The Perils of Living in Oklahoma

Last night was the the first time that a tornado has come within five miles of my house. It was a really intense couple of hours as tornadoes were just popping up everywhere and landing with unpredictability. One passed by the OU campus blowing out windows and causing a lot of damage and it passed over a really busy street during rush hour and luckily no one was seriously hurt. Here is a video of it crossing that street. This is the one that was just miles from the house and we could see it in the horizon from the front porch. What was so strange is that this particular tornado formed in a matter of minutes, barely giving storm spotters any warning to activate the sirens.

It is a really eerie feeling when tornadoes happen. We were eating dinner with the news on in the background when I started hearing hail and rain hit the house and then almost immediately the winds picked up. The intense rain, winds, and pea sized hail lasted just a few minutes then all of sudden it stopped and the sky was a weird greenish haze. But it was like the brakes were hit. My hair was standing on my arms and you just get this sense that something bad is going to happen. My oldest boy Parker who was standing at the door with me said, "Are the storms gone, daddy? I told them to go away." I told him that I didn't know and when I turned around my wife was shaking and crying hollering at the boys to get in the middle closet and hide. Then the sirens went off. You see, my wife lived in the Midwest City/Del City part of Oklahoma when the big one hit on May 3rd, 1999. That tornado was the strongest ever recorded with speeds of 301 miles per hour and caused massive destruction. She knew what was about to happen. But this tornado warning had a different sense of panic. In 1999, she only had to protect her cat, not two children. Then it happened. The news in the background said that there was a tornado on the ground in Norman Oklahoma around Hwy 9, heading towards the OU campus. As I looked in that direction, the winds suddenly picked up, but in reverse. The trees were bending to the South instead of the North and you could hear a light rumble....then there it was off in the distance just moving across the horizon to the Southeast from my house. I told my wife that we were OK as it went South of us and she just stood there hugging the boys, watching it disappear in the tree line.

We were lucky but quite a few others were not. One of the hardest hit places was a truck stop to the Northeast on I-40 and Choctaw. There are additional images of it on the video above. They confirmed one fatality there as a child was not able to get to shelter and was killed by flying debris. This was from a tornado touched down about five miles North of our house and went through the city of Moore and headed in that direction about 15 minutes prior to our scare. The nickname for this area in tornado alley and I can see why, just driving to work this morning and seeing where it crossed on I-35, it looks like a bowling ball rolled through the fences and trees, knocking them all down. According to the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow, more storms with the possibility of tornadoes so it may be another interesting night.

Here is a great video of what it was like.

Medicine Recalls

In the news lately there have been a number or stories of product recalls concerning children's items. You hear about carseats, baby formula, baby food, strollers, and carriers, but the one that should really catch your attention is when it involves children's medicines. We routinely switch between Children's Tylenol and Motrin as recommended by our child's pediatrician. The Pediatrician is the one person that we trust when it concerns your child. So where do you turn? Who do you trust?

The latest medicine recall involved children's Tylenol and Motrin in the liquid form. It covers a wide range of liquids from regular Tylenol to allergy medicine such as children's Zyrtec and Benadryl. Evidentially, these medicines may contain tiny particles, increased concentration amount of medicine or "inactive ingredients that may not meet internal testing requirements". What you may ask are the inactive ingredients that may not meet testing, they are BACTERIA. That's right, bacteria was found. There have not been any reported deaths or hospitalizations resulting from children taking the contaminated medicines, but the FDA feels that it is best that they discontinue it and pull it off the shelves. It is also recommended to use generic branded medicines for the time being.

Now just because we are adults, it doesn't mean that we are in the clear. There have been numerous over the counter medicines recalled from Tylenol in the last few years and a complete list of them can be found here. Please be sure to check your medicines cabinet tonight and flush it if you happen to have some of the contaminated medicine that I had. One bright side is that if you do have some of the medicines on the list, go to this website and enter in your information to receive coupons or a refund. It only takes a few minutes to do so, and at least they are offering some form of compensation and accepting responsibility for their actions. It is the least they can do for being a leader in making children's medicines.

So now comes the most important question, "Who can we trust when it comes to recommending products for our children"? There is always a risk with being a doctor or nurse as the rate of malpractice lawsuits seems to climb more and more each and every year. I personally wouldn't do it because they were only their job. You asked what to give them and they told you. They didn't knowingly get a memo saying that this medicine is bad and then start pushing it out to every patient that visits, but I bet that there are a few walk-in type clinics where the gifts that the doctor got for pushing XYZ medicine makes him feel compelled to give you a certain brand of medicine isn't necessarily the best medicine for the ailment that you went in for. It happens, and it is a lucrative business. But I doubt that it happened here with a $4.00 bottle of children's Tylenol.

I urge you to check and make sure that your medicine is safe and when giving medicine to your small children to watch them and immediately take them to the hospital if the symptoms get worse.....It even says it on the bottle. Be Safe!

Friday Rant

I have officially run out of things to write about. Life is on autopilot this time of the year as all the faculty and staff will be leaving the building soon and we will get 3 months of solitude. It is rather annoying that on most days, kids will be carrying on about their dating life or how horrible their roommate is. I think that it is annoying because I am 12 to14 years older than them, but it is college. Grow Up. I think that really what bothers me the most is that these people are in school to become nurses and most do their clinical rotations at the Medical Center, which is the place to go if you are an employee because the "in-network" rate with our insurance is super great. Hopefully as the years go on, they will mature.

