Halloween 2006

We had yet another big Halloween blowout this year. Acting on the resounding success of our haunted house last year, Jimmy Gallant, Ron McCormick, Darrell Estes, and myself expanded our operation by putting together a larger, scarier haunted house. This year, we put up two tents with a passageway between them. Darrell and Jimmy were the ghouls for the main tent, and Ron and I worked the smaller, final tent. Jimmy built a coffin this past weekend, and I laid in the coffin for effect. I covered my shirt in fake blood and laid a large (more than 2 feet long) roach on my chest. I used one of Jimmy's masks and several kids were not able to determine if I was real or not. A least a couple of the kids seemed scared out of their minds, and that's what it's all about. The trick or treating crowd seemed a little smaller this year, but we had a lot more fun than last year. Planning has already begun for next year. Jimmy took several pictures of the event, and I will post them as soon as I get them.

Nicky Hayden - American MotoGP Champion

Yesterday, American Nicky Hayden captured the world championship title in Valencia, Spain, denying Italian Valentino Rossi an unprecedented 6th consecutive world title. Congratulations to Nicky for a job well done. That weekend the motorcycle racing news website, Superbikeplanet published what I consider to be one of the finest motorcycling pictures I have ever seen. Dad saw a picture somewhere on the web and was trying to explain it to me. After seeing the picture below, I am certain that this is the picture he was referring to. A copy of the picture appears below, but may only be appreciated by the motorcycle riders among us. If I could ride like this, my life would be truly complete.


I was so taken by the picture that I have contacted the website inquiring if a higher resolution version of the picture is for sale.

Toby Keith - Nissan Pavilion

Despite living in Bristow for the past 5 years, until last night I had never visted the Nissan Pavilion. Nissan is the local outdoor concert venue that sees most of the big acts throughout the summer. Tracy has attended several shows at Nissan, but I never accompanied her because her preferred genre is Country. I relented this time to attend the season-ending performance of an obscure country artist that you may not have heard of, Toby Keith. Backup bands were Joe Nichols, Rushlow Harris, and Lindsey Haun.

The show wasn't too bad, but I confess that I was not nearly as enthralled as Tracy and our friends. We went with Darrell and Penni Estes, and it goes without saying that Penni enjoyed the show. She is a card-carrying member of the Toby Keith fanclub and was on cloud nine the entire show. According to the ladies, Toby's burly physique was in fine form.