robohara.com

August, 1978
I’m riding in the back seat of my mom’s car, a maroon Mercury Zephyr station wagon, on the way to my first day of school. I’m a little nervous, but upon entering the room I see a Star Wars picture book displayed prominently on Mrs. Cove’s bookshelves, and I decide things will probably be okay. We just recently moved to Sun Valley, and I can’t wait to get home from school and start exploring the neighborhood on my bicycle.

August, 1988
It’s the first day of tenth grade and I’m riding my motorcycle to school. Last year (at the age of 14) I was one of the only kids riding a bike to school, but this year my friend Lewis has one too, and we’re riding to school together. Strapped to the back of our motorcycles are our skateboards, in case we discover any good skate spots along the way to or from school.

August, 1998
Susan and I just celebrated our third wedding anniversary. It’s been two years since we moved to Spokane, Washington, and four months since we moved back to Oklahoma. After crashing a month at my dad’s house, we’ve purchased our first “real” house together back in Yukon, the town both Susan and I grew up in. To celebrate our return to Yukon (and my birthday) we throw “Robbika,” a giant birthday celebration.

August, 2008
Susan and I just celebrated our 13th anniversary. Susan was just promoted to Supervisor of her branch at the FAA, and I celebrated my fifth anniversary with LMIT earlier this year. Earlier this month at the Oklahoma Videogame Expo I debuted my second book, Invading Spaces. Susan’s out of town this week, so it was my job to drop Mason off at first grade this morning and take Morgan to daycare.

On Friday I received a short and to-the-point e-mail from Lulu.com (my book publisher) informing me that, due to a content violation, my book Commodork had been removed from their store. If I had any questions (and who wouldn’t at this point?) I could visit their forums and post a message in the “Support Forums.”

My heart skipped a beat. Had I done something wrong? I published Commodork over two years ago. Had it really taken this long for a problem to arise?

I visited Lulu’s Support Forums and found a giant picture of a padlock next to them. All of Lulu’s Support Forums have been closed. I was informed via the page that for more assistance, I should use the 24/7 Live Help service. That’s where I went next.

The first person I talked to (on 8/22), Barry R, told me that he would escalate my problem to a supervisor and that someone should contact me within 24 hours. Nobody did. Oddly enough, shortly after talking to Barry R, Commodork became available via Lulu.com again. Had they realized their error and re-enabled sales of my book?

I guess not. On 8/25, my book again disappeared from Lulu’s virtual shelves. I contacted their online help again; this time, I got Ben C. Ben C told me that there was nothing he could do and that I should reply to the e-mail I received. When I mentioned that the e-mail came from “do-not-reply@lulu.com,” he just shrugged.

As a last resort, I’ve posted an SOS message on the Lulu forums. Maybe something will come of it, or maybe that’s the end of Commodork — at least, as printed by Lulu. If things can’t be worked out … well, I’ve been meaning to get into the PDF Publishing business anyway, and Commodork might just be a good place to start.

Last Friday marked thirty-five years of me walking the earth. It was probably the most low-key birthday I’ve had in a decade or two; maybe the quietest since Susan and I celebrated the event alone in 1996 and 1997, the years we spent living away from home in Spokane, Washington.

My co-workers who were stuck out of town with me in KCMO last week took me out multiple times for my birthday last week. “Let’s go to the casino … for Rob’s birthday!” “Let’s stop by the bar … for Rob’s birthday!” “Let’s go out to dinner … for Rob’s birthday!” Normally I would eschew such attention, but among our group “for your birthday” generally translates to “we’re buying you drinks!”, so my protests were intentionally inaudible. For what it’s worth, the Embassy Suites in Overland Park, Kansas has a fantastic open bar for a couple of hours every afternoon. In theory there was supposed to be some sort of system requiring patrons to show their room keys and exchange tickets for free drinks, but we never experienced any of that; instead, we simply received a steady stream of free drinks for two hours every night. For my birthday, of course.

