Steve In OKC

Seattle Mariners at Texas Rangers and A Trip To Dealey Plaza

2009-08-04T13:56:00.001-07:00

Had been planning on going to a baseball game in Oklahoma City last weekend but ended up watching major league baseball down in Texas instead. That is what you would call a "baseball upgrade".

The famous San Diego Chicken came to town on Saturday night so a handful of us were planning on heading down to the Bricktown Ballpark to watch him but that was before my fellow Seattle Mariners fan Todd asked me if I wanted to head down to Arlington to watch the Mariners play the Texas Rangers. I like the Chicken but the chance to watch the Mariners in a ballpark I had never been to was a little too enticing. We ended up going to watch the teams play on both Friday and Saturday.

Arlington is just outside of Dallas (about 15 miles) and the drive down there usually takes a little over 3 hours. Unfortunately the freeway leading out of OKC is under heavy construction and that combined with Friday afternoon traffic made the commute a long one. We got to the game in the 5th inning and immediate noticed that there were some ugly clouds hanging over our heads. By the 6th inning there was lightning heavy winds were blowing garbage all over the field and the dirt was swirling like a tornado. In the 7th inning the skies opened up and the rain started coming down in buckets. MY FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL RAIN DELAY. That is the beauty of being a lifetime Mariners fan, most of the pro games I have been to have been in the Kingdome or Safeco Field with the retractable roof.

The Rangers were beating the Mariners 5-2 and the rain was coming down hard. I think most of us thought the game was going to be called off early as a game can be considered official after 5 innings. Todd and I didn't have anywhere else to go so we decided to hang out in the concourses with many of the other fans until we heard an announcement. At first most of the 40,000 fans stuck around to see what was going to happen.

The field crew covered the infield while almost everyone else hung out in the concourses to stay dry. A few kids did sneak out to the hill behind the centerfield wall and jumped the fence to slide downhill while thousands of people cheered them on but they were quickly escorted away from the area by security. Over the course of the next hour people gradually started to exit as it didn't look like the rain was going to stop. After over an hour of waiting they annouced that the fireworks show that was supposed to take place after the game was going to take place during the rain delay. Most of the fans stayed up under the covered seats to watch the fireworks but Todd and I decided to sit lower in the rain to show all the Texas fans what us Seattle natives are made of. The favorite line of the night from the Rangers fans that noticed we were wearing Mariners gear was "you guys are used to this weather". We told many of them that we are used to the rain but not the heavy rain that seems to hit the midwest.

The fireworks show was one of the best that I have ever seen and the rain stopped during the show. At the end of the show they announced that the rain delay was over and that they would conclude the game. Great news for us since we were already sitting lower than most of the fans. We decided to sit in the front row right behind the Mariners dugout, figuring that most of the fans were already gone and that we wouldn't be asked to move. Turns out we were right and we watched the last two innings from some of the best seats in the stadium. I even got a couple of pictures of Russell Branyan playing groundskeeper has he grabbed a rake and started shoveling water away from the area in front of the entire dugout. The Mariners made the game interesting but still lost 5-4 as the game ended right around midnight.

Saturday morning we headed into Dallas and went to Dealey Plaza where President Kennedy was killed in 1963. This was my 3rd trip to the historic site but I had never been inside the old Texas Book Depository Museum so we decided to head up to the 6th Floor Museum where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shot. I wasn't expecting to see much in the museum but was pleasantly surprised to find that there was quite a bit in the way of pictures and videos of President JFK's life, the event itself as well as events that lead up to and followed the assassination. It is definitely a Dallas must see.

Saturday night we headed back to the stadium for another game only this time without the rain. We got there a couple hours early to check out the stadium. The stadium is located right next to Six Flags Amusement Park as well as the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. The two stadiums aren't quite as close together as the two Seattle pro sports teams as there are two very large parking lots seperating them but relatively speaking, they are close together.

The Texas Rangers were having their yearly Hall of Fame induction ceremony so they invited many of their former players to the park. There were probaby around 40 former players signing autographs before the game and then a ceremony took place right before the game to induct Toby Harrah and Ruben Sierra into the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame.

The game itself was great as Ken Griffey Jr hit a 1st inning 3 run home run. I didn't think about it right away but it was the first time that I had seen Griffey hit a home run in person in over a decade. Felix Hernandez pitched a solid game and the Mariners won 7-2.

After the game we decided to walk across the parking lot to check out the new Dallas Cowboys stadium which is HUGE. The stadium has a capacity of around 100,000 people and cost over 1.1 billion dollars to build. The glass entrance is imposing and from the windows we could see most of the seating as well as the world's largest scoreboard. Very impressive.

We then hopped into the car and made the drive home, arriving at around 3am. Great weekend of baseball and taking in some of the sites that the Dallas area has to offer.

Oklahoma Panhandle- Guymon and Woodward Thunder Caravan Stops

2009-07-29T12:56:00.000-07:00

Interesting day today. Cloudy and somewhat cool in Oklahoma City and yet Seattle is going to possibly have their warmest day on record. Selfishly I am rooting against breaking the record of 100 degrees set on July 20, 1994. I actually remember that day very well as it was the day before Squatch tryouts for the Seattle SuperSonics and I was responsible for making runs to the airport to pick up the mascot contestants. I was trying to explain to the guys that day that we were all hurting since it was our hottest day ever. I like my story and it won't be as good if the record is broken today and I'm not there.

Thought I was going to have a non eventful weekend last week but then I got a phone call on Wednesday night. I wasn't supposed to go on last weekend's Thunder caravan but a last second cancellation meant I was in. This was the road trip version of the caravan as we were going across the state to visit Guymon (about 260 miles away) and Woodward (130 miles away).

The Guymon apprearance was on Friday morning so we drove over on Thursday and arrived at around 9:30 that night. Guymon is west of OKC in the Oklahoma panhandle where the infamous dust bowl of the 1930s took place. Guymon is a nice little community but it is definitely out in the middle of nowhere. We passed through Woodward to get there but didn't see much in the way of people and places for the final two hours of the drive. Not to say that it looked like a scene out of Grapes of Wrath (don't think the drought of the 1930s had had much effect) but there wasn't much going on. We did pass by the city of Fort Supply which had a jail right next to the main road and had a highway sign that read "Caution, hitchhiker might be escaped inmates". Probably not the place to have your car break down.

Our Guymon event had a huge turnout of kids as we had a visit from a couple different kids groups. The temperature was around 100 and we gave away over 325 hot dogs in our two hours. We then broke everything down and headed 130 miles east to Woodward to spend an evening before our event there the following day. Included a nice picture on here of a family we met on the way back when stopping at a gas station. The kids were excited to see our Thunder fan and wanted to get their picture taken with us.

Once we got into Woodward, our staff went off in two different directions. Three of the ladies went off to a roller skating rink and the rest of us headed over to a place called Crystal Beach for a barbecque. Woodward is a town of 11,000 people and the main street going through town isn't exactly impressive but Crystal Beach is just a few blocks off the main drag and was very nice. It is a large park compex that I am told costs over $25 million. It has a small water park, walking pathes, playgrounds, a small man made lake and an arena for outdoor sporting events. There may have even been other things but those are just the things that I saw. We had a great BBQ with both Thunder and Mid First Bank employees. Mid First brings their large corporate grill to all of our caravan events and Thunder contracted employee Paul made a tradeout with his friend at Cusack Meats so we had an amazing meal at a picnic area. Definitely the highlight of the trip. Afterward we all met up over at the local Woodward bowling alley for some more "fun". Hate to say it but it was probably the worst bowling alley I've ever been to. The floor was extremely slippery, they didn't have very many balls to choose from and the bowling pins in our line where hardly ever lined up correctly. Their staff did provide us with some entertainment as they all went out for a smoke outside and left a 4 year old girl on the counter to eat her bag of chips while dipping her hand in a dirty fish bowl that was sitting on the main counter. Bad parenting and a few of us felt like saying something but what are you going to do. At least the alley was good for an interesting story.

Saturday's event at Woodward was very hot!! I thought I had heard that it was going to be cooler than the Guymon stop but it wasn't. I know that we drove by a bank about 40 miles from there on the way home that said 107 degrees and I would believe it. By the time we were done at 2pm we were drained. We did find a nice place to eat lunch in Woodward and they had big screen televisions that were showing a live MLS game from Qwest Field where the Sounders were playing Chicago. Fun to watch a Seattle sporting event on TV in Oklahoma.

Not too much else to report on for now. As I'm typing this the clouds have cleared out and the sun has arrived.

Aerosmith and ZZ Top in Dallas, 2nd Caravan Weekend and JQ's Japanese Steakhouse Birthday Dinner

2009-07-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Another busy July weekend in OKC. Friday night a handful of us went to Musashi's Japanese Steakhouse for my friend Jason's birthday dinner. You did read that correctly, JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE IN OKLAHOMA CITY. Who knew.

It was a very busy weekend for the Thunder Events & Entertainment Department as the caravan was back on the road and the tryouts for the Thunder Girls dance team were also taking place. I know that some of my co-workers barely had time to sleep this past week so I'm sure the dinner was a nice diversion. We did get a group photo with a handful of cameras and I tried to ham it up a little when it was time to use my camera. Unfortunately as you can see, I failed to give the old school two finger bunny ears to my pal Tyler. How do you fail to give someone ears when they are standing right next to you??? We also managed to have some fun with the statues that stand outside the door. Pictures include me as well as my friend/boss John.

Most of the E & E staff was needed at the dance team tryouts on Saturday so they went to the "bullpen" and had me step in to run the caravan on Saturday. I have to laugh a little when I say run the event. I was put in charge but I had some world class people working with me that were much more versed in the entire routine so the supervisor portion was a breeze. The labor work was still a challenge as summer is in full effect. Fortunately it wasn't as hot as last weekend. We all met at the Thunder office at 5:30 am and made our way to our two stops in Weatherford (68 miles from the office) and Cordell (99 miles away). Another long day but I think a great time was had by all. I'm just glad I didn't ride the elevator while at the office on Saturday morning. Unfortunately my friend Sabrina did later on that morning and ended up getting stuck in the elevator for an hour and a half. Sabrina is the Dance Team Choreographer and the timing was bad as it was probably her busiest day of the year with her tryouts going on. Did I mention that she is also pregnant. Fortunately she made it out safely and the tryouts went on. I'm sure she will have a fun story to share with her child someday.

Since I didn't get enough live music at Rocklahoma last week, I headed down to Dallas on Sunday to see Aerosmith and ZZ Top play at the Superpages.com Amphitheater at the Texas State Fairgrounds. My buddy James invited me to this concert last week and I'm glad he did as we had a great time. We met up with a couple of James' friends: Dubs and Jordan, who like James are students at Oklahoma University. Jordan's parents live a few miles from where the concert was held so we arrived early and hung out there for a while. Jordan's parents are great people and his Mom lived in the Seattle area between 1979-1983. Always fun to meet someone down here with a Seattle connection.

I am not a huge fan of Aerosmith and ZZ Top but I do like them and hadn't seen them before so that was exciting but I think I got even more excited to drive by the Cotton Bowl which is located on the fairgrounds. The Cotton Bowl isn't quite the football mecca that it used to be, the actual Cotton Bowl game isn't even played there anymore as the new Dallas Cowboys stadium will now hold the January game, but it is still a historic stadium that has hosted many great college football games (Oklahoma and Texas will continue to play each other there every year) as well as being the home of the Dallas Cowboys up until 1971.

Jordan made a couple of new friends at the concert (his new female friend will get mentioned in the next paragraph). He and I were walking around the venue when some random guy yelled out to him and flexed his bicep. Jordan has this beat up old Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt that he likes to wear at concerts and the guy saw us walking by. Turns out the guy has a Blue Oyster Cult tattoo on his bicep. he got it in the 1970s. When we were walking back to our seat we decided to stop by where the guy was sitting and got a picture of the two Blue Oyster Cult buddies.

The concert was a lot of fun. The amphitheater was a good old venue and the bands both sounded great. The best time might have been during the break between the two bands. Dubs ran into an ex co-worker and invited their group to sit right in front of us. We had general admission seats on a grassy hill. Their group was drinking the entire time and they were characters. One of the women came back with a margarita and Jordan asked her how it was. Instead of telling him, she decided to turn around and lick Jordan's lips so he could have a better taste. Jordan is the youngster of the group at 19 years old and the woman was 35. She was also attending the concert with her husband who conveniently was not sitting with us at the time. She then grabbed James hand and did a palm reading. For the record, we all decided she wasn't even close on the reading. After the show we drove directly back to Oklahoma City which was over 200 miles away. I got home at 3am.

Another story for the blog might be the things I didn't do over the last couple of days. The softball World Cup was in town and I was going to go to the Championship game between the US and Australia. I asked a few people if they wanted to go and all said no. I debated going by myself up until the very last second but in the end decided to watch it from the couch. The US won 3-1. I also almost ended up going to Tobey Keith's I Love This Bar yesterday to watch the finals of the dance team tryouts. I was going to go but found out 30 minutes before the start that the place was already packed. I didn't have a reserved seat and most of my co-workers that were attending were actually working the event so I again decided to stay home. No fun stories or pictures from those events.

Wakeboard National Championships, Rocklahoma and Thunder Caravan

2009-07-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm a little slow on the blog this week as everything I am written about happened last week. I had an exciting 4 days starting last Thursday as I went to check out the Wakeboard National Championships on Thursday, attended the Rocklahoma music festival on Friday and again on Sunday and I worked the Thunder caravan on Saturday. I have some fun little stories of Rocklahoma that I hope people will find enjoyable, even if you don't like the music.

Thursday afternoon I had a meeting at the Thunder office and immediately afterward drove a few miles on over to the Oklahoma River where the Wakeboard National Championships were taking place. I am not a fan of water sports and don't like participating. Having said that, I still appreciate the talent that goes into performing on a wakeboard. My brother in law loves wakeboarding and heard that the championships were going on in OKC so he suggested that I go check it out. I figured that since I was already going to be downtown that day, I might as well see what it was all about. I got there at around 4:00 pm and it was over 100 degrees out, fortunately I had a pair of shorts and t-shirt in my car so I changed and went on over to see what the best wakeboarders were capable of doing. The championships were going on all weekend so Thursday they were doing preliminary competitions to try to qualify for the championships and I think they called the guys that I was watching the Junior Nationals, I'm guessing they were around 16 years old. Some of those kids were doing amazing things with flips and various tricks. I watched for about 2 hours which was just enough for me.

Friday afternoon I drove 150 miles Northeast up to Pryor, Oklahoma for the 3rd Annual Rocklahoma Festival. Pryor's venue is Oklahoma's version of the Gorge only not quite as scenic (probably more like White River Amphitheater since it is only about 40 miles from Tulsa) and has become the home to one of the nation's best Heavy Metal/Glam Rock festivals in the nation. I know I don't fit the profile but as many of my family and friends know, I grew up on Glam Rock (Heavy Metal, Big Hair Bands, or whatever you want to now call the genre) so having this festival not far from OKC was exciting for me. Much like Seattle, I don't know very many people in Oklahoma that appreciate this music so I went solo.

I was working for the Thunder early the next day so this was quite the commitment as it meant I wouldn't be sleeping much that night. I got to the festival at around 6:30 pm and got to listen to Warrant, Night Ranger and Ratt. I actually saw Warrant and Ratt in Clinton Oklahoma a few months back so my primary reason for making the trip was to see Night Ranger, a band that I have been a huge fan of since I was about 12 years old and have never seen in concert. Warrant was awesome as I knew they would be and Night Ranger was phenominal. Most of the guys in the band are probably in their late 40s but I have a feeling they are a little more conservative than some of the other bands of their era and haven't lived quite as hard as some of them. They were high energy, sounded great and were well worth the trip. I only listened to Ratt through the first 4 songs as I had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of me and had to get up at 4:45 am the next morning. I had a great time and knew that the festival was going on all weekend and that I would be back.

Friday night I got less than 2 hours of sleep as I had to be at the Thunder offices at 6am on Saturday morning to work on the Thunder Caravan. The caravan takes place every weekend during the summer (usually only on Saturdays) and is an event in which we stop off in two different cities throughout the area to set up a carnival type of atmosphere for a couple of hours in order to promote the team. Our events last Saturday also included our mascot Rumble, a couple members from the Thunder Dance Team at each location as well as our play by play broadcaster Brian Davis (the same Brian Davis from back in Seattle).

Our caravan stops last Saturday were in Chickasha (about 45 miles southwest of OKC) and then Anadarko which was 15 miles west of Chickasha. Our day consisted of pulling into the Mid First Bank parking lot at 7am, setting up inflatables, a sport court, hoop, tents, tables, sodas, etc and then we were open to the public from 9:00-11:00. At the end we broke everything down and loaded up the 2 trucks and a van, went to Chickasha and set up all over again in another Mid First parking lot as they are our primary sponsor, open to the public from 3:00-5:00 and then break down and head for home. At the stop in Chickasha we were set up right across the street from JoeBob's Bail Bonds. Don't see too many places named JoeBob's in Seattle. Chickasha's stop was somewhat quiet as it was early in the morning. It also turned out that their annual Fish Derby was also taking place that morning so many potential fans were out catching fish. Anadarko was a much better turnout as we probably had around 250 people show up.

These events are a lot of fun but there is some labor work involved which is tough when it is over 100 degrees out and you are going on less than 2 hours of sleep. I felt faint at times but drank plenty of fluids throughout the day and let my adrenaline carry me. I wanted to go back to Rocklahoma that night as there were a couple of bands that I really wanted to see (Jackyl and Stryper) but I was just too tired to make that long drive and then go to a concert so I decided to head home, rest and get a good night of needed sleep.

Saturday night was a time for sleep so I didn't bother getting up any too early on Sunday. I knew that there were a lot of old school bands playing at Rocklahoma that I really wanted to hear so I hopped into my car and head back to Pryor where I hoped to see Vixen, Bonfire, Nelson, Great White, Skid Row and Twisted Sister.

Vixen was hitting the stage at around 12:30 and were one of the bands I really wanted to see. They were an all girl band that was big in the late 80s and although they no longer have the same lead singer, I still wanted to hear how the old tunes sounded. Unfortunately I got a late start and combined that with a one hour traffic delay going through Tulsa, I missed them entirely. I was bummed but I was still happy with my decision to sleep in.

Sunday was another hot day out, I'm guessing around 105 degrees. A German band called Bonfire was the first act that I saw on the main stage. Apparently they were somewhat popular in the mid 1980 but I had never heard of them. They sounded good though and I thought the lead signed was a little crazy for wearing a jean jacket and jeans in the heat. He did end up taking off the jean jacket and fortunately he kept the jeans on :-)

There was approx 45 minutes between bands and the parking lot was much closer to the stage than say the Gorge in George so I made it a point to use that time to head out to my car, lift the back door, plant my lawn chair in the shade of the door and read a book. That worked out really well. The next band was Nelson, twin brothers Gunnar and Mathew (sons of the late Rickey Nelson of music and Ozzie and Harriet fame). Nelson had a few hits right around 1990 and I've never been a huge fan but I do like them. I sat down to listen to a few songs but used some of their stage time to walk around the grounds, eat, drink and stand underneath the mist tents that were set up throughout the grounds. Don't know what we would have done without the mist.

I also discovered something on Sunday that I didn't realize on Friday which I thought was ingenious. Most of us had General Admission seats which meant we were further away from the stage. They set up this system in the middle of the stage where there was a fence going right out from the stage for about 100 yards and you could get in line to get close to the stage. You got in the line of people and every 3 or 4 minutes the security guards would wave 20-30 people forward and let them get up right next to the stage to watch the band. When your time was up they would make you exit along the other side of the fence to where you were able to either go back to the GA area or you could get back in the line again and work your way back up to the front of the stage for a few minutes. Early in the day when Bonfire was playing, you could stand right up by the stage and not get asked to exit at all. The lines started getting longer throughout the day and by the time Twisted Sister played that night, it took about 30 minutes to keep up to the stage. Great system!!

