day!! I went up to Stillwater which is about 60 miles north and attended a college football game between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and Baylor Bears. OSU is ranked 8th in the country and looked really good as they won the game 34-6. I bought myself an inexpensive t-shirt at Wal Mart earlier in the week so I was sporting the Cowboy orange (I did get a picture of me at the stadium but I'm still without my computer). T Boone Pickens just gave their athletic program MILLIONS of dollars to renovate their stadium, which is named Boone Pickens Stadium and it is a nice facility. Kind of a horse shoe like Husky Stadium only the open end without bleachers is enclosed by the Basketball Arena/Athletic offices. Nice place. Stillwater is 100% college town. I never even saw a sign on the highways that read "Stillwater" until I was 9 miles away. I thought that was odd as even Pullman has signs pointing you in the right direction.

The people up in the North area are very nice and the stereotypical "midwestern accent" is much more noticeable there. I always tell friends and family back home that I don't even notice the accents much in OKC but definitely heard it all around me in Stillwater.

After the game I went up to a Casino about 25 miles north into a small town of Red Rock, OK to watch my favorite childhood band, Dokken. Go ahead and laugh at me but as many of my family and friends already know, I was a big fan of "glam rock" growing up and still listen to quite a bit of it to this day. The big hair bands of the 80s, groups like Poison, Skid Row, Motley Crue and others. It was always a good way to get fired up for a sporting event I was participating in so I was a fan as a kid and still like the music, although I like many other genres of music as well. Anyway, my favorite band starting in the 7th grade was a group out of Los Angeles called Dokken and just my luck, they were in Oklahoma this weekend. I just happened to have the radio on a couple of weeks ago when I was in OKC looking for a place to live when a commercial came on for their upcoming concert. I've seen Dokken probably 4 or 5 times up in the Seattle area over the last 10 years so I knew that it was time to head out to Red Rock. Got to the casino about 20 minutes before they took the stage, quickly downed a sandwich at the casino deli and went in to where the stage was for the show. There were probably 200-250 people in the concert area and I had a blast. They played for about an hour and 20 minutes then I hopped in my car and made the 80 mile drive home. Got home at around 11:30 and laid on the floor with the intention of watching the Huskies football game that I recorded. Managed to watch the first half before falling asleep (imagine that, doubt I would have fallen asleep during the 1991 National Championship run). Woke up the next morning and watched the 2nd half of another UW loss.

Started today off with a 4 mile jog around Lake Hefner which is about as close to Green Lake as you can get around here (I really miss Green Lake). Hefner is about 9.5 miles around so I drove my car over and just jogged part of the way. I only live a few miles from the lake and have been wanting to check it out for a while now. The sun was out and it would have been perfect weather other than the fact that it was incredibly windy today. The high temperature today is supposed to be around 80 but it didn't feel like that at 10:00 this morning with a nice 25-30 MPH wind. Still enjoyed it though and plan on being somewhat of a regular at the lake from here on out.

Also went out and made a few purchases today. I bought a matress and box spring for my guest bedroom and just in time as my Mom arrives on Wednesday night and that is the day the bed will be delivered. Also bought a recliner which is in my car right now (I'm at the Thunder Offices using the computer so I will unload it as soon as I get home). This means that I WILL NOT BE SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR TONIGHT. Heading home in a few minutes to watch the Seahawks as well as the big baseball game while eating some dinner in my recliner. Sounds like a pretty good evening to me.

Busy day tomorrow. We have an Open Practice at the Ford Center tomorrow where the fans can come by and watch the team practice and scrimmage. We will run it similar to a game so there will be promotional activites during breaks. Also working an event on Tuesday in which players will be stopping by a few select businesses to drop off season tickets. All of that and the hiring frenzy. Should be enough to keep me on my toes.