In Kansas City we ended up with two rental cars for eight of us, which meant confusion during each departure as to whom was riding with whom. On the way to dinner Thursday night (after the two-hour Happy Hour had ended) I ended up a car with Curlen (an Atlanta native), Earl (an Atlanta transplant from Michigan) and Thuan (Los Angeles). I had threatened to bring my MP3 player (full of heavy metal, rock, and old school rap) along with me, and during this particular trip, I had. (Curlen’s car came equipped with an iPod jack.) Since all four of us are roughly the same age and the other three are all hip hop fans, I broke out some old school rap and, with the windows down and the radio cranked all the way up, the four of us cruised through downtown Kansas City, singing and rapping at the top of our lungs. I haven’t had that much fun in a long time and I really felt something — although by that point I had downed six or seven Rum and Cokes, many of them doubles and triples, so maybe that’s what I was feeling. Either way, I had a blast last week hanging out with everybody and really getting to know some of them. It never fails that things like technology and music can cross pretty much any social barriers.

I spent the first five hours of my birthday driving back home. Upon arriving in town I met dad, and the two of us went out to lunch at the Elephant Bar. What was kind of funny was I ate dinner at the Elephant Bar in KCMO the night before, but I couldn’t make up my mind between two dinners and so I finally just picked one. So anyway, I got to have the other one Friday for lunch! The Elephant Bar is far enough away and expensive enough that any time I go there is a treat.

Myspace, cell phone text messages and e-mail has really lowered the bar when it comes to birthday wishes — I probably got over 50! Hallmark had better get into the e-card business, quick.

Birthday celebrations were short-lived. Upon my return to the city I discovered not one but two broken computers belonging to other people waiting for me to fix. First up was Stephen’s, which had so many viruses that you could literally see other people connecting to his computer and doing things. I worked on his machine Saturday night from 7:30pm - Midnight and left it in worse condition than I had found it in. The other machine belongs to Morgan’s daycare. The hard drive crashed on it and I’m supposed to see what I can recover off of it. Currently it’s hooked up on our kitchen counter, and I’m supposed to fix it before Monday morning.

Like an old Midsouth Wrestling Tag Team event, I arrived back just in time to “tag” Susan on her way out of the ring … er, house. We said our “hellos” and “goodbyes” quickly as she grabbed her bags and headed to the airport on her way to DC for a week. I think the kids’ heads are still spinning, but they’ll get used to it.

No rest for the wicked. Back to microwaving TV dinners and loading the dishwasher.

Last year on Mason’s first day of school (kindergarten), I was in Dallas. This year on Mason’s first day of school (first grade), I’m in Kansas City. Once again, Susan came to the rescue and took a picture of the kids standing in front of Shedeck.

For reference, here is the picture she took last year:

One year is a nice gesture; two years running is a tradition.

(Culled and plagiarized from multiple online news sources.)

The body of a supposed ape-man found in the North Georgia mountains was nothing but an empty rubber monkey suit embedded in ice, according to California Bigfoot enthusiasts who finally got a chance to examine it last weekend. The two Atlanta men who stood up at a news conference in California last week and tried to convince the world they had found Bigfoot now apparently can’t be located — just like the real Bigfoot.

Searching for Bigfoot Inc., the California outfit that paid $50,000 to Whitton and Dyer for rights to their story and their find, says the pair checked out of the hotel where they had been put up over the weekend. According to a news release on Searching for Bigfoot’s Web site, the whole scam unraveled when a block of ice containing the “body” melted over the weekend. Whitton and Dyer later confessed that it was just a costume, according to the release.

After hours of waiting for the block of ice to thaw, a dark patch of hair emerged. Steve Kulls, executive director of Squatchdetective.com, told Fox that he extracted a hair sample and burned it. It was apparently made of synthetic fibers and “melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair,” Kulls said. An hour later, the group’s fears were confirmed when further melting revealed a rubber foot.

What is certain is that Whitton, 28, on medical leave after being shot in the wrist by a robbery suspect earlier this year, won’t be going back to work at the Clayton County Police Department. As soon as he heard Whitton’s Bigfoot was a big fake, “I terminated him,” said Police Chief Jeffrey Turner said Tuesday. “He’s disgraced himself, he’s an embarrassment to the Clayton County Police Department, his credibility and integrity as an officer is gone, and I have no use for him,” Turner said. “His behavior is unbecoming of that of a police officer.”

Not everyone is upset about the news of the hoax. The Bigfoot “body” is thought to be a $450 Sasquatch costume from online costume retailer TheHorrorDome.com. Owner Jerry Parrino declined to release any numbers, but said business has been good. “Sales of our Sasquatch costume have gone up,” he said.

