The modest haul

In the gift-giving side of Christmas, I would much rather get things for my girls. I love to see the looks on their faces when they open certain presents.

But, here's what I got. My girls got me this OU hat. Pretty cool! My old one is a dirty, faded thing so I'm glad to get this.


Michelle got me a replica Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys jersey. Pretty nice. I set up a wish list on nfl.com and I pointed her there.


The best one was from Mom. She got me a $100 gift card to Circuit City. I immediately went to cc.com and started shopping. I ended up buying a 22" LCD monitor for my computer. This replaces a venerable old 19" CRT. Here it is, sporting the best QB in college football....Slingin' Sam Bradford.

Forgot about Habib on Boxing Day

On the secular calendar, today is Boxing Day. I have no idea what it's about and never cared to look it up.

But I've had a semi-serious tradition with a former co-worker to joke with each other about having a boxing match on Boxing Day.

At my first job, I worked with a gentleman named Habib Arsala, a former OB/Gyn in Afghanistan. Habib is a very affable man that I really enjoyed working with. Habib and his family lived in that country during the conflict with the Soviet Union in the 70's and 80's. In the early 80's, a sympathetic path to leave the country was set up for Habib and his family. He told me this story one slow weekend at work. The driver, the coordinator, the helper, the pilot all were not happy about their country's direction so they fled. It was all a very cloak and dagger affair. I was riveted by his story.

Habib and his family, by way of Pakistan, Germany and a few places in the states, made his way to, of all places, Oklahoma City where he began his new life. He tried a few times to become a physician here in the states, but was never able to pass the tests with a high enough score. While I worked with him in the late 90's, his English was decent, and he could almost always get his point across, but language might have been a barrier back then for him.

Habib was able to secure a job as a very competent phlebotomist and also a pharmacy tech. He has been working at a large hospital for years now. That is where I met him, as a young pharmacist.

My first Christmas to have to work at the hospital was where we started the Boxing Day tradition. It was the 26th and he asked me what was the significance of Boxing Day. I didn't know and he decided, jokingly, that we would have a boxing match to see who was the strongest. I (also jokingly) told him that "the old man" didn't stand a chance because of our age difference and also my long arms. He said that didn't matter at all. LOL! We had a good time with it.

We were both working again the next year and went through the same fun routine on Boxing Day, and so the the tradition was born.

I moved on to another job the following spring and he called me the next two years right after Christmas to "threaten" each other again. It was fun.

Over the last 10 years, we haven't called each other every year, but maybe one out of two years we'd catch up on the phone for Boxing Day. We had company today for Christmas and we were pretty busy so I didn't think of it until it was a little late. Tomorrow is a Saturday, so maybe we'll hook up.

I don't miss working at the large hospital but I miss the experience of working with Habib. He taught me much about being an adult. His unique viewpoint, being a very respectable person of Middle East descent having acclimated to Western culture in America, was a good example for a brash young adult.

A great Christmas Day!

Sometimes holidays just are train wrecks waiting continuing to happen.

Not today!

The house wasn't real clean although we worked on some dishes and picking up the living room. I was working on sorting some laundry when company started to show up.

Mom and Dad showed up followed by Kasey, Jeff, Tonya and Robert. Michelle also went to pick up Candace.

We opened presents and ate and just had a great time. Sometimes Dad isn't in all that great a mood when he's visiting or it we are at their house, but today, everyone just chatted and all enjoyed each other's company.

Now that company's gone, we're enjoying our presents and staying up.

It's been a great Christmas Day!

The lap of luxury

This is upstairs in our computer room where we have a futon bed.

Yeah....Charlie and Daisy are spoiled!

Strutmasters - A positive review

I wanna give good feedback re: Strutmasters. Their website is strutmasters.com.

My wife's 2000 Ford Expedition, with rear air ride suspension, has had problems lately. The air compressor was getting loud and there seemed to be a leak in one or both of the air shocks.

I was recommended to try Strutmasters. They have good prices on all their parts, whether they are replacement air parts or the conventional spring conversion kits.

I spoke with a knowledgeable gentleman named Lou from Strutmasters on the phone re: my problem. He highly recommended against replacing air parts once problems begin to pop up. This is due to the fact that most times he had sold air parts, they would always need more parts. I was ambivalent to what route I wanted to go, so he talked me into the conversion kit. It was $345 for rear shocks and springs and instructions. I suppose you could buy just the springs, but I chose to replace the shocks too.

The conversion could be done with just everyday tools on your garage floor, but since I've been injured lately, I took advantage of free lift time at a buddy's alignment shop. It was a straightforward swap for the shocks and springs. And after my wife got home, we pulled the compressor/dryer assembly from under the hood and also cut the appropriate wire to keep the Check Suspension light from coming on. This requires getting into the dash, above the stereo/climate control cluster.

All in all, it's a few hour job. Not bad at all.

The customer service on the phone was top notch. I felt that I could trust Lou's judgment on what to do with the truck. They have highly vested employees that enjoy working for the company.

