My Birthday, Thanksgiving in Dallas, Bedlam

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me..... I am 36 years young today. I know a lot of people don't like birthdays but I do. They are never guaranteed (especially as you get older) so why not embrace them. Kind of different this year as I am used to celebrating them with my family but I did get a call from my parents earlier this morning and talked with them for a while.






Last year I turned 35 and had to work the Sonics game and jersey #35 Kevin Durant went out and scored what was then his career high 35 points in a Sonics victory. It was a Friday night and many of us capped it off with a big night at Jalisco's in Seattle. This year's birthday will be a little less eventful but I will still enjoy it.


Had a nice Thanksgiving (see pics). We had a Thunder game the day after therefore going to Seattle wasn't really an option so I did the next best thing and drove to Dallas to watch the Seahawks play the Cowboys. My friends Nicole, Amy F and Amy T from Seattle flew down to Dallas so I hopped in the car and drove 220 miles to join them on Wednesday. Got into town around 7:30 on Wednesday night and then joined the ladies for dinner before going to a nice local outdoor bar for a few drinks.

Woke up on Thanksgiving morning and decided to get a jog in before the game. I decided that I wanted to go by Dealey Plaza to visit the site of JFK's assassination. Wasn't even sure if we were anywhere near the location and it turns out we were about a mile and a half away. The strange thing is I had to ask 4 different people where the location was. I asked the valet if he knew where it was a he very politely admitted to not knowing Dallas very well. HOW WELL DO YOU HAVE TO KNOW DALLAS IF YOU LIVE THERE AND SOMEONE ASKED YOU ABOUT THE LOCATION OF ONE OF THIS COUNTRY'S MOST INFAMOUS HISTORICAL EVENTS. I then asked two people at the front desk and they had never heard of Dealey Plaza. Finally another valet came by the desk and started to give me directions. One of the ladies at the front desk finally realized what I was asking when she overheard me mention JFK. She said "oh, you mean the grassy knoll area, I know where that is". Moral to the story, don't refer to it as Dealey Plaza when in Dallas. Went for a nice jog to the location and ran in place while one of the locals showed me a spot on the ground where one of the bullets hit. Didn't get any pictures since taking a camera on a run isn't easy.

Drove over to Texas Stadium and did some great tailgating with the Seattle trio and all of our new Dallas and Seattle friends. They have an area called the "Corral" which is a gated area right next to the stadium that has concessions, TVs and live entertainment. Cost was $5 and it was worth it. I did manage to buy a large turkey leg (see pic) just so that I could say that I had Thanksgiving turkey. Wasn't that good but it made me feel a little more traditional.

The game wasn't very good for the Seahawks as the Cowboys won 34-9 but I still had a great time. The girls bought their tickets months ago, way before I knew I was going to move to OKC so I bought a scalped ticket that was located 34 rows from the field in the corner of one of the end zones (see picture). Sat next to some very nice people. On my right was a guy and his college son who both live in the OKC area. On my left was a nice couple and I spent much of the game talking to all of them about my experiences since moving. There were a few fans in the area that were giving me a bad time but most of the fans were great. Texas Stadium was built in 1971 and this is the last year that the Cowboys will play there as they are building a new state of the art stadium across town. Texas Stadium is old and the time is probably right for a change but it has some great football history and I'm glad I was able to say that I saw it before the wrecking ball pays a visit. Went back to the Corral after the game and danced to the live music of LeFreak, a cover band that was playing a lot of 1970s and 1980s music. Drove home afterward, stopped at Denny's in Ardmore, Oklahoma at 11:00 for my "Thankgiving Dinner" and arrived home at about 1:30 in the morning. Oh yeah, it was raining when I got home so I felt rain drops for the first time in about 4 weeks.

Friday night, another Thunder game and another loss. I was very concerned about this game as I was short staffed, primarily for two reasons: 1) many college students left town for Thanksgiving 2) Bedlam weekend. Bedlam is the Oklahoma version of Apple Cup, Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State in football. Oklahoma State is having a great year so this was probably the most hyped Bedlam game since Barry Sanders won the Heisman Trophy in 1988 and was all everyone talked about all week. I have people working for me that also work for both athletic departments so many of them were very busy this weekend. Anyway, we were able to gather up enough people for a crew and made it through the game.

