The University of Oklahoma

My home for the past six years, 3 months (since July 2001).

Visiting Mee and Por in Waukesha, WI

My very good friends from Thailand, Mee and Por, left Norman this August and moved to Waukesha, WI to study at New Tribes Bible Institute. I had to say "goodbye" to them back in July when I went east for my grandfather's funeral. We spent most of the summer together, hanging out, eating, having bible studies, playing frisbee, soccer, and going jogging. I was very excited when Northwest ran a promotional airfare from OKC to Milwaukee this past weekend! I left Norman Saturday morning and visited with them until Monday afternoon. We had great Thai food, went jogging, played frisbee, enjoyed two seminar classes together, got the license plates and air quality inspection for Mee's 1990 Chrysler New Yorker, and generally had a great time! Below are some photos.

Ghetto-fabulous!

aka, "A Nightmare on Elm Avenue", the halloween party thrown by MiYoung Kim, Lindsay Harkins, and roommates Erin and Jessica. I dressed up basically as myself from winter 2005, where I convinced Jared Richardson, Rob Seal, and friends to dress up & crash the Sonoma Park girls' ghetto-fab party. Only it turned out that this ghetto-fab "party" was really just for the girls, and we were not actually invited. So I enjoyed a nice bit of razzing from the girls (and from Jared et al., who didn't even know these girls). Anyway, I found most of the clothes from that party and wore them again on Saturday. Here are a few photos from that night.

Wildwood: men of the square table

24 October 2004, La Luna Mexican Cafe, Norman, Okla.

"For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

...

"We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us."

-Paul, exhorting & encouraging the church in Thessalonica

Sunday 14 Oct 2007 storm chase: SW Oklahoma

Kenny, Shawn, Craig, and I (and James, Tiffany, and Leo the dog, in a follow car) went southwest on Sunday in pursuit of storms. OUN was pretty interested in the setup -- a short-wave trough coming out of the rockies, 60-65F surface moisture, dryline/cold front advancing east from panhandles, and air temps 80-85F. Surface CAPE of ~ 2kj/kg, 0-3 km shear of 150-200 j/kg, and deep-layer shear of 40-50 kts, all colocated in sw Oklahoma, resulting in a mid-afternoon local-office upgrade of the categorical risk to MDT. We departed OUN about 1815 UTC, drove to our target area around Altus (with a visit from big brother, the OK Highway Patrol), and watched several storms initiate from the Arby's parking lot in Altus. After it appeared storms were organizing, we edged west, then north, of town to watch them better. As expected, initiation was discrete, but the storms quickly (in no more than 20-30 mins, less than we had hoped) formed a squall line. Here are two pics from our day.

A very nice weekend!

On Friday, I passed my dissertation defense! My committee suggested minimal changes (augment the future work section, clean up some of the figures, and refine some of my word choices), so I hope to submit it this week to the library. It is quite nice to be done with this stage, but really, the next stage has already begun. I need to submit a paper (chapter 4 of my dissertation) to Monthly Weather Review or Journal of Climate, I'm going to California Nov. 4-8 to present at the MJO Workshop in Irvine, I need to go to Houston to apply for my work Visa for Chile, and then I need to pack up and depart. November 18 will arrive so soon (4 weeks!! Yikes!)

But this weekend was nice. After my defense, several friends joined me to celebrate at Coach's. Then I played a nice game of frisbee and enjoyed a good chat with James & Kelsey Fri. night. Saturday I went to the OU-Missouri football game. Sunday I joined Kenny, Sean, and Craig for a storm chase in SW Oklahoma. I took a few photos of the game. Enjoy.

Sopaipilla: NOT from Mexico!

Last night I learned something very amusing: the sopaipilla is not from Mexico. Leo and I went out to eat at On the Border and for dessert I wanted him to try their sopaipilla. He looked at me like "sopa-what?". A quick check of Wikipedia reveals the source of his bewilderment: the sopaipilla is from New Mexico, not Mexico! Those New Mexicans and their trickery! So next time you go to a Mexican restaurant and chow into the honey-glazed sugary goodness that is the fried dough of a sopaipilla, remember not the Alamo but old Santa Fe!

Oklahoma 28, Texas 21

Xinan called me on Tuesday of this week with a very exciting offer: meet him in Dallas on Saturday and go to the OU/TX game with him! The decision was easy, so he drove up from Houston and I down from Norman. We met up at a Wal-mart, where I left my car, so we both didnt have to pay for parking, and drove over to the stadium. We wandered through the Texas State Fair -- which was not incredibly interesting -- and made our way to our seats. Section 16, Row 52, 13-14. WAY up in the back of the Texas endzone. But the view was pretty good -- and the Texas fans were not too mean to us.

We had a great time cheering on the Sooners, and of OU's 4 touchdowns, 2 were right in front of us! (Of Texas' 3 touchdowns, one was in our end zone). Enjoy the photos below -- particularly the one where I caught OU's "comeback" touchdown (to make it 14-14). The ball is just hovering beside the receiver's hands, waiting to be hauled in for a score!

Yay Google!

Google has a tropical cyclone in its image today. :-)

Health care and the veto

This was an interesting quote today; thought I'd pass it along. Source.

"Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away a half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children." -Edward Kennedy, D-MA, after President Bush vetoed a health care bill that proposed to spend $60 billion over 5 yrs to provide health insurance.

Another senator:
"Unfortunately, I believe that some have given the president bad advice on this matter. Supporting the health care bill is the morally right thing to do." -Orin Hatch, R-UT

Not much new

I don't have many new things to report. I submitted my reading copy to the graduate college -- and got Don Rodgers' feedback regarding my margins (I should use 1.6" instead of 1.5") and title page (capitalize "Degree" and all-caps "DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY"; even though the sample page on their website has neither in the correct format). All is on schedule for my defense on 12 October.

To prepare for the language barrier in Chile, I'm trying to learn some spanish vocabulary (thanks all for your suggestions and for offering me study aids!) Last night I dreamed I was back in Guatemala being tutored by Mrs. Nancy Lopez, my maestra at Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua. In my dream, I was frustrated with my lack of grasp of the language (perhaps my dream-to-waking connection is pretty acute!) On Friday, we had a very nice game of Ultimate, and I'm counting down my days in Norman (6.5 more weeks; I'll leave on Sun 18 Nov).

I'm going to miss Oklahoma for sure. Departing is bittersweet and I want to maximize every minute while I'm still here.