Welcome to OKC...Bitch!

Well, I just got my first Tornado scare......

The siren went off, then the radio did it's Emergency Broadcast sound, but this time it wasn't a test. We were being told to take shelter.

I scrambled to grab my laptops because the information contained within are crucial for my company and my personal finances. Fortunately, my home office is right next to the bathroom that serves as our storm shelter.

I went to go try to grab the dogs which I knew would be a challenge when the warning was lifted. The tornado had already touched down.....15 minutes down the road from where I was.

I called Nancy at the hospital to let her know I was alright to find out that the hospital had already called a "Code Black" and she didn't know why. I told her that a tornado touched down on a highway and took some cars out.

She's in for a long, long night in the ER and hopefully I don't have to do this hokey pokey again and try to get my butt into the bathroom/storm shelter

Model of New Entertainment Center

I am still playing around with Google SketchUp.

This is my latest foray. Nancy spent and evening measure things and drew up a plan with dimensions and I transfered it to Sketchup.

The stereo components and TV you see are from the available components you can grab out of the repository of objects users upload to Google's Sketchup page. In fact, someone created a 3D model of my Samsung DLP TV and I added it to this model.

Cigar by Impwerx

Well,

My brother, Impwerx, has struck again. This time dabbling in the world of portraits and not coloring other people's line art. This is pure Impwerx original. Here is what he said:

A brief stint into the world of portrait work. Something about this piece really appeals to me, yet strangely I don't know what it is exactly. About 6 hours or so in photoshop. Standard default brushes, and the texture is the concrete near my house.

~imp

Cigar by ~impwerx on deviantART

Arrested Development

I was at the gas station filling up the car with gas. While I was pumping the gas, a local police officer pulled up in the lane across from my car. We started chatting. I was mainly pumping him for information since Nancy and I are new to the area.



Well, I like to use that little feature of the pump that allows you to not need to hold the handle the hold time. I normally have it set to the slowest setting, but I was getting antsy waiting for my 20 gallon tank to fill up. So I grabbed the handle to set it to a faster speed when I guess there was a spark because my arm suddenly burst into flames (I was wearing my sweatshirt).



The cop noticed this as I hit the ground trying to put my arm out. He jumped over and started smothering the flames with a blanket. After the fire was out he threw me up against my car and started putting handcuffs on me.



I was shocked and shouted to him what had I done. It was an accident. He threw me in his car and told me that I was under arrest for carrying a fire arm....



This was a nod to the cheesy joke Kuri posted on his blog

OK Land Rush

Well, Nancy and I have done it. We have taken part in the Oklahoma Land Rush. Granted it is only 118 years late, but we did it.

We firmly planted out stake down on a nice 1/2 acre of prime Oklahoma red clay with a smattering of cedar trees.

As the lady at the title company said, "We know own land with the promise of a house."

This will be the first of hopefully several blog entries documenting the development and construction of our new residence

Randy Green's Hell Girl

Well, my brother has managed to eek out some coloring time and has posted another piece on his deviantART page.

So i tried to knock some rust off my coloring talent. As suggested before I tossed some names into my kangol and pulled one out. It was Randy Green's Hell Girl piece that got the magic touch. Anyone can see the pro talent if you look through his gallery. There is a high level of control and style he consistently exhibits. I highly recommend looking through his work, as there is a wealth of information for would be pencillers to digest.

You can just never go wrong with a hellboy, or in this case a hellgirl theme. The series itself is moody and inventive. I came at this piece with a theme. Heat. Everything about this idea of hot, and heat haze is where i was going. Looked at a camp fire the other night to get the idea for the BG. It is entirely self made, which represents a bit of achievement for myself as like most, I tend to pay little attention to the background and instead focus on the main element itself. I tried to get it all in balance to my satisfaction, without sacrificing any of the imagery.

Linework : Randy Green : link

typos and grammar fumbles free of charge.

~imp

You can view the original deviantART page here


Randy Green's Hell Girl by ~impwerx on deviantART

Sicky McSickster

Well, no good turn ever goes unpunished....

I was out-of-town helping with a project for my company and as we like to do, we exceeded our goals and delivered results early. That didn't come without a price. Between Monday and Friday I clocked 74 hours and an additional 4 hours today (Saturday). Of those 74 hours, I spent 10 hours traveling between Houston and OKC.

By the time I woke up Thursday morning (after clocking 51 hours), I woke up with the beginnings of a soar throat and cough. So, I did what I normally do when this happens. I start drinking water like it's going out of style. Well, for the first time, this didn't help. My throat just kept getting more sore by the hour. By the time we went out to dinner that night, my voice was starting to get hoarse.

