Jasmine Moran Children's Museum

Last Saturday we took a day trip to Seminole, Oklahoma to visit the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum. We had a great time, as you can see from these pictures:

     
     
     

Usually I try to give a synopsis of what all went on in these blog posts, but in this case, the pictures are so central to the story that I sort of blogged in the individual photo descriptions. The real blog entry lives almost entirely on Flickr! You really should go there and take a look at each picture individually... it's easy on Flickr to enter a photo set and click "Next" on each page and go all the way through it. This is one case where the official Web site doesn't do the real place justice.

Click this picture of the museum's welcome sign to see all of the pictures and read the photo captions to see all the things we did:

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

The other day I blogged that there were still branches in my neighborhood that were making it hazardous for me to get to my bus stop. That was Saturday... imagine my surprise when, on Thursday, I found that some of the branches had been removed! (Unfortunately, not all of them had been taken off, but it was a little safer getting to my bus.)

The only reason I had the camera with me that day was because a few days before that, I took a bunch of pictures from my office window of a "snowstorm" blowing in. I thought it would be interesting to take some similar pictures on a clear day so you can see how far the visibility really is from that window. Here are a couple of examples:


Snowy Day


Clear Day

I should have waited for the next day... it was much more clear... the pictures in the set were taken when it was kind of overcast, but you can still see a lot of stuff. I also took some pictures of my desk... anyone who has been to see me in my office will attest that it has (ahem) "character". (Really... it has cartoon characters.) I also took a few kind of pretty sunset pictures. Click over to see the whole set!

Super Fat

Yesterday was simultaneously two special Tuesdays at once: Super Tuesday and Fat Tuesday. Inspired by a blog post from Cathy's cousin in Louisiana, in honor of Mardi Gras we went and picked up a King Cake; in honor of Super Tuesday we went over to my father-in-law's house and watched Fox News on his big screen TV until the returns had pretty much settled down (at least for Oklahoma) and everyone was tired and cranky and wanted to go home and go to bed. Ah, the joys of family. :)

Ice Storm Cleanup Continues

It's been almost two months since last December's devastating ice storm, and around town there are still piles of tree branches (and in some cases, bigger things like trunks!) all over the sides of the road. The City of Tulsa has been having a really slow time getting them picked up, although they have pledged to make a total of three trips through each neighborhood, I understand, and make sure everything gets picked up. Well, because of the whole having a new baby thing, plus, it being wintertime, ever since then it's either been dark when I've been at home (shorter days in the wintertime), or I've been dog-tired in the daytime because of staying up to feed the baby at all hours.

Anyway, this afternoon after the Men's breakfast at Grace, it was a beautiful day and I was outside anyway, so I dragged the limbs that have been littering my backyard ever since the ice storm out to the curb. As soon as I got finished I looked down the street, and what should I see but the cleanup trucks coming down the street! I'll bet my little pile of twigs wasn't there more than 45 minutes total. It almost looks like they may have gotten to our house and then called it a day, though, because the street past us is still piled with branches. It's a shame, too, because that's the way I have to walk to get to the bus; with piles of branches sometimes covering the sidewalk, and in the dark just before sunrise, it can be pretty hazardous if you check out mentally and don't look where you're going. I'll sure be glad when they get that cleared out so I can safely walk on the sidewalk again.

Ice Storm Redux

Well, we were able to go home yesterday evening... I slept in my own bed! My parents, on the other hand, were either less lucky or more lucky... a friend of theirs grabbed a room for them when it came open in the otherwise-full hotel where she works, so instead of sleeping in their cold house, they got to sleep at Holiday In Express. My wife's dad still has power, but his driveway is blocked by debris... you can get in and out on foot, but not in cars. Some of the tree branches that were down in his yard were not actually broken, and when the ice melted off they sprang back up, so some of what we thought we were going to have to clear out is actually back where it belongs. :) His car and pickup have some branches on them, but because they were coated with maybe a half-inch of ice when the branches fell we hope there's no damage.

Much of Tulsa is still without power, but my impression after driving through town last night is that now at least the no-power sections are the exception and the we-have-power sections are the rule (Tuesday night that was not the case). Even my church has power back; it came on late yesterday afternoon (they had already canceled Wednesday night service, though, and they did not reinstate).

My 7-year-old's school has been canceled all week. Tonight was supposed to be their Christmas program... D'OH! Our church program has missed out on two important rehearsals so far, too... D'OH!! We're not in it because of our upcoming labor induction (the morning of the production!) but we still hope they are able to do an excellent job.

Supposed to snow Friday and Saturday, but hopefully it won't cause another mess like the one this week.

Oklahoma Ice Storm - December 2007

Wow.

OK, so Sunday we went to church as usual, came home as usual, did all our regular Sunday stuff as usual. Watched Dallas beat Detroit at home in a surprisingly close game. Went to bed as usual... then at 4am woke up NOT as usual. The power was out, so I got up and called the power company. Apparently the power was out for a lot of people... there was some ice during the night. It was cold, so I went and got our 7-year-old and took him to our bed so he wouldn't get cold and we toughed it out until morning.

In the morning we started calling around for someone with electric so we could get into a warm place. My mom and dad had no power... she was planning to run her oven all day and keep the house warm that way (ultimately that worked for her). Cathy's brother with the big house in Broken Arrow was out of power too. Finally we called Cathy's dad who lives by the fair grounds... and his power was on, so we bundled up and went to his house.

There was no ice on the street... the ground temperature was comparatively warm, so the streets were OK. Except for the occasional tree limb. And WHEW, about those tree limbs! But I'll get to that in a minute. Cathy's dad's power was on when we got there, but an hour or two later... BAM! no power. We had plenty of flashlights, though, and some battery- and oil-powered lanterns, and he lit the burners on his gas stove to keep the place warm, so our main enemy was plain old boredom. A few hours later the power came back on, but not the cable TV... fortunately we had lots of DVDs to help keep my little boy occupied (it ALMOST worked!) and except for a few flickers and one 20-minute blackout, the power hasn't gone back off. Later we learned that we are about two blocks from the main staging area that the power company is sending the emergency trucks out from, which probably explains why we had power when everyone else outside of our immediate area was still dark.

As of yesterday afternoon, my house in East Tulsa was still without power. According to the Tulsa World this morning, 220,000 homes in the Tulsa area are still dark... I understand that the ice took out the power of half a million homes across the state. Oklahoma has been declared a federal disaster area, with $5 million in aid to go to local governments to help with debris removal. All those tree limbs! It's incredible the size of some of the tree limbs (and whole trees) that were taken down by this ice. My father-in-law has part of his magnolia tree on his roof now, although luckily it doesn't appear to have done any damage. Yesterday the power company estimated for my wife that our power would be on today, so let's hope.

The power is also out at my church... if you click that link and get nothing it's because their Web server is still down. :) I don't think the power ever went down where I work downtown. I didn't come in to work Monday or Tuesday (my boss said not to) but I expect to be business as usual from here on out.

UPDATE: a friend of ours wrote a pretty cool blog post about the ice storm a few weeks after the fact.