Great White played next and I had mixed feelings about seeing them. I am a huge fan of their music and had only seen them one other time, about 10 years ago in a club in Seattle. That night they were having equipment problems through the first 3 songs and during the 4th song their lead signer, Jack Russell walked off the stage and never returned. It was a funny night because the guy that was their opening act ended up running onto the stage and sang a few cover songs with the rest of the band so it wasn't a complete waste but I more or less decided that night that they ripped us off and that I wasn't going to go out of my way to ever go see them again. Since that night Great White has gone through so hardships as they were the band that was playing a club in Rhode Island a few years back when a pyro accident caught the place on fire and killed 100 people. Unfortunately I still have not seen them play a great show. They came onto the stage and Jack Russell limped out to the microphone and sounded awful. He was slurring a lot and I seriously wondered if he had possibly had some sort of stroke in the not so distant past. A few songs in Russell started talking to the crowd and told of how he had recently been in an accident and broke his pelvis, back and a bunch of other bones. I'm pretty sure that the slurring was the results of being on pain medication. He mentioned that it was either lay in bed with a drip going into him or play music so he choose music. I commend him for toughing it out but he was definitely not at his best.

Skid Row was next and they were worth the price of admission. They were one of my favorite bands in high school and I had never seen them until Rocklahoma. I was always questioning if I wanted to see them as they had a new lead signer. Turns out he was very good and sounded great singing their old hits.

Between Skid Row and Twisted Sister, I decided to check out some of the side stages. LA Guns was playing at the main side stage and it was packed. They were fairly big for a time back in my teen years and I was a little surprised that they were playing a side stage. I listened to one song and then decided to make my way over to another tent with a stage to check out a band. I walked in and there were only about 100 people listening to this group with 9 guys on the stage (3 guitar players, 1 drummer and 5 signers). It wasn't a very big stage and so they looked crowded but they looked like they were having a great time and they sounded really good. I found out that their name was Bang Camaro and that they are from Boston. I looked them up on the internet when I got home and found that when they play on the east coast closer to home, they sometimes have up to 15 or 20 people up on stage as they like having a big chorus sound. They made a new fan in me and I will definitely make it a point to see them if I ever have another chance.

I'm not a big Twisted Sister fan but I do like them and have always wanted to check them out. Very interesting band. They are very proud (and rightly so) that they have their same original 5 band members still intact and mentioned that a few times. This was also their 25th anniversary of their biggest album so to commemorate it they played every song on in the order that it appears on the album. This made for a few funny moments as lead signer Dee Snyder got a little confused about the order a couple of times and told a story about a song only to find it wasn't the one they were about to play. Interesting band in that Snyder still wears the make up from back in the day (other band members don't) and he also likes to drop f-bombs whenever he speaks. He told the crowd that they only play about 12 shows a year these days so it was cool to see them.

Good times in Pryor, OKC, Chickasha and Anadarko. I have a feeling my next blog might involve yet another concert. Stay tuned.

4th of July Weekend in Kansas City

2009-07-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

My first 4th of July in the Midwest ended up being a great weekend as I headed up to Kansas City with my friends Kasey, Jason and Todd. We left OKC on Friday morning and made the 5 hour drive up to KC for a weekend of fun.

For the first time in 9 years I didn't have to work on the 4th of July. I have spent 8 consecutive Independence Days at Evergreen Speedway, had 2000 off and then worked at the Space Needle on the 4th during 1999, 1998 and 1997. I enjoyed my Independence Day celebration at both jobs but have to say it was nice to be on the other side of things this year.

We left Friday morning and our first stop was in Wichita, Kansas at the Old Mill Tasty Shop, an old greasy spoon that has been serving folks for over 70 years. The waitress was a real character who was probably 70 years old and had the energy of someone half her age. She knew we were making our first trip in and spoiled us with various samples of food and sauces. I ate a huge burrito and had an old fashioned fountain Coke with added vanilla flavor. We then decided that we needed to try one of their famous shakes which were also generous portions. Great meal.

We drove straight to our hotel in downtown Kansas City and were given a complimentary glass of champagne. Not my favorite beverage but it was a nice way to start the weekend. Our next stop was Kauffman Stadium for a baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox. We picked a great night for a game and the crowd was huge for a few reasons. Royals pitcher Zack Greinke was pitching that night and he is having a Cy Young type of year. The crowds have really been showing up when he pitches. It was July 3rd however the two teams were playing an afternoon game the following day so this was the night of their big fireworks show. It was also $1 Night which meant that hot dogs, sodas and programs were all $1. I took advantage of the promotion by enjoying 3 dogs, 2 sodas and a program. We also had complimentary tickets as Jason knows one of the Royals Directors. Gotta like those prices.

We had great seats at the game to begin with however they got even better in the 4th inning when our Royals friend upgraded us to a suite. Nice place to watch the game. In the 8th inning we decided to make a quick lap around the concourses to check out the outfield before the fireworks show. The game went quick and we were able to make it back up to the suite just in time to see a great fireworks show. Greinke is having a great year but this wasn't his night as Chicago pitcher John Danks was the star of the game and shut down the Royals for a 5-0 Sox victory. The fireworks went off without a hitch however the rain that we had all feared all day finally arrived about a minute before the end of the show and we walked back to the car in a downpour.

Got back to our hotel and had to change clothes as we were all soaked from the rain. Not good for a few of us as we mostly brought just enough clothes for a 3 day weekend. Fortunately Jason brought some extra shirts which meant I didn't have to wear one of mine 2 days in a row. The rain stopped and we walked down to the Power and Light District to enjoy some of the Kansas City nightlife. KC has a great set up with many bars and clubs all located within a couple of blocks and there is an open area with a large cover that acts as the hub of everything. Great time.

Started off our 4th of July by heading down to Ted's Montana Grill (owned by Ted Turner) for my first ever bison burger. All 4 of us are affiliated with the OKC Thunder and our mascot is a bison so of course we all had to send text messages to our mascot friend "Rumble" to let him know we were about to eat one of his kind. The burger's texture was very soft and the meat is gamey. I had the blue cheese burger which really drowned out the taste of the bison so I'm still not sure I know what bison truly taste like. Did I mention the burger was 11 ozs. The crew wanted to check out a bar called the Flying Saucer so we then walked over there for a quick beer. I was full!!

Next stop was the College Basketball Experience, a hands on exhibit where people of all ages can look at college basketball memorabilia as well as participate in various basketball contests. We shot free throws, had 3 point contests, dunked on short baskets and played a little pop a shot. Jason then came up with this brilliant idea of challenging these kids (guessing they were about 13 years old) to a little 3 on 3 game. I haven't played a game of basketball of any kind in years. We were going to play to 11 points however one of the kids got a text message and had to leave when we trailed 2-1. Probably just as well as we were all worn out and I don't know how we would have made it to 11 points. Keep in mind we had just eaten a huge burger and drank a beer before playing. I have to admit that it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it.

Grinders was the next stop as we needed to try some more KC cuisine. Grinders is a small restaurant that has also been featured on a couple Food TV shows so it was a must. Basketball, bison and beer left me stuffed and nauseated so I wasn't even hungry but we had to squeeze it in. We ordered a large pizza to share as well as a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. That was way too much food for the way I was feeling so my 3 friends at the sandwich and I just tried a small bite. It was an incredible sandwich and would get a strong recommendation from all of us. We got a pizza that was half "Bengal Tiger" which has an India theme with a green sauce, tandori chicken, crab meat and other things and half "Le Hog", a white sauce, meatballs, ham, canadian bacon and bacon bits. I think we all liked the Le Hog better than the Bengal Tiger however the pizza didn't quite measure up to the sandwich. Apparently the ownership of Grinders is also into obscure art and there are many interesting items inside, one of which is the beer tap that is made out of an air tank. They also have a pole across the street that has old bicycles piled on top of one another. I was sure to include some of these pictures in here as well.

The crew wanted to check out a well known mall while we had time to kill Saturday afternoon and on the drive over we passed the World War I Museum which I didn't realize was in Kansas City. We had about 90 minutes before we had to hit the road and I told the crew that I really wanted to check out the museum which was right across the street from the mall so we agreed to meet up at the car when it was time to leave. We initally seperated but they decided to join me once we realized that the Hallmark Visitor Center was closed (I didn't realize that the famous card making company was also located in KC until our trip). The museum was just closing up so we didn't get to go into the exhibits but we did make it into the lobby and walked around the large monument outside. It also ended up being a great place for pictures as the museum sits atop a hill that overlooks the city.

Saturday night we drove approx 20 miles on over to Kansas City, Kansas to watch a Major League Soccer game between the Kansas City Wizards and Houston Dynamos. The Wizards play their home games at a minor league baseball stadium which made for some interesting configurations. Unlike my traveling companions, I am not a huge soccer fan so this wasn't the highlight of my trip but I still had a lot of fun watching my first professional outdoor soccer game. Houston scored the only goal of the game and the goal scorer ran off the field onto the pitcher's mound, reached into his shorts, pulled out a white glove and performed a Michael Jackson dance move as a tribute. Wasn't quite as memorable as when I saw Terrell Owens pull out the Sharpee at Qwest Field but it was still creative. The hometown fans didn't like it but I found it to be entertaining. After the game we got to go onto the field where we got to watch another fireworks show.

Sunday we were all tired and slept in a little. Once we woke up we headed over to Arthur Bryant's BBQ, a very famous KC eatery. I ordered a meat platter and had sausage, ham and ribs along with fries, bread and a large Dr. Pepper. This wasn't exactly the healthiest trip I have ever been on (I stepped on my scale upon returning home and found that I gained 5 lbs). After lunch we went down the street to check out the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum which was outstanding. I have tremendous respect for the men who played in the Negro Leagues where some of the greatest baseball players of all time played before Major League Baseball started to integrate in 1947 and wasn't fully integrated until the late 1950's. This was a "bucket list" stop and I'm glad we were able to experience it. The only negative was that they do not permit pictures so a picture of me at the entrance was as good as I could do.

We were only in Kansas City for 48 hours but we packed a lot of fun into our short stay. An amazing trip that I won't soon forget.

Hometown Trip- Inaugural Seattle Rock & Roll Marathon

2009-07-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

Back in OKC after a great 6 day trip to Seattle. This was the 2nd time that I've been back since relocating however I was somewhat trapped at my parents home back in December due to the snow. Good to be back home and to see friends and family. I had quite a bit going on this trip so I didn't get to see everyone and apologize to those that I wasn't able to meet up with. Have already heard from a few people that were disappointed that I didn't make more of an announcement however my primary reason for the trip was for the Seattle Rock & Roll Marathon and I didn't want to overdue anything.

I don't seem to have much luck traveling from OKC to Seattle. As I blogged back in December, I almost had to spend Christmas in Denver due to the Seattle snowstorms and was trapped there for 23 hours. This time the delay was due to the weather in Denver. Got on the plane in OKC and sat on the tarmac in OKC for 2 hours while we waited for thundershowers to pass by Denver. The pilot then decided to take us back to the terminal and we waited inside the airport for another hour before leaving.

I booked my trip through an on-line source and my trip was supposed to take me to Denver on Frontier, then to Las Vegas on Frontier and then to Seattle on another airline. My fear was that I wouldn't be able to get the other airline (think it was US Air) to honor the Las Vegas trip if I was late do to the Denver fiasco so I didn't know what was going to happen. When I got off the plane in Denver I immediately went over to the gate where the plane was supposed to be leaving to Vegas and just barely beat another crowd over there that came from another airport and were delayed. I told the woman behind the counter that it looked like they had a lot of people that were needing to go to Vegas and that I could do them a favor and vis versa if they could just get me directly to Seattle. Turns out the plane leaving to Seattle a couple hours later had an opening and I was able to get there without the Vegas trip. THANK YOU FRONTIER!! Ended up arriving in Seattle at around 1:30 am which was a couple hours later than the orignal plan but I did it with one less flight. It did however ruin the original plan of stopping by Dick's for a cheeseburger on the way home but I was able to check that off the list later in the week.

My first day back I swung by my last workplace, Keeney's Office Plus and said hello to everyone. Great to see my former co-workers/friends and to check out the new work stations in the office (Keeney's does furniture as well as anyone so you know it looks good). I then went with my family to the Mariners game. My sister got us tickets from one of her bosses in the 3rd row right behind the team's dugout. Fun to hang out at Safeco Field and watching so many baseball games lately at a minor league park really makes you appreciate a big league park (especially Safeco) that much more. The Mariners won which made it that much more enjoyable.

Was happy to get out to Greenlake on Thursday for an easy jog before the marathon. Have probably done close to 1000 laps around there since 2005 and it was good to get that in while on the trip. I've mentioned this on here before but I don't have anything in Oklahoma that compares to Greenlake. Thursday I also decided to get a pre marathon haircut. They had a radio on in the background and right in the middle of the haircut the woman stopped cutting and looked at me with a puzzled look, she said "who are they talking about" and I said "I think they just said that they are trying to confirm a rumor about that Michael Jackson is dead". Had a nice home cooked meal that night with the family and the rest of the evening was spent watching the MJ coverage on TV.

Friday I grabbed lunch at Fishermen's Terminal with my former Sonics and Storm co-worker/friend Sean. Then went out onto the dock and he showed me his Dad's fishing boat. The two of them along with 3 other family members were setting out to Alaska a few days later to fish for salmon for a couple of months. Was interesting to get a tour of the ship and to see what is essentially their home for 2 months. I don't know how they do it but think it is great and I wish them all well. I then went to the new Seattle Storm offices which are right down the street in Interbay. Great to see friends there but I didn't stay long as I knew it was gameday and a busy time around there. Then hurried over to the marathon expo to check in and get everything that I need for the marathon (bib, running chip, shirt, goodie bag, etc). The Expo was filled with great exhibits and information. Much more organized then what I expected from a first year marathon.

Friday night I went to the Seattle Storm game and had a great time catching up with friends, some that I have worked with for many years. The Key Arena holds a very special place in my heart and that was the one visit that was a must on the trip. A nice crowd came out to see the Storm beat the LA Sparks. I was only going to stay until halftime since I had the marathon the next morning but I was having such a good time that I ended up staying until the end.

Saturday was the Rock & Roll Marathon and I had a great time even if my performance wasn't what I was hoping for. I knew I wasn't in the greatest shape of my life so my expectations weren't exactly high which turned out to be good. My Mom offered to drop my sister (she ran the half marathon) and I at the starting line and that became a little nerve racking when we realized that getting 25,000 runners to a remote location south of Seattle is not that easy. Traffic at the Tukwila exit was backed up for 5 or 6 miles but we made it to the starting line okay and everything went off without a hitch. My Mom, Dad, Uncle, Aunt and a family friend all showed up at to support us. They were at the 9 mile mark to cheer us on, the 21 mile mark and at the finish line. Great to have them there and their support is always appreciated. The marathon itself was an incredible experience. I thought the organizers did an amazing job and I think it will be a success for years to come. The weather was perfect, the bands sounded great and the course wasn't too bad in terms of hills (always going to be some in Seattle) . Got to run along Lake Washington, over the I-90 bridge, through downtown and on the Alaskan Way Viaduct with an amazing view of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains. Great time and who knows, maybe next year I will be back and ready to take a shot at a personal record. Until then I am content knowing that I completed my 10th marathon.

Junked out after the marathon. Had a Dick's cheeseburger on my way home before going home to shower and nap. Then went out to have my favorite pizza with my family at Spiro's. Been craving Spiro's since I moved to Oklahoma. Went to have pizza there the day after Christmas but they were closed so that their employees could have extra time with their families. This time they were open and did not disappoint. Love Spiro's pizza and am already wanting another slice.

As if Saturday wasn't busy enough, I then hopped into the car with my sister and headed out to Evergreen Speedway up in Monroe to see more co-workers/friends. Great to get back there and visit with everyone while watching some racing. The winner of the Figure 8 race that night was Shane Sawin, a friend of ours from high school. He used to race there when I first started working at ES in 2001 but hadn't been racing there over the last few years so we tracked him down in the pits and caught up with him. We were both tired at that point so we headed home before the racing was over.

The rest of the trip was spent relaxing a little with family and friends. Did manage to hang out with a few friends at a local bar on Sunday night but didn't have any massive gatherings. Also had a nice barbecue at my sister and brother in law's house. Will definitely do something big next time. I had fun and only wish it would have lasted longer.

Heating Up in OKC, Shaved Ice, Billy Sims BBQ and Yard Dawgz Football

2009-06-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted anything on here for 17 days so I figured it was time to blog even if I don't have too much to report. Have to admit that it has been a rather uneventful last couple of weeks however there are some exciting things coming up so the next blogs will be better.

The temperature in OKC has been very hot lately, even by midwest standards for June. Sunny and in the 90s have been common over the last couple of weeks and now we are up around 100. Makes running very interesting. I've been doing longer runs on Sunday mornings as I prepare for my next marathon which means I've been getting out early to avoid the heat. Finished up my run on Sunday at around 8:30 am and the temperature was already up around 85. A few Sundays ago I started running at 6am and couldn't believe how hot and humid it already was. I've been doing a lot of evening running lately but usually wait until the sun starts going down. Ran at 9pm a few days ago and it was still 90 degrees out. It has been hot.

One thing that I've discovered around here are shaved ice stands. The stands are very similar to the latte stands that you see in every parking lot in Seattle. I don't want to sound like a complete idiot, yes I've had shaved ice before, but you don't see stands all over in the Pacific Northwest that are devoted to it (would probably only do decent business for a couple of weeks a year). I've become somewhat addicted and it is the ideal treat during a hot day.

One eating spot I tried last week was Billy Sims BBQ. Sims is a football icon in Oklahoma. He was a running back for the Oklahoma Sooners and won the 1978 Heisman Trophy. Oklahoma doesn't forget you when you win a Heisman. I even ordered the Heisman Sandwich which contained pulled pork, a hot link and topped with a slice of bologna. Sims has a few restaurants in the area. I went to the one in Edmond. The food was good and it was fun to look at all of the football memorabilia on the walls. http://www.billysimsbbq.com/

Saturday night I went to check out my first Oklahoma City arena football game. I went to the Cox Convention Center and watched the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz beat a team from Corpus Christi 95-43. The game wasn't close and quite frankly was kind of boring but it was fun to hang out with some friends. The Yard Dawgz have 4 costumed mascots and a couple of the guys worked with us at the Thunder so one of them came into the stands to say hello. Of course I got a picture. This particular character's name is Deizel and I can't say it is the most attractive costume that I have ever seen. Oh well.

Partying with the 2009 Softball National Champion Washington Huskies

2009-06-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Posing with UW National Champions Danielle Lawrie and Ali McWherther hours after they won the title.

2009 National Champions!!! Monday the Huskies played the Florida Gators in Game #1 of the Best 2 out of 3 Naitonal Championship Series and it wasn't even close. The Huskies jumped ahead early and star pitcher Danielle Lawrie held the Gators to only 2 hits as the Dawgs won 8-0. The funny moment in the game was when the umpires prematurely called the game over after the 6th inning. College softball has a "mercy" rule that states that the game is over if one team is ahead of another team by 8 runs or more at the end of any inning once 5 innings are completed. Apparently that rule doesn't apply in the Championship Series but the umpires weren't sure. The players were celebrating and the grounds crew had already removed two of the bases from the field when the public address announcer let everyone know that the game wasn't over. The bases were put back in and the teams finished off the game. Attended the game with my Thunder buddies JB and Stephen as well as my newlywed friends Pam and Sam (the same ones that were on my last blog, got to respect the devotion of going to a softball tournament 48 hours after your wedding).

Tuesday evening was the 2nd game of the Championship series but before I could head over to the softball stadium I needed to make an important trip to a going away party. Two of my Thunder friends, Maddie and Jayquin are leaving the organization and heading back to Seattle so I wasn't going to miss saying goodbye. Both are great friends that will be missed so it was worth going to the softball game late (picture of the three of us above).

On my way to the game my friend Nick texted me to let me know that Florida scored two runs in the first inning so my immediate thought was that we were probably going to lose the game which would mean a 3rd and final game the next night. I met up with my other friends, Pam (this time without Sam as he decided to watch from home), Todd and Pete (both also arrived late to attend the going away party) in the stadium parking lot and we could hear applause coming from the field. Turns out the Huskies scored 2 runs and tied the game before the end of the first inning. Apparently most of the scoring was done by the time we walked into the stadium. The Huskies scored another run in the 4th inning and that was all that was needed. Final score UW 3 Florida 2 and the 2009 National Champions of softball are from Seattle!!!

We stuck around the stadium for what seemed like 30 minutes after the game watching the team celebrate their championship. There was a trophy ceremony at the pitcher's mound and then the girls took turns posing in various groups with school's newest prize.

On my way back to my car I got a text from my buddy JB telling me I should head downtown to have a drink since the going away party from earlier was still going on. Normally I probably would have declined but I was still pumped up from the Championship so I said yes and that ended up being a GREAT DECISION.

