I Haven't Broken Any New Year's Resolutions...Yet

Okay, so 2016 is only a week old.

Okay, so I didn't make any big New Year's Resolutions.

This year, I'm going to work on small stuff.  I mean, unless your name is Jack and you traded your cow for magic beans, a seed isn't going to become something big overnight.

I'm looking at small changes, small challenges, small random acts of kindness.

Small stuff.

It's already paying off, even though I didn't intend for it to. My favorite Starbucks barista currently works in the Starbucks inside Food Pyramid in Stillwater, OK.

A week or so before Christmas, we were talking about birthdays close to Christmas. She mentioned she was going to turn 20 on December 23. That's Christmas Adam! (You know, right before Christmas Eve?). She also said that she was going to have to work all by herself that day. Dang! Working by yourself, with no backup, on your birthday which is two days before Christmas kinda sucks.

Well, being in the Christmas Spirit, I gave her a bigger tip than usual, telling her to save it for her birthday. Then, on December 23, my daughter and I went back to the store to pick up some last-minute items for baking Christmas goodies and, sure enough, there was the Starbucks gal, shivering in a blanket because every time the automatic doors to Food Pyramid swooshed open, a cold Winter wind blew in, right toward the Starbucks spot.

I didn't get any coffee that day, but I put a couple of dollars in her tip jar and wished her Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas. She was delighted that we remembered her birthday, and thanked us for remembering and for the tip.

I felt pretty good as I was shopping, and when an elderly lady dropped a package of frozen food before it reached her cart, I scurried over and picked it up for her.

Small stuff.

And I've carried it over to the New Year. I've gone a little out of the way to help others, to compliment people, to pick up litter when I get out of my car, to spend more time actually actively listening to people, and to, for lack of a better term, be a Boy Scout towards others.

And the payoff?

Yesterday, I went to the store with my daughter. Our favorite barista was there. We ordered our usual drinks, and she put an extra shot of chocolate in our order at no charge. When her coworker asked her about the extra chocolate, she replied, "Hey, these are my people! I gotta take care of them."

My people. Your people. I think if we take the time to do a little extra for our people, the world will be even better.

Small stuff. Start there.

Umbrella? What Umbrella?

If you live Oklahoma, you get plenty of opportunities to experience the wind that comes sweeping down the plains. If, like me, you grew up in Oklahoma, you learn to deal with the wind and, during those rare extended periods of no wind (to me, that's a wind speed less than 10 mph) you actually start to miss it.

One of the ways I've dealt with wind is to not carry an umbrella. I'm not sure how many umbrellas were blown inside-out before I learned this coping skill, but at one time I reached a point where I stopped buying new umbrellas.

The down side is that I have to think ahead for dealing with rainy days. Usually, I try to park close enough that I can dart from building to tree (yeah, I know, bad idea if lightning is involved) to building to get to work.

Today, though, I couldn't use that strategy because my car went into the shop for repairs. Sure enough, a thunderstorm rumbled into town just as I was leaving for work.

No umbrella, of course.

I stuffed a couple of garbage bags into my backpack, knowing that I could use them as ponchos (for some reason, I forgot to buy emergency ponchos when I had the chance). But I knew that my head would still get wet. And besides, wearing the garbage bag poncho over my backpack would make me look like the Hunchback of the Garbage Heap.

In a flash of inspiration and a rumble of satisfaction (or maybe it was the lightning and thunder that did the flash and rumble thing?), I grabbed an unused storage tote lid and headed out to the bus stop.

Awesome! It kept my head dry and was big enough to keep my backpack dry as well. Not only that, but I knew that a gust of wind wouldn't turn the thing inside-out.

After I got off the bus (people looked but didn't say anything about my tote lid), I still had a few blocks to walk to get to my workplace.

The rain had more or less stopped, so I carried the lid next to me.

I discovered its next use when a car drove though a puddle in the street next to where I was on the sidewalk. With my "totebrella" at my side, the water didn't splash me. 

Yess!!

I made it to my office and from there to my class (it had started raining again by the time I'd ascended the stairs from the basement to emerge outside), using my rain shield.
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I wonder if I could make any money marketing the Totebrella?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Losing My Mind

I just re-read my April 1 post and had to laugh.

If I'd waited another day, I would have had more to add to it, as the stress level grew.

