Star Wednesday: Remote Controlled Speeder Bike Drone

Star Wars Remote Controlled Speeder Bike

About a month ago, I found myself wandering through what remained of my local Toys R Us. The shelves weren’t completely bare, but I certainly wasn’t the first middle-aged nerd to show up in hopes of getting a good bargain. I told my wife I was only there to look, but when I ran across this thing… “look,” I said as it jumped right into my cart! Speeder Bikes, ridden by Imperial Biker Scouts, have always been my favorite vehicles from the Star Wars universe. They’re essentially hovering motorcycles with jet engines — what’s not to like? If (somehow) you… (read more)

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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Garage Sale Season

Star Wars garage sale finds

Each year I look forward to my old neighborhood’s annual garage sale day just as much as I did when I was a kid, and each year it seems like fewer houses participate. This year may have been an all-time low. Thanks to 24 hours of solid rain, when Susan and I drove through Sun Valley in search of deals we only saw two houses with their garage doors open. In its heyday, I’ll bet there were years where there were at least 50 garage sales. Of course the garage sales are only half the reason I like to go.… (read more)

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Graduating with Honors: Kappa Tau Alpha

In the fall of 1991, three months after graduating high school, I walked into Redlands Community College. I walked out two years later with no degree and a 3.25 grade point average. After another year at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, I still hadn’t graduated and my GPA had dropped to 3.10 after pulling a 2.75 there. As much as I enjoyed journalism, there was zero chance of me being nominated for any sort of honor society based on my academic achievements (or lack thereof). It took me a few years to get my head on straight. In the fall of… (read more)

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75,000 Words, 285 Pages, 1 Deadline

Rob O'Hara in the University of Oklahoma

One of the main characters in my novel has a glaring flaw. A couple of scenes still feel clunky. I may or may not have a plot hole. If it weren’t for deadlines, I might have gone on editing my novel forever. There’s always something that can be improved. Rough parts can be made better. Good parts can be made great. Wednesday night, my deadline came. With Susan waiting out in the driveway, I saved the final copy of my novel to a thumb drive, and off we went. Thirty minutes later, I walked out of Office Depot with 570… (read more)

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A Donkey’s Fall From Grace: The Billy Mitchell Controversy

Rob O'Hara at the Kong Off 3

In 2013, I traveled to Denver, Colorado to attend the Kong Off 3, an officially sanctioned national Donkey Kong tournament. That weekend I got to see some of the world’s greatest Donkey Kong players play live in person, people like Hank Chien, Steve Wiebe, and Robbie Lakeman. Of everyone there, the person I was most excited to see play was Billy Mitchell. At least in video game circles, Billy Mitchell became a household name after the release of the 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The film follows two gamers, Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, on… (read more)

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A Peek into the Confusing World of Popeye

As a kid I used to watch cartoons every morning while waiting for the school bus to arrive, and one of those cartoons was Popeye. Although the original Popeye cartoons by Fleischer Studios date all the way back to the 1930s, I was more familiar with the Popeye the Sailor series, produced in the early 60s. In the late 70s and early 80s, CBS brought back the characters for The All New Popeye Hour. This was around the time the live-action Popeye film starring Robin Williams was released, and the character became popular with kids all over again. Despite this… (read more)

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A Few Too Many

Lunch Boxes

Over the past week I’ve picked up three new vintage lunch boxes: The Fall Guy, Annie, and the Care Bears. In the picture above, you can see the The Fall Guy and Care Bears lunch boxes stacked in front of some of the others. The cube holding the Annie lunch box is three boxes deep. I’m really good at collecting things. What I’m not really good at is limiting my collections. Or, for that matter, paring them down. When I first moved those upper shelves out into the hallway, I only had a handful of lunch boxes — four or… (read more)

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A Break from Spring Break

Susan, her mom, and the kids are in Ireland this week for spring break, and I’m in Oklahoma. As I mentioned last week, I am wrapping up my novel for my final school project. If everything goes according to schedule, I’ll be turning my novel in during the second week of April, and defending it two weeks later (after the members of my committee have had time to read it). I started work on my novel last September, and over seven months, things have a way of changing. For example, one of my characters started the book with long blonde… (read more)

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A $69.50 Robe

I left work a couple hours early Thursday afternoon to visit the University of Oklahoma and submit the final paperwork required for graduation. Perhaps its from years of dealing with computers, but I prefer things to be linear and, if at all possible, chronological. Purchasing a cap and gown two months before I defend my final project almost seems presumptuous on my part. I realize graduation is a massive undertaking that involves hundreds (thousands?) of students and must take a long time to coordinate, but preparing for graduation before turning my final project in almost feels like showing up to… (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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