FAILure of the system

The Oklahoma City Public Schools Code of Conduct has a strict anti-bullying policy. My child has been bullied. Those children are being punished. This is good. I am thankful for that portion of the policy.

However, during the course of being bullied, she responded, as I think many of us might, by counter-threatening those students. I won't get into what she said, but the school then classified her reaction as "making threats", which is also a violation of the Code. As such, she has been suspended from school for two days.

Needless to say I am LIVID. There is an official appeals process, which I am about to undertake. More to come I'm sure.


Update
After written and verbal appeals, we were denied, and Shelby had to server her two-day suspension. I am not happy about this in the least, but we were able to get them to move the 2-days to the last two days of the school year, meaning she didn't have to miss any actual learning, which I am pleased about.

Catching Up

Darby is the backup catcher on her team. And the catcher, a new girl for this year, is a pitcher as well. Coach wanted to test the new girl's pitching skills in a game, which meant Darby was at catcher instead of shortstop. She did pretty well "catching up" with the position considering it has been probably a year since she has caught in a game.

This video isn't particularly exciting. Just thought I'd post one of her catching.

Much like last night, the team started out with a number of defensive mistakes, which lead to an early lead by the other team. Also, they are a Division I team (we are Division II), so before long, it was an 11-1 ballgame in their favor. By the middle of the game we were calmed down, tightened things up (mostly) defensively, and started to mount a comeback. We managed to score six more runs without allowing them to score further, for an 11-7 final. We basically just ran out of time to catch up to our earlier errors.

New Uniform

Darby missed a softball game a couple weeks ago due to a piano recital at school, so tonight was her first opportunity to wear her new uniform. Her team played well offensively, but had a lot of defensive trouble, hanging on to win 5-4. Darby had a stikeout, a walk, and was tagged out stealing second. On the field she had several would-be nice plays, including a nice throw to home that was in time to catch a sliding runner (but it was dropped by the catcher), a heads-up put-out at third (that was dropped by the third baseman), and a couple tough throws to first that were barely beaten by the runners.

And then there were none

While I had a number of influential professors in college that I admired and who inspired me in various ways, there were only two that stand out as being a life-altering influence to me. A few years ago, while at my college homecoming, I learned that one of them had recently (at the time) passed away. Dr. Donovan was my experimental psychology professor, and I was later a paid research assistant for her (in fact, I quit my well-paid-for-college job of 3.5 years at UPS to work with her for substantially less). It's a long story for another day, but while working on a project for her, I met my future wife, which led to my kids, and subsequently to where I am today, to oversimplify.

Today, I learned that the last of my college professors of life-altering influence passed only yesterday. Dr. Knight, the Psychology Department Chair, was my professor for psychological statistics and evolutionary psychology, who I was a teaching assistant for during the two semesters following my psych stat course with him. So for three semesters I spent a lot of time with him. At the time, psych stats was a five credit hour class, meaning I was in his room on the top floor of Old North every day for that year and a half. He is essentially the reason I became a psych major (instead of a comp sci major, another long story for another time), and thus why I even needed to take experimental psychology in the first place. I loved his teaching style, his grading methods, his general philosophy and approach to life, his quotes, and his great advice. In his classes (both those that I took and that I assisted for), I met several life long friends, and a girlfriend I cared a great deal about at the time. One of those friends was one of my closest, and became the godmother of my children, and for another I was the best man at his wedding.


Farewell Dr. Knight. Thank you for being a factor in what and where I am today. I was fortunate to have known you.





(my old home away from home, Old North, in a photo I took while visiting campus in 2004)


Update
Via another great college professor of mine, Dr. Hamlin:
"Dr. Knight's service will be this Saturday, May 1 at 11:00 a.m. in EVANS HALL (UCO Campus). Viewing is scheduled 4-9 on Thursday, 8am-9pm Friday, and until 5pm on Saturday at Matthews Funeral Home 601 S. Kelly, Edmond, OK. The family asks that contributions/donations should be sent to the Dr. Bill Frederickson Memorial Scholarship fund."


Update
Here is Dr. Knight's obituary.

Trapped by the Marathon!

