Capital Added to Oklahoma's Endangered Historic Buildings List

Duh.

There's an interesting article at the Oklahoma Gazette about endangered buildings in the Oklahoma City area, including the Capital, Gold Dome Building, Stage Center and Villa Teresa.

None of this should be news to anyone who's lived in Oklahoma City for any amount of time, especially when it comes to the capital building.

"Gov. Mary Fallin attended the event, thanking Preservation Oklahoma for including the Capitol on its list. She wants state lawmakers to appropriate $10 million for repairs and renovations with $8 million of it for the outside of the building. The remaining $2 million would be spent on interior priorities.

Pieces of limestone have fallen from the exterior while most of the building’s infrastructure — including sewer, plumbing and electrical systems — are outdated or need repair."

Politics being what they are in the great state of Oklahoma, I guess chances are better that a republican will be hit by falling limestone when trying to do business at the capital.  Always looking for the silver lining!

I don't understand why Oklahoma has let year after year pass by without addressing the issue at the Capital.  Instead it seems all our legislators ever want to do is see how much more they can lower taxes in the state, a battle waged yearly by conservatives in the state legislature.

Oklahoma City has passed a couple of different tax increases over the years for upgrades to the Chesapeake Energy Arena to accommodate NBA standards for the Thunder.  We also payed to have a new practice facility build for the pro basketball team.  Perhaps it's time for a ballot initiative statewide to address some of these buildings, at the very least the building where our government conducts business!  Either appropriations or an increase in revenues should have resolved this issue a long time ago.  Priorities priorities...

RIP Thunder Alley, Maybe...

"Gunfire that left at least eight people wounded and a pregnant woman injured is prompting Oklahoma City officials and the Oklahoma City Thunder to re-evaluate the watch party held during playoffs outside Chesapeake Energy Arena."

Link.

There's always some dick weed that has to ruin a good time.

"Thunder Alley originally was an occasional pregame party that included interactive games, concessions, and merchandise. It began three hours before tipoff and would shut down once the game started.

During this year's playoffs, a watch party was added and fans were invited to bring chairs and blankets to Thunder Alley to view the game on a new video display board (74 feet tall by 20 feet wide) that was mounted on the northwest side of Chesapeake Arena during recent renovations to the facility."

I was in Thunder Alley with some friends the other night watching the Thunder send the Lakers packing along with an estimated 6,000 fans packed into roughly a one block area. It was a pandemonium. Luckily we left the area early to avoid traffic and missed out on the violence that happened after the game. Even if we had stayed we were parked well west of Bricktown to be involved or even near by. Speculation is swirling as to whether or not the shooting had anything to do with the NBA playoffs and the watch party. I've heard many rumors including that the incident was completely separate or that the shooting was the result of OKC fans taunting a Lakers fan. In the end I guess it doesn't really matter. It looks like the city is going to shut down the watch party portion of the festivities at the very least.

So what went wrong?

Supposedly the city had an added police force in the area, a force I didn't feel was present walking through the throng with the exception of a police watch tower added to the mix.

Why is it that the city can provide a relatively safe environment during Opening Night (New Years Eve) with an estimated group of 100,000 people but not do the same with a group of 6,000?

The younger crowd mixed with alcohol probably didn't help matters. There was a beer garden area selling drinks as well ice chests all over the place. It seemed to me that everyone had a beer in hand. The prospects of having a beer before the next game look bleak now even if they cancel the watch party portion of Thunder Alley.

Finally I wonder what could've happened if our open carry law was in effect on Monday. Not that the shooting wouldn't have occurred but maybe it would be worse with some idiot gun owner trying to be a hero, causing more injuries. The law was recently signed by our Governor and goes into effect on November 1st.

Just some thoughts to chew on. What was really a great event for OKC and Thunder fans has just turned into a big turd. Welcome to the big leagues OKC! If this had been the NBA finals would fans be expected to riot, loot, and turn over cars? An arrest has been made in the shootings and hopefully it will come to light that it had nothing to do with a silly basketball game. I'd hate to think that OKC has joined a long and pathetic list of fans that act like fools after a sporting event.