I got to the bar and was told that a couple of family members of the softball team had been around earlier but left. I was hanging out with 8-10 of my co-workers that eventually ended up trickling down to 3 of us. Two guys walked into the bar, one of them wearing UW gear so we started celebrating with them. Turns out the guy wearing purple and gold was a Shorecrest grad who now lives in Dallas and drove up to watch the UW win a Championship. A few minutes later 4 or 5 other people walked in wearing Huskies attire and we started yelling and cheering for them. One of the guys was part of the group that was in before my arrival and he came over to talk to us. His name was Brian and he ended up being the brother of one of the players and informed us that the girl at the bar was his sister along with one of her teammates so we started chanting their names and bought them a Washington Apple shot. We figured that was the drink that made the most sense for a Washington championship team.

A few minutes later a couple more players walked in and we gave them the same treatment. Brian was standing with us and I think he got a text, he informed us that most of the junior and senior players that weren't already at the bar were on their way and would be there any minute so we ordered more shots, suddenly a bus pulled up and in walked most of the team including Head Coach Heather Tarr (she is the one posing with me in the picture below) and UW star quarterback Jake Locker. Locker's girlfriend is starting right fielder Lauren Greer, she is the one below in the purple shirt.

The next hour or so we awesome!! There was plenty of drinking, cheering and general celebrating. The girls were really cool and we even made it a point to get some pictures. It was fun watching the players and their families get excited when ESPN SportsCenter started showing highlights of the game. Everyone stayed until closing time. The team had a 9am plane to catch the next morning and I have to think that they didn't get much sleep that night. There might have also been a few hangovers but why not, it isn't every night that you win the National Championship.

Huskies Advance to Championship Series, Pam Marries Sam and WSU Cougars Baseball in Norman

2009-06-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Jake Locker visits OKC!!

The Washington Huskies are playing for the National Championship!!! Okay this isn't my beloved football team or Lorenzo Romar and the hoops team but it is still exciting. Especially since it is the one sport that plays their National Championship each year about 15 minutes from where I live. Tonight the UW softball team will play the Florida Gators in the first game to decide the title. It is the best 2 out of 3 series so no one will get a trophy tonight but a win would put them in a good position.

Friday night I went to two games of the softball tournament and learned that college softball is not always the highest scoring sporting event. The first game was Washington vs Arizona State and after 7 innings (regulation length) the score was tied 0-0. Fortunately the UW was able to score and win 1-0 in the 8th. The next game was Florida vs Michigan and again I got to watch a 1-0 game as the Gators hit a 6th inning home run to win the game. 15 innings and a total of 2 runs. Very exciting. I went to the game with a couple of friends but they decided not to stick around for the second game and I did. I ended up sitting next to and talking with a guy that is the manager of a pro softball team. There are only 5 teams in the pro league and he talked about the team's salary cap and how it is tough to get the better players to join the league after college. He was also telling me all about the players we were watching and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Definitely made the game much more interesting.

Saturday night my friend and former co-worker Pam got married in Wynnewood, Oklahoma which is about 70 miles south of where I live. Norman is about halfway to Wynnewood so I decided to stop off at the University of Oklahoma to check out the college baseball tournament. Going into the weekend there were 64 teams left in the college baseball tournament. 16 different schools throughout the country were hosting double elimination tournaments of 4 teams to determine which 16 teams would be left to play next week. The tournament in Norman consisted of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Washington State and Wichita State. The Cougars of Washington State were playing the Wichita State Shockers at 1pm so I decided to go check them out on my way to the wedding. I am getting more than my share of baseball and softball lately and wouldn't have gone to the game if a team from my home state wasn't playing but I figured I should go support the Cougs. I was hoping to get there in time to see the last 4 or 5 innings but it was a quick game and was in the 7th inning by the time I arrived. I bought a cheap ticket and watched the end of the game from the outfield. The good news was that Washington State won the game 3-2 which ended the Shockers season. The bad news for the Cougs was that Arkansas ended up winning the tournament and gets to continue playing while the other schools are done.

Had a great time at Pam's wedding on Saturday night. Pam worked on the Sonics Promo Crew from 2000-2005 and took at job in Oklahoma after graduating from Washington (Pam and her Mom were both on my last blog as they and the maid of honor went to the softball tournament with me on Thursday). I also got to meet the groom Sam, an Oklahoma native. Seems like a great guy and I wish the two of them all the best. The wedding was short and sweet and then we all headed over to a local winery for the reception. Pam's brother Felix also worked under me on the Sonics Promo Crew and it was nice to hang out with him and meet his wife as he just got married less than a year ago. Also got a chance to meet some other great people from both Washington and Oklahoma as well as see Pam and Felix's parents whom I've been fortunate enough to meet in the past. Great time!!

Sunday was a day of sunshine, outdoors and softball. Met my co-worker Ron at 7am and went for a 16 mile run at Lake Hefner. The weather was perfect for running when we first started but was really warming up by the time I stopped. Would not have wanted to run any later than we did. Summer is coming quickly and it is only going to get hotter. Went home afterward just long enough to shower and head out to watch Washington play Georgia in the softball tournament. The game started at noon and the scenario was that Washington would advance to the Championship if they won the game. Lose and they would have to play Georgia again later that night to determine which team would get into the finals. The game started at 12:00 and an average game takes right around 2 hours, this was not one of those games. Washington got a home run early to take a 3-0 lead and at that point I thought the game was pretty much over. Washington's star pitcher Danielle Lawrie was the national player of the year and averages giving up less than 1 run a game. I figured a 3 run lead was enough and that I wouldn't have anything on my schedule for the rest of the day. The unthinkable then happened and Georgia quickly scored a bunch of runs and was suddenly ahead 8-4 in the 5th inning. It was 90 degrees out and the sun was beating on all of us. One of my friends, Nick decided that he had had enough and left the game figuring it was over. The very next inning the Huskies loaded the bases when Freshman 1st baseman Nikki Williams came up and tied the game with a grand slam. She only hit 2 home runs during the season but has aleady hit 3 in OKC. The game ended up going into extra innings and Georgia finally won it 9-8 in the 9th inning. The game ended at 4:20. What is normally a 2 hour game went for 4 hours and 20 minutes. The combination of the game in the 90 degree heat and my morning running in the hot weather zapped me so I headed home while trying to decide if I wanted to return for the night game.

The final Washington vs Georgia game was originally scheduled for 6pm however the tournament was running behind since our earlier game took so long and the Florida vs Alabama game that was played right after also went long (Florida advanced to the Championship game by hitting a grand slam on the final out of the game for a 6-5 win). Our game ended up starting at 8:30 and I decided that I wanted to be in attendance if the Huskies won so I went back to the stadium. This game was much different in that I couldn't get anyone to go with me and apparently many of the other fans felt the same way. The game I attended earlier in the day had around 8,000 people and I'm guessing that there were around 2,500 for the night game. The one nice thing about fewer people is that you can buy a less expensive ticket and casually move over to the better seats. I sat next to the section where all of the Husky friends and family were located so pretty much everyone around me was wearing purple. The game was also nothing like the other one in that the Huskies jumped to an early 4-0 lead on Danielle Lawrie's home run in the 1st inning (I included a picture of her hitting the home run) and went on to win 9-3. I finally got out of the stadium at around 11pm. Long day.

I also managed to get a picture with UW star Quarterback Jack Locker. Locker is dating Lauren Greer, the starting right fielder on the softball team and was cheering her on. He was having a lot of fun and holding up a shirt with her number on it every time she came up to bat (included in one of the pictures). He was very friendly when I asked for the picture and I told him I would be rooting for them from afar this year. Hopefully I can look at that picture someday and say that I took the picture right before he went on to win the 2009 Heisman Trophy. That would be great.

2009 College Softball World Series- Huskies Win Opening Game!!

2009-05-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today was a day that I marked on the calendar a couple of months ago even though I knew nothing was guaranteed. Today was the first day of the College Softball World Series and my favorite "major" college was in town (must say "major" since my alma mater, Seattle Pacific University doesn't play at the Divison I level with the nation's larger institutions). Eight teams converge on OKC every year with the hopes of coming away as the NCAA National Champions and all season long the Washington Huskies were ranked in the top 3 so I knew that they had a chance to make it to OKC. Last week they defeated Georgia Tech to advance to this tournament and I immediately knew where I was spending today.

All 8 teams played their first game of the tournament today and the Huskies were the very first game. The opponent was the Georgia Bulldogs and I am happy to say that the UW came away with a 3-1 victory. I went to the game with my friend and co-worker Nick as well as three ladies that will be involved in a local wedding this weekend. My friend and former Sonics co-worker Pam is now a resident of Norman, Oklahoma and she is getting married on Saturday. Yes, you read that correctly. The girl is getting married in less than 48 hours but she still came out to support her beloved Huskies. She also brought her Mom Melanie and Maid of Honor Lynn, both in town for the wedding. The five of us snuck on over to where the UW family section was located and found open seats right next to them so that we could all cheer in unison. There was an older gentleman (probably around 70 years old) that was occasionally leading all of us in cheers and we were by far the most exciting crowd that I was around today.

Arizona State played Missouri right after our game so some of their fans were also sitting around us. Four ASU female fans sat a few rows in front of us and they all spiked their hair up as high as they could for the occasion. The hair was so impressive that I made it a point to ask for a picture which I've included.

Our tickets were good for both games however Nick and the ladies decided to take off after our big victory but I stayed . There were quite a few empty seats in the stadium so I decided to wander around a bit and sat in a handful of different places. Spent most of the game sitting in the left field bleachers because hardly anyone was out there and I could really stretch out. The sun was out big time today and unfortunately I got way too much of it. I did finally purchase sunscreen during the second game but it was already too late as my arms, legs and tops of my feet are burnt.

Late in the game I ran into a few friends that work at the Ford Center and was invited into the hospitality tent. I was offered a soda and a hamburger which I ate. Had I known I was going to be in the tent, I probably would not have had the hot dog, pizza, Dr. Pepper and shaved ice that I ate over the previous 4 hours. Oh well, sometime you just have to enjoy the moment and worry about the proper food groups some other time.

ASU defeated Missouri 7-3 which means that ASU and UW will now play tomorrow night. It is a double elimination tournament so whichever team losses will not be eliminated but you still don't want to get that loss that puts you one step closer to ending the season. Should be a fun game.

Draft Lottery Party, Ben Wilson Leaves Thunder and Big 12 Baseball Tournament

2009-05-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Another slow week in the life of Steve. Would love to write about an exciting Memorial Day Weekend but I didn't do too much that would be considered interesting to most (went for a 13 mile run on Sunday morning followed by watching the Indy 500 which is a good day to me but may not appeal to others).

Last Tuesday was the big NBA lottery party at Buffalo Wild Wings and we had a nice turnout for a gathering in which all of us Thunder employees and fans were hoping to find out that we were going to get the 1st pick in next month's draft. It was a festive atmosphere and we even gave away prizes. The guy that won the grand prize in the drawing was even wearing a customized Thunder #23 Blake Griffin jersey (see picture). Griffin is from OKC and will almost definitely be the first player picked in the draft. I guess we know that that guy was wishing for. I mentioned in my last blog that I would include some pictures. They weren't the most exciting pictures ever snapped but regardless, they are included. There was big excitement in the building when we found out that we were one of the final 3 teams with an opportunity to get the #1 pick. ESPN went to commercial to keep all of us in suspense, unfortunately we found out a couple minutes later that the LA Clippers were the winners and that we were going to be drafting 3rd which was still pretty good news since we had the 4th best odds going into the draft and essentially climbed up one spot. Should be exciting to see what we do with that pick on June 26th.

Thursday morning about 30 of us were treated to a very nice breakfast at the Skirvin Hotel to say goodbye to Marketing Director Ben Wilson who decided to leaver our organization after 14 years of service. Ben loved his job but unfortunately Seattle is home and it was time for him to depart now that he has completed a season of helping the team transition to their new home (he had been commuting all season which I can only imagine was a major pain in the neck). This was a special breakfast to me because Ben started off working on the Promotions Crew back in 1995 and I was able to watch him work his way up the ladder the entire way. I even helped Ben get a part time job as a valet at the Space Needle back in the late 90s while he was waiting for a full time job to get offered to him upon completing his Sonics internship. Ben is a talented and bright guy who used his skills and strong work ethic to rise all the way up to a Director a few years back and did it with class and dignity. Ben is a friend and I am sorry to see him leave us but thankful that he is a friend and I wish him well.

Saturday I did manage to get on down to the Bricktown Ballpark and watch Oklahoma play Missouri in the Big 12 college baseball tournament. Two college baseball games in one month for me, not bad for a guy who had only been to one college game in his life before this year and that was while wearing a costume. It was a great day for baseball as the temperature was around 80 degrees and the sun was out. Unfortunately for Oklahoma they came up a little short and lost to the Tigers 5-4. The game was at 4pm and I was debating whether or not to stick around and watch the Texas A&M vs Texas Tech game that was to follow it. Fortunately I made the right decision by leaving. Dark clouds blanketed the sky right after the OU game and apparently a major storm hit downtown as soon as I started driving away (didn't get a drop of rain at my place 15 miles away). The rain and hail were so bad that the final game of the night didn't start until almost 10 pm but I guess the weather for the rest of the evening was nice. Crazy Oklahoma weather. For the record, Texas defeated Missouri on Sunday to win the Big 12 tournament that had been in town all week.

My buddy Jon and I did manage to have some extra fun while walking back to his place after the game. There is a field a few blocks from the ballpark with these statues of bison so we climbed the fence and snapped some pictures which I decided to share.

Tacoma Rainiers, Rumble Appearance, Heavy Winds and A 21 B-Day Celebration.

2009-05-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

Big day for the Thunder today. The NBA draft lottery takes place later on this afternoon and the Thunder have an 11.9% chance of landing the #1 pick. We are having a lottery party at Buffalo Wild Wings tonight which I will be attending and should have pictures to go along with another blog shortly.

The temperature has been nice here lately and is perfect for baseball. The Tacoma Rainiers made their only visit of the year this past weekend so Todd and I decided to wear our Mariners gear and caught the 4pm game yesterday. All tickets are $7 on Mondays and the early start meant that the crowd was small so we were able to get front row seats. I would guess that there were only around 1,000 people at the game which shocked me since it was about 80 degrees. Unfortunately we didn't pick a very good game to watch the Rainiers as they were defeated by the OKC Red Hawks 9-1. It was still fun to hang out at the ballpark and see some of the potential Mariners stars of tomorrow (Clement, Carp, Moore, etc). I also brought my camera and managed to get a picture taken with some sort of cavity-fighting superhero, Captain Supertooth. The ballpark also continued with its major league ballparks promotion by featuring Philadelphia's Citizen's Bank Park so I also included pictures of the liberty bell signs.

Rumble's assistant was out of town this part weekend so I filled in for him and helped out at an appearance. This was my first appearance with Rumble and it was short and sweet. We did a 30 minute appearance at a place called Crystal Lake for a group of around 200 kids that were part of some sort of mentoring program. The kids were all ages and were going to be spending the day fishing, playing on inflatables and various camp type of games. Rumble managed to sign plenty of autographs and I managed to take a few pictures of him holding the microphone for a guy that was teaching the kids how to fish. After the event we went over to Lake Hefner and grabbed lunch at Mama Roja's, a new Mexican restaurant that everyone has been raving about. I thought it was good but wouldn't say it was the best ever.

We did have some interesting weather last week as there were tornado warnings on Thursday night (tornado touched down about 20 miles south of here) and the winds last Wednesday night got up around 60 MPH which made for an interesting night and managed to do some damage around town. The hospital outside my window had damage to the giant cross on top of the building. Not sure what happened but they were tying rope around it the other day and it hasn't been lit up since that night. Bummer since it is a really nice cross that rotates and usually very bright at night.

Also went out Wednesday night at midnight for a quick drink as my co-worker Tyler's girlfriend Lindsey turned 21 (for the record, Tyler is 23 years old). 15-20 people showed up at Edna's which supposedly is the oldest bar in OKC. It is a nice small bar and is known for the dollar bills that people staple all over the walls and ceiling. I only stayed for about 30 minutes but I'm told the rest of them were there much longer and that Lindsey wasn't feeling very good by the time she left. She had already had around 8 drinks/shots when I left and rumor has it she spent some time on the bathroom floor prior to leaving (can't say that I miss those days).

Cinco de Mayo with JB and "TB", Thirsty Thursday Baseball, Kasey's Piano Bar B-Day and Bedlam Baseball

2009-05-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

For a guy that has been somewhat of a recluse over the last few months around OKC, I did alright this past week.

Tuesday was May 5th and of course CINCO DE MAYO!! Didn't have any concrete plans for the evening but ended up hooking up with friends Todd and JB for a trip to a mexican restaurant. Arrived there and grabbed a table next to the bar and after 5 minutes JB decided that the service was slower than it should be and suggested that we go to another mexican restaurant. Somehow the plan changed as we walked out the door and he ended up talking us into going to his favorite hangout which was next door to the place we were exiting. It is a smokey little blues bar and there is nothing Mexican about it (keep in mind it was Cinco de Mayo) but we ended up over there. It was a nice night out so we ended up sitting outside and enjoying a few drinks with a couple of JB's friends that we ran into. The highlight of the night was Todd was wearing a Tampa Bays Rays baseball team hat that has the initials TB on it (see picture) and one of the girls asked him if it stood for tuberculosis. Somehow that turned into her calling him "Todd Berculosis" which ended up being his nickname for the rest of the evening. Todd owns hats for 23 different major league baseball teams and that hat had been one of his favorites but he mentioned that he may not be able to wear it as much any more.

Thursday night I went out with about 15 Thunder co-workers to watch the Oklahoma City Red Hawks baseball team play the Albuquerque Isotopes at Bricktown Ballpark. The Red Hawks are the Texas Rangers AAA minor league baseball team (one step below the major leagues) and the Isotopoes are the Los Angeles Dodgers team. Thirsty Thursday Nights is the local promotion and all beers are $1 up until the 5th inning which was the big draw for many of them. I'm not much of a beer drinker so it isn't quite as exciting to me but I did manage to have a beer. I did have my camera with me but only managed to take a few pics, none of which were worthy of ending up on this blog. Wasn't a good night for the hometown team as they were shut out.

Yesterday was my friend Kasey's birthday so a handful of us went out and celebrated with her by going out for dinner at Abuelo's followed by a great time at the new Bricktown piano bar, Michael Murphy's. Abuelo's had shut down for a while for some renovations and it showed. About 10 of us ordered food and at first only 3 dinners were served, one of them was the wrong order and one had cold food. They took both back so one of our friends had to eat while the other 9 of us waited for a long time for our meal. At the end of the meal the restaurant manager came out and apologized to us for the delay and explained they probably should have stayed closed for a few more days as they weren't completely organized yet and comp'd all of our dinners, minus the alcohol. I was drinking water with my dinner so I ate for free, not bad seeing my entree cost $14.95. We all had a great dinner though and our waitress was from Seattle. Turns out OU has a really good veterinary program so she moved out here to study.

We then headed over to the piano bar where we all had a blast. Kasey had called earlier in the week to reserve tables at the very front of the stage and we were treated to hours of great entertainment. They had dualing pianos and a set of drums along with an occasional guitar. There were 3 main entertainers and they rotated back and worth on the instruments (all 3 played piano, one played drums and one played guitar). Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were playing baseball that night right down the street so they had a contest to see which school would tip the most money to have their fight song played. A person would go up and give $10 for OU and one guy would play the fight song, someone else would then beat the tip for OSU and the other piano player would break into OSU's song. This went back and forth for about 5 minutes and I'm guessing these guys made about $200 during that time. I included plenty of pictures. Kasey is one wearing the black top and her boyfriend Jason (my friend and co-worker) is the one that she has her hands all over :-) The only bad part of the night was that they had Kasey sit up on top of the piano so that they could sing Happy Birthday to her. Kasey had fun with that but managed to fall off the stage when returning to the table. I didn't get any pictures of that but she was okay other than a sore thumb. There is also a random picture in here of me with our waitress. She was a cutey and a lot of fun so I had to include her.

Today my friend Nick (another Sonics/Thunder co-worker) and I headed down to the Bricktown Ballpark to watch Oklahoma and Oklahoma State play another "Bedlam" baseball game. The two teams had played each other on Friday night in Tulsa and last night in OKC and OU had won both games. Today OSU got a little revenge by winning 5-1. Nick was able to get us 2nd row seats on the first base line so I was sure to get plenty of pictures. We also ran into OSU mascot Pistol Pete out on the concourse and had our pictures taken. One of my favorite moments of the game was when it was lightly drizzling out, the woman sitting behind me told her daugther that it was a "Seattle weather kind of day". I turned around and told her we were from Seattle. Apparently her daugther was on the phone talking to the woman's brother who lives in Seattle.