After the game I got dragged out to the Skyy Bar which is probably the most trendy nightclub in downtown OKC. Anyone that knows me knows I am not a fan of night clubs as many of the patrons are a little too pretentious for me. I really didn't want to go but part of me was curious and one of our people had a connection to get us in for free so I went and actually had a really good time. There just seemed to be a little less attitude than in some of the Seattle clubs I have been in. Not sure I will be a regular at the Skyy Bar but I would not object to going back.

Stayed home last night and watched Bedlam from the couch. Final Score: Oklahoma Sooners 61 and Oklahoma State Cowboys 41.

Suns Are Almost Thunder Struck

Now that I have got my camera hooked up to the computer I am posting another picture. It is of me and 2 co-workers (Oklahoma native Tyler and Seattle native Todd) at the Oklahoma Sooners football game a few weeks ago. Not significant to this post but thought I would put it up anyway.

Latest weather report: I think it might have hit 70 degrees yesterday. Probably won't see it get that hot again for a while but then again, I'm not used to it being that warm in late November anyway. We had a game last night and I spend most of my game days in a large concrete building so I really didn't get to notice the warm sun too much but it was there.

WE ALMOST BEAT THE PHOENIX SUNS LAST NIGHT!! Normally coming close to winning isn't good enough but when your team is 1-14 and many of those losses were by large margins, you will take a moral victory. The Suns came to town last night and beat the Thunder 99-98 but not before the Thunder took a 16 point lead with 2 minutes remaining in the 3rd quarter. The crowd came out to see the stars: Shaquille O'Neal (who did not play but was there is a suit), Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire but what they got instead was a great basketball game. It was a packed house and the fans were cheering loudly all night. It was a fun atmosphere to be a part of.

One interesting note, at halftime they brought an elderly black woman to half-court in a wheelchair to honor her. I didn't know who she was at first but it turns out her name is Clara Luper and she helped organize a peaceful sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in downtown OKC in 1958. Hard to believe that I am living in an area where they had segregated eating areas not that long ago but the nice thing was that she received a great round of applause as well she should. One observation and that is all this is, not a political statement: Oklahoma City seems to be much more desegregated than Seattle and that is something I wasn't expecting when I got down here. OKC seems to have come a long way.

I have what I hope will be some exciting Thanksgiving plans and I will report them either tomorrow night or Friday morning. This might come as a shocker but the plans might involve football. Hope everyone that is reading this (all 5 of you) have a Happy Thanksgiving and are safe over the holiday weekend.

College GameDay in Norman

If I did this correctly, you should see my first ever picture on this blog. Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to post videos on the internet. Baby steps.

We survived the Hornets game!!! It was a very long day at the Ford Center but we made it through the big game against the Hornets. ESPN was there, we closed off Reno Ave out in front of the arena to set up fan interactive events and we had a full house for the big game that started at 8:30. Unfortunately we lost 105-80 and our head coach was fired after the game. I got off of work and left the arena just shortly after 1:00 am and went straight home because I made a decision to get up early the next morning for a little football fun.

Started off Saturday morning by getting up and heading down to Oklahoma University which is about 35 miles south of where I live so that I could watch the ESPN College Football GameDay live broadcast. For those of you that don't know, this is ESPN's live 2 hour show that is on every Saturday morning during the college football season starting at 7:00 am on the West Coast and is the show that for many years has prevented me from getting a good night of sleep in the Fall as I almost always get up to watch it no matter what time I go to bed on Fridays. GameDay always broadcasts live from a college campus and previews all of the big games and stories in college football that weekend. I didn't even know they were in town until Friday and decided at around midnight while still at the Ford Center that I really wanted to go. I asked my Thunder co-worker/friend and fellow Huskies fan Todd if he wanted to go also and he surprised me by saying yes. Todd has been busting his tail off lately at work and had a lot to do for the Hornets game so I figured he would rather sleep in on Saturday but he also wanted to check it out so I picked him up bright and early and we drove on down to Norman.

The GameDay broadcast was a blast, even if it did mean that I only got 4 hours of sleep. I wore my Jake Locker UW purple home jersey and Todd wore his Locker Husky road white jersey so we really did not fit in with the crowd that was 95% Oklahoma Sooners and the rest of the people were there supporting Texas Tech which played OU later on that night. I was yelling and cheering while they did a feature on the Apple Cup and everyone looked at me like I was nuts. Todd did overhear someone tell a friend that they thought it was cool that Washington fans would still show up in Oklahoma to support their team even though they had yet to win a game so I guess we had some respect. What can I say, I still bleed purple and gold.