Well, despite being exhausted, I didn't get much sleep. After being out cold for about 2 hours, I awoke in pain. First I threw up and threw up. This must've been from the drainage. Then the pain in my throat hit me. I couldn't have been in more pain if I swallowed a pine cone whole. I tried to suffer through it, but by 2AM I needed to say something to someone because I was just miserable.

So I called Nancy. She was the good nurse that she is and told me the proper things. I needed to drink more water. Well, anyone who has been on a high water diet knows that drinking lots of water and sleep don't go hand-in-hand. You either sleep in wet shorts or you are running back and forth to the restroom. I think the only way one could afford to do this and sleep is if they are capable of putting in their own Foley catheter. Then you can pee and sleep at the same time.

Well, I whined to her on the phone for a bit but I could barely speak so I cut the conversation short. It was at this time that I remembered that when I have a problem with coughing due to drainage, I would prop myself up with pillows. So, I scrounged up all the pillows I could find and build a wedge out of them. This seemed to help alot. At least enough that I got a few more hours of sleep.

Morning came and we swung buy CVS pharmacy to pick up some throat remedies. So I picked up some CVS-branded Chloraseptic® and some cough drops. Both of these seemed to help, but the Muscinex I took earlier seemed to start to make me foggy headed and I had to struggle to continue to be productive at work. Plus, I needed to catch a 5:45PM flight back to OKC.

I caught my shuttle to the airport after it being almost 45 minutes late and made it through security without issue. I was worried because on this trip, I was bringing back all the stuff I was leaving in Houston while i was traveling back and forth since late November. Well, I didn't want to check my back for one 4 fl. oz. bottle of contact lens solution. I know the regulations are 3 fl. oz. or smaller, but I looked and couldn't find a 3 fl. oz. bottle of contact solution in my brand. Well, security didn't say anything.

Then, as luck would have it, my flight was late. Then it was overbooked. Then it was hot, hot, hot. I was sweating the whole way home. I tried to sleep, but it was just too hot.

It wasn't until I stepped out of the OKC airport into the 48 degree air that I realized that the plane wasn't hot, I was. I was still burning up in the cold air.

Well, Nancy had asked me to go get some milk on my way back from the airport. At this time, it was around 8PM and I felt like death warmed over. So, I decide to go to Wal-Mart. I prefer Albertsons for groceries, but I wanted to see if I could get some more knock-off Chloraseptic® and I didn't know what Albertson's selection would be. Wal-Mart is also a tad out of the way, but I didn't want to stop twice.

I get to wal-mart and pick out some drugs to try and help me sleep grabbed the milk and came home.

Naturally, Belle and Coco were ecstatics to see me. I let them out of the confines of their entrapment (the kitchen) and they emptied their little bladders in the appropriate location. Then I fed them. I hit the couch to watch a little TV and maybe play a little XBox 360, but I never really made it far. I was out cold on the couch. I woke up at 10 and dragged myself to the bed where I remained until 15 hours later.

I hate being sick, but soar throats, to me, are a torture worse than death.

Sage Advice.....

Just because it's in your size, doesn't mean you need to wear it

Model of my Entertainment Center

Well, it's been a desire of mine to get into woodworking. I was looking around the internet for free CAD programs and ran into Google SketchUp. Granted, it's not a CAD program but it was FREE and looked cool.

So, I needed a project to get my feet wet with. So, I decided that I would attempt to me a 3D model of the entertainment stand my wife and I built a couple years ago when we got our DLP HDTV.

Here is what I came up with.



Model of Entertainment Center by ~grumpwurst on deviantART

Happiness Is.....

Finding that sweet spot on your wadded up jacket being used as a pillow and falling fast asleep on the plane.

Ladies and gentlemen... Donny Osmond!

And that is how Weird Al introduce a new video on his MySpace page.

I have to admit that the most entertaining part of the White and Nerdy video that I highlighted here.

I was just tickled pink when a co-worker pointed out to me that Weird Al posted a video of the entire song being performed with Donny Osmond doing his dancing. So, if you like the self-deprecating humor of Donny Osmond in things like the White and Nerdy video, I present to you Donny Osmond...definitely white and nerdy:

Pork - The Other White Meat

We have decided to give the grill another go for 2007. On Friday, we cooked some chicken. I've pretty much got that down now. I just have to grill 8 minutes on each side and perfection. Well, I haven't done pork yet and we has some pretty thick chops sitting in the freezer.



