Flack

Around 9am this morning, as Mason played Xbox and Susan and I watched, Morgan hid in the hallway coloring her legs, arm and face with an ink pen. Shortly after the budding artist was discovered, she was whisked away for bath time. With Mason content with his videogame, I decided it would be a good time to sneak in a quick morning walk. It was raining very lightly -- somewhere between a mist and a drizzle -- before I left. I threw on my hoodie sweatshirt just in case. It's a good thing I did. By the time I was halfway around the neighborhood it was pouring. I could tell I was soaked by the feeling of wet pant material on the back of my calves -- without even looking you can tell you've walked through water deep enough to soak the bottom of your jeans. While walking I realized that the sides of the street where I normally walk are actually for water drainage. Turns out you become quite the water-runoff expert after walking around the neighborhood in a rainstorm. The further I walked the less dry path options I had. The water draining from the sides kept moving in toward the middle of the road, leaving me with two options -- walking down the middle of the street, or walking in the water (which is what I was obviously forced to do). The first splash is always the worst. The cold water rises and then sinks into your shoes, soaking your socks. Wet socks are the worst. Instead of getting upset, I just thought of the rain as a challenge -- like someone saying, "oh yeah? Maybe *this* will get you to stop exercising!" (Leave it to an O'Hara to take a rainstorm personal.) With that in mind, I marched through the inch or two deep water like it was nothing. By the time I made it back to my block, the rain began to let up. Like a cartoon, the clouds parted and the sun began shining. Yeah, that's right -- might as well give up, rain. It's gonna take more than that to stop me this time.

Halloween night was fun. Linda came over and brought "Yoda" with her. Susan deemed it too cold for Morgan to trick-or-treat, so Linda and I along with Yoda and Spider-Man sat out on our quest for candy. Mom came over to see the kids and barely caught us before we left our street. Mason already had a ton of candy from trick-or-treating both the zoo and the FAA; now he has two tons. Susan's sister and mom came over at different times to hang out with the kids for a bit. After trick-or-treating was over we threw everyone into Susan's van and drove up to see dad at work, where the kids got a couple of special giant suckers. It was a good night -- I just don't remember Halloween being this much work. I haven't been sleeping well this week, and yesterday was a long, crappy day. After work I took Mason to gymnastics class and then slept in the truck while he was in class. I set my phone alarm to wake me up five minutes before class ended. After class we zipped home to catch the Hornets' season opener. Hornets win! I'm not sure Peja Stojakovic put in a $64 million dollar performance, but he did hit a couple of clinch shots. Yesterday kicked off the 60-day diet. Giving up Diet Coke and only eating Healthy Choice meals may have had something to do with yesterday's headache and overall crankiness. Or maybe it's just because it was Wednesday, who knows. I almost think giving up drinking pop for two months will be harder than any calorie restrictions. It certainly sucked walking past a million bowls of leftover Halloween candy yesterday. I didn't cheat, but I sure was tempted. I walked past one particular Twix bar that was calling my name all day long. Alright, time to run. I'm going to go get a Diet Coke. Oh, and here's a picture of my nephew Griffin, in costume.

Today was "Haunt the Halls" -- different from "Haunt the Zoo" only in the aspect that it takes place in the halls at work instead of the zoo. Other than location it's pretty much the same schtick, except for the fact that both Mason and Morgan got 10x the amount of candy today than they did at the zoo (where we paid $6 per kid). Someone remind me about that next year.

Saturday evening, Mason, Morgan, Susan and I went to "Haunt the Zoo." It's one of those "safe" alternatives to trick-or-treating your own neighborhood, which is kind of silly considering we plan on trick-or-treating our neighborhood as well. Think of it as a dry run. We arrived at the zoo just before dark and noticed that several thousand other people decided to haunt the zoo Saturday evening as well. While parking, I overheard the parking attendant report back that there were "five parking spots left" in the Zoo parking lot. Fortunately we got one of those five and didn't have to park across the street at Remington Park. The annual Haunt the Zoo event is a neat idea, in theory. There are about 20 different "scenes" where kids can get their pictures taken and get candy. The only thing that kept it from being super fun were the thousands of other people there, pushing their way through the lines in a mad rush to get to the candy. Each candy station was divided into two lanes to ease foot traffic, and more than once we saw adults going through one side, doubling back, then back again through the other side (in order to get twice the amount of candy). We also saw lots of adults cutting in line and doing other crazy stuff in their quest of bite-sized Snickers bars. Seems pretty crazy, the bar at which some people are willing to sacrifice their ethics. Ah well. The kids had fun and will have more fun Tuesday night. More pixtures here: http://www.robohara.com/albums/haunt_the_zoo