One of the regular things that you see on GameDay is one or two large Washington State Cougars flags that are always waving on a large pole in the crowd. This was a WSU tradition that was started 6 years ago as an alum was upset that GameDay would never come to Pullman (smart move on their part) so he started finding other alums in each place where GameDay was going and he overnighted the flag to them to waive during the broatcasts. The tradition continues and now it is the only flag poll that the folks at ESPN will allow onto the grounds of the filming. Todd and I went over and found the flag and exchanged some fun Apple Cup banter with the Coug fans that were responsible for it. I even decided that I wanted in on it and since we share the state of Washington, I even waived the flag for a few minutes and had my picture taken with it. The Coug guys were really cool and I enjoyed hanging out with them for a couple of hours.

The Apple Cup was on national TV so I was able to go home and watch it. What a horrible loss!! It has been a while since I got that emotionally involved in a Huskies game and it felt like someone was punching me in the stomach when Wazzu kicked the winning field goal. Husky football is my favorite sports team and I have sort of become numb to all of the losing but this one was different. I really don't want to be the first Pac 10 team in 28 years to go an entire season without winning a game. Now we only have the Cal game left and I'm not giving them much of a chance in that one.

My main team lost a heartbreaker but my new adopted team had a much better night. Oklahoma beat Texas Tech 65-21 later on that night and are now ranked 3rd in the nation. The Sooners still need to win the big "Bedlam" game at Oklahoma State next week but look to be positioning themselves fairly well for a shot at the National Championship game. We will see what happens.

This evening I met up with Todd and his girlfriend Nicole (also a Thunder employee) to watch the last half of the Seahawks game. Ouch, the Seahawks, Huskies and Thunder have now combined to win 3 games and lose 33 games this season.

Hornets Tonight, Cold Turkey and Calendar Girls

Big day in OKC for the Thunder!! We play at home tonight and this game is big for a couple of reasons: 1) we are playing the New Oreleans Hornets, the "other" team. 2) We are playing on ESPN.

The Hornets were the team that temporarily relocated here after Hurricane Katrina and many of the people around here still think of them as their team. It really frustrates me as I can't understand why so many like rooting for another team when they now have their own. I know our team is struggling but it is still the hometown team and the Thunder are here to stay. It should be very interesting to see who gets the most cheers tonight.

I believe this is our only home appearance on ESPN this year so it just makes the game that much bigger. We are closing the street off in front of the arena and are planning some fan interactive events out front. The game starts at 8:30 locally which will give the fans extra time to come by and enjoy the environment so we are going all out.

Yesterday was interesting. We are still experiencing sun however a cold front moved in and it was very cold. I went for a run yesterday and the extreme winds made it very cold. In the last afternoon I participated in the Thunder's Thanksgiving dinner distribution over at a local food bank. Many of the players showed up to distribute dinners to over 200 families (the team provided 300 dinners but not everyone showed up) and my responsibility was to greet people at the door as they entered. I know that sounds simple but IT WAS FREEZING. People inside the building were bundling up and many were giving me a bad time because I had the "cold job". I guess my ears were nice and red by the time we were finished. It was very rewarding though and worth a couple hours of being frozen.

Last night I went over to Buffalo Wild Wings as our Dance Team (the Thunder Girls) were unveiling their new calendar. For those of you wondering, I did not buy a calendar. It just seems a little odd to have a calendar of co-workers wearing sexy clothing so I have never owned a dance team calendar. I did want to support the cause though as I know that a few of my co-workers/friends put a lot of time and effort into the calendar as did the girls. Seemed to be a successful event and I think they ended up selling more than they were expecting.

Got to get ready for the big game. Hope all is well and that everyone back in the NW enjoys the Apple Cup. It will be on TV in Oklahoma so I will be watching.

Gamenight Article and John Rich Sightings

Getting ready to get an evening jog in but thought I would send off a quick blog. Another great sunny day in OKC. I'm not sure when we last had rain but it seems as though we are going on 2 weeks now. I have to be careful with my comments as I don't want all of my family and friends back home to think I am now anti-Seattle but waking up to sunshine each day just makes the day that much better. I miss all of you but I really do not miss the grey fall weather.