Nancy threw them in the fridge to thaw out on Friday night. Well it didn't quite work for us to grill them up on Saturday since we had plans during the day and Nancy had to be at work at 3PM. So, we decided to grill them up today.



Unfortunately, I'm not skilled in cooking pork. So, I called my brother, Impwerx, up and asked for some advice. He simply told me to treat the pork like a steak except that I need to tenderize the chops. He told me to give it an extra kick, to switch the Worcestershire with apple sauce and to add a smidge of cinnamon.



Well, I don't own one of the meat tenderizing mallets. Nancy came up with the idea of using the rolling pin. Since the meat was still vacuum packed we could pound the porkchops as much as we wanted without worrying about making a mess.



We didn't have any canned or bottled applesauce, but we did have those little snack pack applesauces that are meant to go in lunch boxes. Those applesauces also had cinnamon already in them.



So we got out or handy vacuum marinader that we use with our Foodsaver. Nancy opened up one of the snack packs of applesauce and laid it down on the bottom of the container. I rubbed in the Montreal Steak Seasoning an both sides of the chops and laid the meat down on the bed of applesauce. Then we put the rest of the applesauce on top of the chops. We vacuum packed the container and let it sit in the fridge for an hour.



With the exception of my running out of propane half-way through the cooking process, it was pretty painless. Those suckers were juicy and the applesauce combined with the seasoning came out rather nice.



We will be definitely adding this to our list of grilling recipes.

Eviction

Who are you to ask me to leave?

I made you who you are today.

I gave you all the riches you hold so dear.

You can’t get rid of me that easy.

I am not a tumor that can just be excised.

I am your excuse, your alibi.

I’m who you fall back on when things go wrong, when life is unsure or you don’t know which way is up.

I’m not going to go quietly

I will raise hell

You begged me to be here

You begged me to never leave.

I make you feel right, I make you feel strong,

I make you feel loved when you were alone in this world.

I’m that family member that came to a visit and never left

I am the stray dog that you decided to feed.

Your fear feeds me

Your anxiety justifies me

Your lack of hope ensures my tenure

So you say that you are done with me

That I’m unhealthy for you

I’m not that easy to get rid of

Cause I’m that monster under your bed

Get rid of me if you can

I’m your second skin

Get rid of me if you want

But you’ll end up asking me back

So you say that won’t be happen

I hope you are right

Cause if you don’t your life will be naught

White and Nerdy

I actually stumbled across this awhile back, but a coworker has brought it to my attention in a whole new manner.

This is an awesome parody by "Weird Al" Yankovic, but I think Donny Osmond in the role of Krayzie Bone from the Chamillionaire video. He is hilarious.

The Mighty Battler of Accumulated Sleet

The mighty battler of accumulated sleet

Well, as some of you may know, I live in Oklahoma City now and if you've been watching the news you'd know that we just got hit by some severe winter weather.

Nancy and I have been pretty much cooped up since Friday because we've had a constant barrage of sleet falling on our fair land.

Nancy wanted me to dig out the front stairs as it fell, but I felt we should wait until most of it had fallen. Well, that day happened to be today (Sunday).

So, I dug out my thermal shirt and my old snowboarding gloves and face gator and went outside to tackle the sleet.

Nancy had the intelligence and foresight to purchase a snow shovel before the frozen stuff started to fall. Unfortunately, after sitting on the stairs for a couple days, the weight of the sleet must've melted the stuff on the bottom because we had a good half inch of ice on the stairs with about 4-6 inches of sleet on top of it.

So, the snow shovel was kinda useless. Fortunately, I still had my landscaping shovel that we purchases when we built our flowerbeds at the Houston house. It has a flat blade instead of a curved one. It proved to be quite useful.

Nancy came out and took a few pictures because she needed some winter weather pictures to go with some scrapbooking embellishments that she had in her collection.

After getting the stairs scrapped, I had to salt them. So I went to the garage and grabbed one of the 2 fifty pound bags or salt Nancy had purchased with the snow shovel.

Well, it became heavy quickly. I had to walk around the entire complex to get from my garage to the front stoop. So when I got to the stairs, I couldn't hold onto the bag anymore and it fell out of my hands and hit the ground. Well, the bag blew it's sides out and there was salt everywhere.

Fortunately, Nancy brought me a large Ziploc plastic container that I used to scoop up the salt and get it onto the stairs.

Well, now the stairs are clear and I have a sore back, but it was a good outlet to blow off some steam.

Happiness Is...