The ride is good. Obviously, going from air ride to springs will change the ride a bit. It has slightly more roll in turns and might be just a tad bit stiffer in the back, but it's not real noticeable. The ride is quite good. And the ride height is perfectly stock. Not too high or too low for a family vehicle.

So I would recommend Strutmasters to anyone that is having problems with their air shock system.

5 stars!!

Penny and the stinky little tennis ball

We were putting up our Christmas stuff the other day and I snapped this pic of Penny. We'd been playing catch with her favorite ball earlier and she got wore out.

She loves her little tennis ball!

Losing the thumbnail

I guess I have to warn the weak-stomached...

I have a habit of chronically picking sores, scabs and other maladies. Since I have an injured thumb (see my previous blog entry), I started to explore the nail after clipping my other nails. I was able to get under it and get most of it off. Nice huh?

A gokarting accident

It's been a couple weeks since this happened but here's what happened.

Was gokarting with some buddies down at Oklahoma Motorsports Complex, south of Norman on a Saturday. We ran a bunch of heats, racing one on one and many combinations of types of races.

Our last race, all five of us lined up at the start/finish line and took off at the same time. Since I...uh...ahem...weigh a little more than the rest of the guys, I went into the first turn last, but I took advantage of the other guys racing hard. I made a great turn and was able to pass two guys. Going around the middle of the track, I was trying to set up the guy in front of me. As the track turned in on itself (see map), I was able to cut Turn 7 and go wide and round into Turn 8. As we apex'd 8, the guy in front of me got a little loose. I reacted and tried to go around him to the left. As I was brushing his side, I got hit real hard by one of the guys that had driven into 8 too hard and flat. My cart went airborne, but luckily, did not flip. I was tossed from the kart and thought I had just landed on my knee and hip. No big deal...or so I thought.

Apparently, I had put my left arm down instinctively. I did not realize that anything was wrong and so I quickly made to get back into the cart and finish the race. But then I found that my arm wasn't quite right. I looked down and my left arm was bent the wrong way...backward. It startled me and I jerked the arm and it went back to a "normal" bent position but was still quite dislocated. I thought it might be broken at first, but the intense pain wasn't there so I considered dislocation.

Here's what my arm looked like at the ER. Sorry for the extreme non-buffedness of the pic.

As nasty as that is, that injury isn't the one that pisses me off the most. I also broke my right thumb. The thumb hurts more and keeps me and invalid more than the arm does. So I have issues with both limbs, making it difficult to work, play, eat, you name it. sigh....

I've healed a bit over the two weeks. Just about all of the COPIOUS bruising is gone. My arm is still weak, but I don't have to wear the sling much anymore. I just have to be very careful of what I do with the arm. I have torn ligaments in my elbow that will have to heal and get stronger. My broken thumb....sigh...It's gonna take a while to heal. I think I tore is up pretty bad in addition to breaking it. It's not very functioning, although it's getting a little better.

I go to the doctor for a follow up in a couple of days. I'm sure he will want me to do torture...I mean physical therapy. I really don't want to do that. I have some dumbbells that I can work my arm with. We'll see.

Will I go gokarting again??? Not just yes!!

But not yet. I have to heal and anyway, it's too dang cold right now to be doing that.

A Modern Parable

A friend sent me this one....pretty funny.
------------

A MODERN PARABLE . .

A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River . Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year 's racing team was out-sourced to India .

The End.

The caption says it all...

Sooners open a can!

What a team!!

Alabama, USC, and Texas Tech didn't have the strength of schedule or had bad losses.

Texas "flew under the radar"...not to mention needed some cheese with their whine...

Florida had a bad loss but has come back strong, and has been some pundit's pick for being No.1 for a while now.

But the whoopin' the Sooners put on Mizzou last night was legendary. The press and others around the nation have been saying that OU didn't deserve to be on top. Well, words?? Meet gullet. Florida is playing well, but the elephant in the room is colored crimson and cream.

Sam Bradford (who should be in the recovery room right now after surgery on his non-throwing hand), should be as lock for the Heisman. Colt, Tebow and Graham have been great but Sam is a hand above the others.

BOOMER SOONER!!!!

Friday Night Flights

Friday Night Flights

Sooners roll

Against an overmatched Baylor team, the No. 1 ranked Sooners roll with a 49-17 win in Waco.

Quarterback, Sam Bradford (Heisman candidate) spread his passes around to several receivers while the running game improved over last weeks struggles. The "D" did a decent job corralling a stud freshman quarterback, Robert Griffin III, a Michael Vick-type of QB. The special teams didn't make fools of themselves this time. Still need some work, though.

Next week.....Texass.

Fighting a Velociraptor

I could survive for 1 minute, 13 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Created by Bunk Beds Pedia

Zone it up!!

Saw this juxtaposition of books at my local Borders bookstore recently and I couldn't pass up the irony.