Had a good time on Sunday. Went for another run at Lake Hefner and the weather again was outstanding. I then went to a local bar/restaurant with some of my current Thunder/former Sonics co-workers to watch the Seahawks. I only saw the 2nd half of the game but that was probably just as well. Hard to believe that they are continuing to struggle.

After the game I went home to take care of a few things and was then planning on meeting up with Thunder Equipment Manager Marc St. Yves to watch more football. Marc sent me a text message saying that he was hanging out downtown with a couple of our former Sonics co-workers and that I should head over. The Houston Rockets were in town and a couple of them are former Sonics colleagues (player Brent Barry and coach Jack Sikma) so we were hanging out with them at the Bricktown Brewery. I am very anti "name dropping" so I better clarify this one. As many of you know, I'm not as into the whole "hang out and around the player" thing like many people are but Brent and Jack are different. Of all of the players that were ever on the Sonics while I was there, Brent was always one that went out of his way to blend in when not at the arena. He was often a regular at Jalisco's after games and was just one of the gang. Jack's son Jake was a superstar employee on the Sonics Promo Crew for around 4 years up in Seattle and they are just really good people . I remember being nervous about having Jake join our staff way back when because I was afraid I was going to get some kid who thought he could get away with anything since his Dad was a coach and former player but Jake turned out to be the complete opposite. Jake is a super cool, grounded guy that I enjoyed working with and hanging out with after games so I think of Jack as being "Jake's Dad" more than I do about him being a former player or coach with the Rockets. It was really good to see both of those guys as I now treasure running into familiar faces more than ever.

There were only about 10 people in the bar when two guys at another table got up to leave and our server said goodbye to them. She then turned to us and said something like "not every day we have basketball players and country music stars in here". Turns out one of the two men was John Rich of Big & Rich fame.

We then headed out to a smaller bar that had some live music (a group of 3 older guys that sounded a lot like ZZ Top). We were watching these guys play when all of the sudden John Rich and a small group of people walked in and sat about 10 feet away from us. He stayed around for about 20 minutes and then just got up and left. His "crew" waited for about a minute to see if he was going to come back and when they realized he wasn't, they also got up and followed on out the door. Just another Sunday night in downtown OKC :-)

Yesterday we had our home game against the Rockets and the "Gamenight" program that we hand out at the entrances to our fans ran an article on me. It was a very nice article and something I will treasure, even if it does have four pictures of me looking fat. I've lost 5 pounds since I've moved down here but the pictures tell me that I need to lose more.

I do have to laugh a little when I think about these articles. I know that big picture, what I do is much less important to the success of the organization than what others are doing but I do understand the intrigue in regard to reading about a guy that packed up and moved 2000 miles to follow a part time job. I can't help but sometimes wonder what people think when they read about a guy like me. I'm sure there are those that think "good for him, way to follow your heart" but there are certainly others that think "what kind of a person relocates for a part time job, this guy must be nuts". Ultimately it doesn't matter but I still wonder. I'm continuing to enjoy the journey.

Best wishes to everyone!!

Driver's License Rejection,Miserable High School Football and Blogging From Home

I can sum up today in two words: College Football. Very lazy day for me as I have only left my apartment twice. Once to go out for a quick (and chilly) jog and the other was to buy a newspaper. The UW game against UCLA is going to be on live TV starting at 9:15 Central time so I am staying home to root on the Huskies.

Yesterday was kind of interesting. I made the trip up to Edmond (about 15 minute drive) to get my Oklahoma Driver's License only to find out that I do not have the proper birth certificate. I have one that is issued by the hospital I was born in but not a state issued one. Since I don't have a passport (yes, I have never had a passport) I am going to have a birth certificate mailed to me which supposedly could take as long as 7 weeks. I guess that means I have to be an extra cautious driver as legally you need to have a new driver's license within 30 days of relocating to another state.

I also went out and bought a cheap computer table which required assembly. I am definitely not a good handyman and I showed it yesterday. The thing took me forever to put together but I finally did it and hooked up my computer. This is my first blog that I have posted from my apartment and it only took me a month. The table hasn't collapsed yet so I guess I did something right.

