Birthday

It's after midnight, I'm officially 24. WOO!

Last July 21st, I was flown from Hippieville to the Prairie for an interview. I had to get up at about 4am to make my flight. I got to the prairie at noon and immediately I realized how hot it was. Freakin' sorching (see previous entry). I stepped off the plane onto the jetway and I realized that I had no clue what I was getting into. Apparently it's hot in Oklahoma in July. Who knew.

It was my birthday and I was with a bunch of strangers, you know, that sucks, but whatever. I wanted the new job pretty badly. The kicker was that I hadn't eaten since dinner the night before.

You see, I didn't eat breakfast. Who wants to eat at 4AM? And when I was picked up by the cheif at noon, he didn't take me to lunch. He had a detailed itinerary. I met with everyone, got a tour of town, a tour of the station, all those typical things. All the while I was starving. I didn't mention anything until we went to dinner at 5, and the cheif felt terrible.

Anyway, he hired me, so that kind of made up for it, but it still works for the occasional guilt trip.

"You don't want to get me some new lamps? Well, remember that time you didn't feed me on my birthday, yeah."

See, it works well.

Hmmmm, maybe I can get lunch out of him tomorrow. Maybe I can convince him to let me keep that new tripod instead. Oh, the possibilities.

OKLAHOMA DIARY

105. 1-oh-freaking-5. The temperature is supposed to be 105 tomorrow. That's 105 WITHOUT heat index. At 11AM I walked from my apartment 100 yards to my mailbox. I broke out in a sweat at, oh, ten feet from my door.

I got this e-mail from the main anchor at the station. I don't know where he got it, but it is fitting. I commend the person who wrote this. He or she has really encapsulated the true Okie experience.


June 1st:
Just moved to Oklahoma! Now this is a state that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place! It is beautiful. I've finally found my home. I love it here.

June 14th:
Really heating up. Got to 100 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a sun worshipper.

June 30th:
Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing the lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

July 10th:
The temperature hasn't been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least, it's kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

July 15th:
Fell asleep by the community pool. (Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body). Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.

July 20th:
I missed Lomita (my cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car at noon, Lomita had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag, then popped like a water balloon. The car now smells like Kibbles and shits. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat.

Good ol' Mr. Sun strikes again.

July 25th:
The wind sucks. It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer!! And it's hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the fritz and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts.

July 30th:
Been sleeping outside on the patio for 3 nights now, $225,000 house and I can't even go inside. Lomita is the lucky one. Why did I ever come here?

Aug. 4th:
It's 115 degrees. Finally got the air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 85. I hate this stupid state.

Aug. 8th:
If another wise ass cracks, 'Hot enough for you today?' I'm going to strangle him. Damn heat. By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

Aug. 9th:
Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts, and when I sat on the seats in the car, I thought my ass was on fire. My skin melted to the seat. I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs. . . Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried ass, and baked cat.

Aug 10th:
The weather report might as well be a damn recording. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. It's been too hot to do shit for 2 damn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn't it ever rain in this damn state? Water rationing will be next, so my $1700 worth of cactus will just dry up and blow over. Even the cactus can't live in this damn heat.

Aug. 14th:
Welcome to HELL! Temperature got to 115 today. Cactus are dead. Forgot to crack the window and blew the damn windshield out of the car. The installer came to fix it and guess what he asked me??? "Hot enough for you today?"

My sister had to spend $1,500 to bail me out of jail.
Freaking Oklahoma.

What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here??

Will write later to let you know how the trial goes.

*no animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Hungry

Holy crap have I been busy. I've barely found time to eat in the past month, much less blog.

At my station it's hard news, breaking news all the time. July is my only chance I get to do a feature story. I get to do five all at once then I won't even get near one until next year.

You see, each week in July we go "on the road" to a town in the viewing area. We find five fun stories from each place and they run, one a night, from Sunday to Thursday. On Friday we go live in the town of the week for both our 5 and 9 shows.

There are four weeks in July, so we are doing four towns. The same reporter is doing all twenty stories. Four photographers split the workload and we get one week, so five stories. I have week three and have basically been working on my five stories since I got back from vacation. We shot and wrote all five in the same week, including a myriad of vosots. I've been trying to edit them in between my regualr daily duties.

I've been up and down the turnpike so much, I'm considering renting a room in my assigned town.

I finally finished all my shooting today and have three of the stories completed.

Only two more to go, then maybe things will calm down... maybe.

Trip: Part Three

So my parents have lived in the same house since the summer of 1988. We moved in just as I was turning six and the whole neighborhood consisted of 6 houses and a lot of dirt.

I became my Dad's helper outside. We picked rocks and moved them to the empty lots. I was the designated "freezie-getter" when he built the retaining wall. Over 18 years, my Dad has captured and mastered the yard. There is an "orchard," a garden, even a small pond complete with a waterfall, fountain, and family of goldfish. Oh, it's impressive.

He always has a project to work on outside. Recently the project became a little larger than usual.

One day, after a morning of seeing friends and enjoying downtown, I drove back south to the suburbs and pulled into the driveway. The garage door was open and the dog was tied up outside, so I knew Dad was out doing something.

This is what I found:


Yeah.


That's my Dad in a tree.

The tree had started splitting straight down the middle (you can see it in the picture). There was no saving it, it had to come down. Instead of paying someone to do it for him, Dad decided that he could take it down himself... With a handsaw.

"I'd probably cut my leg off if I used a chainsaw." He said. Yeah, good point.

He cut down most of the lower branches, and I was not very patient to see it come down. So it was time for some drastic measures.



Rope.



Pulling didn't get the job done, so He climbed back up and started hacking at the split to try and weaken it.



The neighbor came over and we continued to pull.



But alas, the tree was a mighty foe. It was time for some power... Horse power.




Still nothing. We continued to use the ax, handsaw, and the neighbor even busted out the chainsaw to try and weaken the split and take half of the tree down. It didn't come easy, but one more strong pull from the truck,



And we got it.



Oh yeah, you got nothing, Mother Nature. Bring it.