Category: Adventures

Last Call: The Goodwill Outlet Center

Upon entering our local Goodwill’s Outlet Center I was overcome by a wave of desperation. At first I assumed those feelings were emanating from other customers, digging feverishly through the mountains of stuff. The longer we were there I began to wonder if the vibes weren’t radiating from the stuff itself. Everything has a lifespan. Goods are purchased from stores by consumers and kept until they outlive their usefulness, at which point they’re either recycled, discarded, or enter the secondhand market. A big part of that secondhand market are donation centers. Last year, Goodwill alone received approximately 5.7 billion pounds… (read more)

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Mothman’s Legacy and Museum Tour

Mothman, according to legend, is a black humanoid creature with red eyes and large wings who was first spotted in Point Pleasant, West Virginia back in the late 1960s. The first official Mothman sighting was reported in 1966 by two couples who were chased by the flying monster, and the creature gained national attention after the book The Mothman Prophecies was published, which was eventually made into a movie. So when you’re visiting West Virginia and a friend invites you to go on a Mothman tour, you say yes. While I in town, my friend Aaron and his family graciously… (read more)

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There Are No Rules in Mexico, Only Suggestions: Cozumel Cruise, 2019

Last week during spring break, Susan, the kids, and I took a Carnival cruise to Cozumel. This was our fourth cruise together as a family, and our second time to visit Cozumel. Previously we cruised to Hawaii in 2015, Alaska in 2012, and Cozumel (the first time) ten years ago in 2009. We spent Sunday, March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), driving from Oklahoma City down to Galveston, Texas (about 500 miles). Our cruise ship, the Carnival Valor, departed from Galveston the following morning. On Wednesday, March 20, we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico, and on the following day, we arrived in… (read more)

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Saying Farewell to President George H. W. Bush in Houston

George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, passed away November 30, 2018, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 94. His body was flown to Washington D.C. for a national funeral service. On Wednesday, December 5, President Bush’s body was flown back to Houston, where he was to lay in repose for 12 hours at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church for public viewing. “I want to go,” said Susan, “and take the kids. You up for a crazy adventure?” This was on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the kids arrived home from school around 3 p.m. By 3:30 p.m.,… (read more)

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Speaking to the Association of Information Technology Professionals

Last night I had the honor of speaking to the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) at the University of Central Oklahoma about my experience as a computer specialist for the Federal Aviation Administration. Approximately 100 students showed up last night to listen to me ramble about my life as a federal employee. I had originally planned to focus my presentation about experiences working with security, but a couple of weeks ago I learned that last month’s guest was a security pen tester, so I decided to expand the scope of my presentation a bit and cover my entire career… (read more)

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We All Scream for What I Paid for These Geni Ice Cream Cone Cups

That escalated quickly. Six months ago, after years of searching, I purchased an ice cream cone drinking cup similar to one I owned as a child. The one I found was very, very similar to the one I had owned, but it wasn’t 100% identical. I spent close to ten years looking for one of those cups, so “very, very similar” was good enough for me at the time. One week after I purchased that cup, my mom found a second green one for a quarter at a garage sale exactly like the ones we had growing up. With a… (read more)

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Fender Bender on Main Street

My family and I were stopped at a traffic light (facing south) last Saturday evening when the accident took place. First, a tan SUV collided with a blue pickup. A white SUV then slid into the blue truck, while the tan SUV bounced off the blue truck and hit my black truck before coming to a stop. All of the other vehicles were, I think, traveling east and west on Main Street. I say “I think” because the whole incident unfolded in less than five seconds. As I told one of the officers on the scene, we weren’t 100% sure… (read more)

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Dealing with Doo Doo

So our rented RV has two waste water tanks: one gray, one black. Water that goes into the sink and the shower ends up in the gray tank. Anything that goes into the toilet ends up in the black tank. All of it eventually ends up in a hole in a ground. The owner (or renter, in our case) of the RV gets the esteemed honor of putting it there. As I mentioned yesterday, there’s a panel inside the RV covered with switches and little lights that allows you to control and monitor features of the vehicle. This morning, after… (read more)

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RV Adventures!

On Wednesday, Susan, the kids, and I rented an RV and headed west. Specifically, this RV: Neither of us have ever driven or even ridden in an RV, so this is my first impression: after watching a couple of YouTube videos (“your model may vary”), we picked up our RV (our model most definitely did vary). In about 5 minutes we learned about the generator (it runs pretty much any time you’re not parked and plugged into A/C), there are water tanks (black and grey), a water pump, two slide outs (“slide ’em out far, not too far, but far… (read more)

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300 Keyboards

I’ve scanned in 99% of my old photographs, but every now and then I run across one that slipped through the cracks. This is one of those. I’ve told this story before, but right around the year 2000, a co-worker of mine and I attended a local auction for a computer store that was going out of business. At the auction there were large cardboard boxes full of computer keyboards. The opening bid was crazy — something like $20 per box. My friend Don and I chuckled at the price and stopped paying attention. The auctioneer tried restarting the auction… (read more)

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