Allen November 28th, 2007
Some of the old photos I had available on my old site (acornsfromanokie.typepad.com) is now available on Flickr. In addition, I have some new photos as well from a recent trip to Washington DC.
Enjoy!
[Added: And now I can insert Flickr photo sets into the webpost.]
Photoset for the closing of the Oklahoma City Plant:
Photoset for a recent trip to Washington DC:
Allen February 16th, 2007
My wife, Missy, called me at work the other day. She was rather upset — she found a dead bird in the master bathroom floor. Apparently one of the dogs had found it outside and brought it in. I was at work and couldn’t easily leave. I told her to get a plastic bag, avert her eyes and pick it up and put it in the trash.
“There is no way I’m going to pick up a dead bird. I’ve locked the dogs and cats out of the bathroom and you can deal with it when you get home.”
“Oh, honey. I really don’t want some bird decomposing on our bathroom carpet. It’ll be easy. Just do it real quick and it will be over with.”
Dead silence on the other end of the line told me this was not going to be real quick and it was not going to be over with.
I sighed, “OK. I’ll pick it up when I get home. I just hope this isn’t some bird that died from the bird flu. Perhaps we need to take it to the wildlife service just to be sure.”
So the rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. In fact, I had forgotten about the bird until I pulled into the driveway and found the car missing. After letting the dogs out of the cage, I got a plastic bag from the pantry and headed in to the bathroom. The cats were quite interested in following me — small wonder.
I slipped in to the bathroom and, sure enough, there was the dead bird with its legs in the air. I spotted a gold band on one of the legs and thought, “Oh dear. This is some sort of bird that has been banded and is part of some scientific study. Wait a minute…”
“That’s a gold band — not silver. And it isn’t on its leg. It’s on its butt.”
I stooped down, picked up the bird and read the band — Made in China.
After I wiped the tears from my eyes, I had an idea. I moved the bird from our bathroom to our entryway and waited for my wife, Missy, and my daughter, Amy, to come home.
After about 20 minutes, the dogs started barking wildly and up the sidewalk came Missy and Amy. My wife called out, “Did you pick up the bird.”
“Yes, I did. But I think its important that you be able to deal with this. I’ve brought it out here for you to pick up,” I said as I pointed to the dead bird at my feet.
Dual shrieks greeted this suggestion and both women turned and started walking back down the sidewalk.
I started laughing and picked up the dead bird with my bare hand. Shrieeek! “It’s really OK. It won’t hurt you,” I called out.
Two shivers and a pleading request to just throw it away!
“No, really. It won’t hurt you!” Another thought lodged in my sick brain. “It’s really a nice bird. It’s kind of cute. I think it really wants to be our friend.” And with that, I turned the dead bird to face me and kissed it full on the lips — er, beak.
Shriiiieeeeek!
I thought I had freaked them out before, but now they were really going. By now, both women were at the end of the sidewalk and telling me to (1) throw the bird away, (2) wash my lips, (3) wash my hands and (4) wash my lips again.
I walked outside and pleaded with them to look at the pretty bird. I think they would like it. Amy retreated back to the car and Missy fetched up around the side of the house. I kissed the dead bird two or three more times to convince them that it wasn’t going to harm them, but they wouldn’t listen to me.
I finally got my daughter, Amy, to examine the “band” on the bird’s butt and her cries of distress turned to peals of laughter. I asked her, “Don’t you think the bird is cute?”
“Yes, it’s very nice.”
“Wouldn’t you like to kiss it?” as I held it up for her to kiss.
Kiss, kiss.
By now, Missy was sufficiently suspicious to examine the dead bird.
We were all in agreement that one of the cats had probably pounced on it and had found it harder to kill than it had previously suspected.
Allen May 17th, 2006
As I have alluded to earlier, I have a new job and am now in Vestal, NY for training at the Lockheed-Martin site in Owego. I will be here on and off over the next 3 years. I’m here for 2 weeks, home for a weekend and again here for 2 weeks. Spend a month back in Oklahoma (generally speaking) and then do it again.
As much as I like to say that I’m an Okie, this is a very pretty section of the country. While it is a bit more cloudy that I would prefer, it has been a fairly pleasant stay. The people here are generally nice and friendly — which is probably true for most smaller cities in the United States.
After each day of training, I head to the Binghamton Y. Binghamton reminds me of an Oklahoma City that never quite grew up. It has a small downtown core that needs some revitalization. I’ve watched a Binghamton Mets baseball game and did some geocaches on weekends as well as some generic hiking.