I also went out to my first Oklahoma high school football game last night as I went over to Putnam City Stadium to watch a playoff game between Edmond Santa Fe and Putnam City. I knew it was a big playoff weekend so I started going over all of the games in the newspaper and opened up my OKC map to see which games were close by. Putnam City is only about 9 miles so I checked it out. I don't know much about the high school football scene around here and don't know the tradition of either team. There are 3 Putnam high schools that share the stadium and one of them, Putnam North had a quarterback a few years ago named Sam Bradford who is now the starting QB for the Oklahoma Sooners and has a great chance to win the Heisman Trophy this year as well as be the first player selected in next year's NFL Draft. Kind of cool info.
Anyway, the game was a blowout which was great news for me because it meant I didn't have to feel bad about leaving early. Edmond Santa Fe was ahead 29-0 at the end of the 3rd quarter and the only thing worse than the Putnam City offense was the lack of feeling in my hands. It was a cold night and the 20 MPH winds made it unbearable. The weather had been warm up until yesterday but a cold front moved in and consequently it was not a good night to be sitting outside. Nice stadium though.

Saw part of the news earlier today and they said our low temperature tonight is supposed to be 29 degrees but that our high tomorrow will be 64.

That is all for now. GO DAWGS!!

Good Work Day and Sunny Weather

Just got back to the office a little while ago after our 5th regular season home game of the year. We played Orlando tonight and the game was almost over before it started. Durant and Wilcox didn't play tonight and we fell behind by something like 20 points in the first quarter.

From a work standpoint, it was the best night of the year so far. I think we are starting to iron out some of our wrinkles and things are coming together. I enjoyed the job tonight and I don't think I have really been able to say that too much up until this point.

The weather continues to be nice. I went for a 7 mile run up at Lake Hefner yesterday afternoon and it was my favorite one yet. The temperature was about 60 and for a change there wasn't any wind. I wish I could take the November weather here and bottle some of it up for Seattle. I would love to run around Greenlake with that kind of sunshine in mid November. Hope the floods aren't hitting too many people back in the NW and I was saddened to read about the kids that crashed into the Green River. I do miss a lot of things about Seattle but the sun has really made this move much easier on me. I think I have seen rain once in the last 3 weeks and it is nice waking up to sunshine.

Found out the other day that my Dad is coming to visit in a few weeks. My Mom was keeping her eyes open for a good deal and found that Southwest had some good early December rates of $88 flights each way. Early December weather can be hit or miss so we will see what kind of weather greets him for his first ever trip to OKC.

Tornado Watch and A Great Trip to Texas A&M

It has almost been a week since I've blogged so I have some catching up to do.

Wednesday we had a Thunder game and with it came the first "tornado watch" since I arrived. The weather has been great all month (other than the wind) but we had a little rain for all of 10 minutes and talks of a potential tornado for a short time starting at around 4:30 that night. I wasn't too concerned though as I figure the Ford Center is not a bad place to be if we do get the "T" word. The warning was only in effect until 10pm and by the time it passed I was off of work.

Friday I headed to College Station, Texas to go to a Saturday afternoon football game between Oklahoma and Texas A&M. The Aggies of A&M have a very storied football history and tradition and I certainly wasn't disappointed. The drive was just a little under 400 miles each way and I pulled into town just a little after 9pm. Met up with my friend and former co-worker Mark who was in town to meet with a vendor for a few days and we went to a local bar/restaurant to grab dinner. While there the server told us about how the students and fans gather at the stadium at midnight for "Midnight Yell" which is a tradition that goes back over 75 years. It is very similar to a Pep Rally where all of the fans practice the various team "yells" and fight songs. It lasted for about 30 minutes and I would guess that over 5,000 people attended. It was definitely an experience that I would recommend.

The game on Saturday was a blowout but the experience itself was incredible. Oklahoma won 66-28 but the college football atmosphere at Kyle Field is unbelieveable. Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN is on record saying that he thinks the best fans in the nation are at Texas A&M and he might be right. The original home of the "12th Man", just ask the Seattle Seahawks who were sued by the university for using the phrase. The entire student body is constantly participating in various cheers and songs the entire game as they take their orders from cadets that keep them pumped up the entire game. The best part of the game though was their cadet band performing at halftime. Hardly anyone leaves their seats while the band performs and it is a must see if you go to a game down there. I've seen the Grambling State band and I've see the Ohio State band "dot the I" but this was the best college band performance I have ever seen. A long ways to drive for a football game but definitely worth it.