Waking up in the middle of the night, expecting it to be almost time to get up and finding you still have 4 hours of sleep left.

The Overprotective Mama

On my way home from work, I decided to stop by Subway to pick up a foot-long Italian BMT on Parmesan Oregano. This was about 7PM and I was in a tad of a hurry because my shows were starting to come out of the Christmas/New Year hibernation the networks put them into.



Unfortunately, there was a line. The line was moving quickly but there was this lady in front of me that kept getting out of line, poking her head out the door and giving the hand signal that one gives to say "stay there". On one of these trips she looked at me and said, "I have to check on my kid".



I can understand a couple checks while in line, but she was doing this every couple minutes. She even did it a couple times while the people were making her sandwich. I was just htinking to myself, "Wow, either this lady has an unruly kid who cannot be trusted to stay in the car, or she's very overprotective".



Well, I finally got my sandwich and paid for it and this lady was walking out the door right in front of my. She took a hard right out of the door and I saw her child. It was a golden retriever tied to the handrail on a set of stairs near the store. Now, everything made sense. Dogs think that a few seconds out of your sight in an eternity, so a couple minutes must've been unbearable. So she had to go keep reassuring her loved one that she was still there.



I just chuckled as I walked to the car.

Power Tools......Not just for the Y Chromosome Anymore

As has been the trend lately, I have been been out of town on business, but I had the benefit of being home between Christmas and the New Year. The whole time I was home, Nancy was attempting to get me to hang curtains in the guest bedroom.



All I could remember was the frustration of hanging the curtains in the bedroom. Since they were some meaty curtains that we were hanging in the master bedroom, the curtain rod had to be hung such that the screws were hitting wall studs. For some reason the stud finder wasn't properly detecting the studs because whenever I would attempt to pre-drill a hole I just hit blank space. I took forever to hang those curtains and a lot of choice words were loudly blurted out.



Now, the room Nancy wanted the new curtains hung in are the same as the master bedroom, so I didn't really expect it to be much better. Plus, the curtains once again required a well hung curtain rod. To add to the frustration is that we were missing some screws for the curtain rod. So, I just kept telling her I wasn't going to do it.



I'm a perfectionist when it comes to fixing things and building things. I don't want to start a project unless I know, without a doubt, it will be completed with some semblance of perfection. This of course has led to many projects not ever getting started. It's probably the main reason why I haven't ever proceeded with my desire to delve into the fine craft of woodworking. I don't want to begin a project unless I know I can do it with success.



Well, I digressed.



So I came home from my latest adventure abroad for work and found that Nancy hang just got tired of waiting for me to do it. The Dewalt cordless drill was out and the curtains were up. And the problem of there not being enough screws. She took that complex problem and gave it a simple solution.....just don't put two screws on each bracket.

Firefly

Here in OKC we have a HD channel from Universal. They play, in excellent HD quality the movies and TV shows produced by Universal.

One of those shows is Joss Whedon's Firefly. I happened to attempt to keep up with this program when it originally aired. But as has happened with many a good show that the networks don't have faith in it got canceled.

Well, I have recently started watching it again. I must say that it was a very good show. I wish it hadn't died.

I must say. George Lucas said that Star Wars was supposed to be a Western in space. What Joss Whedon created with Firefly really is a Western in space. You have people using 20th Century ballistic weapons, riding horses and wearing western-style clothing. But they fly spaceships.

I know that Joss Whedon put out a movie a while back called Serenity in order to tie up loose ends, but I cannot figure out why people didn't want to watch this show.

This show was definitely nothing like Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I didn't find some entertainment merit out of it.

Oh well, maybe the day will come soon when a show can still be successful but not rely solely on the network airtime to be successful. That way a good show, with a solid fanbase can still be made

Happy New Year

I'm sitting here on the couch trying to get my receipts into Quicken, when midnight hits and at that exact moment my cell phone rings. It was Nancy calling from the ER.



For those who have followed this blog, they know she isn't calling from the ER because she's a patient, but because she is working there. She managed to be away from a patient room at the stoke of midnight to fire off a quick "Happy New Year".



That sure made the night a lot more tolerable. I didn't think it would bother me too much to be spending New Year's Eve all alone, but it did. Nothing like ringing in the new year with the "ka-ching" sound of the Quicken application as I key in entries.



Nancy was only able to give me a quick call because as of midnight they were crazy busy in the ER and all predictions were that it was only going to get worse. I sure hope that she gets to come home on time at 3AM, but knowing how idiotic people are during those holidays that seem to revolve around the bottle, it's probably going to be a nightmare for her.