Quit-Smoking Journal

I was going through one of the drawers of my desk this morning and ran across my quit-smoking journal that I started on November 17th of last year.  I remember that day vividly.  I was hurting for a cigarette, it had been two days, and someone suggested that I put some energy into other things - like a journal.  So I went a bought a nice leather bound journal and a good pen, and I drove out to the Refuge, found a quite spot and wrote.

The Fair, and Dredging

Friday afternoon I'm going to the State Fair of Oklahoma.  I'm going to pick up Shawn from work, and we're going to spend a couple of hours looking through the buildings at the fair.  That's usually the extent of my fair trip.  I like to check out the Made in Oklahoma building, the competition hall, and the exhibition halls.  The exhibition hall, isn't really about exhibits, it's more about commerce than anything else.  Another stop that I'll need to make is the livestock barns.  There's just something about the smell of the fair barns that brings back pleasant memories.

We'll walk around the fair until my knees and back have had enough, then we're going to go play some trivia at Wings.

Saturday, Shawn has to work, so I'll hang around the apartment with Brandon until lunch time.  At some point, the lunching place will be decided and I'll head over.  I'm more apprehensive about this lunch than I've been about anything for a long time.  See, I received a call yesterday afternoon.  It was Eric.  We talked for about twenty minutes.  He's recently moved to the city and since I'll be up there we thought it would be a good time to get together.  There are things that need to be said, that shouldn't be said over the phone.  As much as I'm anxious, there are just some things that are better said face to face.

...and the home of the Sooners!

Home of the Sooners! - this latest piece of news to come from the Daily Oklahoman is ridiculous.  What's even more ridiculous is that there's more discussion on this topic than is really needed.  What started as an opinion article, has turned into a debate about patriotism and respect.  Really??? 

It has been a tradition for a number of years that anywhere from 50 to 75% of the fans present at the home OU game are going to add "Sooners" at the end of the Star Spangled Banner, in place of "brave".  The first time I experienced this first-hand, I got a different sense of pride.  As a Sooner fan, it made the national anthem a little more personal.  At the time, I didn't feel that those fans were being disrespectful; I thought it was sort of cute.  It certainly wasn't something that was upsetting. 

So, last week, when September 11th fell on a Saturday when OU was playing at Norman, the "home of the Sooners" tradition continued, and people got all bent out of shape.  This coming Saturday, the Sooners are playing the Air Force at Norman, and Bob Stoops took the opportunity to tell us what he thinks about all of this during his weekly press conference (link below).

Bob Stoops: "home of the brave"

Are they really worried about offending the Air Force fans, players, or soldiers?  Am I the only one who thinks that people are making say too much of this entire situation??  Let me know in the comments.

Why?

It would probably be customary to spend a little time with a formal introduction, in the first post to a blog.  But, that isn't going to happen here; I'll tell you more about myself later.  The reason for this blog is to finally be honest.  I don't feel that I can be completely honest in Notes on Facebook.  Or even in my old Wordpress blog.

That's not to say that I would lie in my other blogs, but holding back part of the truth was really getting to me.

In this blog, I'm planning to voice my opinions, share my thoughts and feelings, and pretty much lay it all out there.