The Last Exit to Babylon

Finally, after all these months of waiting, Lost has returned!

I meant to get to this post early last week, but life happened, as it often does.  So as I sit re-watching the second half of the premier, I'll try to catch myself up a bit.  I almost didn't get to watch it live last week, as the local ABC affiliate's antenna had iced up to the point they had to reduce the signal below where I could pick it up.  Thankfully, they managed to get things back up and running again just in time for me to be glued to my set last Tuesday night.  And what a wild ride I was in for!

Now, on to the spoilers....

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NewsOK shot some video about Séan Cummings Irish Restaurant and Pub moving:

If you look closely you can spot me in the crowd in front of the original location and in the procession as we marched down May Avenue.

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As many of you probably know or have guessed, I've made a bit of a second gome at Séan Cummings Irish Restaurant and Pub.  It's a place a head whenever I feel like a fantastic meal with some great friends just about any time of the week.  Monday nights, I'm always there, for the musical stylings of Patrick Sawyer, followed by Open Mic Night.  And any other night, there's a decent chance I might show up for a bit and a pint after work.  Brianna loves it there as well, and I bring her in whenever I can.  It is a pub in the best sense of the word, a family establishment where we can go any time we want good food and even better companionship.  I'd been looking for such a place ever since moving up to OKC from Austin, and I was blessed to find one in easy walking distance from my house.

Sadly, the have moved.

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Tonight, the local Girl Scouts service unit held their annual Daddy-Daughter Dance.  I was supposed to take her, but for a variety of reasons beyond my control, we couldn't go.  So I was left scrambling to find a way to make it up to her.

I figured we'd start with a nice dinner out, someplace we ordinarily wouldn't be able to go.  I was already in my suit, since I didn't find out for sure we couldn't go to the dance until mid-afternoon, so I told her to go ahead and put on the dress she was going to wear tonight and be ready.  After some consultation with my friends, I decided to take her up to Shiki.  Of all the suggestions I offered her, a Japanese steakhouse with hibachi tables appealed to her most, and I'd been meaning to try this one for a while.

We had an absolute blast at dinner.  Our chef was a good one, energetic and entertaining, and chose Brianna as the one to trick with offering a bowl of fried rice on the end of his spatula, then flipping it back over his head to his other hand.  She was delighted, and we both ate ourselves almost into a stupor.  She had the shrimp, while I went for steak and calamari, and we even splurged on dessert: green tea ice cream for her, and tempura cheesecake for me.  One more bite and she would have had to roll me out to the car.  I couldn't even eat the wafer-thin mint she offered me.

Next we swung by the house to take pictures.  I was trying to include as much as I could from our original plans, and if we were both dressed up, we needed to document the occasion.  Unfortunately, I couldn't lay my hands on my tripod, so I had to make due with setting the camera on a table and taking a seated shot of us.  She loved it, though, and that's all that mattered.

After that, we went walkabout (drive-about, technically, since it's way too cold for someone with my thin Southern blood to walk outdoors right now) to check out some Christmas lights.  We drove around the rich neighborhood of Nichols Hills and enjoyed the light shows the residents had paid people to put up for them.  As impressive as some of those were, they paled in comparison before the grandeur of the lights Chesapeake Oil put on all the trees around their offices between Western and Classen south of 63rd.  They were bright enough I probably didn't need my headlights, much less any of the street lights.  As we drove away from them, Brianna announced from the back seat: "I just can't stop smiling.  I don't remember the last time this happened."

Clearly, I had done well beyond my wildest dreams.  I had hoped to try and come close to making it up to her for not taking her to the dance, and here she was in such a state of joy over our evening together.  It doesn't get better than that.

After totally knocking one out of the park with the lights, I took her on back to her mother's house, and drove up to Sean's for a nightcap.  This turned out to be a perfect way to end the evening, spending some time chatting with the staff while enjoying their hospitality.  I even got to take some time to discuss their need for a Facebook page with one of waitresses, and will be going back next week to see what I can do to help out with that.  Networking at its finest, and a way to help my favorite restaurant and pub get even more exposure.

All in all, a more perfect night than I could have hoped for.

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In 1066, William the Conqueror led the Norman invasion of England.