If ever there was a good excuse for being late for church, I sure had one today. While we live a mere five minute drive from church, it took us thirty minutes to get there today, because we were trapped by the OKC Memorial Marathon route. Don't misunderstand, I love the marathon, the fact that it goes by our building, and I hope to someday participate, but in years past we didn't have this problem. It seems like the last several years the weather has been bad, and so it wasn't that difficult to cross through the people who braved the weather. Today, however, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so I wonder if the turnout was significantly higher than usual, making our travels more difficult.

In the below picture (taken from my bedroom window), church is less than a mile on the other side of the line of people. Yes, there are breaks between the people, but between the people and cars, we had a heck of a time getting through this year.



To further illustrate just how close church is, here's a picture I took a couple years ago from my living room window.



So you're thinking, find an alternate route, right? Well, easier said than done. If you take a look at this map from the marathon website, we are completely inside the course. And we did try to find another way to go, with little success. We drove up and down the side streets for at least fifteen minutes, looking for a good place to cross through, but even so, we were very late to church.



I really do love the marathon. It's neat to watch it from the window. I just need to figure out a better way to handle this next year. Probably we should go to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for mass on marathon weekend, since it is inside the marathon route also, instead of St. Francis, which is not. That wouldn't have worked today since we didn't plan ahead for this difficulty, as mass at St. Francis is at 8:30, and mass at Our Lady is at 8:00 (and we left for mass after 8:00). Next year I will keep this in mind.

More Arts (and shopping)

Since we only spent a couple hours at the Festival of the Arts the other day, we went back again today before softball practice. We got to see all of the art we previously missed, including the sculpture park, some shows at a stage we missed, and we tried some more food, of course, as it was lunch time when we got there.

For future reference, while they don't look like anything special in this picture, the prime rib sliders from the Deep Fork booth were entirely delicious. Highly recommended if you make it to the fest this year (tomorrow is the last day).



Here's Darby having an artistically appreciative moment in the sculpture park.



Again, she is hostage to sculpture appreciation.



I just like the view of downtown from the botanical gardens, where the Arts Fest is held. I'm standing in the "windscape" area, which was neat.



If I knew how delicious the strawberries newport was, I would have had it for dinner the last time we visited the Arts Fest, and I would have had two of them for lunch today, instead of just one for dessert. Oh my goodness they are tasty.




After a few hours at the Arts Festival, we had to leave to head to Darby's softball practice, which was 30-plus minutes away. So, imagine my annoyance when it started to downpour ten minutes into practice, forcing the coach to cancel. That storm missed downtown OKC, and so we could have stayed at the festival, if only we had known!

So we went from a shortened practice to shopping. In a few weeks, Darby graduates from middle school (gasp!), and while she had a dress and a matching necklace, we still needed to get more accessories (earrings and shoes). We shopped for nearly two hours before finding what we think were the perfect shoes. The right earrings weren't terribly hard to find, and they were on sale, so I only paid a third the marked price!



Here's Darby in her dress, shoes, necklace, and earrings (which you can't see). With the possible exception of a purse (there's some debate about getting one), she's ready for graduation!




After shopping, we went home to watch the OKC Thunder beat up on the Lakers. Think I'm biased? Of course I am, but even the LA Times is with me on this. Either way, even if we don't make it out of this round of the playoffs, this season has been a wonderful ride, for which I am thankful.

Arts Festivus

Concerned about the weather over the next few days, the kids and I made a short visit to OKC's 43rd annual Festival of the Arts. Hopefully we'll get to visit again this weekend, because two hours isn't enough to cover all the cool things going on downtown. We're really quite lucky to have such a festival here in OKC. And the weather this evening was completely perfect. Comfortable temps and a gentle breeze.

You might find it tacky, but I love this picture with the cranes in the background. Not only does it say "insert new skyscraper here", but it exemplifies the growth of the city and the festival.



Our principle goal this evening was dinner. I had a very tasty pork loin sandwich, while Shelby clamored for a turkey leg. And, yes, she finished it.



Darby went for some Iguana Grill.



We were able visit about three quarters of the art booths. Man I wish I had a boatload of expendable cash. There were so many pieces of art I would love to own. We were also able to visit many of the children's areas. The kids, of course, got their faces painted. And Shelby bought a piece of art from the "Kid's Art Mart". But there were several areas we did not get to see, so hopefully the weather holds up and we get to stop by again, for longer, this weekend. There is plenty more food and fun to be had.