Work Trip to Iowa: Visits to Iowa State University and Kansas University

2009-05-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Glad to be home after a quick trip to Iowa. The company that I am about to start working for asked that I head up to the Hawkeye state for some product training so I made the 600 mile trip via car on Wednesday. They also hired a Southern Missouri Sales Rep named Scott so he and I met up in Kansas City (365 miles into the trip) and made the rest of the trip together.

We arrived to our destination in Iowa at about 10:30 pm on Wednesday night and immediately went to bed so that we could be over at the manufacturing building nice and early Thursday morning. Thursday was spent meeting people and learning all about various bank forms so that we can now go out and actually know what we are talking about when dealing with banks.

We finished up at around 3:30 Thursday afternoon and decided that we wanted to get closer to home so we decided to try and check out of the Super 8 but were told we had already paid for the night so be couldn't get reimbursed. Scott was tired so he went to his room for a nap and I watched some TV before going to get some dinner. The big news of the day was that Iowa State University hired a new wrestling coach. Wrestling is HUGE in the area and the ISU program is legendary so this was a big deal. It was such a big story that they were streaming "Breaking News" along the bottom of the screen while regular TV programing was going on. We were right down the street from Ames, Iowa which is where Iowa State University is located so we decided to head over to the school to check out the area. I was surprised to find a very nice campus and a school that is much bigger than I realized (around 30,000 students). Scott and I are both huge sports fans so we drove over to the football stadium and of course took pictures. Pictures included in this blog are of me at the stadium, me and the statue of Jack Trice who was the first black student athlete at ISU who died during a football game in 1923, the basketball arena, and of me sitting with a bronzed statue of ISU mascot Cy that was located at the alumni building. Told Scott he should also get some pictures so that he could show his wife and two kids but he wasn't having it so I am the goofy one in all of the photos. We grabbed some dinner at Jimmy Jack's and then desert at Dairy Queen and then went to bed early to get ready for a long Friday of driving.

Hit the road around 7am yesterday and took advantage by making a few extra stops along the way. We were listening to sports radio on the way through Des Moines and one of the callers mentioned to the host that he was tired of the rain that they had been having over the past few days. The host then made some sort of comment like "I know, I'm ready for the Spring to finally arrive here in Seattle, Iowa". I guess Seattle is the national expression for a place that gets too much rain. I dropped Scott off in Kansas City and shortly after came upon Kansas Speedway. Would have stopped in KC but was never that close to the downtown area. Wanted to get some pictures of the speedway so I got off the exit and drove around but couldn't find a good spot as all streets leading directly up to the track were blocked. Thought I would stop by their souvenir store but didn't see one so I just snapped a quick picture of the grandstands from the road and kept going.

Lawrence Kansas was also off the freeway on the way home so I decided to stop and check out the University of Kansas. Found the famous Allen Fieldhouse (picture also included on this blog) which is where the Jayhawks play basketball and also took a picture of legendary coach Phog Allen's statue. There is a team shop attached to the fieldhouse and I asked the student employee inside for directions to the football stadium. He told me it would be a decent walk and he was right. Had to walk across campus, up and over a hill before coming to the stadium about 15 minutes later. Good walk which was welcome since I was on a long drive and still had over 300 miles of driving ahead of me.

Came upon the stadium and there were around 100 kids playing on the field with a handful of adults so I walked in and took some pictures. Was actually surprised that the stadium seemed smaller than I thought it would be. It holds over 50,000 people but feels smaller than that. Kansas and Iowa State are in the same conference (Big 12) as Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M and I've been to all 5 football stadiums since moving down here now and the two that I visited this week definitely felt smaller and less impressive than the other 3. I did like the ISU stadium better than the KU stadium though. Also took a picture of the KU practice field right next to the stadium and saw the giant coaching tower right in the middle of the field. I was looking at it and tried to imagine KU Head Football Coach Mark Mangino climbing up the tower. Coach Mangino might be the heaviest coach in all of college sports.

Hit Dairy Queen one more time on my way home as I have yet to see a DQ in OKC. Got there just in time as two buses full of high school students pulled up behind me. Good timing.

Got back to OKC at around 7pm last night, fell asleep on top of my bed while watching TV and slept for 10 hours, surprise surprise :-) Exciting trip but I am happy to be back at home.

Mom's Visit Includes the Oklahoma City Marathon, Lion King and Arts Festival

2009-04-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

A great 6 day visit from my Mom ended this morning but not before we were able to take in an arts festival, musical and the Oklahoma City Marathon.

My Mom arrived on Wednesday around 2pm so we immediately needed to grab lunch and figured we would head downtown and eat at the Oklahoma City Arts Festival. It was day 1 of the festival and the weather was in the low 90s. We grabbed a bite to eat and spent a little time walking around the various tents. On our way back to the car we passed some interesting larger art on the lawn so I decided that we should pose for a few pictures which are included on the blog.

Thursday we went to watch the musical The Lion King and all I can say is WOW!! I had heard from a friend that it is a great show but I still was blown away by the massive production. The costumes were incredible and the way that some of the actors handled the large puppets were amazing. Definite recommendation for anyone who likes great entertainment. The only complaint about the evening was the dinner at Trattoria Il Centro which is an Italian restaurant a couple blocks away for the Civic Center Music Hall. The food was good but the servings wouldn't have filled me up when I was in pre school. My Mom and I laughed about it all week.

Friday we didn't do much unless you consider a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond exciting. I did go for a quick massage that morning since I was two days away from my marathon. Saturday we headed downtown for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon Expo at the Cox Convention Center. They offered a free bus ride that toured the marathon course so we took that which made for a long morning/early afternoon. The bus was running 30 minutes late and then the tour ended up taking around 2 hours. It was fun to hear the race director talk about the course and how he and his friend created the marathon 9 years ago. We then went home and relaxed a little and I got to watch the NFL draft while helping my Mom discover Facebook (my Cousin talked her into signing up so I helped her get some pics downloaded). By the way, Aaron Curry was the player I was hoping for the Seahawks to draft and I was excited to see how they were able to get the Broncos 1st round pick in next year's draft. NICE JOB HAWKS!!

Sunday morning we got up nice and early for the marathon, correction........I was already up. We had to wake up at 4am as the marathon started at 6:30. At 10:30 pm on Saturday night I decided that I needed to start adding new songs to my ipod and didn't get into bed until midnight. I think that knowing I was getting to bed that late created more anxiety than I was ready to deal with so I tossed, turned, read, watched TV and couldn't get to sleep. I did dose off for about 5 minutes at around 1:30 but that was it. I got to the starting line of the marathon with 5 minutes of sleep and that didn't do a lot for my confidence. Did enjoy the time leading up to the marathon. My Mom wanted to get there by 5:30 so that she could attend the church service that was held at the base of the survivor tree which is right next to the starting line. They also sang the National Anthem before the run and then had 168 seconds of silence to honor the victims of the bombing. The Memorial does not receive federal or state funding and the marathon is their #1 fundraiser.

The starting gun went off at 6:30 and it was already around 65 degrees. About 3 miles into the run I noticed that I was sweating a lot more than I normally do and thought that it might be that my body was overtired from the lack of sleep. I wasn't overly fast as I ran the first half of the marathon in 2 hours and 6 minutes (usually run the 1st half of marathons in 1:50-1:55 range). Thought at that point that I was probably going to run a 4:16-4:18 marathon but then things started to turn. My knee started to get sore around mile 14 right as we headed south into the 30 MPH wind along Lake Hefner and by mile 17 my right leg cramped up. I ended up combining running and walking for the last 9 miles as I kept having to stop to stretch out my leg. I did start to notice that for the final few miles there were more walkers than runners and that everyone was starting to cramp up. Turns out that I was sweating so early in the run because it was incredibly humid on Sunday and that many of the marathon participants were in the same boat. Final time was 4 hours 47 minutes and 37 seconds which is the slowest of the 9 marathons that I have completed. My Mom drove my car to two different points on the course to cheer me on, one was at around the8.5 mile mark and the other was after the 20 mile mark. She took pictures which I also included.

All week I was thinking about my favorite OKC restaurant, Iron Starr and how I couldn't wait to eat there as a post marathon reward. Headed over there after going home for an ice bath and nap only to find out that they are closed on Sundays. No worries as my Mom and I instead headed for Cattlemen's for a great little steak dinner. We ended up going to Iron Starr for lunch yesterday.

Drove my Mom to the airport this morning and then went for a post race massage. Discovered a Massage Therapist last week named Julie who is very good at what she does. Julie lived in the Seattle area from the last 80s to the mid 90s so it was fun to hear someone from the Midwest talk about her northwest experiences. Julie has volunteered at the first aid tent of the marathon for the past 6 or 7 years and told me that she has never seen so many people coming in for treatment after a run. Said that this was the worst humidity they have had during any of the marathons she has attended. Gave my legs a good rub down so I am feeling pretty good other than my left foot which is still very sore (has been on again off again all day, felt great earlier but is sore again tonight). Don't think I will be running for at least a few more days :-)

April 19th- Celebration Time: Final Group Run and End of Season Thunder Promo Crew Gathering

2009-04-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

April 19th was a day of a few memorable experiences so I am going to do two posts as my experience at the ceremony for the bombing victims deserves a spot by itself. This post involves happier moments from yesterday.

Started off yesterday by heading over to Lake Hefner for one final 6:30 am group run before next week's OKC Memorial Marathon. This time we ran 8 miles. The temperature was around 50 degrees but the wind made it initally feel like it was closer to 35 when we started. We were fortunate in that it was raining fairly hard when I woke up at 5:30 but had stopped in time for the run. We started our run at the south end of the lake and ran off into a neighborhood that I had never been to. These group runs have become great ways for me to see places around town that I had never been. I would guess that about 150 people showed up for the run and I was even somewhat impressed with my time (don't have many great ways to know exactly how far I am running these days as I usually estimate and don't have an exact gage of how fast I am going). I ran the 8.1 mile course in 68:54 which isn't as fast as I was a couple of years ago but I am weighing around 190 lbs right now which is about 10-15 pounds heavier than I was before. Still much better than when I first moved to OKC, I weighed closer to 200 lbs then and was running even slower. Afterward there was food and beverages laid out on a table in the parking lot at the lake which is always a welcome sight. Thought it was kind of funny that the radio that someone had placed on the table was playing "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne as I headed to my car. Was kind of feeling that way at that point but will hopefully be running on a full tank next weekend :-)

I did include some pictures that I snapped after completing the run. In the picture of me smiling(not to be confused with the other picture that the guy snapped of me as I was trying to get out of the way of a moving car), I am trying to figure out if the guy behind me is enjoying a sports drink or if some sort of running governing body was conducting a drug test that day. What on earth is in his bottle???

Last night I met up with members of the Thunder Promo Crew for a get together at the local Buffalo Wild Wings. A couple members of the crew mentioned at the end of the season that none of us ever hang out away from work and that it is hard for crew members to get to know each other (Sonics crews had more down time and all hung out together quite a bit in a designated break area at the arena). I probably should have set something up during the season but thought it still might be fun for us to have an end of the year get together. 10 people ( 8 crew members, myself and our Events Manager Todd) showed up last night and we had a good time hanging out away from work for a couple hours. Many of them mentioned that we should do another get together later on this summer. They are a great group of people and as disappointed as I have been with many things this season, there are definitely some positives to build on as we look toward next season.

April 19th- A Day to Remember: 14th Anniversary of Federal Building Bombing

2009-04-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

After my group run (mentioned in my other post regarding yesterday's events) I had just enough time to drive downtown to the site of the National Memorial. Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of that terrible day when the federal building was bombed, killing 168 people. The bombing took place at 9:02 am and I knew that there was going to be a ceremony to remember the victims and wanted to attend.

The service started at 9:oo and at 9:02 there was 168 seconds of silence to honor the victims. At 9:05 the silence was broken by church bells from nearby St. Joseph's First Church and St. Paul's First Lutheran. The rest of the ceremony lasted for almost an hour and included a singing of the Star Spangled Banner (color guard provided by OKC Fire and Police Departments), scripture readings by people prominent in the civic and religious community, music and concluded with the reading of the 168 names.

13 different people took part in reading the names as they were read in groups based on what department they worked for or what floor they were presumed located on at the time of the bombing. The people reading the names were all either rescue workers, survivors or family members of those that passed away on April 19, 1995. One of the last groups of names was the children that were in the daycare. That is always the part that I find to be the most emotional. One of the name readers for that group was Bella Kok, a girl that was born after the bombing who read names, the final one being "my big sister Baylee Almon". Baylee was the one year old that was immortalized in the famous picture in which her lifeless body is being caried away from the building by a local fire fighter. Hard to believe that many of the children in that daycare would have been already driving on the local freeways or would be starting to think about things like driver's permits had it not been for the evil person that parked the rental truck on 5th Avenue that horrible morning. One other thing that stood out to me was how long it took to read the entire list of names. I remember at one point thinking "how many more names are there". Just one more prespective as to how tragic that day was.

After the ceremony, many family and friends started to make their way to the Field of Empty Chairs of which there are 168 bronze chairs, each with a name of one of the victims. People were placing flowers on the chairs of loved ones and tying them to the chairs with cable ties as it was very windy out. The hard thing was watching people place toys and stuffed animals at the chairs of the children. I can't imagine what all of these people must have gone through and imagine that April 19th is a difficult date every year.

I walked over to the field and kept looking at the chairs that didn't have anything on them and wondered what their stories were. If perhaps their family and friends had moved away from the area or if they just choose to remember the date in their own way. I'm sure coming back to the site every year is just too painful for some people. I'm sure those people represented in the chairs with no flowers are not forgotten but it was hard not to wonder about the individual stories when you see a chair with many flowers next to a chair with nothing. I had to remind myself that these aren't their grave sites and that the chairs and the location have different meanings to different people.

The wind made it physically uncomfortable to be outside watching the ceremony but it was something that I will never forget and am so glad I attended.

The picture above is of a family that was saying a group prayer around one of the child chairs. I have been inside the Memorial Museum a couple of times but seeing these people that were directly affected by the bombing is what really drives home how real the event was. The other picture is of 3 little kids that were posing for a picture in front of another child chair of someone that was either a relative or a family friend. I felt akward taking these pictures as I didn't want to be disrespectful knowing the meaning that this date holds for these people. There were a few members of the media snapping pictures of the kids so I just kind of snapped one at the same time.

New Job and Trip to Kansas

2009-04-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

On Monday I accepted a new sales job with a company based in Kansas that has decided to expand into Oklahoma and hired me to be their OKC Rep. I will be selling promotional products as well as full line print jobs to companies and organizations . My business cards are on order so for now I am starting to get organized as I will operate out of my apartment and hope to get things truly rolling shortly (my Mom is in town next week so I probably won't really get started until the following week). This will not affect my position with the Thunder as I have had sales jobs while working for the basketball team for quite a few years.

The company is based out of Great Bend which is a small town located in the middle of Kansas (about 275 miles from me) so I drove up there on Wednesday and spent all day and part of yesterday meeting with my new co-workers, getting software installed onto my computer and going over some of our offered products. They also hired a guy to work in Missouri so they showed both of us the ropes at the same time. Nice people, good trip and lots of driving.

I took my camera with me and thought I would get some pictures however I was fairly busy and didn't think about it until I was on my way home. I did have the camera with me in the front seat and decided to snap some pictures when I had a chance (for the record, I only did it when there weren't any cars too close to me and I snapped quickly. I also didn't look into the eye hole so I wasn't endangering myself or others). Not real exciting pictures but they were midwest freeways so what would you expect. One of the pictures at the end of this blog shows some of the vegetation damage from the fires we experienced last week when there were heavy winds.

I did find a great place to eat on the way home. Had lunch at a really good BBQ place in Wichita called Hog Wild BBQ Pit and highly recommend it to anyone passing through. After I crossed back into Oklahoma I came across a Conoco Gas Station/Dairy Queen combo building. I was too stuffed from my BBQ lunch so I wasn't able to enjoy a delicious DQ burger but I did get some ice cream. At least I know that there is a DQ option for my next trip :-)

Not my most exciting blog. My next one will be better.

Final Thunder Home Game, OU Spring Football and Easter Sunday

2009-04-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

Today is the 6 month anniversary of my move to OKC. Hard to believe I have been out here for half of a year now. Time flies.

Watched the Thunder lose by 30 points tonight at Portland. I'm sure some of my Thunder hating friends were happy to see their "new" team beat their "old" team. I still think the Thunder have shown a lot of progress this season and look forward to seeing how much they improve next season.

Friday was our final home game of the season and the team was able to beat the Charlotte Bobcats 84-81. We had quite a bit of activity going on before the game as we shut off Reno Ave. at 2pm and turned the street into a carnival like atmosphere complete with plenty of things for people to do (inflatable toys, basketball sport court for free throw shooting, prize table, live music, etc). I've included some of the pictures. The guy on stilts is Chester and he usually is average height and makes balloon animals but took it up a notch with the legs and basketball hoop for the final game. The rock band is Metal Shop and when I took this picture at 5pm they were doing a cover of "Cherry Pie" by Warrant. The rest of the bands were of more mellow genres but these guys were fun to check out.

After the game many of us headed for one of our favorite post game establishments for a couple of drinks before heading up to the Skky Bar, a nightclub that reserved their VIP Room for the Thunder Staff. Probably about 75 of us showed up and hung out until close to 2am before 9 of us headed down the street for a final game meal at IHOP. Good times.

Saturday my co-worker Tyler and I headed down to Norman to watch the Oklahoma University Red and White football game. Almost every major college in the country has a spring intrasquad game that is open to the public but it is definitely a bigger deal in Oklahoma then at most other schools. Around 25,000 people showed up to check out the 2009 Sooners football team that is expected to be one of the best teams in the country again this year. Tickets for the game were $6.

We had a great time at the football outing. Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford ran onto the field right before the first play of the game and got a huge ovation which was fun. Bradford didn't play very much but when he did he looked really good (not exactly a surprise). They kept score but it was a strange scoring system as it was the offense against the defense. For instance the offense got so many points for a 1st down or a long play, the defense got points for forcing punts and turnovers. In the end the defense won the game 63-36 and as a whole looked better than the offense.

Halftime of the game was fun. The university decided to have a Heisman Trophy presentation for Bradford since it was the first time that he had been suited up at Owen Field since winning the award. It gave the crowd a chance to aplaud him for winning the trophy last year which is awarded to the best college football player in the nation. They also had all of the attending football alumni come onto the field at halftime, line up and introduce themselves with a microphone that was passed right down the line. Probably over 100 players. Some players definitely got bigger cheers than others (Brian Bosworth got the loudest cheers).

I ended up going for a walk around the stadium in the 2nd half and made my way down to the Sooner Schooner which goes out onto the field after every OU score. Washington Huskies fans remember the Sooner Schooner from the 1985 Orange Bowl when it cost Oklahoma a crucial field goal that helped the UW win one of its biggest games ever (4th quarter and score was tied 14-14, the Schooner trotted onto the field after a field goal however there was a penalty that nullified the kick and the referees gave a 15 yard penalty for unsportmanlike conduct to the Schooner taking the Sooners out of field goal range. UW went down on next possession and scored the go ahead touchdown and never looked back). Got to get my picture taken with the Schooner which was fun. Also managed to have my picture taken with the common man statue on the way back to the car.

Easter Sunday was a great day but I have to admit that I don't have any pictures to show for it. I met up at a great church with my friends the Taylors as well as my friend JB and his family that were visiting from out of town and took in a great Easter Service. I think the church had a couple thousand people inside and the special guest was Ben Utecht, a pro football player (Tight End that played for the Indianapolis Colts over the last few years but will be playing for the Cincinnati Bengals this year). He spoke of his faith and then talked about how he is also an aspiring Christian singer. He then mentioned that his good friend was in attendance and called her up to the stage. His friend was Sandy Patty who is a multi grammy winner and is considered one of the legends of Christian Gospel music. She moved to OKC back in January when her husband took a job with one of the large energy companies. Ben and Sandy sang a very nice duet together and the service was outstanding.

We then all headed over to the Taylors beautiful home for Easter lunch. There were about 20 people at the house and I was fortunate to have an outstanding meal with wonderful people. Went home afterward and ended up talking to both of my parents on the phone for an extended time. Easter was a great day and I thank everyone that was a part of it.

