White Christmas in Seattle

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

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

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!!

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.

Dad's Trips to the Memorial and POPS

My Dad's final day in Oklahoma City was yesterday as he flew home last night but not before we did more OKC exploring. On Sunday we went over to the Memorial Museum so that my Dad could see the exhibits that pay tribute to all that were involved in the April 19, 1995 bombing. The museum is free this month on Sundays (usually $10). It was my second trip into the museum (went with my Mom last month as noted in a previous blog) and I might even go back again while it is free as I still don't think I have carefully read every exhibit. The picture on this post is of he survivor tree that was directly across the street from where the bombing took place. It was surrounded by what was then a the parking lot in which almost every car was destroyed yet somehow the tree lived.

Later on that night my Dad and I returned to Bricktown to go on the water taxi down the canal that runs through the area. The trip is a little less than a mile each way and usually costs $7.50 but is free Thursday thru Sunday in the evenings over the holidays. The canal and the surrounding shops do a nice job of putting up holiday lights to make it festive but I'm not sure the trip would have been worth the full price. We did give the tour guide a couple of bucks each and that was about what the trip was worth. http://www.downtownindecember.com/r.com/

Monday we had a Thunder game and my Dad helped out. We were a little short staffed for the game since it is Finals Week so Dad's help was much appreciated. We even got to watch much of the 2nd half, unfortunately it was another Thunder loss as we were defeated by the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors are not having a good season so I really thought this was our chance to get a win but unfortunately it didn't happen even though Kevin Durant scored 41 points and had 10 rebounds. Our current record is 2 wins and 20 losses. No where to go but up.

Yesterday we headed 20 miles east from my apartment to pay a visit to POPS Shops on Route 66. POPS is a fairly new landmark that has a 66 foot tall sign (see picture with my Dad) of a soda pop bottle that has cool LED lights that luminate it at night. This was my first trip and we went there for lunch so I haven't seen the lights yet. POPS is a cafe, shake shop, gift shop, convenience shop and gas station all rolled into one. They carry over 500 different sodas and beverages from all over the world so I did get myself an assorted soda 6 pack: Grape Nehi, Grape Boylan, Grape Crush (old school), Nesbitt's Strawberry, AJ Stephan's Root Beer and Route 66 Root Beer. So far the only one I drank was the Route 66. It was good but nothing special. My Dad made it a point to get his picture taken next to the gas sign as it is now down to $1.45. http://www.pops66.com/

Seattle has two new Championships!!! Everyone says these are hard times for Seattle sports but I did notice that two local colleges have won national championships in the last couple of weeks. The UW Women's Cross Country team won the NCAA Championship but more importantly, my Seattle Pacific University Falcons women's soccer team won their first NCAA Division II National Championship the other day!! WAY TO GO FALCONS!! Embrace the titles Seattle.

Dad's Arrival Has Us Exploring

My Dad arrived in OKC on Thursday night and so far we have had a great trip. He flew in at around 8:30 pm and we immediately went over to Cattlemen's Steakhouse to grab some dinner. I've written about Cattlemen's before. Very casual and reasonably priced as far as steak is concerned and the food is excellent. We then drove over to the site of the bombing and walked around the memorial for a few minutes.

Friday was kind of a tourist type of day. We drove down to Norman where Oklahoma University is located and checked out the area. It was the first time that I had ever walked around their campus which wasn't too bad. Not quite as pretty as UW main campus but they did have some classy older buildings that were fun to check out. Of course we went over to the football stadium and checked that out. We got to go inside but not on the field. The highlight there was the Barry Switzer Center which is a 3 story building that houses all of their trophies. OU has a very storied football program and they have some really neat stuff inside.

We then drove back to downtown OKC and had lunch at Tobey Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill. No Tobey spottings but we did get a great meal. Walked around Bricktown quite a bit, and peaked thorough the fence of the baseball stadium where they currently have the nation's largest man made snow tubing slope which costs $10 for a 90 minute session. I might have to try that before the winter passes. We then drove over to the Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World to check out their 104,000 square foot store. This place is very cool for anyone who hunts and/or fishes. I don't do either so I wasn't as excited but it was interesting to see what all they carry. I didn't realize there was so many types of shot guns and fishing rods, two things that many folks in Oklahoma seem to possess.