Left College Station at 9pm on Saturday night and got home at 4:15 AM on Sunday night. I did try to get a hotel about 100 miles from OKC but the 3 hotels I tried were full. Drove another 20 miles and pulled into the parking lot of a 4th hotel. As I parked my car I decided to recline the seat back and ended up taking a 45 minute nap. When I woke up I decided that I didn't want to spend any money on a hotel since I was only about 75 miles from home and had a "second wind" thanks to the nap. Drove home and jumped right into bed for a 4 hour "night" of sleep as I knew that I had a Thunder game waiting for me.

Worked our 4th regular season home game tonight. Still a little tired from my trip but my adrenaline is usually keeping me going once I get into the arena so made it through the game. Things continue to get better each game but still are not a smooth as I would like for them to be. We are getting there though and my stress level goes down with each game.

Time to go to bed and make up for the lack of sleep from my trip.

Voting, Car Registration and Tuba Man

I VOTED!!! This isn't normally big news but I wasn't planning on voting when I woke up this morning. My Dad sent me some mail last week that arrived yesterday and as I was going through it I discovered my absentee ballot. I called the Snohomish County Auditor office to see if I was legit (ballot says up to 5 year prison sentence so I REALLY wanted to be sure). I was informed that I could vote so I filled out the ballot, ran over to get 2 of my apartment managers to sign the witness signature lines and headed to the post office.

Also registered my car today. $504.50!!! Just a little more expensive than in Washington State.

A couple of friends forwarded me some very sad news out of Seattle today. Turns out that 5 punks beat up Ed "Tuba Man" McMichael who later died as a result of the attack. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/386267_robert04xx.html

Ed was a great fixture at all sporting events and I was fortunate enough to have a few conversations with Tuba Man over the years. My favorite took place back in the Summer of 1995 when I was working for the Seattle SeaDogs which was a professional soccer team (played at Mercer Arena in 95 and the Key Arena in 96 and 97). We used to set up this big inflatable Dog Head on the sidewalk outside of Mercer Arena before home games and Ed would sometime be hanging out there with us as he awaited the arrival of the crowd. One night he was just talking away when I sarcastically said "I will give you a buck if you play Stairway to Heaven". Tuba Man in his deep voice slowly replyed "You want to hear some Stairway to Heaven Do Ya" and then turned away. There was about a 30 second pause as I turned back to complete the work on the inflatable, figuring that he wouldn't be able to play the Led Zepplin classic and suddenly Ed started playing Stairway. Needless to say, I walked over and dropped a buck into his tuba case. I always made it a point over the years to give Ed some spare change or a dollar whenever I walked by him and his tuba. I hope they catch the other 3 guys that did it because Tuba Man deserved far better. R.I.P Tuba Man and thanks for the memories.

Dislikes About OKC

Today hasn't been quite as eventful as other days so I thought I would include a fun list. It was close to 80 today which was good. I heard Seattle had very similar weather today :-)

So I have mentioned a few of the things that I like already about Oklahoma (traffic, sunshine, cost of living, nice people, obsessive college football state). How about a few things that I don't like as much:

1) It is windy in OKC. Not as bad as my experiences in Ellensburg (not that I am an expert on E-Burg but I have passed through town enough to know that it can be windy) but much more so than Seattle. Even 75 degree days start feeling like 50 degrees when you go jogging.

2) They still allow smoking in their bars and there appears to be a higher percentage of smokers than Washington. No offense to my smoking friends but I'm not a fan of smoking and wish all of you would kick the habit some day.

3) Almost all of the restaurants downtown stop serving food earlier than Seattle. This is not good when you work past 10:00. Seems like the only place you can walk to from the Ford Center and get a meal after a game is either Hooters or Sonic. One has awful food and the other is EVERYWHERE.

4) Business dress attire is way more formal than Seattle. This disturbs me as I start to think about getting a full time job. You see suit and tie outfits everywhere. Do you really have to be that dressed up to do business? I thought this was the 21st century. Where is Bill Gates when you need him.

5) Red dirt is everywhere. It gets blown around by the extreme wind (see #1 dislike) and gets all over your shoes and my car only stays clean for about an hour. There are a lot of car wash places down here and you can blame the red dirt for that.

6) State Income Tax. I don't really dislike this one just yet as I'm sure it has somewhat enabled me to get better pricing on my car and furniture. My Washington dollar goes farther here. A state income tax is probably a good thing but it just means my paycheck will be that much smaller.