You may remember that from May 1st to August 1st of this year I participated in friendly weight-loss contest with several co-workers. During that three month period I lost a total of 46 pounds. (And yes, I won the contest.) From August 1st through today (roughly three months after the end of the contest), I have maintained the weight that I've lost. I've done this through a combination of diet and mild exercise. Obviously I haven't been dieting and exercising as much as I did during the initial contest, or I would have continued to lose weight. But that's okay -- my goal was to maintain. And now, I'm setting a new goal. By January 1st, I plan on losing 40 pounds. Some of you are saying, "how do you plan on doing that?" (Others of you are saying, "it's about time, fat ass!") My plan is essentially do what I did last time -- walk twice a day, and eat between 1,000 and 1,500 calories per day. The first month of our initial contest I hurt my back jogging, so a lot of that time was spent not exercising. And during the second month I was only walking 1 mile a day -- now I walk between 1.5 and 2 miles when I go. The third month of our contest (when I lost the most weight) I was walking twice a day (1 mile in the morning and 1.5 miles at night) and eating well. For the next two months, starting November 1st, I plan on following that same plan. 40 pounds in two months comes out to losing 5 pounds a week eight weeks in a row. Scientifically speaking, a person must burn 3,500 calories to lost a pound. Your body also burns 10 times your weight in calories just by being alive. If you weigh 100 pounds (and by the way, damn you if you do) then your body burns 1,000 calories a day. Mine burns closer to 3,000. If I eat 1,000 calories a day, that puts me at -2,000. Minus 2,000 calories times seven days a week is a 14,000 calorie loss; divide that by 3,500 calories per pound, and we're looking at a 4 pound per week weight loss. 1,000 calories a day is pretty tough to do (an Egg McMuffin is 300 -- that's a bad start). 1,500 is closer to reality, but that still figures out to losing 3 pounds a week by diet alone, before figuring in exercise. One advantage to being fat (there is one?) is that you burn more calories when walking. According to the websites I've found, my proposed walking plan should burn around 400 calories a day. And so, as of November 1st, that's the goal. Lose 40 pounds by the end of the year, maintain for a while, rinse, repeat.

That's all great information to know, thanks! The 61" Samsung I've been looking at does 1080p, has 2 HDMI inputs (along with several others), and I've been looking at it at Sams (who has a 90 day, no questions asked return policy). Now all I need is the $2,500+.

I had a big blog post ready for today about how I feel like my life is being overrun by "stuff" and how I'm really in the mood to start downsizing and getting rid of crap. But then at lunch we went to Sams and I fell in love with the 56" televisions and have been looking up more information about them on Google all afternoon. I've decided to postpone my budgetary cutbacks until after the inevitable future television purchase.

Ah, that's cool. For a while I had a section of my website set up for custom bins, shelves and whatnot for games and carts. I need to set that back up again.

I've wanted one of these stupid plastic hat cleaners for as long as I can remember, which is actually kind of stupid seeing as though they're only a dollar at the dollar store. I've been "meaning to pick one up" for the past fifteen years now. Recently I made the committment of plunking down one hundred pennies. I finally own one. Finding a dirty hat in my house isn't difficult. In fact the first one I grabbed was sweat-stained and grungy, and the fact that it was originally light gray didn't help its looks. This Nikee' cap ($10 for 3 at the flea market) seemed to be a prime washing candidate. After one washing, the final verdict? Eh. Still dirty. Less dirty, I suppose, but nowhere near clean. The plastic did seem to retain the cap's shape adequately, but it's still dirty. Maybe after two or three washings it'll be cleaner, but then again, I think it'll cost more in soap, water and electricity to wash a cap three times than it would be to buy another $3 hat. Ah well. I suppose if I toss one hat in with each load of laundry, I could get all of them clean within 50-60 loads. We'll see if that happens.

Hey Tim, I know several people around locally who will cap a monitor for you for $100. It's a lot more than a cap kit costs, but if you're uncomfortable with soldering and working around monitors, it can be worth it. If you need more contact stuff, drop me a PM.

While we're not seriously looking yet, Susan and I enjoy looking at open houses and dreaming. Unfortunately, I don't know that we will ever find a house that suits us perfectly. The biggest problem is my stupid hobbies; between Star Wars collections, arcade cabinets, videogames, computers, and tons of other junk, I don't know that we will ever find a house (short of an abandoned Wal-Mart) that could hold it all. Today however, we came close. While out driving this afternoon we ran across an open house that he just had to stop and look at -- 4,700 square foot of heaven. Susan and I have a mental wish list of what our next (and hopefully final) house will have, and boy did this one have it all: two living rooms, an awesome kitchen, a mother-in-law plan, a game room, a home theater room, a study ... you name it. Even after walking through the house twice, we couldn't come up with a single thing it didn't have -- except a reasonable price tag. That's not to say it wasn't priced reasonable for what it was, but it was way out of our league. I don't know if looking at houses this far our of our league is inspirational or simply depressing.