Edit: oh and by the way, no one got shot up this weekend at the Gay Pride parade which had a much bigger turnout. Just saying...

SkyDance Bridge

"Construction on Oklahoma City’s iconic new pedestrian bridge, Oklahoma City SkyDance Bridge, inspired by the scissor-tailed flycatcher took shape today as a massive steel 'wing,' was carefully lifted by a crane and pinned to the base structure."

"The bridge spans the new Interstate 40 near Robinson Avenue, connecting pedestrians to the Oklahoma River. The bridge is at the heart of the MAPS 3 downtown park, which is expected to begin construction in 2013."

I'm all for the wonderful renovations that are taking place in and around downtown Oklahoma City, especially the new I-40 corridor replacing the old three mile I-40 bridge downtown that to put mildly is a death trap. Though it would be nice to have more than two exits to the heart of downtown.

What I'm totally not on board with is the SkyDance pedestrian bridge shown in the picture above. Sure it's a unique piece of architecture that will really be cool once completed and lit up at night; however, at what cost? 5.8 million dollars to be exact! Could our city be better served to put that money toward a more important use? I think maybe so.

When I posted the picture on Facebook one of my friends commented that we could spend that kind of money on a pedestrian bridge yet people using our mass transit system (I use that term lightly) are left out in the rain. "It will be extra, super pretty when one is standing in the rain at an uncovered bus stop."

A lot of what we've done as a city is fantastic, a new basketball arena for the millionaires to play in, plans for a new Convention Center even though we just renovated the old one, and tax breaks for an energy company to build a nearly 50 story building downtown. Yes I'm being sarcastic.

Instead of using the 5.8 million on a pedestrian bridge maybe that money could have helped those living under the old I-40 bridge. After all where will they go when it's finally torn down and a new avenue is created in its place? I'm just saying.

I'll end this posting by saying that most of what our city has done with MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects) is fantastic, lifting our quality of life in the area and creating jobs overall, at a minimal cost, a one cent sales tax that will eventually expire. Yet I still have to scratch my head now and then on some of the boneheaded things our city leaders vote to spend money on...

Devon Tower Tops Out

I read in The Oklahoman (aka the Daily Disappointment aka the Fishwrap) the other day that the Devon Tower downtown had reached it's maximum height and the company was going to celebrate with something or other at the sight today. To honor the occasion and the changing Oklahoma City skyline I went down to Bricktown this afternoon to get a picture of the building.



Since it towers over all other buildings in the area, it kind of reminds me of this:

Devon Tower Progress

I love architecture, just ask anyone who has hung out with me in downtown Chicago. More times than not my head is facing upwards toward the colossal towers of all shapes and sizes from many different eras. Even in smaller cities, say Tulsa, I always want to take a walking tour downtown to admire the buildings. Growing up in a small town in western Oklahoma I never had the opportunity to watch a skyscraper climb up into the clouds, I think that's why I'm so mesmerized by the construction of the Devon World Headquarters Tower. It's been my only opportunity to see a construction of this magnitude first hand on a daily basis.

I took the photos below a week ago on a birthday trip with my parents to the Festival of the Arts in downtown Oklahoma City.





The Devon Tower is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2012 or 2013. At 50 stories and 850 feet, once complete the structure will be the tallest in Oklahoma, if it isn't already (currently the BOK Tower in Tulsa is the tallest). At a cost of 750 million dollars it has to be the single most costly building venture in Oklahoma in some time. Rumor has it that a restaurant will be situated at the top floor upon completion. I can't wait to see a view of Oklahoma City and the surrounding area from that vantage! I predict a lot of flat land.

April in Oklahoma...

... means 90 degree weather. What the hell? I'm all for warmer weather but not this warm this early in the season!


At this rate it's gonna be too warm for tornados!

On tap for my favorite month of the year:

All month: warmer weather means the return of the best season for Sunday Funday, patio brunches and patio bar crawling!