Brian Bosworth, Honoring Wayman Tisdale and Former Sonics Employees Visiting OKC

2009-04-10T06:37:00.001-07:00

Final Thunder home game of the season tonight!! It has been a fun and exciting season but I am ready for it to be over. Today is going to be busy as we are shutting off Reno Ave tonight and will have a carnival like atmosphere outside with plenty of things to do for everyone. Should be fun and I should have pictures.

Yesterday I traveled to Independence Kansas for a job interview (time to find a sales position to go along with the basketball gig). Independence is about 200 miles from OKC and I was planning on taking pictures to post on the blog but just didn't see anything worthy of the blog. It was extremely windy in Oklahoma yesterday and there ended up being some bad fires in the area. I had to drive through really thick smoke for about 5 straight minutes and I think I barely made it through as they shut down the freeway shortly afterward.

We had a game on Wednesday night and afterward I went out to grab a beverage with a couple of co workers. Ended up hanging out with former Oklahoma football All American and Seattle Seahawk Brian "The Boz" Bosworth. He lives in the LA area now and it sounds like he goes to a lot of Lakers game as he was providing some solid game presentation ideas to my boss John. He and a handful of us ended up going to a club located directly above the bar we were hanging out in. The thing that struck me about Bosworth was just how down to earth he was. The long blonde hair and football muscles are now gone (not to say he is tiny, you can tell he takes good care of himself and is muscular but he doesn't have the massize bulk that he had back in the day). He seemed like a really nice guy.

The only picture I have for this blog was quickly snapped during a presentation at the game on Wednesday. The Thunder honored Wayman Tisdale for his community service. Tisdale is one of the greatest basketball players in the history of Oklahoma University (2nd pick in the 1985 NBA Draft behind Patrick Ewing). Tisdale had a solid NBA career as a player and last year had part of his right leg amputated due to cancer. He is a very popular figure in OKC and received a nice standing ovation when he was on the court between the 1st and 2nd quarters.

A few Ex Sonics spottings at the arena lately. Wednesday the Spurs were the opponent and one of their Assistant Coaches is Chad Forcier. Chad and I attended SPU at the same time and he started out with the Sonics many years ago as the guy that was in charge of making fresh juice for the players on game nights. George Karl took Chad under his wing and he has been working on benches since (Chad's infamous moment is that he used to work for the Indiana Pacers and was the one with his hand on Ron Artest right before he charged into the crowd in Detroit a few years ago that started a fight with the fans). Last Sunday former Sonics player Sam "Big Smooth" Perkins was in the building for the Indiana Pacers game. Big Smooth is the Vice President of Player Relations for the Pacers now. On Friday my friend and former co worker Giles Dowden was at the game. Giles left his sales position with the Tampa Bay Lightning (hockey) earlier this year and was taking a cross country trip and stopped off in OKC. Antoher friend/co-worker in town a couple of weeks ago was Gentry Davis who was driving from Kansas City to Arizona where she was on her way to start her new position with the Arizona Diamondbacks (baseball). Good to see familiar faces in Oklahoma.

Another 20 Mile Run on Thunder Game Day, NBA Mascots Come to OKC and Litter Pick Up

2009-04-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

My legs got one heck of a workout yesterday!! The Oklahoma City Marathon is in 3 weeks so they hosted their final 20 mile group run starting at 6:30 am. This was the 3rd 20 mile run that we did and none of them were on days that were ideal for me but I still managed to do all 3. The first one was 5 weeks ago and was on the day of a Thunder game, the 2nd was when my sister and brother in law were in town and yesterday was another Thunder game. Always tougher when the Thunder are playing because I always have to hurry home afterwards, take an ice bath to help my leg muscles heal faster and then get ready to head to the Ford Center were I always end up doing plenty of walking. The run went really well other than the fact that it was 40 degrees with a 30 MPH wind and my quads are a little sore today but other than that I feel good. I figured I deserved a reward so I went to an all you can eat pizza buffet for lunch today.

Friday night was our first Thunder mascot night. I usually love mascot night. and enjoy watching them to their thing. Unfortunately it ended up being one of the craziest nights of the season for me as I had one of my smallest staffs of the season and found myself putting out fires all night. We had 10 NBA mascots running around doing silly things and I barely even saw them. I did get a chance to head out to dinner with them after the game and caught up with a couple of the mascots (Denver Nuggets and Portland TrailBlazers) that I've known for years. This is also the point where I have to say that my busy night prevented me from taking any cool pictures of people in costumes. Sorry.

Last Wednesday the Thunder celebrated Green Week and one of the events was to help pick up trash at a local Boys and Girls Club. The event only lasted an hour and I volunteered to help. A handful of Thunder employees (no players, but we did have a couple of the Thunder Girls) were given a garbage bag and rubber gloves and walked around the outside of the building picking up trash with a group of about 50 kids. After we cleaned the area up, the kids went inside to play a game of "trash basketball" which is where they pick up trash from the center of the basketball court, run down to their team's end of the court and make a basket while one of the Thunder Girls attempted to catch it in a garbage bag. Each member of the winning team received a nice basketball made from 40% recycled material. All of the kids were given a pair of tickets to an upcoming game and then got to board the Rolling Thunder Book Bus to pick out a free book. It was a fun event and one that I was happy to be a part of.

One other Wednesday story. It was April Fool's Day and I convinced my buddy Jonathan (Thunder Mascot Coordinator) that I had a prospective mascot appearance for Rumble. I gave him a phone number and told him to ask for Mr Lyon. The number I gave him was for the OKC Zoo. Turns out he didn't call until the next day but I think the person on the other end found it somewhat funny and informed him that the day before they received a few similar calls. My only regret is that I wasn't in the room when he asked a woman at the zoo to actually speak with Mr. Lyon. At the end of the call Jonathan told her who he was and she said he should talk to their PR Department because there could be some potential for a future Rumble appearance. Might be a prank that starts a nice relationship between the two.

Snow Misses OKC, My Own Earth Hour and No Memphis

2009-03-31T16:37:00.000-07:00

I had contemplated doing a number of things exciting last weekend however ended up doing none of them. My big Friday night plan was to head up north about 80 miles to Red Rock, OK to see a rock concert but then heard that we were going to get hit with a bad snow storm and shouldn't risk it.

Apparently April Fools Day came a few days early as the massive snow storm that was guaranteed to hit OKC didn't quite make it. Check out my picture of the incredible Spring snowstorm of 2009 (sarcasm). We were supposed to get hit hard with 4" to 8" of snow Friday night/Saturday morning. The news even had a 100% chance of snowshowers during the 7am Saturday morning hour. I woke up on Saturday morning and the only snow that was on the carport was the thin blanket that had fallen early Friday evening. Perhaps they should say 99% next time as I think of 100% as being a guarantee.

The snow did hit northern Oklahoma. An area about 100 miles northwest of OKC had 25" of snow over a few hours and other communities also got a far amount. It ended up being the 2nd biggest snow storm in Oklahoma state history but missed OKC. I never did hear how much snow Red Rock received. Hopefully it was a bunch so that I don't have to feel as bad about not going to my concert.

Saturday the weather warmed up quickly. I was supposed to meet up with a training group on Saturday morning for a 7 am 12 mile run, however I looked at the hour by hour weather forecast on line and realized that the temperature was going to be 30 degrees at 7 am and up to 60 degrees by noon so I decided to stay in bed longer and went running by myself once it warmed up another 30 degrees.

Saturday night was Earth Hour which isn't something that OKC recognized. I decided to do my part and turned off my TV, computer and all lights from 8:30-9:30. I thought about using that time to go out and get dinner but figured that would be cheating so I stayed around my apartment complex (went for a walk, hung out on my balcony and did some minor reading by candlelight). One of the things I did was mess with my camera. I took this picture of my apartment in the dark and somehow the candles made the exposure look like the place was on fire. Kind of interesting so I included it on the blog.

Almost went to Memphis on Friday morning for a weekend of basketball. One of my co workers was trying to put together a road trip to go watch the NCAA basketball tournament. Friday night Oklahoma played Syracuse followed by Gonzaga playing North Carolina. The winners of those two games played each other Sunday afternoon for the right to go to the Final Four. We thought this would be fun especially since the Zags of Spokane and OU were involved. Tickets were being sold for a reasonable price and my friend had a good source for an inexpensive hotel. I ultimately decided that I wasn't interested enough to drive 475 miles each way and to spend that kind of money. I also was hoping to stick around and enjoy the snow that never happened and was also committed to participating in an on line fantasy baseball draft with my Seattle friends so I didn't make the trip. I don't think I missed much as Oklahoma and North Carolina easily won their Friday games and then the UNC crushed the Sooners on Sunday. Would have been a long way to go to watch 3 blowouts.

I also had thought about going to the Ford Center on Sunday night to watch 2 NCAA basketball games from the women's tournament but decided to stay home and watch them instead. I talked about a big weekend but in the end didn't do much of anything but that was okay.

Yesterday saw more strange weather. Temperature was 77 degrees in the afternoon and not a cloud in the sky. Early evening I looked out my window and saw a large mushroom cloud that started heading in my direction. Within an hour the cloud was a huge dark blanket and for about 15 minutes it rained pretty good. I included a couple of pictures of this as well and you can see the blue skies in the background. Never a dull moment this time of the year regarding the weather.

PLU Students Pass Through OKC and Here Comes Spring Snow

2009-03-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

(picture of Sonics Promo Crew alum: Blake, Trevor, Jacob, me and Isaac)

Bring on the snow!! The temperature has been in the 60s here lately but a cold front is coming in and they are saying we should expect 4"-8" inches of snow between this afternoon through tomorrow morning. 8" would break the OKC record for most snowfall in the entire month of March. I haven't seen a true snowfall since moving here (light snow fall a couple of times that barely blanketed the ground) so I am somewhat excited.

Got a nice surprise yesterday as my phone rang right as I was about to head out the door for a run. Four of the guys that worked for me on the Sonics Promotions Crew were about to be driving through OKC on their way back to Seattle from Dallas. They were in Norman and heading north so I quickly changed out of my running clothes and drove downtown to meet up with them. They stopped off near the Bricktown Ballpark and we talked for about 10-15 minutes before they were back in the car and on their way for 2000 plus miles of driving. All 4 play football for Pacific Lutheran University so I was sure to wear my PLU football hat and get a picture with them. Another teammate of theirs, Nick was also on the trip so I included a picture of the traveling 5 as well.

I was always fortunate to have great crew members in Seattle over the years and keeping in touch with as many of them as possible means a lot. It was great to see the guys and it really made my day.

Quiet week on the basketball front. We did have a home game against the Lakers on Tuesday which is always exciting as many fans show up early to watch Kobe Bryant. The Lakers looked like potential NBA champs as they jumped out to a big lead early and never looked back. Also had our final season ticket holder party on Wednesday night at the Oklahoma History Center. Always fun to see the fans interacting with the players and watching Robert Swift go head to head with one of them in a game of Guitar Hero. Not sure who won.

I had to include a couple more pictures that I thought were fun. I took these last weekend when Stacie and Jesse were visiting. I guess this is called "kite surfing"? Lake Hefner tends to be very windy, especially on the east side of the lake so it is a popular place on the weekend for people looking to combine wind and water. Some of these surfers were getting about 30 feet of air. Looks exciting but it also looks like a lot of work. We watched one couple putting their equipment away and they were having a heck of a time with all of their cables.

Stacie and Jesse Visit OKC

2009-03-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Had a great 3 day visit over the weekend as my sister Stacie and her husband Jesse flew in for a visit from Seattle. Now my entire immediate family has visited me in OKC.

They flew in on Thursday night just as I was getting off of work as we had a Thunder season ticket holder party over at the Oklahoma History Center. Picked them up shortly after 10pm and headed to Bricktown for some dinner. Our intention was to have dinner at a Mexican Restaurant that I was told served food until 11pm however we found out that was not the case. Asked an employee of the place what other restaurants in Bricktown were still serving food and she knew of only one.........Hooters. The "owl" themed restaurant ended up being their first OKC meal. Sorry that I have no pictures of the glorious event. Stacie had been sick the entire week leading up to the trip and I was told no photos that first night because supposedly all of my photos end up on my blogs :-) We also drove over to the Memorial site as it is important for everyone to see it at night.

Friday morning Jesse and I headed over to Lake Hefner for a 4 mile jog before starting out on the rest of our day. The Thunder had a home game so the three of us had lunch at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar before work. Both of them are huge fans of TK so this was a must for the trip. I then dropped them off at the Memorial and headed to the arena (less than a mile away). They went through the Memorial Museum and then walked around Bricktown before heading over to the Ford Center for a night of basketball (Thunder lost to the Jazz). After the game we headed over to Mickey Mantle's to hang out. Half of the bar was full of Thunder employees so it was fun to introduce the family and the co-workers.

Saturday we all slept in to get ready for a big day and night. I gave them a Visitor's Guide and Stacie wanted to check out Western Avenue and the Paseo Arts District. The Western Avenue trip lasted about 2 minutes as we found that the street billed in the guide as having "an abundance of charm and herritage" just didn't interest us. Paseo was better as the Spanish style village did have some nice shops and galleries. The best part of this trip was that we asked someone at one spot where we should go eat lunch and they recommended the Iron Starr Urban BBQ (http://www.ironstarr.com/) where I had one of the best sandwiches ever. Had the BBQ Club with thick slices of turkey breasts and BBQ aioli on grilled texas toast. I also had corn pudding for the first time which is to die for. AWESOME FOOD!! We then drove around OKC and quickly checked out the location of some other landmarks (State Capitol, History Center, Zoo, Remington Park and Casino, Softball Hall of Fame). Didn't have time to go into any of these places, perhaps some other time.

Stacie was still fighting the tail end of her illness so she wanted to go home for a quick nap before our big night out. Jesse and I decided to head down to a bar right down the street while she slept and played a little shuffleboard. Was kind of disappointed that the bar didn't have the Washington-Purdue basketball game on the TV as they were playing their tournament game at the same time that Oklahoma was playing Michigan. The bar didn't have a satellite so we had to watch the score updates in the corner of the screen. CBS did however switch over and show the last 30 seconds of the game so I did get to see the Huskies season come to an end. GREAT SEASON DAWGS!!

Headed to Bricktown on Saturday night to have a quick drink at the Biting Sow, a bar that is known for having good live Blues music. Jesse is a fan of the country band Big & Rich and wanted to say that he had a drink in the same bar that I spotted John Rich in a few months back so we were able to cross that one off of the list. We then headed over to the Stockyards for a great dinner at Cattlemen's. Jesse is a steak afficionado and said the meal was comparable to Daniel's only at about 1/3 of the price. We then headed over to Club Rodeo to drink while watching dancing and bull riding.

Sunday I got up early for a 6:30 am 20 mile run with the marathon training group. I had my share of drinks on Saturday night and only got 3 hours of sleep but surprisingly I felt good during the run. I did sleep well last night though :-) Stacie and Jesse had just woke up shortly before I returned so I cleaned up and we went over to try another restaurant. They mentioned pizza so I got on the internet and some guy listed his Top 10 pizza places in OKC. #1 was a place I had tried (and wasn't overly impressed with), #2 was a little on the fancy side, #3 was Sophabella's Chicago Grill and is only about 7 miles from where I lived so we headed over there. We arrived at 1pm and Stacie noticed that most of the patrons were eating breakfast items which had all of us debating whether or not we still wanted pizza. Jesse and I decided to have breakfast instead (our decision was helped when we found out that the breakfast items came with homemade cinnamon rolls) and Stacie had a personal veggie pizza. I don't do veggie so I was only able to try the crust. Might have to go back again later and try the pizza and I found out that they do all you can eat pasta there on Monday nights. I will be back. We then went over to Penn Square Mall and walked around for a bit before heading home to relax and watch a movie until it was time to take the visiting couple to the airport.

We had a great time hanging out and the 3 days went by way too quickly. Glad they were able to come experience OKC.

Arizona Trip: Baseball, Ostrich Race Tragedy and Thunder Game in Phoenix

2009-03-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! Yesterday was March 16th which marked my 22 year anniversary with the Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder. March 16, 1987 the Sonics defeated the San Antonio Spurs 122-111 and on March 16, 2009 the Thunder defeated the San Antonio Spurs 78-76.

Got back late Sunday night from a quick 3 day trip out to Arizona to spend some time with my parents. Great trip that won't soon be forgotten for a number of reasons.

Friday we went to a Spring Training baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Texas Rangers. Usually I go watch the Mariners play every March however we decided to go check out the Dodgers brand new training facility in Glendale. Very nice place that has a southwestern motiff (will try to never use that word again) with a rust colored stadium. The biggest shocker was that half of the seats were empty. The Dodgers have always conducted their Spring Training in Floriday before this season so I thought the folks in SoCal would flock to Arizona but apparently that isn't the case. Perhaps another sign of a struggling economy?

Saturday had us witness an event that initially appeared to be very tragic. The city of Chandler is near the home that my parents own so we decided to head over and check out their Ostrich Festival. I thought this was going to be a tiny little town carnival however it was fairly large. Lots of carnival rides, food stands, arts and craft tables, entertainment shows and live bands (Foghat, Starship and The Grass Roots were all scheduled to play over the 3 days). One of the main features are the Ostrich Races that take place a few times over the course of the festival so we decided to catch the 2 pm races along with probably 2,000 other people. The very first event was a race between 3 ostriches each with a rider (a man, a woman and a 9 year old kid). The ostriches took off and as they came around the corner the ostrich with the kid came right toward the fence I was near and dumped the youngster. My initial reaction was that the kid could have been hurt and I was grateful he wasn't, unfortunately there was another accident off to my left that I didn't see and the woman rider wasn't so lucky. Her ostrich ran into the metal fence about 20 yards from where we were and she was knocked unconscious. A few seconds later her leg started shaking uncontrollably and the man on the PA system started asking someone to immediately call an ambulance and was asking the crowd if there were EMTs or doctors in attendence. Here is a link to the video that shows the accident but doesn't show the aftermath: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/ostrich-race-accident/4058248597/?icid=VIDLRVNWS03

Apparently she was thrown into the ground and the ostrich landed right on top of her. It was a very scary moment as various people ran to help and we waited for 10-15 minutes for an ambulance to arrive to take her away. They mentioned that she was alert and moving her toes and the show continued on (have since read on the internet that she was later released from the hospital and is doing well). It was a little strange watching the remainder of the show that lasted about 30 minutes but the positive announcement put our minds at ease and we were able to enjoy ostriches and camels race around.

Later that night my Dad and I attended a basketball game in downtown Phoenix between the hometown Suns and my OKC Thunder. The Thunder had an early 10 point lead but the Suns came back and pulled away in the 4th Quarter for a106-95 victory. I still had a great time and posed for some pictures with the Suns player cut outs on my way out the door.

Sunday I went for a 12 mile run late morning in the Arizona heat that kicked my butt. I wasn't ready for that kind of heat and probably should have done out a couple hours earlier. Oh well, I survived. Hung out with my parents and we had a good dinner in Tempe before heading for the airport.

At the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport I ran into my Thunder co-worker Christina as we were on the same flight (picture of Christina and I at the airport is included). She flew out to Phoenix to escort 2 sisters that won a trip to watch the Thunder-Suns game that had been given away at one of our viewer watch parties. Ended up sitting by all 3 of them on the plane and it sounded like they all had a good time.

Big 12 Tournament Comes to OKC

2009-03-12T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am looking out my window and snow is falling. Hard to believe it hit 80 degrees a few days ago and yet it is 31 degrees right now. Strange weather.

Yesterday I attended the first two games of the Men's Big 12 Championship Tournament at the Ford Center. All 12 colleges that make up the conference qualify for the season ending basketball tournament and this year Oklahoma City is the host for both the men's and women's Championships. The women's tournament is starting today and is taking place right across the street at the Cox Convention Center.

The top 4 seeded teams in the Men's tournament received byes for the 1st Round so I didn't get to see any of the big guns like Kansas, Oklahoma or Missouri. I did however get to see #8 Nebraska vs #9 Baylor followed by #5 Texas vs #12 Colorado. I thought the Nebraska-Baylor game would be good since they finished close to each other in the standings however Baylor pulled away early in the 2nd half and won 65-49. Neither team is very exciting or good for that matter so it was a boring game. The game was played at 11:30 in the morning and I would estimate the crowd was about 2,500 people. Starting today they will probably start seeing near capacity crowds, especially for the game tonight between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Texas beat Colorado 67-56 in the 2nd game and the outcome was never really in doubt there either. 2 mediocore games but I still enjoyed checking it out. I won't be able to go to any of the remaining tournament games. GO SOONERS!!