Ludwig von Beethoven put precisely 50 grains of coffee in each cup, no more and no less.  He was 5'4" tall, effectively making him the shortest titan ever to walk the earth.

Guiseppe Verdi did not actually die.  During a carriage ride late in life, he inexplicable morphed into Michael Jackson.

These are the things I remember from high school, particularly from my world history and music history classes.  I wasn't the best of students back then, and I did my best to simply skate through most of my classes with a minimum of effort.  And by my senior year, I freely admit I took classes like music history because I was looking for the easy grade.  Oddly enough, I did find myself more interested in the subject than I'd anticipated.  My teacher, Wayne C. Martin, seemed to have that effect.  To this day, some of my fondest memories from high school are from his classes.

Mr. Martin was one of the first teachers I'd ever had who treated his students much more as actual people than as a bunch of unrily kids it was his misfortune to be handed as a class.  I never really thought about it at the time, but looking back at my memories of his classes, his teaching style came across less like a lecture and more like the joy a scholar feels at sharing with fellow students choice bits of knowledge he'd come across on his own path to enlightenment.  It's no accident that when the time came in college to choose some elective classes to fill gaps in my schedule and add credit hours toward graduation, I picked history classes.  Not because I thought they'd be easy As to pad my GPA, but because I was truly interested in the subject.  And I did quite well in them, too.  I think Mr. Martin deserves much of the credit, both for giving me a good foundation and giving me some of his own joy in the subject matter.

I learned tonight that Mr. Martin died this past Tuesday.  The world is definitely poorer for his absence, but much richer for the legacy he left behind.  I know he inspired a multitude of students, some of home have gone on to become teachers themselves.

I was wolly unsurprised to see that he'd written his own obituary.  It seemed like the kind of detail he'd want to have done just so, and it gave him one final moment to pass on one of the choice facts he'd picked up over the years.  I don't think he'd mind me reprinting it here:

"Wayne Calvin Martin is moving from his long-time home on Austin Street two blocks south of the old San Jacinto High School to the Abbey Mausoleum on the grounds of Forest Park Lawndale where he has purchased a small space in the north-side columbarium wall with a glass window near the back of the hall on your left as you face the back door. You can see his picture in the window along with a few mementos from his long rich life. A small folded paper crane is a memory of two years in Japan (the defining experience of his life), a sprig of rosemary in memory of teaching great kids for 39 years in HISD. Greek boys in 500 BC wove rosemary into their hair on test day "to make them smarter." The little crystal owl is Athena's totem. Enough said. The kitty cats were his friends and companions in his happy old age. The Abbey is open every day from dawn to dusk for visitation. Drop by and say hello."

- Written by Mr. Martin on the 17th of February 2009.

I do wish I'd known about the rosemary twenty years ago.

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One of the features of the iPhone is that it acts as a GPS receiver.  I've been using this feature since I got mine to geotag photos, search for nearby restaurants or stores, and get driving directions.  But when I got some extra time with my daughter this past weekend, I realized there was another use I could put it to: geocaching.

Geocaching is a modern version of the good, old-fashioned treasure hunt.  You get the coordinates and description of a cache from the website, then set off with a GPS unit to go locate it.  Some caches containe just a log book to sign, others have small treasures to trade.  All of them are well hidden, and a great deal of fun to seek.

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This past Friday, I took the opportunity to go out to the Paseo District for this month's Art Walk.  Specifically, I dropped by Studio 164, the gallery I wrote about a little while back.  In addition to art from my friends Kathy and TheDeryck, Jessica was providing samples of her home-made jams for tasting.

From what I saw, the night was a great success.  Everyone who tasted the jam commented on how wonderful it was, and many bought jars on the spot.  Even I found it quite tasty, and I normally can't stand jellies and jams.  The art was equally impressive.  I had seen and enjoyed Deryck's pieces before, but I had no idea Kathy was such a talented painter.  There were works by several other artists I hadn't seen on my previous visit, as well, many of which I would live to have on my walls.  Sadly, my own budget precluded taking all of them home with me.

