Christmas 2008

Mom's Side ~

Dad's Side ~

Now Hiring

Kickin' the Can

Friday night, I went over to some friends' for a get together. It was the usual eat food, drink drinks, talk loudly, and play board games kind of party. After an electrifying game of Taboo, we had one of those "what do we do now" kind of lulls throughout the whole room. Lindsay jokingly mentioned that we could play Kick the Can like they did when they were kids. Her cousin Alex got all dreamy eyed, "Ah man, those were some fun times! We should really do it." Everyone just laughed, but I think we were all secretly hoping to really go outside and play. Then after another quiet lull, Alex -"No! I'm serious. I want to play Kick the Can!" With that we all jumped up and ran outside giddy as a bunch of school kids. Alex explained the rules which are somewhat similar to hide & go seek. He volunteered to be "it". The rest of us ran and hid ourselves. And the good times did roll!!!

The next morning I woke up with a huge bruise on my arm. It took me a while, but I finally remembered that I had been crouching in the shadows by my parked car when the "it" person came running towards me. I jumped up and ran smack into my car's mirror. I'm just thankful I didn't knock my mirror off. That would have been a tough one to explain - "Well, I was playing Kick the Can the other night...

Black & Whites III

Christmas Island

Let's get away from sleigh bells, let's get away from snow

Let's make a break some Christmas, Dear, I know the place to go

How'd ya like to spend Christmas on Christmas Island?

How'd ya like to spend the holiday away across the sea?

How'd ya like to spend Christmas on Christmas Island?

How'd ya like to hang a stocking on a great big coconut tree?

How'd ya like to stay up late, like the islanders do?

Wait for Santa to sail in with your presents in a canoe.

If you ever spend Christmas on Christmas Island

You will never stray for everyday

Your Christmas dreams come true.

I've always been fascinated with chalkboards. Sometimes, I think it must have something to do with being homeschooled and being deprived of such novelties. When I first started taking college classes, I would draw on the board while we waited for the teacher. Occasionally, I could convince some of the other students to play tic-tac-toe with me, but none of them got the same thrill out of it. Even now at work, there are a few offices whose blackboards haven't been replaced with the new whiteboards. So while I'm at these offices, talking with my coworkers about projects (college bowl picks) I usually leave a picture behind. Since, all of my coworkers are male I try draw masculine things like flowers, birds singing in trees, hearts, etc. Out of politeness they usually leave it up for a couple of days before it's replaced with algebraic calculations, and rough sketches of cementing tools. Always fun.

P.S. I also like the song Christmas Island - it's one of the very few Christmas songs I can tolerate ;)

Congratulations, Ruth!!!

My friend, Ruth graduated from Midwestern State University on Saturday with an Accounting degree. Here she is with her husband, Alan. (A year ago I posted their wedding pics.)

Chicken Run II

Chicken Run

Mom was having trouble posting her chicken pictures, so I thought I'd help out :)

Precision Driving Course

Here at work, everyone has been required to take the precision driving course up in Oklahoma City. I was a little curious as to why I would be required to take this class since driving has nothing to do with my job description. But, all I really cared about was getting paid overtime for doing something other than "real work" and saving money on my car insurance (this is starting to sound like a Gieco commercial). Apparently, having all of us employees take this class saves the company money in insurance as well. Yep, that was almost interesting.

About 24 of us went up there last week. Of course, there was a little bit of the boring classroom stuff . Then they split us off into pairs, and took us out to the cars - old cop cars! (There were a few unfortunates that got stuck driving a rental mini-van.) There were six instructors. Our instructor, Bill, was super nice and helpful (pictured in the top right). I think he might have also been a retired highway patrolman. He took us through different exercises including the skid car My personal favorite exercise was slaloming through a set of tight cones at 20 and 30 miles per hour. I know, I know anybody can swerve through cones at 30 mph, but I had never done it before. The whole experience was inspiring. I think I'm going to get involved with the local autocross!

I was paired up with one of my coworkers, Steve (pictured in the bottom middle). While Bill was instructing us Steve and I were always very respectful, paid attention, asked intelligent questions, but the minute we got back into our car we would immediately start laughing. We laughed through every driving exercise. Mostly, we were laughing at each others driving skills, but also coming over the radio, the instructors' had some pretty hilarious comments.

One of the exercises was called "collision avoidance". You basically drove 45 mph straight at a stop light pole. Once you got down there, a light would come on indicating which way to swerve and stop. Sounds simple enough, except that it felt like the light was never going to come on and you were about to make history by being the first student to run over the little stop light! I was usually screaming by the time I got to the light, then when it finally clicked on I'd slam on the breaks and screech around the barricade of orange cones (nailing a couple). After I would come to an a abrupt halt, Steve and I would look at each other and burst into giggles. Then over the radio we'd hear an official voice say, "The passenger in car number 24 is in need of some fresh underwear."

Study in Black and White II

These are are fun to do.

The first dance.

Myself with Lindsay chowing down in the background.

Sandy and her granddaughter.

My second niece.

Thanksgiving 2008

Running Mad

Rea and I had a little time to kill Saturday, so we stopped off at Lake Hefner.
BTW - a Rumba is a type of all juice energy drink.