It turns out that not only did I have to move from my apartment (they graciously gave us until mid-May), but I also had to move my office because that building, too, is slated for destruction.

Needless to say, I survived the moves, and Finals Week, and posting grades, and attending my kid's Spring Concert (the little goober didn't tell us he was getting an award for the Young Men's Ensemble's Superior rating).

We're in our new place, still unboxing things, and I'm contemplating renting a bigger storage unit because we keep downsizing where we live faster than we downsize the stuff we have.

But all is well for now.

And on the up side, I'm teaching two classes for OSU this summer, which means I won't have time to screen jerky for Ralph's Packing down in Perkins, OK.

By the way, I just uploaded my first YouTube video. It's a walkthrough of Hanner Hall, which is where my office was located for the past couple of years. I've embedded it below. I used a Canon PowerShot A2300 to film it, so it's probably not going to be noticed by next year's Oscar committee, LOL

I Wanna Rock!

We went to Glencoe, OK early this morning to get some rocks a lady was giving away.  Some were pretty interesting.  I managed to get three rose rocks (Oklahoma's state rock) that were a bit eroded, but for free, I couldn't complain.  Pictures are below of the rose rocks and others I got.  I might go jasper hunting sometime soon.  We got directions to some public land where anyone can go pick up pieces of jasper.

Rose Rocks

Different background, but same rocks

Could somebody identify this, please?

Variety of rocks and shapes

Different crystals in this rock

I'd never really paid attention to the inside of this type of rock, which I always considered to be river rock.

The Beauty of Nature

   Today, as I was driving back to Stillwater from Tulsa, where my wife had a doctor's appointment, I saw a dust devil.  They're not real common, but I manage to see a few every year.  This one lasted longer than most I've seen.  It danced and swayed and seemed almost alive for about 30 seconds, maybe longer.
   My wife had never seen one.  She's heard about them, of course, but she thought they were really figments of the imagination or perhaps a tall tale.  This was her first view of these mostly harmless mini-tornadoes that pop up in dusty, dry, and usually flat areas.  She grew up in hilly Cincinnati and has hardly ever been west of I35, which more or less is like a dividing line between the hillier eastern half of Oklahoma, and the flatter plains to the west.
   I grew up in Oklahoma City, and as a kid we would chase after the dust devils that danced across playgrounds and little league baseball fields.  They seldom lasted for more than a few seconds, so often it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Once inside a dust devil, the dirt and debris would swirl around, pelting us on all sides.  The winds were always too weak to whisk us off to Oz.  Then the experience was over before we knew it, the magic dissipated to perhaps, or perhaps not, re-form elsewhere on the playground.
   I wish I would have had my camera out to capture today's dust devil, along with the delighted surprise in Susie's voice when she witnessed one of the little miracles of nature that often pass unnoticed to most people.

Langston Lions

I decide to take some pictures of these guys who sit outside in all kinds of weather, watching the campus at Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma.

Watch a Hawk Making Lazy Circles in the Sky

   Yep, you can really do that here in Oklahoma.  The wind also comes sweeping down the plain, and wheat does have a sweet smell after a rain.

   The lyrics to the song "Oklahoma!" do a pretty good job of promoting the state where I grew up and where I love living.  We have other things here that people from a distance away don't get to experience.  Although not a large state, we have a wide range of geological features: desert areas, wide plains, gentle rolling hills, mountains, forests, swamps, rivers, and lakes.
   The song came into my mind the other evening when I was driving home from a grocery run.  A red-tailed hawk was making its way up into the sky, circling slowly as it climbed higher.  Hawks tend hunt early in the morning just after sunrise and again in the evening as the sun is going down.  This particular hawk was joined by a turkey vulture (or buzzard, depending on where you live).  As big as a hawk is, a vulture is much larger.  They were both circling in the sky, the hawk looking for a live meal, and the vulture looking for carrion.  Both magnificent creatures, each performing their part in the circle of life.
   I love where I live!

Fresh Produce...Yum!!

I don't know about where you shop, but the produce section of the grocery stores around here seem to have bland-tasting veggies.  Today I decided to go to the local farmer's market here and get some locally-grown produce.  I bought cucumbers, yellow squash, and jalapeño peppers.  Most likely, they will not go into the same dish.  But I have been known to be creative when cooking, LOL.