I headed over to the Cox Convention Center after the two games to check out the Fanfest that was set up. Kind of fun to see people walking around and supporting their schools with various clothing and signs. I even got a chance to run into some of the mascots for the schools and sponsors and of course I included pictures. The lowlight was watching a 2 on 2 basketball game. One team had Boomer, the Oklahoma Sooners mascot and a Chick Fil A Cow playing against Chip, the Colorado Buffaloes mascot and another Chick Fil A Cow. Very sloppy 8 minute game won by Chip's team 6-4 on a late basket.

20 Mile Early Morning Group Run, J Styles and Thunderstorm

2009-03-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

When I got home from work on Sunday night I was tired and ready for bed. Springing forward for Daylight Savings Time did not happen on an ideal day.

I was planning on staying home Saturday evening to rest up for Sunday however I found out that the newspaper was incorrect and that the Washington vs Washington State basketball game was not on local TV as reported. A Huskies victory would mean the first outright Pac-10 Championship since 1953 and I wanted to see it. The Thunder were having a watch party at Buffalo Wild Wings near by so I texted my co-worker Todd to see if the Apple Cup game was on TV there and he confirmed it (UW-WSU started at 5pm and the Thunder game was at 7pm so a handful of my co-workers were at BWW getting things set up). I then headed over to BWW and caught the 2nd half of the game while enjoying a tasty Parmasian Flatbread meal.

3.5 hours of sleep Saturday night, that's all I had. I went to bed too late on Saturday night and woke up early so that I could head downtown for a 7am marathon training run with the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. The temperature for the run was in the mid to high 40s and I would guess that around 300 people showed up for a 20 mile run throughout the city (many of the group ran approx 10 miles as they were training for the half marathon). I've never run in a training group before and have to say that I loved it and wish I had done it in the past. Water stations were set up every 3 miles, complete with Powerade, pretzels and Gu as we ran the majority of the marathon course and there was a nice layout of snacks at the end of the run. I'm not someone that talks much when I run and had minimal conversations during the 20 miles but it was just helpful to run in a pack from a psychological standpoint. Also was a great way to see parts of OKC that I had not seen before or in some cases had driven by without paying much attention. Everyone runs their own pace and the group I ran in changed from one water station to the next. Much better than training by myself.

Normally you want to let your body rest after a 20 mile run however the Thunder had a home game on Sunday so I headed home to eat and shower before heading down to the Ford Center. We played the Philadelphia 76ers and easily won the game. The highlight of the night was seeing "J Styles" and his Dad Rick. J Styles is 7 year old Jalen Testerman, an amazing kid from Seattle who is a talented break dancer (type in his name on YouTube and watch his appearance on Ellen last year). J Styles performed regularly at Sonics games over the last couple of seasons and the Thunder flew him out to have him dance for the OKC crowd. I didn't know they were going to be at the game and of course they show up on the night that I leave my camera at home. Jalen performed twice and I missed both of them although I did catch him running off of the court after the first performance and got to hear the crowd applaud his efforts. Good to talk with him and his Dad though before and after the game. Always like to catch up with Seattle familiar faces.

Awesome thundershower here last night. Lots of rain, thunder and lightening which I enjoyed watching from my living room. It was 80 degrees here yesterday but that doesn't keep the elements away. Tis the season and I'm sure there will be other days and nights like this to follow in the not so distant future.

Vandalism, OSU Basketball and Military Appreciation Night

2009-03-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

Vandalism, warm weather and a basketball trip. Interesting week in the OKC. The weather has been warm lately. Mid 80s yesterday and expected high of 83 today.

Last night the Thunder hosted a party at Red Pin, a trendy bowling alley and bar downtown (wrote about it one other time when we celebrated my friend Jasmine's birthday party there). It was an opportunity for our players and coaches to mingle with suite and courtside season ticket holders. It was the nicest evening of the year from a weather standpoint so we used the plaza out in front for an autograph table and everyone had a great time. My primary job was to help direct the players into a secured parking area. Turns out some of our players have really nice vehicles.

Wednesday night the Thunder played the Washington Wizards and it was Military Appreciation Night at the Ford Center. I think I heard we provided tickets to something like 1500 military folks and those that brought military ID were able to get a nice looking coin to commemorate the evening. The Promo Crew handed out mini american flags at the door and we all wore camouflage Thunder t-shirts (pictures from that night are included on the post although you might have a hard time spotting me and my co workers since we are wearing camouflage). Personally I think they should have all military wear nothing but khaki in the midwest as that would be the true camouflage around here right now. Not a lot of green vegetation in the winter.

Tuesday was a day to remember. I parked my car in a small parking lot at Lake Hefner and went for a 45 minute run. When I returned I found that someone had tried to break into my car by breaking out my front passenger window. I didn't have much in the car and nothing was stolen. Turns out I have thick windows and they didn't completely knock it out. Wish I would have taken a picture but I didn't have time. I immediately grabbed the only thing in the car that has any value, my cell phone and called my insurance company. They were able to get a 3 way call going with an auto glass place that said they could fix it that afternoon if I got the car into the shop within 30 minues. They were across town so I quickly drove home to grab my wallet (which I don't take jogging for this very reason), changed clothes and went to get it fixed. The whole thing was inconvenient but not the end of the world.

Before I went running, I was planning on heading home right after the jog to shower before heading north 65 miles to go watch Oklahoma State University play their final home basketball game of the year against Kansas State. I didn't have a ticket in advance so I figured to cancel my trip after my car was broken into as the game started at 6:30. While my car was getting fixed one of my co-workers who is a student at OSU sent me a text message saying she had an extra ticket for the game if I wanted to go. I thought about it for a second and decided I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to see my first OSU Cowboys game because some idiot busted my window so I called her up and told her I would love to go but would have to show up late.

Got to the OSU game with about 2 minutes to go in the 1st half and am very glad I went. It was a great game as OSU won 77-71 and it is always fun to see the final home game of the season in a college arena. OSU has a couple of popular seniors and it was nice to watch the fans cheer for them as they exited the game for the very last time. OSU's arena is very intimate and I had an incredible seat (thanks Katie). We sat near center court, 3 rows up in the 2nd level. The lowest level only has 3 or 4 rows and the wall dividing the two isn't very high so our seats were low and the wall creates a feeling of sitting right over the court. Might have been the best seats I have ever had for a basketball game. Overall it was a great day regardless of someones attempt to ruin it by messing with my vehicle (HA HA BAD PERSON).

Thunder update. We are currently in the middle of our first 3 game winning streak. Very impressive when you consider Durant has missed all 3 game and Green the last 2 games. 13 wins and 16 losses since December 31st when our record was 3 wins and 29 losses.

Tornado Training, Kobe Comes to Town, UW Softball

2009-02-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

Did it really snow again in Seattle?? Supposedly it snows more in OKC than in Seattle however I picked the year that mother nature decided to make Seattle a winter wonderland. It was close to 80 degrees here yesterday however it was partially cloudy and uncomfortably windy when I went for my jog. It was 30 degrees though when I woke up this morning. Can't believe how quickly the weather changes around here.

Monday I went through a one hour training session to get prepared for tornado season. A lot of it was common sense stuff but there was some information that was helpful. They highly recommended that each of us purchase a weather radio which you program for your county and the radio alarms you as to when there is a tornado warning. I guess it automatically comes on and updates you when you are sleeping. Also learned not to go running to WalMart the next time a tornado comes through. I guess I will just resort to grabbing my matress and heading to the bathtub with a bike helmet on.

Tuesday was the Lakers for trip to OKC to take on the Thunder. Turns out a Lakers trip to OKC is no different than Seattle, lots of Lakers purple and gold. I guess Kobe and the fellas are just as popular out in the midwest. They still didn't outnumber the Thunder fans though as you could hear much louder applause during the game when the Thunder were doing well. Lakers won the game but the Thunder made it close in the 4th quarter for a while and everyone had a good time.

One of the stories that ran in the paper this week was that a driver struck and killed a bison on the highway. Sorry Sonics fans, it wasn't Rumble.

I also noticed this week that the Washington Huskies softball team is currently ranked #1 in the nation by ESPN.com. This has me excited because the College Softball World Series is played in Oklahoma City each year. I live about 15 miles from the stadium and you can bet I am planning on attending the tournament if the Dawgs are there in 3 months.

Rumble the Bison's Big Debut

2009-02-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

The new mascot for the OKC Thunder is Rumble the Bison. The anticipation is now over and Rumble is doing a great job of introducing himself to the area. We were at the Ford Center until after midnight last Monday rehersing the halftime introduction.

We all thought that Rumble's unveiling was going to be the news of the day on Tuesday but instead another basketball story gave it a run for that title. Earlier in the day the Thunder pulled off a trade with the Hornets to get Tyson Chandler. Chandler was with the Hornets when they played in OKC for a couple of years and was a huge fan favorite. He has also been on record as saying how much he enjoyed playing in OKC so the fans were very excited about the move. Long story short, Chandler failed the physical the next day (he hasn't played lately due to an injury and apparently there were some concerns) and the trade was rescinded however for one day he was a member of the Thunder and stole some of Rumble's.........Thunder.

At halftime Rumble climbed onto a platform up in the rafters and was lowered onto the court while playing his drums. I never touched the court on Opening Night so I missed out on a lot of the excitement that went on before the game started however I was involved on this one and it was an experience that sent a chill down my spine. We had a full house on Tuesday and hardly anyone left their seats when Rumble entered for the first time and the crowd went nuts as Rumble descinded from high above.

As soon as Rumble landed on the court he trailed our dunk team's train down the court and attempted his first dunk. Unfortunately he didn't make it but it was still exciting. He then ran out to center court and performed a dance routine with the Thunder Girls before coming back over to the basket where a few of us had set up a 16 foot ladder from where he attempted a flip dunk. There is a high degree of difficulty on this dunk and he missed that one as well but it was close and still very impressive. The fans went nuts again and Rumble's entrance was a success even if the inital dunks weren't.

We also had a poster that we distributed of Rumble as fans were leaving. The poster distribution wasn't as smooth as it could have been as I didn't get all of the posters out to the tables as quickly as I should have but we still got them there in the end and gave away close to 15,000 which is unbelieveable for a post game giveaway (my Seattle experiences are that most people are in a hurry to get home or want to beat traffic and usually only about 50-60% of the fans will take the time to grab a poster as they exit the arena). For the record, Chris Paul made a basket with less than 2 seconds to go in the game and the Hornets beat the Thunder by two despite Kevin Durant's 47 points.

The attention that Rumble received the following day was unbelieveable. He made live appearances on every morning news show and was the talk of the town (my sister pointed out to me that it doesn't take much to be the talk of the town in OKC but I think that is part of the mystic of a smaller community). He was even all over ESPN and ESPN2. We was the #9 Play of the Day on SportsCenter and got talked about on all of the ESPN talkshows (FirstTake, Around the Horn, Pardon the Interruption, etc). The one negative was that some of the guys on the local OKC sports radio show were talking about him later that afternoon and decided that it was funny to mention the person inside the costume by name about a half dozen times over a 5 minute window. That person of course is my friend so I called him up right away and told him what was going on. He immediately called our Community Relations Department who had already heard it themselves and called the Program Director of the station to ask them to stop.

Friday night Rumble came out to Buffalo Wild Wings where the team was having a viewing party for our road game against Phoenix. Rumble again was outstanding and I finally found time to get my picture taken with him as well as pics of him signing a pennant on the top of a kid's head and posing for pictures with kids. I've included the pictures on here.

Tomorrow we are being offered a chance to go through a Tornado Prepardness course at work. I definitely showed that I need it after my first tornado two weeks ago so I will be there and will be paying close attention.

Mascot Night Tonight, Fans Win Thanks To Durant, Familiar Faces at Ford Center

2009-02-17T06:07:00.001-08:00

Big time at the Ford Center tonight as the Thunder get ready to unveil our new mascot. We were at the arena until 12:15 last night rehearsing for the big event and I will be sure to include pictures on the next post.

All Star weekend came and went and it was quite the coming out party for Kevin Durant Friday night as he scored 46 points in the NBA sophomores vs rookies All Star game. The Thunder put on a watch party at Coach's, a sports bar up in Edmond which included appearances from our Drum Team, a few Thunder Girls and our in house M.C. The Thunder had 3 players participating in the game (Durant and Green for the sophomores and Westbrook for the rookies) and a drawing was held for a free pair of tickets each time one of our players scored a basket. Fortunately our staff brought along plenty of tickets as many fans were winners thanks to Durant's hot shooting.

Last week's tornado caused me to not write about the previous weekend's events. We had a 3 game home stand last week that included Denver on the 4th, Portland on the 6th and Sacramento on the 8th. All 3 teams have familiar faces which made the games fun. The highlight of the Denver game was getting a chance to say hello to Assistant Coach Tim Grgurich after the game. "Coach Grg" was an assistant coach under George Karl in Seattle during the 90s and has always been very friendly to me over the years whenever I see him at games. I don't really know the coach other than years of seeing him at team functions and in the halls of the Key Arena but he always recognizes me and makes it a point to ask me how things are going. He is one of the true good guys in the league and I always enjoy the opporuntity to say hello.

Portland's Strength Coach is Bob Medina who was also on Karl's staff back in the 90s and I enjoyed a chance to catch up with him for a few minutes when the TrailBlazers came to the Ford Center. Bob is another really good guy and it was nice to hear life is treating him well. Also enjoyed seeing Nate McMillan and Brandon Roy walking through the arena as the "206" was well represented.

Sacramento's Strength Coach is my buddy Daniel Shapiro, another former Sonics employee. The Kings flew in on Saturday afternoon for our Sunday game which meant I was able to take Daniel out to Club Rodeo where a bunch of us were celebrating a co-workers birthday. Daniel is also a Seattle native so hanging out at a bar with a bullriding area was a new experience for him. I've included a handful of pictures on the post of our trip to Club Rodeo. One thing I didn't get a picture of was the suit that Kings player Spencer Hawes was wearing before and after the game. Hawes is a Seattle native and former UW player and wore a yellow suit with a green and yellow Space Needle tie.

Here is a picture of my buddy Stephen playing drums behind his back at Coach's during halftime of the Sophomores vs Rookies game.

Tornado Damage Along Northwest Expressway

2009-02-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Thoughts and prayers go out to the folks effected by the 5 tornados that touched down in Oklahoma on Tuesday. At least 9 people were killed in Lone Grove which is about 100 miles south of OKC and I've heard that 17 counties in the state suffered damage.

I had an opportunity today to see aftermath from the Tuesday tornado that touched down just a few miles south from where I live. I interviewed two college students today for a job with the Thunder and when I called them this morning to give them an opportunity to pick a meeting location near their campus, they said Starbucks on the Northwest Expressway at Rockwell Ave. Even though it is only 5 miles from me, I had never been through that intersection before but knew from watching the news that it was the location of some damaged buildings so I took my camera with me and snapped pictures.

It is mind boggling to see how random the damage is. Northwest Expressway runs east/west and the two most damaged buildings that I saw were on opposite sides of the street and most of the other buildings surrounding them were not even touched.

Chuck E. Cheese's pizza on the south side of the expressway had the most damage. I included two pictures from the building (top of the blog) and is shut down. Quite a bit of damage to the back of the building but fortunately no one was injured. Also took a picture of what was left of the sign for the restaurant and the picture next to it is what is left of the sign for the Italian resaurant that is next door.

The picures below are of a building that has a handful of businesses (Fantastic Sam's, Cricket, Dental Office, one or two others). This complex is on the south side of the street so I am assuming that it was hit before the tornado crossed the street and hit Chuck E Cheese's. This building has a fence going around it and looks as though it suffered quite a bit of damage to the roof. I did see a woman coming out of this building from what looked like a door near the dental offfice entrance however the businesses were not open. The strange thing was that I had lunch at the Chick Fil A right next door which was not damaged and didn't even notice this building until walking back to my car after eating.

Tornado in February!!

2009-02-10T21:50:00.000-08:00

My plan when I woke up this morning was to blog about my past weekend. Things changed in a big way today and instead it is all about a wild afternoon. This is a long post but I had to include everything. Might have to blog again tomorrow about the weekend. I can sum up an exciting afternoon with one word.....TORNADO.

The weather forecast for today was supposed to be for a clear morning with possible late afternoon thundershowers. I drove my car over to Lake Hefner (about 5 miles south from where I live) and parked my car at the north end of the lake ready for a 7 mile run. I started my run at around 1:20 pm and figured I was safe because the weather report had mentioned that we wouldn't probably see rain for a couple of hours. Looking across the lake from the north end I could see there were a lot of dark ugly clouds to the south so I turned on the radio for a few minutes to see if I could get an update on the weather but heard nothing. Figured I would cut my run maybe a little short if the thundershowers kicked in.

The first 45 minutes of my run were fairly uneventful. It was cloudy and the temperature was in the mid 60s and felt pretty good. For the next 7 or 8 minutes it sprinkled lightly but wasn't too bad. When I got less than a mile from my car the clouds became very dark but there wasn't much rain however there was a lot of thunder and lightning. At that point I really wanted to hurry back to my car because the lighning was kind of freaking me out but I wasn't too worried about anything else. I got to within about 50 feet of my car and suddenly the area tornado alarms started going off. They test the alarms at noon every Saturday so I know what they sound like but today was Tuesday and it wasn't noon. I can't imagine how nervous I would have been if the sirens at started earlier in my run when I was as far out as 3 miles from my car. Lucky timing.

Got into my car and immediately turned on the radio. The broadcasters were talking about a possible tornado over near Lake Overhauser and that it was heading north/northeast. Overhauser is about 10 miles southwest so I knew I wasn't in immediate danger but I did realize that it was heading in my direction. It also wasn't a tornado at that point. As I started driving toward home they were updating the storm and mentioned that it was getting closer to where I was and they mentioned that it looked like it was heading toward Mercy Hospital which is directly across the turnpike from where I live (All I have to do is open the blinds in my front room and I stare right at Mercy). They started mentioning that anyone in that area should get inside and get to a place below ground. I live on the 2nd floor of an apartment building so I decided I wasn't heading home and I made a beeline for the Wal Mart about 3 miles east from where I live. Figured a large public place would be well equipt for something like this. Looking back on it now, the Wal Mart doesn't have an emergency storm location and the roof looks like it would peel off rather easily.

Right as I was getting out of my car they mentioned again on the radio that Mercy was in the path and they also started mentioning that the tornado had touched down and debris was seen flying throughout the area. I'm nervous at this point but I noticed that most of the people in WalMart were going about their business as though nothing was happening. I stood right outside the front entrance with a handful of other people and we watched the storm that would become the tornado up north go moving right by us. I never did see the actual tornado swirling but watching the clouds go by, you could tell they were up to no good. Stayed at WalMart for about 15 minutes and then went back to my car to tune in the radio. At that point they were mentioning that north Edmond, about 10 miles north of the WalMart was getting hit pretty hard. Found out later that 6 homes in Edmond were destroyed but that no one was seriously hurt. Also found out that there were businesses damaged about 5 miles south of where I live as as well as 2 or 3 miles northeast of my apartment, kind of freaky when you know damage has occured both south and north of you. They were also saying there was another storm moving up from the south that could also potentially be a tornado. Still didn't really want to go home and I was getting hungry so I went to an Italian restaurant that shares the parking lot with the WalMart to eat. While in the restaurant I was watching other really dark ugly clouds come toward the building. When the clouds closed in on us the building started getting hit with gumball sized hail (saw on the news that some parts of OKC got hit with tennis ball size hail).

Ate my meal and by that time the reports were that there was still potential for tornados but that it wasn't too likely so I headed home and kept a close eye on the news for the next couple of hours as slowly they kept downgrading the chance for another tornado in the area. From 5:00-7:00 tonight there was severe rain, thunder and lightning though and a couple of times the lights flickered (posted a few pictures on here that I took off of my deck right before the rains moved in, didn't have my camera on me when the main tornado passed by me). I did just hear on the news a little while ago that a tornado did hit the south part of the state late tonight and the early report was that at least 3 people were killed. These tornados are serious stuff.

Moral to the story. Don't go jogging to far from your car when the weather is crappy in Oklahoma and be sure to listen to the radio and or TV to determine exactly where the storm and potential tornado are heading. Also makes me wonder why there are people that actually like to get into their cars and chase these things. Not a good idea.