One's a professed atheist.

The other professes pseudo-Christian self-help.

Which one is more dangerous??

Chicago, in concert

We had a good time this weekend.

We drove down to the Dallas area to see friends and go see a concert. At the old Starplex (now called Superpages.com Center) in the Texas state fair, The Doobie Brothers and Chicago put on a great show.

I don't know a whole lot about The Doobie Brothers but I know the five or six popular radio songs (China Grove, Black Water, Long Train Runnin', etc). They also played some real cool blues and some acoustic stuff. They are tight!

Chicago came on to a big roar of the crowd. They are made up of a bunch of old farts but dang if they can't bring the crowds and give 'em a show!

They started off with a medley of Introduction and Questions 67 and 68, both songs from the original CTA album in 1967. I had not heard Introduction before in my two previous Chicago concerts. It was cool to hear them do it.

Then they played an abbreviated version of the Ballet for the Girl in Buchannon, which contains Make Me Smile and Color My World. This is a standard for them.

They then played two songs from their middle years that had a slight disco sound. Call on Me (one of my favorites, written by trumpeter Lee Loughnane) and Alive Again. Alive Again is a rarity live these days. It was the first track on the 12th album called Hot Streets, recorded soon after original guitarist Terry Kath's death in the late 70's.

Then, to round off the generational themes, they did a few songs from the late 80's. First, Bill Champlin came out front with a guitar and performed You're Not Alone. Then they did a medley of Hard Habit to Break and You're the Inspiration to round out their later pop hits.

They went back to the "beginning" with another one of my favorites, Beginnings. This was followed by a rousing drum solo by Tris Imboden, the drummer.

After the skins got real hot, the band came back and continued with three older standards Just You and Me, Saturday in the Park and Feeling Stronger Everyday. In Just You and Me, woodwind player, Walt Parazaider normally performs his solo with the flute. This time it was with an alto saxophone. A real neat change.

They ended the pre-encore set with Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away, another standard, and for good reason. Hard to Say I'm Sorry is an early 80's pop hit that morphs into a fast, rockin' short tune (Get Away) that features the horns. Get Away rarely gets radio time, but it's one of the crowd favorites at their concerts. It's awesome, especially live!

For the encore (which is usually 2-3 songs and always contains 25 or 6 to 4), the Doobies came out with Chicago. Sixteen players on stage!!! What a treat! And we were treated to a 6 song encore! The good stuff just never ends.

They alternated each band's tunes (but both bands playing together), starting with the Doobie's Rockin' Down the Highway. They switched to Chicago's cult favorite, Free. They followed that with Takin' It to the Streets and Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? and then they finished up with Listen to the Music and, of course, 25 or 6 to 4.

What a great show!

A couple if things were disappointing.

Robert Lamm did not sing lead on any of his songs (Does Anybody Really Know, Color My World, Beginnings). I don't know if his voice was shot or what. He sang some low backups, though. Also Jason Scheff's mic wasn't quite right. He was a little muffled. For the Doobies, they were quite a bit louder. The lead singer's mic and his guitar were way overcooked, in my opinion. Still, they are a good band with lots of great musicianship.

It was a warm night, but with a little breeze, so it wasn't too bad. We also sat out on the grass on blankets. The Center would not allow lawn chairs. IDIOTS!! My butt is still hurting.

I bought a tour t-shirt, bearing the album cover of the new/old album, Stone of Sisyphus. It was recorded in 1993 but dumped by the record company because they thought it was too different from the "radio" Chicago. It was bootlegged and leaked for years until now. It goes on sale tomorrow. I know I'm getting a copy.

Other members of Chicago not mentioned are James Pankow, rounding out the horn section (the heart of the band) on trombone and Keith Howland, the newest member (for 13 years!) on lead guitar. Howland sang most of Lamm's songs.

Great show!

Sorry, no pictures.

Keepin' on truckin' with the reviews

Vagabond

Another Bernard Cornwell review...

Click to go to the Bookshelf Reviews

A couple more reviews

The Pale Horseman

and

Lords of the North

by Bernard Cornwell. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

It's really cool to be at a point where you find a really good author and know that you have many books of his/hers to read. A wonderful feeling!

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell

Check out my review of The Last Kingdom by historical fiction writer, Bernard Cornwell.

Good job, Nats

I'm an Atlanta Braves fan. Always have been. Always will be.

So, it was really cool that they got to participate in opening of the 2008 MLB season last night. A lot of pomp and pageantry at the opening of a brand new ballpark in Washington D.C. for the Nationals. Lots of firsts.

Chipper Jones hit the first home run of the year. A rocket to left center.

The Braves tied the game at 2 runs a piece in the top of the ninth but the Nats came back with a solo, walk-off home run by Ryan Zimmerman to win the game. Zimmerman is a stud player and he showed why he is the franchise player for the Nats.

They beat my team, but what a night for the home team.

Good job.

Baseball!!!

Baseball season starts tomorrow!