Triskaidekaphobia is the “illogical fear of the number 13.” The number thirteen is considered so unlucky by people that many skyscrapers do not have a thirteenth floor. According to Wikipedia, NASCAR does not issue the number thirteen to cars, many sports teams do not use the number thirteen, and even Microsoft skipped version 13 of Microsoft Office, jumping from twelve to fourteen. Thirteen is also the least picked lottery number.

Today is my thirteenth wedding anniversary. I am one of the luckiest people I know.

Susan surprised me yesterday with a night out on the town to celebrate our anniversary. As of next Tuesday Susan and I will have been married for thirteen years, but since I’ll be out of town in Kansas City, Missouri for work next week, Susan decided to plan something special the weekend before.

After dropping Mason and Morgan off at Granny’s, our first stop was the Skirvin Plaza hotel in downtown OKC. The Skirvin is super fancy; it originally opened in 1911 (just four years after Oklahoma became a state) and was where the rich and famous mingled. The hotel closed in the 1980s, but was reopened a few years ago after a $50+ million dollar facelift. I’m not usually one to go crazy over wood work and interior design, but this place has to be seen to be believed.

After dropping off our bags, it was off to Riverwind Casino, just south of Norman. We’ve been to the casino half a dozen times before, but it just sounded like a fun place to go.

We ate dinner at Riverwind, and since it was our special night out, we ate dessert first. Take that, kids! The Riverwind buffet recently added a chocolate fondue fountain and boy was it good.

After Susan doubled her money and I lost all of mine, we left Riverwind and drove to the Warren Theater in Moore.

Neither Susan nor myself had been to the Warren Theater, but we had heard wonderful things and we were (for the most part) not disappointed. While the theater’s screens are gigantic and the sound system is the loudest I’ve ever heard, the real treat is the theater’s balcony seats. They’re love seats with optional dividing arm and foot rests. The seats come with a seat warmer (which Susan loved) and a call button that sent a member of the theater’s wait staff sailing over to take your order.

The only problem we encountered was that places that serve alcohol occasionally end up with patrons who drink too much of it. The guy next to us blabbed on his cell phone, laughed too loudly, spilled his beer and eventually began talking (and later shouting) at the people on the screen. Did I mention balcony tickets cost $18? That’s too much money to put up with an ass like that. I mentioned something to one of the waiters and they told me that if it continued to please let them know. The jerk continued to get louder, we pressed the button, and our waiter kindly relocated us to another pair of seats far away from the obnoxious drunkard (who we later saw being escorted out of the theater).

We saw Tropic Thunder which was a throw-away comedy, but the actual experience was terrific. I can’t want for the next blockbuster to come along so that we can go back and see it there!

The movie ended just after midnight, at which point we drove back to the Skirvin.

We spent a few minutes taking dumb pictures on and around the Skirvin’s fancy finishings.

Eventually we found our way back to our room, where the hotel had left us a bottle of champagne and a note wishing us a happy anniversary!

Earlier this week, rumors began swirling on the Internet that a couple of redneck Georgia hunters (Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer) had stumbled across a dead Bigfoot.

As a kid I was fascinated by UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, the Bermuda Triangle, and of course, Bigfoot. One of the most common questions people ask about Bigfoot is, why hasn’t anyone ever found a dead one before? Bigfoot researchers have offered up a few non-convincing suggestions: maybe they get eaten, maybe they are buried, maybe they wander off somewhere, or maybe they are beamed up into outer space.

Regardless of what theory you buy into, if you were to believe Whitton and Dyer, one Bigfoot was left behind.

By the way, I wouldn’t believe them, if I were you.

Whitton and Dyer have pretty much acted exactly as I would assume two idiots trying to fool a few people would act. For starters, they contacted Tom Biscardi. A cursory Google search turns up the term “a Las Vegas promoter” and several previous incidents involving Tom Biscardi — like the time in 2005 when he announced that he had found a dead Bigfoot and charged people money to view it on his website. (Isn’t it amazing that the overwhelming of majority of people never see a Bigfoot their entire life, yet this guy’s found two of them?) No video ever materialized and there are a lot of mad people out there who were either scammed or filed for a refund through their credit card companies.

And then there was the time in 2006 that Tom Biscardi released this compelling photograph.

This is actually one of the better Bigfoot photos associated with the guy’s name. Most of them are so laughably bad that all you can do is shake your head. Even people who really believe in Bigfoot think Tom Biscardi is a joke.