The Color Purple, Clinton Rocks, Go Cardinals, Sooners-Volunteers, Anthony Again

2009-02-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

It was been a week of entertainment diversity since my last post. Here is a quick list:

- Last night Thunder Game

- Monday night, attended Women's College Basketball Game

- Sunday, watched the Super Bowl

- Saturday, attended Heavy Metal Concert

- Friday, attended Jazz Concert

- Thursday, attended Musical "The Color Purple".

Who said there isn't variety in Oklahoma!! Last Thursday I went to see Oprah Winfrey's The Color Purple with 7 of my co-workers (Oprah is the Producer, she wasn't in it). I have to admit that I have become a fairly big fan of musicals over the last 18 months or so and wasn't sure if I would be able to find anyone to go with. I sent out an e-mail to everyone in my department to see if they were interested and I was pleasantly surprised to find that many were interested. The musical was outstanding and we had a blast. The next night about 30 of us went out to a local bar in Bricktown to watch one of our co-workers play in a Jazz band (same group I wrote about in my last e-mail).

Saturday night I decided it was time to have revisit my high school days and drove 95 miles to Clinton to see 3 of my favorite 80's bands: Dokken, Warrant and Ratt. Couldn't find anyone to go with so I drove to the Lucky Star Casino by myself. The concert was in a large tent out in the parking lot (guessing maybe 1500 people in attendence) and lasted for about 4 hours. As you might imagine, there were all types of people at the concert and people watching in between shows was almost as much fun as the concerts themselves. For the record, my favorite band of the 3 is Dokken but they were the least impressive performers. The other highlight of my quick trip to Clinton was that I got to have a Dairy Queen hamburger. Had not seen a DQ since moving so it was a nice treat. Also drove by the Route 66 museum which I didn't know was in Clinton until I drove by it. Will definitely make time to stop off there the next time I am passing by as I've got to think that they have some really cool nostalgic stuff.

Watched the Super Bowl alone. Normally I will try to find a party to attend but I was as eager to hunt one down this year as I actually had a rooting interest this time around and wanted to focus on the game. I am kind of a closet Cardinals fan (I would be a much bigger fan if they weren't in the same division as the Seahawks but I can't control that). The Phoenix area has kind of become a home away from home over the last 8 years since my Mom has spent so much time down there and consequently I like to root for the sports teams when I can. My favorite is the Coyotes of the NHL as I never had to worry about them playing the Mariners, Seahawks, Sonics or Thunder. I just heard on ESPN this morning that the Coyotes are having financial issues so I am keeping my fingers crossed that they aren't the next NHL team to relocate. They play in a great building and it would be a shame to have them go. Anyhow my Mom sent me a Cardinals NFC Champions hat that I proudly wore for a couple of days leading up to the Super Bowl and during the game. I also wore my Arizona Rock & Roll Marathon t-shirt on the day of the big game thinking that maybe it would bring them good luck (see pic). Exciting game and I talked to my Mom at halftime on the phone from Phoenix as we were both bummed about the interception for a TD on the final play of the first half. Thought they were going to pull it out but it wasn't meant to be. My Mom is happy that the game is now over though as she pointed out that it was the only thing that they talked about on the TV down there for two weeks straight.

Monday I got a day of game invite to go to the Oklahoma Sooners vs Tennessee Volunteers women's basketball game at the Ford Center. This was a huge game for a number of reasons. Going into the game OU was ranked #2 in the nation and TU was #15. The Lady Vols are catched by LEGEND Pat Summit how is the winningest coach in the history of either men's and women's college basketball. Summit had 999 wins coming into the game so she was trying to be the first to get the big 1000. ESPN aired the game and the broadcasters were Brent Musberger, Nancy Lieberman Cline (however you spell her name, I should know since she is one of the greatest female baskeball players of all time) and the winningest Men's coach ever, Bobby Knight. I sat 8 rows behind them and included a nice picture here of the backs of their heads. It looked good for her early as they had a 33-18 lead before OU woke up and scored the next 19 points to take the lead. OU pulled away in the last half and won 80-70. The other big news of the game was that OU star player Courtney Paris only scored 9 points which broke her NCAA record streak of 112 straight double doubles (meaning she had scored at least 10 points and grabbed at least 10 rebounds in 112 straight games). Everyone in the building knew she was one point away for the final 90 seconds and the crowd started going nuts every time she touched the ball. She finally fouled out of the game with 30 seconds to go and the crowd over around 15,000 gave her a standing ovation and started chanting her first name. Great game.

Last night was a Deja Vu moment for the Thunder. Last month Kevin Durant put us ahead of the Nuggets in the Ford Center on a 3 point shot with 3 seconds to go in a game but then Carmelo Anthony hit a 3 point shot at the buzzer to beat us. Last night Durant made a 2 point shot with 17 seconds left to give us the lead but Anthony came back down the court and made a basket with 5 seconds to go to give the Nuggets a 1 point victory. Fortunately we don't play the Nuggets again this season in OKC so there won't be any more Anthony heroics in our house for a while.

Ice Storm Hits OKC and Makes For A Quiet Thunder Game

2009-01-28T06:13:00.000-08:00

Greetings from OKC where the current temperature is 8F. We are in day 3 of our winter storm however there is hope as we aren't expecting any more precipitation and the high temperature is going to be around 35 today, 45 tomorrow and then into the 50s and possibly 60 by the weekend. We have had over 1.5" of sleet, ice and snow over the last few days which have brought the city to a halt.

Monday was one of the more interesting basketball games I have ever worked as we had a nice ice storm earlier that morning. The temperature that day was in the 20s and yet somehow it rained (I always grew up thinking that any precip on a below freezing day would fall from the sky in the form of large white flakes called "snow"). Of course as soon as the rain hit it froze over so sidewalks and roads were icy. I knew it was going to be an interesting day when I took a tumble walking out to my car. Walking was worse than driving since no one puts salt on the sidewalks. I heard on the news that over 150 people needed ambulance assistance around town due to pedistrian accidents and one of the local postal workers is intensive care after she fell on a sidewalk while delivering mail. This stuff is no joke.

I drove to the Ford Center on Monday at around 1:00 and was surprised that the freeway wasn't that bad. A large part of that had to do with the fact that there weren't a lot of cars out by that time so travel wasn't bad as long as I didn't go faster than 45 MPH and kept my distance from other vehicles. The worst part was walking the 2 blocks from my car to the Ford Center as I felt I was going to fall again with every step. A few employees started calling me to let me know they couldn't make it which really stressed me out since we were giving out roses and mini-banners to the fans entering the game as well as our usual game night rosters. Turned out I wasn't alone as many of the other employees around the Ford Center didn't make it in either and neither did many of the fans. We ended up having less than 5,000 people show up for the game (building holds 19,000 and is usually filled mostly to capacity). In the first quarter we moved the fans that were sitting in the upper bowl down to the lower bowl and there were still plenty of seats. I tried to show it in a picture but my camera flash isn't very good. The building felt very quiet but the show must go on and the Thunder beat the Nets for our 10th win of the season.
Yesterday we had a layer of snow come down which made for easier walking conditions but driving still wasn't ideal so I was like a lot of people and didn't even leave home (I did walk over to the apartment office to get my mail but figured why drive if you don't need to). I'm getting ready to head into work in a little while today and hope that things are better as we haven't had any new precip.

Changing directions, I went to the birthday party of my friend/co-worker Jasmine on Sunday night. We went to a trendy bowling alley called Red Pin where 17 of us had dinner and then bowled a game on 2 lanes. It takes a while to get a game of bowling in when 8 bowlers are on one lane and 9 on the other and they charged us individually by the minute (30 minute increments) so it was a pricy bowling game. We did have a great time though.

Friday night I went to a local bar to watch my buddy Courtney's band play. He is the drummer in a jazz band and figured I should include a picture of him here.

Super Bowl is 4 days away. GO CARDINALS!!

MLK Day Parade and Late Night Sporting Events

2009-01-22T19:28:00.000-08:00

This blog is about my Midwest Adventures and I don't want it to be about politics so I will sum this up in one sentence. Tuesday's events in Washington DC made me smile.

Monday was MLK Day and we received an inter office e-mail last week regarding some of the events that the Thunder were going to be taking part in that day so I thought I would check them out. I have a tremendous respect for what Dr. King did with the Civil Rights movement but I have to admit that I have never really gone out of my way to do anything to honor him on his day other than to volunteer at a high school basketball tournament a few times so I decided to do so this year. On Monday Morning I decided at the last minute that I would head over to the Oklahoma History Center to watch a bell ringing ceremony in which some prominent people living in OKC community were going to speak, including Thunder broadcaster Grant Long and player Chucky Atkins. It was to start at 10:45 and I showed up at 11:00 which was just enough time for me to catch the last 2 minutes. I thought it was going to be a much longer ceremony but I was wrong. Still worth the trip though as I got to walk into the atrium of the center and was blown away. The state of Oklahoma has a very storied history and though I didn't have the time to pay the $5 and check out all of the exhibits, I did decide that I will be going back in the near future.

Monday afternoon I went into downtown OKC to check out the MLK Day Parade. One of the things I was looking forward to was the Thunder representation as I knew that some of the players would be in the parade as well as members of our dance team and drum line. Don't know the dancers but the drummers have become my buddies so I was looking forward to cheering them on. Started watching the parade at about the 6 block mark and realized that the Thunder were near the front and that they were being accompanied by around 50 school kids and a handful of the front office people. One of my co-workers spotted me taking pictures and she told me to join them "the more the merrier" she said so I ended up walking the rest of the parade route with them. I even helped lead some of the cheers while the drummers did there thing "Let's Go Thunder". I was surprised how long of a parade it was. I would guess that the total route was 1.5 miles or so. Good times though and 3 of our players: Russell Westbrook, Kyle Weaver and DJ White rode in a carriage pulled by horses.

It is almost 10 pm here right now and I am about to watch the UW-USC basketball game live on Fox Sports Oklahoma. I'm still not used to all of these late events due to the time zone differences. I'm just glad my Huskies are going to be on national TV so that I can see them. Last night the Thunder played a 9:30 game against the Golden State Warriors in Oakland. Great shootout game as the Thunder lead 72-68 AT HALFTIME. Gotta love a game with 140 first half points. Thought we had lost it down the stretch when Seattle native Jamal Crawford put the Warriors ahead with 1.4 seconds to go. Jeff Green had other ideas though and hit the game winning buzzer beater: Final Score Thunder 122 Warriors 121 and the game ended just a few minutes after midnight.

Usual strange temeratures here in OKC. Today's high was in the high 70s. Tomorrow in the 50s, Friday low 40s and Saturday's high might not get out of the 30s. Still hasn't rained in 2009 though.

Super Fan picture, Burnt Food, Avoiding Football Scores

2009-01-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

Another weekend filled with football and OKC Thunder has come and gone. Friday night the Thunder beat the Pistons 89-79 for our first back to back wins of the season. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it a 3 game winning streak as the Miami Heat came into the Ford Center last night and beat us.

Friday night was also the 3rd appearance for my alter ego, the Thunder Super Fan. This time I took a picture and have included it on the blog. It was kind of fun as the fan response is now pretty good. The first couple of times I did it I received a lot of strange looks as I went to sit down. On Friday many people knew what to expect and the people around me were cheering me on when I started dancing around in their section during the timeout.

After my shift ended Friday I went out to watch a dozen of my co-workers play in a 10:30 pm indoor soccer game. I guess games are scheduled as late as midnight which seems like a strange time to be playing soccer but why not. The indoor facility is right at the entrance of a housing development about 1.5 miles from where I live. The soccer team didn't quite fair as well as the basketball team though as they lost 7-2.

Saturday night a bunch of us went out for a night on the town as we celebrated the arrival of two more Seattleites. My co-workers Sabrina and George both had their spouses move down to OKC this week so we all went out to Bricktown. It was a late night and I was hungry when I got home so I popped a couple of mini paninis into the toaster oven and fell asleep while watching TV. You are supposed to cook them for 15-19 minutes and not the 4.5 hours that I "napped" on the recliner. Burnt panini smell takes a while to exit the appartment.

I tried the impossible while working the Thunder game on Sunday. I set my DVR to record the two NFL Conference Championship games and was going to try to go my entire work shift without hearing the outcomes. I was so close on the Arizona-Philly game as I had manged to avoid the score for a couple of hours when one of my co-workers approached a table where I was eating dinner and announced the final score. The AFC game was a little tougher as I glanced up at our scoreboard and saw a 13-7 halftime score. Made it until the 4th quarter when someone can down a hallway and mentioned the score again but still thought I could enjoy watching the game since I still had not heard a final score. As I was exiting the arena I got off of an elevator and as the door was opening I stared right into a TV to see Steelers coach Mike Tomlin being interviewed with the Lamar Hunt trophy being held up over his shoulder. Oh well.

I still went home and stayed up until 1:00 am watching Arizona advance to their first Super Bowl. It was also a warm night so I was able to keep my back door open for a couple of hours to let the burnt food smell exit the room (smells much better now) I tried to watch the Steelers-Ravens game afterward but fell asleep. This time I made sure there was no food being cooked.

I hate to keep making Seattle fans upset but I am very excited about the Cardinals victory. Phoenix has really become a home away from home over the last 8 years since my Mom has spent so much time down there and I really enjoy my visits. GO CARDINALS!!

OU-Texas basketball game, Facebook and The Return of the SuperFan

2009-01-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

Went to my first Oklahoma University basketball game on Monday night when the 5th ranked Sooners played the 11th ranked Texas Longhorns!! Two of my Thunder co-workers are the mascots at the OU basketball games (identical horses, Boomer and Sooner) and one of them hooked us up with 15th row seats on across from one of the benches. The Oklahoma arena really blew me away. When you enter the building onto the concourses, you are above the top row of seats and can see the court as you walk around. They did a really nice job of putting the seats right on top of the floor which creates an exciting atmosphere. The Sooners led from the start and won 78-63. Went to the game with JB, Stephen (one of our Thunder drumline guys) and Madison (co-worker from Seattle that is working for our Broadcast Department). I also put a picture on here of one of the mascots as well as some of the cheerleaders. The cheerleader on the far right is Whitney, one of our Promo Crew members who has done an outstanding job for us so far this year.

I also decided to give in and finally signed up for Facebook this week. I already had a couple of invites when I signed up so I had 2 friends right away and within about 5 minutes I had a couple more people send me invites. I immediately started sending out and receiving invites and have already caught up with people. Have exchanged messages with a number of friends I haven't seen for years. I admit it, I should have signed up a long time ago.

The Thunder beat Utah on Wednesday 114-93 for our first win over a team with a winning record (had lost 20 games prior over teams with winning records). During the 4th quarter I was asked to sport my mask, shorts and cowboy hat and grabbed a seat in the stands so that they could put me up on the big screen again as the SuperFan. This time I got out in the aisle and played air guitar during the timeouts to Bob Segar's "Old Time Rock & Roll". Seemed to go well so I'm sure my SuperFan alter ego will be back again soon.

Hanging in Norman for the National Championship Game, Thunder Super Fan and Bull Riding at Club Rodeo

2009-01-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

January 8th finally came and went. Over the past month the talk of the town has been the college football national championship game between Oklahoma and Florida. The Sooners had an opportunity to win their 8th national championship game and what better way to watch the game then to head on down to Norman and watch the game at a sports bar located next to campus. A handful of us had talked about it for a while and I thought we were going to have a decent sized group making the 20 mile trip south of OKC to watch however people started dropping off one by one and some people decided to go to a co-workers apartment so it ended up being me and JB. The media outlets were reporting that the Norman bars would be packed and that tables would be hard to come by but we didn't care as we just wanted to be part of the atmosphere. I was also excited for the game because I am now a Sooners fan. Not the same way that I love my Huskies but I am still a Sooners fan and was ready to wear my heart on my sleeve.

We were told that the most popular sports bar in Norman, O'Connells would be packed so we should go to a place called Coach's. Got there about 20 minutes before kick off and found it to be crowded but far from packed. One big reason is that OU is still on winter break until next week and most of the students are not in the area. It was still great to be a part of a large festive group that cheered when the Sooners made big plays and moaned when the Gators had success. It was a tight game all the way but Florida scored the final 10 points over the last 10 minutes and won 24-14. I would have loved to have been a part of the celebration that would have taken place on the streets of Norman but it just wasn't the Sooners night. Still enjoyed the experience.

Friday night the Thunder had a home game against Houston and lost another close one (we did beat Chicago on the road last night and now have 6 wins). It also was the night that I took on a new role for the organization and that was as a Thunder Super Fan. They asked me to get dressed up so that I could grab a seat in the stands and start dancing during one of the timeouts so they could put me up on the big screen. I failed to take a picture but I will eventually get one up on the blog. I wore a Lone Ranger type of mask that was colored like the american flag, a cheesy cowboy hat, hawaian shirt and crazy shorts. They hit me with the camera and played James Brown "I feel good" and for 15-20 seconds so I danced in the aisle while thousands of people watched up on the scoreboard. The things I do for this company :-) My Director John wants this to be a possible re-occuring role and one that could grow into me throwing t-shirts into the crowd and help getting everyone cheering. Stay tuned.

After the game some of the Ford Center employees decided that some of us Seattle folks needed to have an OKC experience and took a bunch of us to Club Rodeo. This was a true Western experience as it is large bar/club that is located about a 10 minute drive from the arena. Club Rodeo has a large dance floor for western dances and one of my Oklahoma friends tried to teach me how to 2 step and how to do a line dance. The 2 step was frustrating because she is good and I am lousy. I didn't feel as bad about the line dance because all of the Seattle folks were on the dance floor for that as well and we were all pathetic and many of the locals were not much better.

What really seperates Club Rodeo though is that they have a Bull Riding area and every hour the dancing stops and everyone heads over to watch actual bull riding for 15 minutes. A dance floor right next to a bull riding ring in the same building!!! How great is that!! I had never seen bull riding in person and it is impressive. One guy got tossed off and the bull then turned around and flipped him over and into the rail. The rider wiped himself off and ran off. Those guys are tough.

Also got to hang out with my buddy Rob on Friday. Rob is a Seattle entertainer that has been performing at our halftime shows for around 15 years. He and his buddy John used to have a juggling unicycle act and they called themselves the "Gentlemen Jugglers". John decided a few years ago to pursue something more 9 to 5 so Rob went solo and now calls himself "Roberto the Magnificent." Every time Rob performed at the Key Arena, he and I would talk about hanging out in Seattle sometime since we lived about 5 minutes from each other however he travels a lot, is married and has a daughter so we never did. Rob had also never been to anything like Club Rodeo so we dragged him out with us and he was also impressed.

Hope everyone in the Pacific Northwest is surviving the flooding. I miss everyone and the area but I don't miss the rain. So far it has yet to rain here in 2009 and I am okay with that.

New Year's in OKC and Staying Warm By Not Ice Skating

2009-01-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!! I went grocery shopping today and that was the only time I left my apartment. I was thinking about going ice skating today since it was the last day that the downtown outdoor rink is going to be open until next December however when I went outside today at about 11:00 this morning and it was about 28 degrees and the wind chill made it feel about 10-15 degrees cooler. It did warm up later on in the day but I figured watching playoff football in my warm apartment sounded better than skating in the wind.

I am a little bummed though as I think outdoor ice skating would have been fun. The only place I have ever ice skated was inside the Key Arena and I think each time I was doing mascot work. I've seen outdoor rinks on TV in New York's Rockefeller Center, Chicago and other large cities with cold climates and always thought it would be fun.

New Year's Eve was a fun night. Worked the Thunder game where we got to wear New Year's hats and beads (didn't think to get my picture taken until I was leaving so it is kind of dark out in the concourse) and had a number of fans compliment me on my plastic hat. I got out of the Ford Center after working the game (the Thunder's 4th victory of the year) at around 11:00 pm and headed over to Mickey Mantle's to meet up with some co-workers. I really wanted to walk into the middle of downtown and watch the ball go up as they do the opposite of New York's Time Square.

My buddy JB also said he would go check out the raising of the ball but he wanted to stick around Mantle's for a while. We kept arguing over what time to leave and finally walked out at 11:52. Neither of us were sure which street we needed to walk to or exactly how far away it was, we just followed the large group of people quickly heading toward the middle of downtown. Got way up the street and walked around the corner to where we could see the ball about 2 or 3 seconds before the crane raised it to the very top which signified 2009. I'm guessing the ball was about 10 stories in the air but since we just saw the finale, I'm not sure how low the ball was when it started going up. We were probably about a half mile from the ball (posted a picture on here which didn't come out very well) and could hear the fireworks show going off but were on the wrong side of the ball to see them other than the reflections. We started yelling and chanting Happy New Year for about 5 minutes while high fiving people walking by and then went back down the street.