I eat in the room and then head over to the Ale House (piggish Java applet warning) to have a few beers. I’ve signed up for the "Tour of the World" and hope to enjoy a few beers from around the world. I wish Tap Works (sadly, no link available) in OKC would offer the same tour. Free pint glass and a hoodie await those who circum-navigate the world while their hiney is parked on a bar stool.
Not much else to tell. I will be back in Norman on Friday and then have to leave again in a couple of weeks. Luckily I will have a break until September until I have to leave the family again.
I’ve had a couple of draft postings in my Moleskine that I’m hoping to flush out of hiding soon. Perhaps I can do a couple tomorrow.
Allen February 15th, 2006
The sun shone brightly on a sunny cold morning in Oklahoma. And while the wind outside whipped the leaves into dancing patterns, Allen, overweight with black hair salted with grays, wrote gravely about a recent article he read, Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing.
Suddenly all hell broke loose when Allen loudly cried out, "Mon du!! He shore did ’splain them rules ‘rite purty like!!" And outside, the brown crinkly leaves verigated with dead veins danced in the chilled winter wind.
[Via Lifehacker]
Allen December 2nd, 2005
|
You Passed the US Citizenship Test |
 Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct! |
[Via baldilocks]
Allen October 31st, 2005
Work has been crazy busy again and personal life has had more Eagle Scout Courts of Honor. I’ve about decided I’m not going to do NaNoWriMo this year, but hope to concentrate on more weblog postings.
Listening to Live at Whiskey River Landing by Balfa Toujours (via MusicMatch On Demand) while I’m coding. They’re probably singing about those stupid English-only listeners and making fun of me. But boy is it a good CD.
Hope to see you on the other side some day.
Allen October 19th, 2005
I note that the D*I*Y Planner (I use the HipsterPDA pack from them) has a new website — no longer directly affiliated with a million monkeys typing.
All of the above said to point to a rather "neat" site that explains Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Chastity, Tranqulity and Humility.
Starting at age 20, Ben would note when he failed to perform a task as he lived his life — stressing one virture each week. After 13 weeks, we would start the process over. As he grew older, he went through the series only once a year and then once every several years. I don’t know if this is because of boredom or because older age brings with it its own temperance.
Be that as it may, hPDA may now print out their own sheet for scoring your life.
Allen September 23rd, 2005
Jay Tea examines Poor Liberal Thinking and comments on George Will’s three four rules to keep out of poverty.
1) Graduate from high school. School attendance is mandatory until the age of 16, and free. Further, the law encourages kids to stay in school — our labor laws are designed to encourage kids to stay in school and out of the work force until they are 18.
2) Don’t have a baby out of wedlock. Again, this is one you gotta work at to violate. It’s been about 2000 years since anyone just "woke up pregnant" — it’s pretty well established what sorts of things lead to pregnancy, and the vast majority of pregnant women did those things willingly. Yes, there are exceptions, but those are very rare exceptions.
3) Don’t get married as a teenager. This is an expansion of the above one. But it also reminds people that marriage is supposed to be forever, and that’s a hell of a commitment to make before one is 20 years old. Even military enlistments are only for a couple of years, and nobody in their right mind is gonna give a 20-year mortgage to a 19-year-old. Take a couple of years as an adult to establish yourself, find out just who and what you are, before making a lifetime commitment.
4) Don’t get hooked on alcohol or drugs. Again, those are active choices. Nobody wakes up an alcoholic or a junkie; it takes a bit of work and effort to develop an addiction. In fact, teenagers have to violate the law to even get their hands on it, let alone regularly enough to develop a dependency.
As my father noted, no one ever starting drinking and doing drugs saying, "Boy, I can’t wait to get hooked on this stuff." All addicts started out as "someone who can handle it."
So adding my rule to those above:
5) Don’t get in debt. Or stated another way: If you can’t afford it now, you can’t afford it later. Most people who haven’t violated the four rules above get into trouble by purchasing "stuff" that they can’t afford. Whereas society discourages the violation of the previous three laws (well, depends upon what segment of society you are talking about), you don’t find many champions of the fifth rule.
Although our family is not poor, the fifth rule still gives us fits. As it probably does for most Americans.
Allen September 23rd, 2005
I‘m not getting didn’t get you anything. I hope you’ll do the same for me.
And BTW, Discardia this year was from June 21 to Sept 22. But if the notion that you’ve missed Discardia gets in your way…
[Via 43folders]
Allen September 1st, 2005
So this wasn’t really a link dump, but I had several thoughts I needed to get out.
I’ve been extremely busy at work and a home. So as before, life trumps blogging. I’ve made another note to myself to write at least once a day, but that can’t always happen.