9th - 10th: 29th Annual Redbud Classic. This involves running, walking or biking. I'm out!

16th: NBA playoffs begin. Thunder up!!

19th: this date marks the 16th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Though this date marks a time of remembrance for Oklahomans and indeed the rest of the nation, any day of any month is a good time to visit this fantastic and sad memorial.

21st: Matt's birthday. One of my besties though he even isn't sure how old he'll be (it's a long story).

26th - May 1st: Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts. One of the best outdoor events to be held yearly in Oklahoma City. Great food, drinks, and art! It also coincides with my birthday every year.

26th: Davemas!! Number 38.

29th - May 1st: Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. Once again, too much exercise for me. I'm sticking with the 12 ounce curls.

I love this month and this time of year! What's everyone else doing for the glorious month of April?

Division Champs!!

Thunder fans knew it was only a matter of time but it's still amazing what this team has accomplished after only three years in Oklahoma City. Now let's close the gap with Dallas and get that third playoff seed in the Western Conference. Woot woot!

Get the Northwest Division title shirts here.

Thunder Clinch!

Not that this is big news or anything since it was expected but I'm still stoked the Thunder have officially clinched a playoff berth for the second year in a row! Most likely they'll win the Northwest Division shortly in the Western Conference as well. Unless something unlikely happens Oklahoma City will host the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs. Thunder up!

OKC Sasquatch Sitings!!

The COPA, NW side.

Coaches, south side.

Outside the Habana Inn, NW side.

Henry Hudson's, south side.

October!

It's the most wonderful time of year and October is one of my favorite months on the calendar. On tap for this month:

October 2nd: The Red River Shootout! OU v. Texas in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. So I'm a fan of either team since they always seem to beat my beloved Cowboys of Oklahoma State. I'm still not sure in this late hour who to root for in the game. I need to determine which team winning or losing will benefit OSU the most...

October 14th: Chicago! Headed back to the windy city to visit J. for what will probably be the last time this calendar year. I'm excited to see real fall weather, in Oklahoma we go seem to go from warm to cold weather most years.

October 19th: Oklahoma City AIDS walk and 5K run. A great event for a great cause in downtown Oklahoma City. Unfortunately I'll miss it since I don't get back to OKC until late Sunday night.

October 31st: Halloween aka Gay Christmas. Always a crazy time for me and I imagine that this weekend will be no different. I always struggle with wanting to wear a costume but I ultimately never do. Any suggestions?

That's about it other than more football goodness as Big 12 play goes into full swing. Go Pokes!!

Thanks again to all the readers and comments over the previous month. I had my highest hit total in any month ever! Thanks!

Crabby Wednesday

I've been kind of crabby all week for some reason, hence the lack of posts, that and I haven't really had anything to talk about. Here is what I hate about my day to day routine during the week:

I hate that everyday the traffic is completely stopped on the I-44 exit to I-40 for NO FUCKING REASON! This happens at other places on the Interstates around Oklahoma City as well. Why does traffic come to a random complete stop for no apparent reason? The most obvious explanation is that Oklahoma drivers are idiots.

Speaking of traffic I hate that farmer Ted doesn't understand that the far left lane on any given highway is for faster traffic! Prepare to have your ass rode if you're driving 50 miles an hour in this lane asshole.

I hate that the blonde headed Asian guy at 7-11 asks for my ID every time I stop in for cigarettes, which is all the time. On some days he'll wait for me to dig it out of my wallet and then tell me it's not necessary. WTF?