JB was having a great time at a Blues bar in Bricktown called the Biting Sow (same place I saw country music star John Rich in November) but I was hungry and ready to leave at 1:30 so I went solo. OKC is not a very good town to be hungry about 90 minutes into January 1st. IHOP was the only thing that was open and they had over an hour wait. I hopped into my car and headed toward home as I knew of a Sonic that was 24 hours and on the way home. Got to the parking lot and THEY WERE CLOSED!! I couldn't believe it as I know they could have cashed in that night. I then started heading toward the IHOP near my apartment as I figured it was far enough away from downtown to be busy......WRONG. They had about a 45 minute wait so I went to WalMart and bought myself a DeGiorno's pizza. Nothing like cooking a pizza at 3am. Happy New Year.

Almost had our first 2 game winning streak on January 2nd as Kevin Durant put us ahead of the Denver Nuggets with 2.7 seconds left on an amazing turnaround 3 point shoot. We thought we had it won however the Nuggets passed the ball into All Star Carmelo Anthony who hit a 3 point game winner at the buzzer and we lost 122-120. Tough loss but 2 months ago we probably wouldn't have had a lead that late in the game. The team is getting better so the next 4 months could be fun.

White Christmas in Seattle

2008-12-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

Got to start out this blog by sending out best wishes to my buddy Greg Wollmuth. Talked to Greg on the phone while I was stranded in the Denver airport and then didn't hear from him again for a few days. Turns out he went outside to shovel some snow, came back in and didn't feel well so his wife took him to the hospital where they discovered he had just suffered a heart attack. GW probably reads my blogs more than anyone so I figured I better include him. He is doing much better and hopefully relaxing in front of the TV today with some college football. Get well my friend!!

New Year's Eve 2008 is really here. I am back in OKC after a great trip back to Seattle for the holidays for what I believe was my second ever "White Christmas". I know we had snow on the ground for Christmas 1990 but I think that might have been it (I'm not counting last year's X-Mas when it snowed for about 10 minutes at noon and left a very thin sheet on the ground). The old neighborhood looked like something out of a Thomas Kincade painting and I loved it!!

Finally got into Seattle on December 23rd and immediately started walking around the backyard and behind my parents yard. There is a creek out back with a wooded area and it is incredible when it snows. Also managed to take some pictures back there with my Mom and Max the family dog. I also put on my boots so that Max and I could explore the neighborhood a little. Later that night I went up the steet to my Uncle's house and played Santa before heading home, changing and then returning as myself for a nice dinner with immediate and extended family.

My Sister and Brother In Law came over to my parents house on Christmas Eve for another great dinner but not before my Dad and I ventured out for some last minute shopping. The snow was still a little bit much for my car so Dad's truck came in handy and the store weren't any too crowded as most didn't want to battle the elements.

Woke up Christmas morning to find 4 new inches of snow. Tried to take Max for a lengthy walk but he wasn't too happy with all of the new snow so I took him for a short one so that he could answer nature's call and then I dropped him off and went out for a larger one. Snow can be a pain in the neck but is great when you are at home without needing to be anywhere. I've never seen that much Christmas snow and loved it. When I returned home I noticed a car stuck in the road 2 houses down from my parents. A teenaged girl had gotten stuck in the road and her car wouldn't move. My dad, a neighbor and I helped tow her car to the end of the road and she had her parents drive over to where we were to help her get the car back home. Definitely not ideal traveling weather and I am hoping that it didn't keep too many families from being together. I have an all new sympathy after my Denver airport experience. Had a great early afternoon Christmas with my parents, sister, bro in law and Nomi my Godmother that flies up from Texas each year. Were joined by Uncle, Aunts, and Cousins later that night. GREAT CHRISTMAS!!

The last two nights of my trip I went out with friends after dinner. On the 26th I met up with 10 people in Lynnwood with mostly old high school friends. On the 27th I went into Seattle where I met up with my sister, brother in law and 5 other friends. I even had a Dick's cheeseburger afterward so I met half of my goal. The other half og my food goal was to get some Spiro's pizza however they were closed for the holidays so my family and I went and had lunch at Pagliaggi's instead. I am a big fan of their's as well but Spiro's is my main pizza. I guess that will have to wait until my next trip.

Heading out to the Ford Center in a few minutes to work tonight's Thunder-Warriors game. Downtown OKC is supposed to be a fun place to watch the New Year roll in so I'm hoping to check it all out after getting off of work.

Hope everyone is doing well and BE SAFE TONIGHT!!

Stranded in Denver

2008-12-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

Greetings from wintery Seattle. Having lived in Seattle my entire life, I have never had to travel during the holiday season until now and what an experience!! What I am about to write is going to detail my delay at the Denver airport last Monday/Tuesday and may not be the most exciting read as I am probably writing it more for myself so that I can pull it up later and remind myself of a very long day.

December 22, 2008 is not a day I will soon forget. I got on the plane early Monday morning in OKC after staying up all night. Had a Thunder game the night before and figured why waste time on sleep when that is time that could be better spent on hanging out with friends after the game, packing and blogging. I was tired when I got to the Will Rogers World Airport.

Got on the plane and slept almost the entire way to my connecting flight in Denver which meant I got about an hour of sleep. I was a little nervous as I walked to my connecting flight as I knew that Seattle was getting snow and that they had many delays the day before but I had heard things were getting better. I got to my gate and saw that they still had the Seattle sign up so I figured I was in good shape. Had about 20 minutes to kill so I walked down to where I could get a breakfast sandwich and proceeded back to my gate. As I arrived at the gate I noticed that the sign no longer said "Seattle" and now read "Chicago" and the adventure began.

It was about 8:00 am in Denver and we were told that our flight could not get into Seattle due to weather and that we would all be on stand by for the 12:30 flight. That left a little more time to kill so I put my belongings on the ground, made my jacket into a pillow and took a 10 minute nap on the floor. Also spent some time talking to a nice family from San Antonio that was trying to get up to Toppenish for Christmas. About an hour later the woman working the Frontier Airlines counter told us that they were trying to put together a midnight flight to Seattle and that we should head on down to another gate to get our names on a list. I went down and put my name and phone number onto a sheet of paper hoping that the midnight flight could be a back up plan in case another flight didn't open over the next 15 hours.

12:30 came and Frontier canceled that flight. My new San Antonio friends decided that things weren't looking very good so they went to the counter and got tickets for a 3:30 flight heading back to S.A. A little while later I found out that Frontier caneled the 3:30 plane and now there were a lot of people at the Denver Airport trying to get to Seattle. At that point I was still feeling pretty good because I knew I was on a list for the midnight flight and that was good enough for me. I just wanted to get to Seattle for Christmas and knew I was scheduled to play Santa at my Uncle's house the next day for my cousins.

The 3:30 flight also ended up getting canceled and I think we then all started to panic. Frontier was giving everyone all sorts of mixed messages. Most of their employees were telling us that the weather in Seattle was bad and that the airport was practically shut down but one person was a little more honest with us and mentioned to a few of us when there weren't many people around that the main reason we couldnt get home was because Frontier had run out of de-icer fluid in Seattle. At that point I called my friend Brenda that works for the Port of Seattle at SeaTac to find out what she knew. Brenda confirmed that almost every airline was flying in and out of SeaTac just fine and that Frontier was one of the only ones that wasn't. I then walked up to a counter where an employee of Frontier was in the middle of telling a bunch of standed travelers that most of the airlines were not flying in or out of SeaTac including Alaska. I called Brenda back immediately and she looked out the window of her offices and said "I'm watching an Alaska plane land right now". I then told the woman standing right in front of me what was being said and she immediately confronted the person at the counter with the information. The woman then admitted to us that Frontier was out of de-icer fluid in Seattle but that "other airlines were as well". I then interrupted her and started naming off airlines that I had confirmed were traveling in and out of SeaTac as I was growing tired of the lies. I know the folks at the counter have a rough job when dealing with delayed travelers and I certainly am patient but I don't like being lied to and wasn't going to stand by and let it slide without pointing that out.

The Frontier flights that were scheduled to leave for Seattle during the 5pm and 7pm hours were also eventually cancelled and a Frontier representative then told some of us that there was a good chance we would not be able to get to Seattle until December 26th which was really hard to hear. Some of the people that were staying around then started making arrangements to head back from where they had originally flown in from but I figured I would rather take my chances in Denver then go back to OKC where I would be spending Christmas alone. I was angry and called my Mom to let her know I may not be home for Christmas. I was not happy.

I started hanging out with a college student named Sam who was from Seattle but going to college in North Dakota. I went and grabbed a bite to eat at Panda Express in the airport before meeting up with Sam at the airport bar to watch Monday Night Football. Funny that I would eat at Panda since I used to work by one in Redmond and would always refuse to go there when any of my Keeney's co-workers suggested it because I didn't care much for it. Tasted pretty good though at the airport since I was starved, grouchy and tired.

Got back to Sam at the bar when he turns to me and says "you are going to kill me when I tell you this". I asked what he had and he says "I got a ticket on the 9:25 flight". I was actually happy for Sam. An hour earlier I was in line at the counter to get on the 9:25 waiting list and the woman at the counter told me "you are way down the list". Sam was behind me in line and I made a comment to someone else in line that Sam had been stranded at the airport since Saturday. The woman at the counter heard that and asked to look at Sam's other stand by tickets from earlier that day but didn't do anything with them. Apparently a short time after that Sam went back to the counter to ask another question and the woman said a seat had just opened and she assigned it to him. I told Sam I was glad he got it because he had already spent the past couple of nights at the airport and deserved it. I also warned him that the previous 5 planes that day had been cancelled and that Frontier hadn't landed a plane in Seattle for a few days so he might want to hold off on celebrating.

A few minutes later Brenda called me and said that the 9:25 flight was still on the board at SeaTac as coming in. I told her I figured that would change as I had yet to hear a de-icer update. Brenda then walked over to the Frontier gate at SeaTac and said the crews were in the process of de-icing a plane. I asked if she was sure so she asked a guy at the gate and he confirmed that Frontier has just received the fluid to SeaTac. I turned and told Sam that it sounded like he was going home. That didn't help me though.

At 8:45 pm my friend Jonathan Brooks (JB) landed in Denver from Oklahoma City as he was spending the holidays with his sister and family in Boulder which is about a 45 minute drive from the airport. I went to JBs gate to meet him and he reiterated that I had an open invitation to come to his sister's house with him if I wanted. I thanked him for the offer but mentioned I was going to be on standby for the 9:25 flight and was still hoping that a midnight flight might still happen.

I went to the gate for the 9:25 flight expecting to see a ton of people waiting on stand by but was surprised to only see about 20. Right before the plane was about to leave they started reading off names and all but 8 of us got on board. I WAS THAT CLOSE TO GOING HOME. Very depressing. The woman at the counter then confirmed that it was going to be the only flight heading up to Seattle that night and that the midnight plane never got scheduled. Funny since they told us a few hours earlier that the plane and crew were already at the airport and it was just a matter of them being allowed to fly into Seattle. I don't think they ever had any intention of flying out at midnight and just had us all put our names on a sheet of paper to get us off of their backs. Oh well. They did put all 8 of us on a waiting list for the 8:25 am flight the next morning but warned us that the plane was already overbooked by 5 passengers. I had nothing better to do on December 23rd so I got myself mentally prepared to be at the gate for every plane leaving the next day in hopes of getting home.

I called JB up to find out if he was still at the airport as I knew they were waiting for his sister's mother in law to fly in that night. He said they were in the car about to leave the airport and said I could still stay at his sister's house in Boulder. JB's sister Katie and her husband Rob could not have been any nicer and accomodating about the whole thing. They took me back to their place, gave me a sandwich, toothbrush, and a couch to sleep on. We got to their place at and went to bed at midnight. JB and Katie woke up at 5:45 the next morning and then took me back to the airport. JB even packed me a bag with 3 oranges and a slice of coffee cake. I can not thank all of them enough!!

I walked up to the counter at around 7am to let the woman at the counter know that I was there to be on standby for the 8:25 flight. The guy in front of me was giving her a story about how he had surgery on his shoulder, had a bunch of staples and really needed to get up to Seattle to pick up his 5 year old daughter (he shared the same story with me right before getting to the front of the line). She said she would do everything to help him but couldn't make any promises. I then got to the counter, said hello and handed over my standby pass as she was rolling her eyes and smiled as the other guy walked away. She took one look at my ticket and said "Mr Willits, I just assigned you a ticket a few minutes ago, here you go" and handed me a pass. I was a little confused at first as I thought it might be an "official" standby pass but I looked down and noticed it had a seat number. I looked up at her confused as I wasn't expecting this and was figuring I would be at the airport for at least one more day but the woman then looked at me, smiled and said "if I were you I would go out and buy a lottery ticket today". I thanked her about 5 or 6 times and immediately texted JB to let him and the family know that I would not be needing to be picked up later on that night. I waited about 45 minutes to call my parents as I didn't want to wake them up. A few minutes before boarding the plane I called my Dad and told him that I would be at SeaTac in a few hours. A couple of side notes: the guy with the surgery did get on the plane on standby and I decided what the heck, went out and bought $3 of lottery tickets that night but didn't win anything. Oh well, as far as I was concerned I had already won by getting on the plane.

Brenda met me as I was getting off of the plane in Seattle and I thanked her for all of her information the day before. I was then picked up by my parents and Max the family dog. I did have one more anxious moment as my suitcase was delayed by about an hour. I started to think it was still in Denver and that all of the delays had messed everything up. The bag did finally end up on the conveyer belt and I was ready to head for the house. I even got home in time to be Santa.

Spending Christmas in Seattle was never more enjoyable!! Now more than ever I feel for everyone that gets stranded during the holidays and can only hope that most of the people that I saw at the airport were able to get to their final destinations in time for Christmas.

Will write about my Seattle trip soon but figured this blog is long enough for now.

LaBron comes to OKC, Christmas Bowling and Friday Night Fun

2008-12-22T02:14:00.000-08:00

Seasons Greetings from OKC. Just wrapped up another exciting weekend. Sunday was our only visit this season from LaBron James and the Cavaliers. The Thunder hung tough for a while but came up a little short in the end. It was our last game before Christmas and we got to wear cool blue "Santa" hats. Check me out wearing mine in this picture (can't really tell what kind of a hat it is). Probably won't wear this particular hat when I travel to Seattle.

Saturday we had our Events and Entertainment Christmas party at a local bowling alley. We each bought inexpensive gifts and I am now the proud owner of a Party Time TNT set of streamers, party poppers, confetti, horn blowers and party time crackers. I am going to go crazy with my new toy set on December 31st. Had a blast bowling with a handful of co-workers/friends. Hadn't bowled in over 4 years and it showed as my first game was a 115. I was on fire during my second game and had a 155 through 7 frames but then choked on the 8th and 9th and finished with a 190. I'm not a 190 bowler so I was pretty excited although I really wanted to break 200. Great time though.

Friday night the Thunder got another victory. THAT IS NOT A TYPO, we won our 3rd game of the year by defeating the Toronto Raptors at the Ford Center. After the game is when the fun really began and I hope I don't get anyone in trouble with this next story (hope no one in OKC is reading this). We went out after the game to celebrate one of our co-workers final game. A bunch of us stayed out and closed down one of the downtown establishments and then we walked over to the baseball stadium where one of our co-workers knew a guy that knew a guy (wink wink). About 25 of us ended up going into the stadium where they have the nation's largest man made snow tubing slope set up. Intertubing on fake snow at 2:30 in the morning has never been so much fun. No pictures for that event.

Spent a fair share of time at the Ford Center all week as Thursday night I hung out for a few hours while our entertainment groups went through rehersal for their big halftime show that happened during the Cavs game. Turned out I wasn't needed but I did get to help clean up a storage room and free pizza was provided. I also helped out at an event on Wednesday in which 500 local 7th graders got to come into the arena and take part in interactive games as a reward for having good school attendance.

I did watch a little TV on Saturday and caught the last 10 minutes of the UCONN vs Gonzaga basketball game that took place at the Key Arena. It seemed very surreal to watch that game and not be working. Saw many friends on TV that were working at the scorer's table as well as on the sidelines. Andrew from the Promo Crew exchanged text messages with me during the game and I kept telling him to say hello to different people whenever I would see them in one of the corners on TV. It was fun but also a bit sad. A love that building and it breaks my heart to think of how it won't have too many more days like that one. Great to see a large crowd enjoying an exciting game, even if the home state team did end up losing.

Hope everyone is doing well and that all of my Seattle people are staying safe in that weather. If all goes well, I will be joining you soon.

Myriad Botanical Garden, Apartment Holiday Party and It is Cold!!

2008-12-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

Cold enough for ya?? Sounds like the Puget Sound has gotten a little snow lately. One of the chilliest cold fronts since December 1990?? That was my senior year of high school and I remember that storm for a couple of reasons. One of which was the infamous December 18th basketball game between the Sonics and the Orlando Magic that I wasn't able to attend because we got hit with a bad snow storm in the late afternoon that messed up the entire region. Just a little over 1,600 people attended the game even though over 12,000 tickets were sold and even some of the players were late arriving. KC Jones was the Sonics head coach and he even showed up more than halfway through the game. Hope it doesn't end up being that bad this week.

Crazy cold front in OKC right now. Yesterday we supposedly had a high temperature of 72 degrees and today the high was around 21. That is not a typo, it is a temperature swing of over 50 degrees. I'm not sure when it was in the 70s yesterday as I thought it was chilly. I went for a jog at Lake Hefner yesterday afternoon at around 2:00 and when I got out of my car the thermometer read 53 however we had 35 MPH winds that made it feel much colder. I ran 6 miles, 3 in one direction and 3 back to the car. The last 3 were straight into the wind and it felt like it was below freezing. I thought it was supposed to be nice out so I wore shorts and a short sleeve shirt. By the time I got back to the car I was miserable and my arms were numb. Wasn't fun.

Last night I drove downtown to the Myraid Botanical Gardens and Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory. This is an area located about 2 blocks from the Ford Center and it was my first visit. The Crystal Bridge is an indoor domed area that has a tropical feel and contains over 1000 different species of plants from every continent except Antarctica. http://www.myriadgardens.com/

During December the conservatory is decorated with festive lights and is open to the public for free on Sunday nights from 6:00-9:00. I think a usual visit is $6.00. There were a lot of people taking advantage of the free offer so there wasn't a lot of time to check things out too closely, besides the plants are much harder to see at night as the conservatory generally relies on natural light and isn't very well lit. I will definitely make another trip there in the future to view the plants better however I was more interested in seeing the holiday lights and it was a good trip. I did take some pictures but most didn't come out very well as it was very dark other than the holiday lights. Most of the pictures were either overexposed and the lights were too bright or underexposed and the lights showed up but nothing else. Some of my least crappy pictures made the blog.

The worst part of the trip was walking to and from my car. IT WAS FREEZING. When I got home I turned on the news and they said it was 26 degrees but that the wind chill factor was 2 degrees. By that time the 72 degrees was long gone. I had gloves, a warm jacket and a scarf and I was still cold. Needless to say I didn't stay outside longer than I had to.

Friday night I went to the Christmas party that my apartment complex puts on. It is held in the lobby and I thought there was going to be a large turnout since there are over 300 units, however only about 30 people showed up. That was good for me since they raffled off prizes and I won what I thought was a $50 gift certificate. When I opened up the envelope I found out it is was 5 different $10 certificates that are good for either Henry Hudsons Pub, Bellini's Ristorante & Grill or Poblano Grill. Hudsons has 10 different locations in the area, Bellini's is a restaurant that I hear has good Italian and Poblano's has 3 locations with what I'm told is good Mexican. Sounds like I have some new places I need to check out. I hear that Henry Hudsons Pubs are not what you would call "classy" and a little incident happened at one of their locations close to my apartment building last year that made national news when a Oklahoma Sooner fan got into a fight with a Texas Longhorn fan. Won't say on here what happened but it was pretty gruesome. Go ahead and google it if you are curious but don't say I didn't warn you before reading the story, especially if you are a male. I will probably just wear a generic shirt when I go there.

Can't blog this week without mentioning that the big sports news around here is OU Quarterback Sam Bradford

winning the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night. Bradford is a graduate of Putnam City North High School which is less than 4 miles from where I live. Way to go Sam!!! Now if only Jake Locker could win the award in 2009 for the Huskies.