Triple Digits

I was amused and amazed last night as I watched the weather forecast on the news. They were using their super-cool graphics to display the forecast... Nice pictures of a full, blazing sun with high and low temperatures. Well, maybe it's partly because we don't have a wide-screen TV and maybe they're programming now specifically for widescreen TVs, but it was funny since every day for the next 1o days has a high of over 100 degrees, the numbers were all smashed up together on the TV. I never saw so many numbers on the TV screen before. They had to reduce the font size and squeeze them closer together to get them all on the screen! LOL!

Okay, I'm just re-reading this post and it doesn't sound nearly as funny now. Maybe the heat is getting to me... Be cool.

Trini Food!

I am a happy little duck this afternoon. I've been by a Jamaican dive a few times but always miss their operating hours somehow. (i.e. They're not open Mondays, or after 3PM.) On my third attempt, I got in and had a great time talking with the owners. They told me about a Trinidadian restaurant up the road a bit, so after ordering a meal at the Jamaican place (called Taste of the Caribbean) I went up to Carican for some real Trini food: curry, roti, black beans and rice, sorrel drink, etc.

I couldn't contain my excitement as I walked in to find three real Trini's running the place. It was so fun to talk with them and (as usual) they had a hard time believing that I'm a Trini, too, until I started telling them names of places no normal Oklahoman or American could pronounce properly. Actually, I probably can't pronounce anything properly to a Trini, either, but they believed me after a while.

What a great place! If you're an adventurous eater and you haven't tried Caribbean/Trinidadian food before, let me know and I'll go with you. =) It's de-lish. I'm finishing my 2nd lunch now and I just couldn't resist. Had to sit down and type about it. Both meals were great, but the Trini food was definitely better. Nicer store, too.

Here's the info:
Carican Flavors
2701 N. Martin Luther King Ave., OKC
(405) 424-0456.

They've been in business for 1 full year and are planning a 1st anniversary celebration the week of Aug. 7th. You bet I'll be there.

Nice cool 90 degrees

The heat broke today. It was a nice cool 90-something degrees. =) Had a wedding today to photograph. It was really beautiful and held at Cole's Gardens (indoors). It was the 2nd wedding I've shot with my new Canon 5D and I'm even more impressed with it than I was at last weekend's wedding.

"But it's a dry heat...!"

Check this out... Last night, the low was like 80 degrees down here in beautiful Edmond, Oklahoma. Tonight, same thing. The kicker is how high it gets mid-afternoon, though. Yesterday hit 105 and today and tomorrow are expected to top 106 degrees. The heat index, considering humidity and whatever else they take into account, puts it up near 115! That's pretty darn hot to be outside marketing in a suit and tie. Of course, I'm just wearing a dress shirt, no tie, today. Life's too short to die of heat stroke.

Here's the forecast straight off of MyYahoo page today. And it's still mid-morning!

It really is better than places like Tampa Bay, Birmingham and Atlanta where it's so humid you can't get into your car without breaking out in a miserable, uncontrollable sweat. =)

Anyway, just wanted to share our fun weather with you today. The news last night said that the hottest day recorded on this date was 120 degrees back in like '38. Man, what did they do without air conditioning back then? I have no idea...

PSA's :: Water Conservation

Okay, help me out here... If I don't watch TV and don't listen to the radio, how am I supposed to know when a water conservation effort is in effect? I was embarrassed to come in after watering our yard and flowers and find online an advisory about water conservation in effect for OKC. How was I to know? Argh. I just don't want all of my neighbors to think I didn't care.

Air Conditioning

Okay, I have stumbled upon an idea. Air conditioners only cool your house down like 20 or 30 degrees lower than the outside temperature. Max. That's it, they just can't do much better than that. Well, I don't know if one has already been invented, but I've found a way to make my air conditioner cool much better than that. How, you ask?

Send me $20,000 and I'll tell you.

Or maybe I'll just tell you now. Okay, just spray the cooling fins down with water! You know how some restaurants in their outdoor seating areas have a fine mist hose spraying down the perimeter to cool down the area? If you had a mist-er of sorts keeping the cooling fins wet, the cooling unit increases in efficiency significantly. Seriously, on some really hot day when the a/c doesn't seems to be keeping up, have someone stand under a vent and feel the air get really cold when you go out and spray down the chiller unit outside with the hose.

Well, that's about all for my scientific experiment today. Leave a comment!

The Benefit of the Doubt

I had a quote posted at my desk today... "Be kind. Everyone you meet today is going through some kind of a battle." I think those words are very true and I wish I'd learned that lesson earlier in life. Unfortunately, I am only now learning it so I've managed to put my foot in my mouth much more often than I should have.

Like the time Holly and I were out to eat at our favorite restaurant, Charlestons, and I noticed a very well-dressed man in his late 40's eating with his wife next to us. I leaned over to Holly and said in a quiet tone, "How would you like it if I came to dinner wearing sunglasses!?" Then I sat back and kinda smirked to myself, feeling pretty good about how great of a relationship Holly and I have. Date night went great as always and then out of the corner of my eye I saw the couple across the aisle got up from their dinner. The guy was still looking cool in his sunglasses, only this time I noticed his seeing eye dog get out from under the table. Not only did I feel bad for thinking he was just trying to be cool, but it immediately dawned upon me that the blind have super-human hearing to make up for their loss of sight. I'm just glad he didn't get up and smack me. =)

Anyway, the movie's on and Hol and I are going to relax an on the couch and enjoy it together.