Soft hands

Tonight I had my first softball practice in years, with a work team. Earlier in the decade I played on a rec team, but in the years since it's been all Darby with the softball. Can you tell my hands have gotten soft? And we have practice again on Thursday (please rain).

Sofball Schedule

The calendar has been updated with Darby's softball schedule. I've also added an "upcoming" widget to the sidebar that shows the next five events on the calendar so you don't have to leave the blog to see what's going on with us.

Another haircut

Shelby got a haircut last week, and today it was Darby's turn. Looks good!

Back from Bama

It was quite the long week. I worked most of the day on Monday here in OKC, then hopped on a 4:30 flight. By 10:30 or so I was in my hotel room in Montgomery, Alabama. I wasn't sure how it would go for a number of reasons, but it turns out to have been a very productive trip work-wise. We're implementing a new enterprise-class solution, and had to bring together a couple dozen key players to engineer the implementation of that solution. I expected to just be sitting there watching the whole week, but I ended up getting very involved in the entire process to the effect that I authored the engineering concept document that the primary vendor will use to build-out their final implementation documentation.

While I do feel I worked hard this week, it wasn't all work and no play. I met A LOT of people at the Montgomery location and now have a couple regular hang-outs I can visit, when I return, with confidence people that I know will be there. Also, a friend recommended that I not eat at any national chains while in Alabama, but rather check out the local food options instead, which I think I was able to achieve.

Overall, I enjoyed my time in Montgomery. It didn't feel like that small of a town. The downtown area is steeped in history, which I like, and even though I was in the deep South, many aspects of the town had an "East coast" feel. Things I didn't like so much were the traffic lights (they all seemed to take forever, making even short trips chores), the street sign placement (had a tough time finding my way around at night), and the overall poor selection of radio stations. Instead of being able to find a consistently decent station, I had to have the radio on scan the majority of time, until I happened upon a tolerable song. Granted this could be as much a result of my taste in music as anything else.

Here's a rundown of my food selections in Montgomery...
Tuesday: For lunch, a bunch of us went to Lek's Taste of Thailand. While I stuck with the safe Chicken Pad Thai option, it was a nice place with good service, and I liked the spice choices that many Thai places don't have. For dinner, I took the recommendation of a new friend who insists he has tried every Mexican place in the area and has found no equal. We went to nearby Prattville, Alabama to visit Las Casitas. I have to say, it was VERY good. Their only weakness was their choice of chips and lack of queso by default.

Wednesday: I'm told BBQ in the South is unmatched. Though I feel our choices in OKC are quite good, I wasn't disappointed by my BBQ lunch at Five Brother's BBQ. I had some seriously good fall-off-the-fork brisket, and my plastic fork was perfectly sufficient. With Italian being my favorite food, I usually try to find a quality option in that regard, and I was lucky to have gotten a recommendation to try Mr. G's, a Greek and Italian place that was noticeably popular when I visited for dinner. While it's not among the fancier places I've been in the Italian genre of food, it was certainly tasty. And fast. From the time I sat down to the time I had my food was six minutes. Whoa.

Thursday: Wednesday night, while hanging with some new friends, it was recommended that I not leave Montgomery without trying true "meat and 3" style country cooking. So, I visited Peyton's Place and was not disappointed. Wouldn't have had a problem eating there every day of the trip. For dinner, I broke down and visited a chain, but not a national chain. Baumhower's is an Alabama-only chain, similar to a Buffalo Wild Wings (which I love). I had a craving for some boneless wings, but it turned out they didn't have boneless wings, so I got a steak instead, which I hadn't had all week, so I wasn't entirely disappointed. And where things really paid off was with the dessert. I had a "southern style" strawberry shortcake, which will definitely go down as the best I've had to date. It was no tiny dish, but rather a full-sized plate of yummy goodness.

Friday: My last meal in Alabama was at the renowned Wintzell's in downtown Montgomery. While I'm not a huge seafood fan, I enjoyed a very delicious po' boy sandwich, and got to check out some of downtown Montgomery while I was at it.