So anyway, in an attempt to plead their case to the world, the three stooges (Whitton, Dyer and Biscardi) held a press conference today. Whitton and Dyer told their story to a larger-than-it-should-have-been crowd of reporters. According to them, they stumbled across the five-hundred-pound dead Bigfoot deep in the Georgia woods and carried it off to their truck. What fun that must’ve been, carrying or dragging a dead carcass that weighed more than the two of them together through the woods.

The problem with their press conference was that they’ve released conflicting reports to the media several times already. According to an Associated Press story, the pair “first reported that the animal was shot by a former felon, and the men followed it into the woods.” They then reported that “they found a ‘family of Bigfoot’ in North Georgia mountains.” They changed their story once again to state that “the two were hiking and stumbled upon the corpse with open wounds.” I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing if I ever saw a Bigfoot in real life I would try real hard to get at least a few of the details right.

At today’s Hollywood press conference the trio promised to deliver Bigfoot’s body; instead, they delivered a picture of it … in a freezer.

One of the things that have come out is that Whitton and Dyer have been trying to sell Bigfoot hunting expeditions for $500. These two idiots have also been recording and uploading videos just about as fast as they can to YouTube. If you want a good laugh, check out this one. My favorite part is when they fly in “Dr. Van Buren” (who has already been revealed to be Whitton ’s brothers) and they do an interview. Dr. Van Buren is reminiscent of Bill and Ted.

Throughout the video the interviewer plugs his website “BigfootTracker.com” multiple times — which once can only assume is what all the hubbub is about in the first place.

If you’re going to make a fake Bigfoot video, the least you could do is make it interesting.

This thread contains the entire background story on Whitton, Dyer and Biscardi. It’ll give you all the background on these doofs.

A few weeks ago while we were in Chicago, Mason lost his Nintendo DS. I hadn’t let him bring it into any museums or restaurants, so I just knew it would turn up at one of our relatives’ homes. Sure enough, a week after we got back, Uncle Buddy found Mason’s DS out on the back porch. “It only rained once,” grandma said, positively. Three weeks after it went missing, Mason’s DS arrived today in the mail. Mason is one happy (and lucky) little boy, and he can once again join the other DS holders at daycare until school starts back next week.

Invading Spaces is off to a good start. In addition to the 25+ copies I sold at OVGE this weekend, I’ve sold seven copies online since Monday (along with two copies of Commodork). All copies that have been payed for using PayPal were shipped tonight. If you bought a copy of the book online and don’t have it within the next few days — say, Monday or so — please drop me an e-mail.

After packaging up all the outgoing books, I spent a little time working on my second article for the Minco newspaper, and working on an outline for my next Podcast which is scheduled to come out on Friday but knowing me won’t be released until Saturday.

I had hoped to type up a review of last week’s Weird Al’s concert last night, but something else has been on our minds (and dripping from our brows) over the past couple of days.

Our air conditioner broke. Again.

So far we’ve had our blower replaced and our compressor replaced. The fan outside was still working, which pretty much covers all the parts of a home air conditioning system. Susan and the kids returned home from Tulsa on Saturday to find the house hovering around 85 degrees. Our army of box fans succeeded in pushing the hot air around, but that’s about it. We called the same place we’ve called the past three times to again come out and look at our air conditioner. They said it would be $180 just to show up on a weekend (plus double time for any labor), so we toughed it out until Monday.

Jeff came over Sunday night and found the problem almost immediately The plastic switch inside our air conditioner had completely melted. The ground wire had melted and fallen off. The switch was melted into the “on” position and, even with the fuse pulled and the circuit breaker off, the unit buzzed and hissed as if it still had power. Carefully we put the unit back together and waited for the professionals to arrive on Monday.

On Monday it rained, and the a/c guy said he wouldn’t come out while it was raining. It’s a good thing Susan was dealing with these people over myself, as I was ready to strangle somebody. Eventually the rain subsided long enough for the guy to show up. He confirmed what we had found; the switch that connects to the new compressor had melted. Of course the guy said this was completely unrelated to the compressor they replaced two weeks ago. Nobody (not even the guy who said it) could possibly believe this, but whatever. We paid the guy the $200, he left, and within an hour or so the house dropped 15 degrees, making everybody much happier.

With the temperature back to normal, we can start getting things done around the house again.