I hate every radio program during the morning drive in the Oklahoma City market. Here's a breakdown of some of the most hated:

• Jack and Ron on 98.9 KISS FM - How these ass clowns keep winning best DJ's by the Oklahoma Gazette is totally beyond me. They are completely unfunny and advertise themselves as the "bad boys of radio." They are half right, bad. Jack does the most cringe worthy imitations of Paula Dean and Arnold Schwarzenegger on a nearly daily basis. It makes me want to drive my car through the highway divider!
• The morning animals on 98.1 FM The Sports Animal - Completely unfunny and little talk of sports, which is why I would want to tune in. I swear that there is 50 minutes of commercial time every hour!
• TJ, Janet, and JROD in the morning on KJ103 FM - While not totally devoid of some interesting discussions and humor in the morning, I just can't get over the grating sound of Janet's voice. She so annoys me with a combination of chalk board scratching, Oklahoma hillbilly twang, and Wicked Witch of the West accent, that if I listen for more than a few minutes my nose begins to bleed. No one makes me bleed my own blood!
• Joey and Heather on WILD 104.9 HD - My favorite morning show in the broadcast area, such as it is. In fact Heather is the only female personality in the entire market I can physically stand to listen to for any length of time. She actually sounds somewhat professional rather than an extra from the movie "Deliverance." Still, this show is mostly unfunny as well.

Ah much better after rant! I was listening to people call in to KJ103 this morning commenting on a story about this guy and girl that went on a date. Apparently the girl asked the guy out to a nice restaurant. At the end of the meal the guy was surprised that the girl didn't pick up the check since she was the one who asked him out. Today's question of the day is this: Does the man on a date always pick up the check even if he didn't initiate the date? My opinion is if you ask someone out, you should be prepared to pay, regardless of gender. What do you think?

The Skirvin Hotel

One of the first places I took J. on his site seeing tour (I use that term loosely) of Oklahoma City was to the Skirvin Hotel. I did a little digging for purposes of this blog and got some specific information on the history of the hotel:

The Skirvin Hotel was build by a man named William Balser "Bill" Skirvin, a Land Run participant and wealthy oilman who moved his family to Oklahoma City in 1906. In 1910 he began building the hotel on one of his properties at 1st and Park Avenue. The original 10 story hotel opened on September 26th, 1911. Over the years the building changed hands between various investors where is was remodeled many times, upgraded to 14 floors, and eventually closed in 1989. In 2002, the city of Oklahoma City acquired the property where it was renovated and restored to it's currently glory and reopened on Feburary 26th, 2007.

This specific information I did not know. All I could tell J. about the structure was that it was old, had been renovated, and that there was supposedly a ghost that haunted the hotel. A bartender at the Red Piano Lounge inside the hotel filled us in on the details of the ghost.

According to legend, Bill Skirvin had an affair with a maid named Effie. She became pregnant, and to avoid a scandal, Skirvin locked her in one of the 10th floor rooms, the top floor at the time. Here she remained lonely and desolate even after childbirth. It is said to avoid her prison, she jumped to her death from her window with her infant in her arms! Supposedly today people claim to hear a crying infant throughout the night in their hotel rooms or other strange happenings such as sightings of Effie, items moving about on their own, and strange noises. Even the New York Knicks blamed a haunted night at the Skirvin Hotel for a loss in Oklahoma City to the Thunder.

Who knows if any of this is true since the apparent suicide wasn't reported in the papers at the time. It does make a fascinating story to think about when visiting the Skirvin Hotel. For more accounts of Skirvin hauntings click here.

Oklahoma Land Run Monument

One of the sites J. and I saw on his trip here in Oklahoma City this weekend was the Oklahoma Land Run Monument, located at the south end of the Bricktown Canal. It was an amazing work of public art and from what I've read it's still in development. Though the work has been in progress since the Centennial in 2007, I had never wandered down that far from Bricktown to check it out! If you live in Oklahoma or are visiting here, it's definitely worth a visit, directly south from the Bass Pro Shop in historic Bricktown.

"The Centennial Land Run Monument commemorates the opening of the Indian land in Oklahoma Territory. The frenzied energy and emotion from one instant during the 1889 run is captured in bronze. Through Paul Moore’s masterful hand, a still and silent sculpture comes to life. When complete in 2015, the sculpture-in-progress will be one of the world’s largest bronze sculptures featuring 45 heroic figures of land run participants, frozen in motion as they race to claim new homesteads."

Yes, I'm a horses ass!

