Happy 14th Birthday, Morgan!

Susan wasn’t the only O’Hara with a birthday last week. Last Friday, Morgan turned 14. I turned 14 in 1987. Life were different back then, but not that different. When I think back to being 14, I think mostly about wanting to fit in. I don’t mean wanting to be like everybody else, but wanting to find people who were into the same things I was into. It was about finding people who liked the music I liked, the computer and video games I liked, and the movies I liked. There was a lot of trial and error — friendships… (read more)

RobOHara

Happy Birthday, Susan (2019)

For a few hours the day before Susan’s birthday, I felt like I was just going through the motions. Susan’s been working so hard and travelling so much that she hasn’t given much thought as to what she wants for herself. Normally, that’s how the kids and I shop for her; she tells us what she wants and then we go pay for it. About an hour before they closed, Morgan and I drove to Hobby Lobby with hopes of inspiration, looking to find something (anything) that Susan would like. Hobby Lobby has all kinds of things to hang on… (read more)

RobOHara

Bob Lazar and his UFO Story, 30 Years Later

Bob Lazar

I was a junior in high school when Bob Lazar went public with his story. The first time I heard it I specifically remember thinking to myself, I told you so. In 1989, Bob Lazar — a physicist with degrees from MIT and Caltech who had previously worked at the Los Alamos National Lab — blew the lid off of one of the biggest government conspiracies of all time. Lazar had been working for the government at a secret base known as Area 51 to reverse engineer a flying saucer. This was the first time the general public learned about… (read more)

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Father’s Day (2019)

This year for Father’s Day, Mason gave me a chair, Morgan gave me a foot rest, and Susan gave me a new coffee maker. On the surface those gifts might not sound very exciting, but each one was something I had mentioned wanting over the past month or so, and either hadn’t got around to purchasing or simply forgot about. With each one, I got a kick out of knowing that they had listened to my old man grumbles and put some thought into giving me things I really wanted. The foot rest is already out on the front porch;… (read more)

RobOHara

Decision Fatigue and the Art of Replacing Socks

White and Gray Socks

The average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day. Assuming the average adult also sleeps eight hours a day, that gives us sixteen waking hours (or 960 minutes) in which to make those decisions. That’s roughly 36 decisions a minute, or just over two per second. Decision Fatigue is a real condition where people get tired of making decisions. If you have ever asked Google why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day (a black turtleneck with blue jeans and New Balance tennis shoes), you’ll run across the term. By not having to decide what shirt, pants, and shoes he… (read more)

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Cookie Card Nostalgia

Cookie Card

The thing I liked most about television’s Cheers was right there in the theme song: it was a place where “everybody knows your name.” Every time Norm or Cliff or any of the bar’s regulars walked through the front door and down those steps, they were greeted by name by Sam or Diane or Coach or Woody. I have never been greeted by name at any bar or restaurant. I don’t even know how that could happen. No waiter or waitress has ever asked my name, and I’ve never found a smooth way to inject it into conversation. (“By the… (read more)

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Making Mischief with a Pressure/Power Washer

One day last fall, I discovered an abandoned bird’s nest attached to our front porch. When I pulled out the garden hose in an attempt to spray it down, I discovered that our spray nozzle had broken. That afternoon I drove down to Home Depot to buy a new sprayer attachment ($5) and came home with a Ryobi Power Washer ($200). Most of what I know about power washers I have learned since buying one. When I bought mine, all I knew was that they came in two varieties — electric and gasoline — and that Craigslist was full of… (read more)

RobOHara

Six Months Later, There She (Still) Sits

Our last house had been on the market for just over a year when we purchased it in 2011. Because it had been for sale for so long we were concerned that something was wrong with it, but as our realtor explained to us, “not everybody’s looking for a house this big.” And big it was. While 4,200 square feet is far from a mansion, it was nearly twice as big as our previous house, and roughly three times larger than the house we owned before that. (It was actually 100 square foot larger than our previous two houses combined.)… (read more)

RobOHara

I (Mostly) Passed on the Cocoa Loco Choco Challenge

“Do you like hot things?” my co-worker asked with a sly grin. I do like hot things, to an extent. I like spicy salsa and wasabi, but I can’t handle “burn your face off” hot. For the record, “Cocoa Loco” is “burn your face off” hot. And then some. Cocoa Loco, made by the Pucker Butt Pepper Company, is a small square of chocolate infused with Black Reaper pepper sauce. For those unfamiliar, allow me to explain “Scoville” heat rankings to you. The Scoville chart measures how hot things are in Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). Think of the hottest jalapeno… (read more)

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All Clear from the Doctor

Wednesday morning, Susan and I visited OU Children’s Hospital. There were three patients there that we knew: our niece Jessica’s newborn baby, our friend Sarah’s niece, and our son, Mason. Mason was born with a very minor heart defect. It’s extremely slight and has never caused him any issues, but it’s something the doctor likes to monitor for changes. Over time, the tests have grown further apart. When he was young, he had the test annually. His last test was almost four years ago, and his doctor wanted to do one more test to confirm nothing had changed. By 9… (read more)

RobOHara