The piece I did wind up buying was part of TheDeryck's "Kinder" series.  He has been experimenting with a new style of multi-level "floating" frames which impressed me, and one frame in particular caught my eye immediately.  The picture itself was also eye catching, a color print of a cracked baby doll head with blue eyes that really popped out of the picture.  Though I circled the gallery several times looking at all the wonderful pieces that would look great on my walls, I kept coming back to this one.  And in the end, I had to have it.

It now occupies a place of honor on my wall (as promised, not on the same wall as my velvet Elvis), and hangs someplace I can see it from my favorite chair.  I'm looking forward to future visits (and purchases, as my budget allows), and I'm even considering commissioning a piece in the coming months.

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Everyone knows that troubleshooting computer problems is little more than black magic and voodoo.  This has never been more apparent to me than when I am trying to figure out what's gone wrong with a sealed "black box" system such as my Xbox 360.  I know what all the pieces do right up until they connect to the console itself, then they disappear inside and I've got no clue what's happening.  And I can't look, of course, as that would void my warranty.

Such was tonight's issue.  About a week ago, my Xbox 360 suddenly stopped being able to see the memory unit I use to store my profile.  I went ahead and recovered my gamertag to the hard drive while I waited to be able to test my memory unit in someone else's console.  It turned out the memory unit was fine, but I hadn't had much time to troubleshoot since then.  Today I discovered that my Xbox 360 also could no longer sync up to either of my controllers.  That meant something was pretty seriously wrong, and I was probably going to have to call Microsoft support.

Fortunately, I called Dustin first.  As I described my issues, he dredged up from both memory and an online forum a similar problem he'd had a while back.  He'd called Microsoft, and been walked through a weird set of tasks that shouldn't have had any effect, but evidently took care of the problem:

• Power on the console
• Hold down the little sync button (normally pushed to sync a new controller to the console) for 30 seconds.
• Power down and disconnect everything, including removing the hard drive
• Wait for a full minute
• Hook everything back up, and power up as normal

I followed those instructions, admittedly skeptical of the outcome.  But sure enough, when I finished, I was able to immediately sync a controller.  And when I plugged in my memory card, it recognized it immediately.  I have no idea why it worked, but it did.

Dustin's JUJU is strong.

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This afternoon, Brianna and I took advantage of a beautiful day to hit the road and took Route 66 out to Pops.  I'd heard about the place and its myriad collection of different flavored sodas from friends, and have even passed it on the road to other places.  I've always meant to check it out, but never made it there before.

We both had a really great time.  The collection of sodas, both the bottles on display in all of the giant windows, and those available for sale, was beyond impressive.  In addition to my very favorite of all, Dublin Dr. Pepper, they had more varieties of root beer than I've ever seen, and carbonated beverages in every color of the rainbow.

Since I had missed lunch earlier, I was starving by the time we'd looked through all the coolers, so we sat down to have a bite.  My Pops Burger was absolutely excellent, and Brianna enjoyed helping me with my onion rings in addition to her Reece's Peanut Butter cookie.  She had fresh-made lemonade, while I tried Dr. Pepper with a shot of chocolate mint syrup.  It all hit the spot nicely.

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My friend Deryck has been telling me lately about a new art studio down in the Paseo called Studio 164.  He put together their lighting system, and has some of his photography on display there.  My friends Jessica and Kathy have also submitted pieces.  So I've been wanting to make it down there, but I haven't been able to get out there on night's their open.

Until last night, anyway.  Deryck sent me a text letting me know that they'd decided to open the gallery for the night.  For once, I found myself sitting at home on a Saturday night with no plans, so I decided to head on out there and take a look.

There were a lot of really nice pieces on display, several of which I wouldn't mind owning myself.  Unlike some art galleries I've been to, the prices were quite reasonable; I can easily see myself picking up a few pieces for my own house over the next few months.  I also got the opportunity to meet the owner, Matthew Lynch, and several of the artists whose work is on display.  I had a lot of fun hanging out with them, and am looking forward to going back.

It's not all paintings or photography for your wall, although there is plenty of that.  MattY's work also appears on a series of painted wooden boxes, and another artist has several leather-bound notebooks available.  And when I saw the barrettes like the one pictured below, I knew I needed to get one for my daughter.  I think she's going to love it.

The next scheduled opening for the gallery is during the Paseo's First Friday Gallery Walk.

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