Strata made a vertical JAMMA bowling game. It's an older game (1990) but still might be fun. I remember there being a few trackball-based billiards games as well, but I don't remember if they were horizontal or vertical to tell you the truth. Two notes for you. One, it may be possible to rotate the monitor that's currently in your cabinet. You'll have to check and see how difficult it is. And two, many older games have whatever-to-JAMMA adapters available. You could slap Centipede or any other game in there with the right adapter.

That seems ballpark for what they're going for around here. Even MKII machines seem to still bring in money. At the last auction I was at I saw several (MKII) go for ~$300 (USD).

Actually, the only spot on the truck was where the dirt from his bumper was rubbed off.

On the way home from work yesterday I noticed that I'd missed a couple of calls on my cell phone. While checking out my phone Susan called, and when she did I realized my phone was only vibrating, not ringing. I checked the mute switch and it wasn't flipped. Then I remembered, the last time this happened, my SD memory card had popped loose. I checked the top of my phone and, where my card normally goes, was instead a big gaping hole. Uh oh. Tracing my steps backwards, I remembered that Monday I dropped my phone out in the parking lot. The card slot is spring loaded, and it must've shot the card out far enough away from where my phone landed that I didn't notice it on the ground. Sucko. I wasn't really bummed about the money (a replacement card should cost less than $50), but I had a lot of things on it that my phone requires to work (including my MP3 ringtones). I've learned my lesson about doing backups over the years and I have backups of everything that was on the card, but it's just the hassle of setting everything back up. The card also had excel files and photos -- nothing private or sensitive, but it's always a weird feeling knowing someone out there could be flipping through pictures of your kid. I was lamenting about my loss this morning when a co-worker threw her arms up in the air and exclaimed, "I know where your card is!" Turns out, someone upstairs found my card out in the parking lot several days ago and had been asking around, trying to find its owner. After a quick trip upstairs, both my phone and I are back in business!

This evening I had the privledge of observing what must have been the world's worst skateboarder. Tonight was Mason's hour-long gynmastics class. Typically during his class I keep myself entertained by sitting out in the car and either brainstorming ideas for my next book, listening to music, or playing Gameboy Advance games. Tonight however, I could *not* keep my eyes off this skateboardiing moron. Not only did it appear that he had never skateboarded before in his life, but the poor kid was sixteen or seventeen years old and learning how to skate in a public parking lot. He fell at least three times pretty hard, and almost got run over by cars cruising through the parking lot a couple of other times. I know skateboarding looks really easy on the Playstation, but you might want to practice in your own driveway a couple of times before attempting it before a parking lot full of onlookng, bored parents.

Johnny, my work-partner-in-crime, has his mind elsewhere. On top of the fact that he hasn't been sleeping well, his wife had surgery Monday and he's been off work the past two days hanging out with her and helping around the house. He came back to work today worn out, so Susan and I decided today that we should all go somewhere relaxing for lunch. The three of us all normally park in the same parking lot, so it's a coin toss as to who's going to drive to lunch any given day. Johnny was parked the closest, so we all piled in his big Dodge truck. While backing out of the parking spot, we felt Johnny's rear tire bump into the curb -- except he wasn't far enough back to have hit a curb. In reality, he had just backed into someone's Cadillac. The next hour (technically, our lunch hour) was spent dealing with the aftermath. First we called security, who came over to the accident scene. The Cadillac was parked illegally in an area which was clearly not a parking spot. What made things worse is, it was right our blind spot, so we never saw it (but we felt it). Security spent the next 20 minutes trying to track down the other car's owner. Eventually the other owner came out, complained that she thought the spot was in fact a parking spot (there's no way anyone would think it's a parking spot), complained that other people park there all the time, and then complained that she was getting ticketed when other cars were also parked illegally. The security guard was fair, and ticketed the other cars as well as the lady. Then we learned that the lady did not own the Caddy -- her car was in the shop; this one was a loaner. Oy vey. We then spent another 30 minutes waiting as the lady went back to her office to try and get the insurance information for the vehicle. The licence plate had a 1997 sticker on it, so the odds of her having valid insurance seemed pretty slim. The worst part of the whole deal was, according to Johnny's insurance agent it looks he is at fault (apparently, no matter the circumstances, if you back into someone (even if they are illegally parked), you are at fault). I took several digital pictures of the lady's car parked two feet away from the curb in an area which was clearly not a parking spot, but it doesn't sound like it will matter. And that sucks. But the good news was, after waiting another hour for lunch, we were *really* hungry by then, so we went to Golden Corral and pigged out. Yay for stress eating! Note that there are no yellow lines around the parked Cadillac. And that is what happens when you park there.