7) Haven't seen too many true grocery stores out here. Seems as though you have to get everything from either Wal Mart or Target.

8) Not as many joggers around here. Greenlake always feels so alive and vibrant with activity everywhere and I like that when I am jogging. Lake Hefner can be lonely and the neighborhoods around where I live are lacking sidewalks. Where is the jogging community??

9) Saturday noon testing of the tornado alarms. I really don't hate these, especially now that I know what they are (it went off last Saturday and I couldn't figure out what was going on). I'm glad that they test them but it is also a reminder that mother nature can play dirty when it comes to this part of the country.

I'm sure I have other things that could be on this list but I can't think of any right now. Enjoy!!

First Thunder Victory!!!

2 blogs in one weekend!! Just got back to the office after our 2nd home game. Our staff is still a work in progress but things did go much smoother than on Opening Night (not that it would take too much to top that one). My job seems to have changed a little bit since the Sonics days but I am adapting. I am much more of a behind the scenes guy now and hardly even dealing with anything that is related to what is happening on the court. If it works for the department, it works for me.

WE WON TONIGHT!!! Unfortunately for many of my Seattle family and friends, your wish will not come true and the Thunder will not go 0 for 82 this season. This doesn't mean that the folks of OKC should rush out and purchase their playoff tickets just yet. It was nice to see the team get a victory and watch all of the fans celebrating it afterward.

What is happening to my Seattle teams??? My Dad told me tonight that the headline on the Seattle Times sports paper this morning was 114-0 (combined score of what the Huskies and Cougars lost by on Saturday). I guess they can now change the headline to 140-7 after the Seahawks loss today. Luckily for me the internet on my phone was down all day so I just heard about the Hawks about an hour ago.

OKC National Memorial, Mom Heads Home and Oklahoma Football

Life seems to have slowed down a little now that the first game is out of the way. Ended up staying at the office until 6:00 am after the game Thursday morning and went home to sleep until noon.

Friday my Mom and I went over to where the infamous Federal Building Bombing took place on April 19, 1995 and toured the museum. What an emotional experience. The location is just a few blocks from the Thunder offices and I had already been to the memorial site a few times however this was my first trip into the actual museum. Seeing all of the artifacts, pictures and various other media reports really put it in prospective. One wall had the very famous picture of the firefighter carrying the dead body of little Baylee Almon who had just turned a year old the day before and then you walk around a corner and see an individual tribute to all 168 of the victims and there is another picture of Baylee smiling in one of those ball pools. Suddenly she becomes that much more real and is not just an image in the picture of the aftermath. The museum and memorial are outstanding tributes to all involved in that awful event and it is something that should be experienced by anyone that comes to town.

Headed home that evening to be prepared for the trick or treaters, however we didn't get a single visitor so there is now extra candy in the apartment. Just what I needed.

Mom headed back to Seattle today after her 10 day trip. If it wasn't for her, I would still be living out of boxes right now. Always good to have Mom around and I think she really liked the area. My move has probably not been an easy one for her but she seems to be better with everything now that she has seen that I have landed in a good place and am surrounded by a community of nice people.

I went to my first football game at Oklahoma University earlier tonight. Went with co-workers Todd (Seattle guy) and Tyler (Oklahoma guy) along with Todd's girlfriend Nicole (another co-worker from Seattle). Nicole actually had tickets with another co-worker so just us 3 guys sat together. The drive to Norman is about 30 minutes from OKC. Final score; Oklahoma 62 Nebraska 28. Oklahoma was ahead 35-0 at the end of the first quarter so there wasn't much suspense in the game but we still had a good time. After the game we walked over to a local bar that had a large block party type of environment set up outside with a very large video projector on the side of the building. We ended up watching the last 6 minutes of the game between Texas and Texas Tech on the screen along with probably 500 people. I won't bore anyone with details but Oklahoma really needed Texas Tech to win the game if they are to have a chance to win the national championship. Texas Tech was ahead when we got there but then Texas took the lead with just a couple of minutes left in the game. Texas Tech then drove down the field and scored the winning touchdown with 1 second left in the game and the entire block of people were cheering and going nuts. It was a really cool experience and I'm glad we were able to be a part of it.

2nd Thunder home game tomorrow. This one I'm much more excited about as there should be considerably less chaos and stress. I will let you know how is goes.