Festival of the Arts

If it's raining in Oklahoma City, it may be the last weekend of April and you may be attending the Festival of the Arts. I had the opportunity to hang out with Dann, Mel, and the Captain on Saturday afternoon at the festival.


View of the Oklahoma City skyline from the Festival. The large cranes are being used in the construction of the Devon Tower, a 51-story building expected to be completed in 2012.


The Festival is great, there's lots of art to see/purchase, plenty of food from local vendors and restaurants, and of course beer. Pictured above is me, Mel, and Jaclyn hanging out in the park area.

Toward the end of the afternoon we were running low on cigarettes so Dann and I headed downtown on a quest for smokes. I can't believe how far into downtown we had to walk to find a shop that sold cancer sticks.


I took some pictures of the buildings as we walked around downtown. This is the First National Center, built in 1931 and currently the second tallest building in Oklahoma City. The building inside and out is a prime example of art deco art design. This is my favorite building gracing the Oklahoma City landscape.





We finally were able to find a shop that sold cigarettes near the Skirvin Hilton Hotel, they were $7.50 a pack! There are rumors about the hotel being haunted, just ask the New York Knicks.

I Remember

15 years ago today 168 people, including 19 children lost their lives in Oklahoma City. I remember.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

Oklahoma Militia

"Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty."

Link

Really? Oklahoma sure is making the rounds in the national news this year. Just how is this militia going to defend against the federal government? Bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City? Oh wait that already happened fifteen years ago.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shame on Randy Brogdon and shame on the Oklahomans that voted for him. This kind of talk on the eve of the fifteenth anniversary of 168 deaths in Oklahoma City is disgusting. We don't need a militia in Oklahoma, we need people to quit voting for extremist kooks.

Another Thunder Game, Another Defeat

More times than not it seems when I attend a Thunder game in OKC we lose. Such was the case last night. It was cool, though, the game was close and the crowd was rockin' especially in the fourth quarter. I'm still a little in awe at having an NBA team in our neck of the woods. I wish I could afford season tickets, I would go to every game given the chance.

Dann, Kim and Grizzly Adams

Our tickets were on the baseline this time. Not great, but it was interesting to watch the game from a new perspective.

The OKC Zoo

The Oklahoma City Zoo is a great destination this time of year with the weather being so nice. I went with Susan and Cris last weekend and we had a blast. With the temperature being so moderate we were able to see all of the animals which can be difficult especially with the big cats. There can be some downsides to visiting the zoo, they no longer sell beer, you're no longer able to ride the giant turtles, and there were a million kids running loose.

The best thing about the zoo? Riding the animal sculptures with your friends:

Yipee ki yay motherfucker!

Crouching Cris, Hidden Tiger.

No comment.

It also helps to smuggle in a flask of Captain Morgan...

Always On My Mind

I love this video! The first time I saw it was years ago at the Park. There are always a couple of people on my mind...

Speaking of the Park, I stopped by there the other day to grab a beer after work. Ugh. What happened to their happy hour? There were four patrons at the bar and they were watching TV on the multitude of TV's around the bar (the same folks always there). Apparently reruns of King of the Hill and the Simpsons is a fun bar environment. OKC's gay retro video bar has turned into the Fox rerun bar between 5 and 7. In their defense it's usually pretty hopping on weekend nights, right?

I did have a moment of amusement from stopping by briefly. When I was making my way to the door one of the regulars asked why I leaving so soon. I replied that I couldn't drink that much since I was driving. In unison nearly everyone sitting at the bar said, "so are we!" Funny.

New Blog I'm Reading

I've clean up some of the blogs that I follow, mainly I've removed some sites that were hardly ever updated. I usually check out Daily Thunder a few times a week for information on our NBA (National Basketball Association) team here in Oklahoma City, the Thunder. The NBA isn't exactly my favorite of professional sports but having our own team here has piqued my interest in the game and the league. There are frequent updates here and lots of valuable information if you want to keep up with Oklahoma City's only professional sports team.