The Hornets are the first professional team we've had in Oklahoma during my lifetime. We have several minor league teams: the Redhawks (minor league baseball), the Blazers (CHL hockey), etc. Our biggest sport is college football (both OU and OSU). We are really excited about the Hornets being in town and people are showing them a lot of support. It's a shame it's temporary. Earlier this year investors from Oklahoma City purchased the Seattle Supersonics. As of right now everybody involved says that the Sonics will not be moving to OKC, but we'll see if that changes once the Hornets go back to New Orleans ... BTW, I have tickets to the Portland Trailblazers vs. OKC Hornets game!

I went in with four co-workers this year and split a season's worth of Hornet's tickets five ways. To get my out-of-state readers back up to speed, due to a little tropical storm named "Hurricane Katrina" the NBA New Orleans Hornets temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City. The Hornets love being in Oklahoma City -- financially, the franchise is doing much better here than back in NOLA. And likewise, Oklahoma City loves having the Hornets -- last year alone, we sold out the Ford Center 24 times! Unfortunately for everyone involved, the NBA stresses that the move is temporary and the Hornets plan to return back to New Orleans in the 2007-2008 season. That means we only have them for one more season, and I plan on enjoying them while they're here. Friday night was a preseason game against the Orlando Magic, one of the eight games this season I had tickets for. The first game of the year is always a learning experience. I had to figure out where to park again, where to sit again, where the snack bars and restrooms were in relation to our seats were, etc. Parking downtown is always a pain; your choices are $5 to park really far away (but with a decent chance of early escape) or $6 for underground parking at the Cox center (which is pretty close, but plan on spending half an hour in your car waiting to get out). Because the game was right after work I ended up eating at the game. $3.50 for a hotdog, $3 for a 20oz Coke. I really wanted to get a Hornets baseball cap but I couldn't force myself to drop the $25 -- Stephen reminded me that Wal-Mart probably has them cheaper. As for the game, well, it was a game. We were up 30-23 at the end of the first quarter and only down by 1 point going into the half, but as the game went on our good players kept getting hurt and/or came out (as it's only a preseason game) and eventually the Magic pulled ahead and stayed there. The final score was Magic 100, Hornets 85. Despite the loss it was an entertaining game and it really put me in the mood for the upcoming season! After the game, Stephen suggested we stop by Riverwind Casino, so we did. Here's my review of that. I lost $100 on slot machines. The end.

For the record, the NES Zapper works just fine with the Yobo -- I just finished a round of Duck Hunt with the boy a few minutes ago.

Thanks man, much appreciated! The book is now available through Amazon as well. How cool is that?

About a week ago, Mason informed us that one of his front teeth was wiggly. He's been bending it back and forth, making anyone who's watching cringe. Last night, with a little encouragement, he played with the thing until it eventually popped right out. Mason was visited by the Tooth Fairy last night and said he plans on spending his dollar at either the Dollar Store or Dollar Tree, "whichever has better toys."

Yesterday for lunch, Dad met Susan, the kids and I over at the new Chinese buffet in Yukon. Lunch was good, but uneventful. We chatted, we ate, we left. Susan and the kids left in one car while dad and I stood in the parking lot chatting for a few more minutes. Then, he and I (who also drove separately) left, each heading home. As I came over the bridge at Czech Hall at I-40, I saw several cars pulled over to the right hand side of the road. I immediately recognized one of the cars as Susan’s van. As I hit the brakes and swerved to the right hand shoulder. I saw Susan standing outside the van, crying. My gut instinct was that she had been in an accident, but I didn’t see any obvious damage to her car. I flung my door open and ran over to her. “Those people are dead, I know it,” she said. She pointed over the embankment and down at the bottom of the hill was a severely damaged Chevy pickup. The tire tracks of where the truck had driven off the road were quite visible in the grass. The pickup had obviously rolled several times and landed at the bottom of the steep embankment. I asked Susan several times if she was okay and she said she was. I asked her if she saw the accident and she said yes, that it had happened just a few seconds ago. Two other cars stopped as well. A man had gone down the steep hill and was checking on the driver. Another lady, a nurse, was standing at the top of the hill. Susan had offered a blanket for the driver who was at least unconscious, and the nurse said that was a good idea. Susan handed me the small blanket and I told her to take the kids and go home. Still shook up, she got back in the car and drove off. I made it four or five steps down the hill as I began to hear approaching sirens. I stood, frozen, as the first fire truck pulled up. The first two firemen got out of the truck with what appeared to be a portable version of “the jaws of life”. As they began to work their way down the hill, the man standing down by the truck looked up at us and shook his head as if to say there was no reason to hurry.