Saturday morning we headed downtown to that I could run the SandRidge Santa Run which is a 5K fun run and the Thunder were one of the secondary sponsors. Probably over 400 participants and everyone seems to have a fun time. I'm not quite as fast as I should be right now as I ran a 24:08 but I still enjoyed it. After the run we headed over to the Stockyards a few miles away to check out the end of their Stockyards Christmas Parade. We got there in time to see the final few entries which surprisingly enough were horses and Santa arriving in the back of a stage coach. Supposedly the parade starts out with quite a few cattle going down the street but we never saw them. We did however see some of what they left in the street and I am glad that I'm not in charge of post parade clean up. Walked around Stockyard City checking out some of the Western shops before heading home.

Went home last night and watched the Big 12 Championship Football Game that everyone has been buzzing about for the past week. Final Score: Oklahoma 62 Missouri 21. HA HA TEXAS LONGHORNS!!

Not sure what we are doing yet today but we are throwing around a few ideas. Should be fun though.

Trans Siberian Orchestra and Full Lap Around Lake Hefner

I'm now enjoying the ability to post pictures and since I don't have any new ones to share I thought I would post a few from my trip a few weeks ago to College Station Texas for the college football game at Texas A&M.

I ended up having a great birthday on Sunday. I met up with some co-workers at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch football for a few hours and then it was off to the Ford Center to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra. A couple of my friends were contemplating going with me but they weren't big enough fans to pay full price so they went to the arena to see if anyone was trying to unload tickets for under face value (one of them lives a few blocks away so it wasn't like they were wasting a great deal of time). When they couldn't find a deal I went up to the box office and found a great single ticket 13 rows back from the stage. This worked out well as the only non singles they had were in the upper bowl as far away from the stage as you can get. Sometimes going solo has its advantages.

The Trans Siberian Orchestra put on an amazing show. They played for 2 hours and 45 minutes straight and were incredibly entertaining. Great music, pyro and light show. I highly recommend them to anyone that enjoys live entertainment.

I did manage to do something today that I had yet to do. I ran a complete lap around Lake Hefner!! Supposedly the distance around the lake is 9.5 miles but I think I might have pulled a Robert Frost and taken the road less traveled. There are a couple of places where the trail forks and perhaps I didn't take the shortest path as I think I ran closer to 10 miles based on my time. Who knows, all I know is that I parked my car and started running in one direction and kept running until I came back to my car from the other direction. Not exactly John Glenn orbiting the earth but seeing that I am not in the best shape of my life, I will gladly take it and be happy.

Originally I wanted to complete my first Hefner circle on my birthday but unfortunately I bruised my foot pretty good dancing last Friday night so I had to put it off for a few extra days. The foot is still bothering my quite a bit but not as bad as it was over the weekend. I do think I picked the wrong day to do my first Hefner circle. We didn't get any rain today but the temperature was around 45 degrees and the winds were at 30-35 MPH all day. I dressed appropriately but it was still BRUTAL. There were some places on the trail where I was running into the wind and it felt like I was barely moving forward and other places where the wind was blowing me sideways so hard that I could barely run straight. It was not a very enjoyable run but every once in a while you need one of those to see what you are made of. I finished so I am feeling pretty good.

My Dad is flying into OKC for his first trip tomorrow night. He will be here for a few days so I should have quite a bit to report on over the next few days as we get out and explore.

My Birthday, Thanksgiving in Dallas, Bedlam

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






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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suns Are Almost Thunder Struck

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

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

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

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

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

College GameDay in Norman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hornets Tonight, Cold Turkey and Calendar Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gamenight Article and John Rich Sightings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best wishes to everyone!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is all for now. GO DAWGS!!

Good Work Day and Sunny Weather

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

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

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

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

Tornado Watch and A Great Trip to Texas A&M

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Voting, Car Registration and Tuba Man

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

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

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

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

Dislikes About OKC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Thunder Victory!!!