New Pics

Here are a couple of pictures I took this evening. We finally got our new Canon equipment in (migrating from Nikon Pro equipment to Canon Pro equipment) and of course couldn't help but take some pictures with it immediately. =)

Here's a picture of our home (with small flower gardens out front and Addie standing by the bench out front) and one of the clouds overhead a bit later in the day. Pretty cool, huh? It's like the skies opened up and said "Come to Oklahoma and visit the Sangrees!"

Chuck Norris Jokes... I just couldn't resist

Okay, I'm going to assume if you're reading my blog that you may run in similar circles to my own and not be familiar with the internet phenomenon of Chuck Norris jokes. I've heard a few over the last several months and after a few, they start getting funny. I don't know... I tried a couple on the girls in the office and they just stared blankly at me, like calves looking at a new gate. Anyway, like the old Paul Bunyan jokes of old, the hero of the day is Chuck Norris... If you want a better explanation than all that, check out Chuck Norris jokes on Wikipedia, which by the way is a great place to learn about almost anything you don't know yet.

Without further ado...

The most effective form of suicide known to man is to type “Chuck Norris” into Google and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky!”.

Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of “beard”. Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus’ obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.

Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked Bruce Lee, breaking him in half. The result was Jet Li and Jackie Chan.

Chuck Norris was sending an email one day, when he realized that it would be faster to run.

Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”

Chuck Norris doesn’t have normal white blood cells like you and I. His have a small black ring around them. This signifies that they are black belts in every form of martial arts and they roundhouse kick the crap out of viruses. That’s why Chuck Norris never gets ill.

After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more “humane”.

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

Okay, I'll quit. These are just too funny.

Gardening

Growing up, my Mom always had the prettiest gardens. Part of our chores and character training included caring for them for hours every week and I swore to myself that if I ever had a yard, I'd cover it in concrete and make some kind of a court out of it.

Well, here I am, 20 years later, and I actually enjoy the very thing I hated so much growing up. We have a little lot with a new house and close neighbors and it's just so relaxing and enjoyable to spend time watering the few flowers, shrubs and trees we could fit in our little front yard while waving to neighbors driving, walking or bicycling by.

I really don't know how a chore so bothersome could become a favorite pastime, but I'm glad for it. At the end of the day, I actually look forward to checking on the plants and flowers, pulling off the dead heads and pulling up any weeds I see poking up anywhere. We haven't won the "yard of the month" award or anything, but I think we have one of the nicest yards on the street.

Today I was out spreading extra top soil, lime pellets and gypsum pellets on some target areas of grass needing a little extra help. I think those areas just don't have enough good soil underneath the sod, so I'm going to try to help it along by raking in extra soil, etc. Did you know that Starbucks will give you pounds of old coffee grinds to use in your garden? It's got a lot of nitrogen in it and I think plants do well on caffeine just like people do. =)

And now, I'm off to the pool for a few minutes before we run downtown for another photo shoot. Hope y'all are having a great day, too!

Sean's Growing a Beard!

I ran across this picture of my brother on another hiker's online trail journal. He's growing some beard! It looks a bit Amish, but it's a beard nonetheless. I've never seen him with this much scruff ever before. Anyway, those of you who know him will enjoy this pic. =)


He's at a church hostel in MD, I believe. Probably trying to dry his feet out after sludging through deep water on the trail for miles and miles.

Change of Plans

Well, two hours into our trip, we realized that after dropping off Addie at the grandparents and meeting up with friends to carpool down, there was no possible way we could make it to the wedding before it was over. It was a gross miscalculation of mileage and time due to mapping it online from our home address vs. from the grandparents' in Moore, OK. I'll spare you all the details, but it was interesting how the rest of the day unfolded.

Being married for about three and a half years now, I know that changing big plans is much easier for me than it is for Holly. We're just wired differently in that way. For me, the change in plans was a relief and a huge opportunity to enjoy some down time, a relaxing day with friends, maybe take in a movie and save a few hundred dollars in gas, hotel bills, restaurants, etc. in Podunk, America. At the same time, I was very disappointed in not being able to see our Aussie friends, but they would all have a lot going on and we probably wouldn't have had much time at all to visit before we had to leave to make the 6 hr trek back. In fact, I'm not sure they will miss us at all, they will be so busy with everything. I believe they may be coming back through OKC on their way back to Australia, so it's possible we'll get to visit with them after all. (Yes, we did call two different people down there to let them know we weren't going to make it after all.)

Anyway, all of those things I weigh in my mind and come to a great peace that it will be okay and it's working out for the best somehow. For Holly, it's not a matter of whether it's impossible, the pros and cons, or the newly found free time... It's that we had plans and it's hard for her to change plans so quickly and get used to a new idea/plan.

It all ended well. We didn't have to make a 12 hr trip with two pregnant wives and instead we were able to enjoy a full day-long double-date here in Edmond without our kids! It was a wonderful holiday. We ate out at Casablancas (great new local restaurant) and hit the Apple store, then watched Click which we greatly enjoyed, went out for dinner and back home for another movie or two. Wow, what a great time. Woke up this morning refreshed and like we just got back from a week-long worry-free vacation.

Heading down to Moore, OK soon to pick up Addie and maybe play some volleyball with Holly's brothers and a group they're having over today.