The places I found myself hanging out at the most while in Montgomery were Key Largo, or "The Keys", and The Breakroom. The Keys is just outside the gate at the base I was working at, so many of the folks hit it immediately after work for happy hour. While I met a lot of people at work, I met far more people at the bar, which is going to help long-term, as I do more projects involving this location. The Breakroom is a pool hall and bar, and I must say, it was awesome. There are a couple pool halls I frequent in OKC, and I wish they were like the Breakroom in their atmosphere. There are tons of pool tables and dart boards (which were in great shape), lots of TVs to watch the game (including a big screen projector), GREAT staff and management, and lots of fun incentives to stay, such as "Bikini Twister". I can't recommend it enough. I spent many hours at this place, and will definitely visit again when I next go back to Montgomery. I also look forward to catching the Montgomery Biscuits AA baseball team the next time I'm in town. Unfortunately, they were on the road this trip, so I wasn't able to catch a game in what looks like an awesome downtown ballpark.


The trip home was long and mostly uneventful. I worked until about three before heading out. I had an hour wait at Montgomery Regional, followed by a several hour layover in Atlanta, so I think in the future I'm going to fly direct to Atlanta, and make the two hour drive to Montgomery. I should be able to cut at least two hours off the trip that way. Plus, I'm going to have to work some Braves games into the equation. The most interesting thing that happened on the way home was the Cavs being on my plane. Yes, if you're from OKC, you heard that right, the Cavs. As in, the minor league basketball team that used to be based in OKC back in the day. They're now based in Lawton, OK, and they were headed home the same time that I was (though at first I thought they were a traveling high school team cause they seemed so young). It was an interesting sight seeing all those big guys trying to squeeze into the plane much less the seats. The plane landed at 11:15, and I was home in time to catch the bulk of Jimmy Fallon. It was a cool and rainy 53 degrees, but that was somewhat welcome after a week in the high eighties in the south.

Missing Recitals

I missed Darby's Spring piano recital at school tonight (for which she also had to miss a softball game) because I'm away for work. Not only that, but I'm missing another performance tomorrow. Due to her piano success this past weekend, she was selected to be in another performance called "Best of the Best" at her school tomorrow night. I'm annoyed that I'm missing this stuff, but at least this trip has been productive. Thankfully her mom posted a video on YouTube for me. And now I share it with you.

Update, 15 April
Here's the video from tonight, the second performance I missed... :-(

Piano Scholarship

Darby auditioned for a piano scholarship today. We only found out about it two weeks ago, and when we did find out about it, the deadline to apply had already passed, though only by a couple days. After making some phone calls, they agreed to take our application and allow Darby to audition. The audition was for a piano camp scholarship for this summer. 1st place meant free tuition for the camp, but there were also 3 partial scholarships. Here is a picture of her during the actual audition (I could not go in, so this is through a window). She played Sonatina in A minor by Kuhlau.



The music she played for the audition was a piece she had been working on for a couple months due to an upcoming school piano recital. But because of this audition, she doubled up on her practicing, which I think will help her at the recital, which is now in just a few days.

Even though I had to stand outside the room, I could still hear her play, and I thought she did VERY well. I was impressed (and I've heard her play it A LOT) with her performance, and confident she would place, even though I hadn't heard the other kids.

She was relieved to be done with the audition, but then got impatient during the wait for the results. Though it took about an hour for them to be posted, it turned out to be a very worthwhile wait. Darby placed second, meaning she received a $150 scholarship! Awesome!



Here is the critique text from the judge:

"Darby,
You play with clarity and focus. Thank you for your accurate performance filled with flair and brilliance. Wonderful dynamic contrast between forte and piano, paired with crisp articulations. Nice legato passage work too. You are a wonderful player.

You look a bit stiff at the piano - try to free up the wrists and support the fingers with a looser upper body with the arm resting freely. Try to taper the crescendos more - this helps the tempo from rushing in the faster rhythmic values and finger work.

Overall, a polished, brilliant, and energetic performance. Bravo!"

As Shelby waited for her sister's activity to complete (mostly) patiently, she got her wish to check out the fountain we walked by on the way to the audition on the Southern Nazarene University campus. Which is a nice campus, incidentally. So the setting made for a nice photo opp.

Softball Workout

Darby got in a lot of fielding reps at softball practice today. She was all over the place. And I didn't even get everything on film.

New Dress and Boy Cut Hair

Darby has 8th grade graduation in about five weeks. Yes, she is about to be in high school. Terrible, isn't it? Anyway, she ordered a new dress tonight for the occasion.