Saturday, October 7th marked the umteenth-annual Czech Festival here in Yukon, Oklahoma. Yukon was apparently founded by Czechs and has an official "sister town" in Czechoslovakia, so the first Saturday of every October is officially "Czech Day". Here is my non-cynical summary of Czech Day: The Czech Day Festival begins with a parade down Main Street, where all the Czech prince, princess, king and queen nominees join Shriners and lots of local schools and other organizations. The parade lasts from 10am until noon, at which point the festival officially kicks off. North of Main Street are tons of arts and craft booths, while a midway full of rides lies to the south. Directly in the middle are both traditional Czech foods as well as other tasty morsels. The festival goes for hours as Czechs (and those joining them) dance and party late into the evening. And now, my cynical review: The Czech Day Festival begins with the majority of Yukon's 30,000 citizens rushing toward Main Street, blocking streets and parking on each other's lawns trying to get as close as possible to the parade route. If you plan on being close enough to see the parade (which starts at 10am) you'll need to get there around 9am to claim your own personal space -- not that it'll matter, as people will walk right in front of where you're sitting and proceed to stand there until you eventually are forced to move. Parade floats can quickly be divided into two categories -- those who throw candy and those who don't. Those who don't are largely ignored by the masses, save for the elderly who know that if they wave long enough, someone will feel guilty and eventually wave back at them. The ones that do throw candy are wildly popular in the ten-and-under demographic, who will flail their bodies towards floats, cars, tractors and horses in hopes of nabbing a free piece of bubble gum. Electoral hopefuls and local businessmen walk the streets handing out flyers, stickers and businesscards, most of which end up on the streets of Yukon in seconds. There's actually a third type of parade entry: Shriners. I don't know much about Shriners but I guess when not visiting sick kids they spend most of their time cruising around in kick ass 3 wheelers, dune buggies and mini bikes. The Shriners always appear near the end of the parade because there is no other way parade organizers could get thousands of people to stand around watching dozens of Mazda Miatas cruising by at 2mph with kids sitting on the back waving to the masses unless they knew that something exciting was coming later. Put it this way; the second most exciting thing behind the Shriners is watching the horses and hoping one will poop near you so you can watch a kid shovel it up. At noon after the parade ends, the masses rush toward the food area, which would be crowded if only 100 people showed up (so you can imagine what it looks like with thousands piling into it). The only authentic Czech food I know of is a kolache, which is kind of like a doughnut except it has a bottom and is filled with jelly. Other "authentic" Czech foods for sale each year include Indian Tacos, giant turkey legs and nachos. If you weren't one of the lucky first 20 people into the food area then you will get to wander the streets of Yukon in search of steps, a curb, or just a clean grassy opening in order to sit and eat lunch. From there it's off to the midway, where rides cost $2.50 per ride and are propped up and levelled with scrap pieces of rotten wood (I'm not kidding -- I even took pictures this year). Mason talked Dad into riding the Ferris Wheel with him, while Susan and I stood on the ground, ready to catch them should the rickety old ride come crashing down. After that review you're probably asking, "why do you go to the Czech Festival each year?" and believe me, I was asking myself that same question around 9am while some 200 year old woman in a minivan tried to do a U-turn on a one-way street. There are two reasons I go. One is for my kids. Mason's eyes lit up at every horse, every dune buggy and every marching band that went by. This year was Morgan's first Czech fest and while I'm sure she won't remember it, her hair blew in the wind as she pointed at the horses with one hand and held a free sucker in her mouth with the other. The other reason I go is to see old friends. I ran into Sarah Hamner and Patty Ball today. We saw Diane O'Brien on a float. Andy Willrath drove a firetruck. Scott Cowan was standing roadside with his dad, brother and nephew. There's some unspoken pull that brings people back to Czech Day. Even if you don't get to talk with someone for more than a minute or two, it's good to just be able to see they're still doing okay. And so, another Czech Day has come and gone. By next year I'm sure I'll have forgotten about the long lines, the rude people, the bright sun and the fussy kids. I'm sure next year, just like every other year, I'll be back on the front lines, fold-up chairs and kids in tow. Look for us there.