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

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

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

OKC National Memorial, Mom Heads Home and Oklahoma Football

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Thunder Game and Seattle Times Article

Greetings from a man on a 2:30 am adrenaline rush. I am sitting on the computer in the Thunder office after our first home game. I would go home however my Mom is still in town and has my car and I just don't have the heart to call her and wake her up to request a pick up. I have a ton of stuff I still need to work on regarding both work and personal items so I figured I would get some of it done in a quiet office and call her in the early morning for a pick up. 16 mile taxi cabs are not cheap in this town and besides, she has my apartment key so I might as well just feed off of the fact that I am still on a work high from earlier today.

Crazy day at the Ford Center. Worked at the arena on Tuesday until around 11:30 that night, going through rehearsal and getting things ready. Woke up early this morning and arrived at the office at 7:30 so that I could get some paperwork done. Headed over to the arena at 10:00 so that we could get the street out in front of the arena set up with inflatable toys, makeshift courts and other fan interactive events for our pre game festivities. Tonight was such a mess. There was uncertainty as to where to park since our passes are not good until 4:00, how to get parking passes distributed to employees since we are in a new parking garage, where to get the proper credentials and where people were needed most before the doors opened and during the pre-game rush. It is much harder to delegate when none of the people that are working for you have ever worked in the arena prior to today. Long story short, we planned for a big night but had little resources to do it. There were flaws however overall things went alright. I was so busy during the game that I didn't even see a moment of it until we were in the 4th Quarter. I will say this though, the Promotions Crew group that I hired is very good at what they do

The other news of the day was the article that came out on me on the front page of the Seattle Times Sports page. I have only seen it on the internet but I am told that the picture of me takes up a fairly large space on the front page of the Wednesday sports page. Here is the link in case anyone wants to check it out: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/2008324225_soni29.html
Percy Allen wrote the article and is a great guy so I figured he would do a solid job and the aritcle reads well.

Gotta go but I will be posting again shortly.

6:45 AM Rude Neighbors and Overflowing Toilets

I finally found a few minutes to send out a new post. Still keeping busy as Thursday and Friday were heavy interview days. Been bringing people in from all over the area. Most of the interviews have been college students attending University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University or Oklahoma City University and some are from other walks of life. Have interviewed a lot of great individuals and making decisions will be tough.

Yesterday morning got off to a rough start but ended up having a great day. The vent in my apartment was making strange sounds at 6:00 am which woke me up but I was able to blow that off and get back to sleep. At 6:45 one of my neighbors decided it was time to vacuum and they have a dog that barks the entire time that the vacuum is running. This was my first good chance in a while to get a good night sleep and it didn't happen. I worked at the office until around 11:30 the night before and really was looking forward to sleeping in. Then out of the TMI file, I went to use the bathroom, flushed the tiolet and as I started to wash my hands I noticed that I never heard the flush, suddenly I realized that I had apparently put too much toilet paper in and the toilet overflowed all over the floor (side note: it was clean water but still made a mess). For the record, I didn't use that much TP, I just realized that my toilet is more sensitive than most. I've now made a mental note of it but it certainly didn't help me as I was cleaning the floor and running to Walmart at 8am to purchase a plunger.

Later ran downtown to do some couch and furniture shopping with Mom as she is much better at picking out that sort of stuff than I am. Spent a few hours doing that and then went out a grabbed a bite to eat. Getting dinner at 7:30 on Saturdays in downtown OKC can be kind of tough unless you are willing to wait a while. We drove over to Cattlemen's Steakhouse and the line was out the door. My Mom mentioned that she wouldn't mind seeing Tobey Keith's I love this Bar so we went in there and found that they had a 90 minute wait. Finally went to "Coach's" which is a bar/restaurant located at the baseball stadium (windows look into the ballpark) but after being seated at our table for 15 minutes no one came by to serve us so we decided to leave and check Cattlemen's out again. By now it was 9:00 and the wait wasn't so bad so we ended up having our steak dinner afterall.

Just wrapping up some Sunday interviews right now while my Mom is checking out Penn Square which is one of our main malls. Going to pick her up shortly and then we are heading up north to check out Tulsa.