And Shelby got a haircut today, which she's been begging to get for some time. She's been tired of dealing with long hair and so asked for "boy short hair". I disagreed with the move, but it's what she wanted so...





For reference, here's a picture of Shelby from a couple weeks ago.




Update, 11 April
Here's a pic of Shelby a couple days after for a look of the final product after a couple hair washings.

Opening Day 2010

It was opening day in OKC, and I wouldn't miss it if I could help it. It was a pretty good game up until we left. To get the daughter home at a decent time on a school night, we left at the top of the ninth with a 2-run lead. Wouldn't it figure that I later learned that Albuquerque came back and tied it in that inning and won in the 13th? Gah. Oh well. Seems like we have a decent team this year, as 11 hits isn't too shabby. Just couldn't get enough of them in.

Broken Window Vue

It was one of those good days that you just knew was too good to be true... and as such, this is what I found when I got in my car after work today. The rest of the day, as you might imagine, was substantially less good.



This is a completely unexpected turn of events, as I work on a military base. While crimes do certainly happen on the base, it seems less frequent than out in the general population. It was certainly MY first direct encounter with a crime in my 13 years of working at this base, and in my 30+ years of living/working/accessing bases as a former military brat.

I did call security forces to file a report, not that there's anything they can do at this point. It's worth noting that there was an empty parking spot, 3 down from me, with a pile of glass in it, implying that this happened to someone else today, too.


Update, 7 April
A trying day of attempted recovery. Or should I say "recovery FAIL". After missing 75 minutes of work this morning waiting at a couple different places that couldn't get the right window to replace mine today, I found a mobile company that would come to my residence to do it. So I left work 45 minutes early to meet them, but an hour later, I am no further along. The box my window came in was mislabeled (it was the wrong side), and so they couldn't do it after all, as the supplier where they got that window was closed. So, 120 minutes of missed work, but no fixed window. We'll be trying again tomorrow they say. So, I'll be out even more work time, AND more than $250. Gah.

Update, 8 April
Yet another day of recovery FAIL. Still unable to get a window today. I'm assured it will be tomorrow. Ugh.

Update, 9 April
FINALLY, I have a new window. Though not until nearly five. But it feels good to have that issue out of the way. And it was cheaper than expected.

OKC IT Job Opp

My good friends at Digital Designs (http://ddaudio.com on the web/@ddaudio on Twitter/Digital Designs on Facebook), the world-renowed Oklahoma City owned and operated speaker manufacturer, are looking for an IT guy. It's a small business, so not a corporate-style high paying IT job for those looking to climb a ladder, but might be perfect for you highly talented folks that are building up your experience (emphasis on the highly talented part). They're a fast-growing business that pays bonuses to all employees based on that growth, so don't be detered by the salary alone if you're on the fence.

http://www.new-hire.com/jobs/availablejobs.asp?job=3381

Easter Vigil

The girls and I attended Easter Vigil at church. It was long but beautiful.

Attention Oklahoma Drum Corp Fans

If you're a drum corps fan, and you live in central Oklahoma, and you missed the first annual DCI Central Oklahoma show last year, then shame on you. But I forgive you. IF you attend THIS year's show. Save the date (July 20th). I'm giving you plenty of warning (more than three months). You will not want to miss this show. Last year was phenomenal, and I expect this year's show to be better.

My good friend Dave, a drum corps alum, is the marching band director at UCO (incidentally MY alma mater), and has almost single handedly brought the drum corps experience back to this part of Oklahoma. If you'd like to keep it coming back for years to come, please join us!

What: DCI Central Oklahoma
When: Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 7:30pm
Where: UCO's Wantland Stadium in Edmond, OK
Tickets: dci.org


Here's a taste from last year with Santa Clara Vanguard. Trust me, it's much better in person.




Update
Keep up with the latest as this event approaches by becoming a fan of the DCI Central Oklahoma Facebook Page, and by following the event organizer on Twitter.

Married for a Day

I'm usually the gullible one. So, it was fun to be the joker for once. As an April Fool's joke, I changed my status on an undisclosed social media site to married. That created quite an interesting number of "what the?!?" type of comments. Some caught on right away. Others didn't get it until much later. Overall, I think it was a successful, though largely benign, prank.