One thing I find really annoying is the tailgating students who try to wait for you to leave using your employee parking pass and then high speed it under the gate with you. It's a dollar to park people...Your tuition cost $15000 a semester and you cant pay the buck to get out? There is one other guy here who finds it annoying as well so now, we swipe our card, drive forward a few feet and then STOP. We wait for the gate to come down then we proceed. It is really funny to do it especially if the student drives a stick because most times they will hit the gate arm.. HILARIOUS!!! The buzzer goes off and then everyone looks. Hopefully they learn a lesson.

I hope everyone that reads this blahg has had a great semester and looking forward to the summer break. I am actually going to take 9 hours during summer school to try to save $1500 on tuition since the double price for out of state students doesn't apply until Fall. I want to be so done with school, to get the degree and prove to myself that I can achieve anything that I set my mind to. I will be the first one in my immediate family, but since both me and wife will have graduated from MSSU, I hope that my two boys will go there as well. Hopefully they will play sports and get scholarships, as in 2024 the price of out of state tuition will probably be $750 an hour at the current rate of increase. But one thing is for sure, most of the faculty that I have taken classes with are very great at what they do, and I hope they forgive my boys for who their dad is as I can be very outspoken. Bets of luck to all my English 102 classmates and if our paths should cross again, feel free to shoot me an email.

Take Care and Good Luck on your finals!!!

What is up with Security in China's Schools?

Almost everyday this week, I am seeing articles or news stories about children in China either getting stabbed or hit with a hammer. Each time I come across something like this, I am left bewildered at how can someone do something so heinous? What types of preventive measures are being put in place to keep this from happening again? This is something that should be very alarming as it is preschool and elementary school aged kids getting seriously hurt and it needs to stop. There have been five such attacks in a months' span and Chinese authorities are at least stepping up security at schools but the number of schools versus police or security force can't be everywhere as they lack the manpower.

According to this video, the increase in attacks is primarily due to the enormous pressure put on people to succeed in China. Seriously? These attackers feel that the best way to stop it is to attack where the pressure all starts, in preschool or kindergarten. I really doubt that they are thinking, " I will help these children so they will not have to feel the pressure put on us later on life", and then go kill them. There is no excuse to attack defenseless little kids who have done nothing wrong. They are innocent children who worry about losing their favorite bouncy ball or where their stuffed animal is when they go to bed at night. To me, this is absolutely ludicrous.

One of the people who had killed eight elementary students on March 23rd, Zheng Minsheng, has already been convicted and killed by a firing squad on April 28th. I do greatly appreciate the swift trial, but they really need to do more to protect the children, rather than speeding up the trial and shooting them. He told the media that he wanted revenge on the "rich" and "powerful". Killing children is no way to make a point.

Another important factor based on the information in the video about and the article is that some authorities believe that the increase in these incidents is due to the "copycat" effect when something like this happens and it is relayed by mass media. We had the same thing happen here in the US similar to when we had the Columbine incident a few years ago, and I believe that people do try to copy other events. We saw a surge in school shootings after the news media continued to play it over and over again such as Virginia Tech and numerous other high schools. Unfortunately for us, it took a lot of innocent lives to beef up security in schools across the nation and it has been some time between incidents.

Hopefully China will be able to come up with effective ways to combat these types of instances happening. In China, they have one of the toughest gun laws in the world, forbidding ownership outside of the police or military. As unfortunate it is for the kids to be stabbed and be in pain, they will at least recover slowly, but being shot would have been worse and the amount of deaths would have been higher. Too bad the US won't be as strict as China. A lot of lives could have been saved.

Summer School.. BOOOO!!

I usually look forward to the three months of no homework, no writing and more sleep during the summer. I came to realize on Monday that the increase in tuition for out-of-state distance students at MSSU doesn't apply to summer school as it goes into effect during the Fall 2010 semester. So now, in an effort to save $1600, I have enrolled in 9 hours, all to be compressed into 2 months. Luckily, one of my fellow English 102 classmates is taking one of the same classes with me, and not to mention that she is fun to exchange emails with, so hopefully, accounting 202 won't be so boring.

Really the only other positive of this summer is that the students here at work will dwindle down, providing me with unlimited choices on where to park in the mornings and the line for lunch will be quick. It is really annoying to be standing in line at the union only to overhear, "So and so is going to so and so's party but I am not going because so and so will be there and she is a b#$%^". If only they knew that so and so probably doesn't give a rats a$$ about whether or not they are there and once they graduate, you will never see them again. I mean seriously, do people still care what others think? Wait until you are married, have kids and responsibility in your life. You won't care. Trust me.

And one last rant, the OKC Thunder NBA team cannot hang with the Los Angeles Lakers. It is simply for ratings that the Lakers have lost a few games here, and probably David Stern's idea to try and drum up interest in the NBA since the ratings has declined over the years. I really do wish that the Thunder could beat the Lakers and go to the second round but lets face it, there's a better chance of me eating JUST a salad for dinner than the Thunder winning tonight and beating the Lakers in LA on Sunday. It will not happen. I am so sick and tired of people driving around with thunder flags on their cars or dressed in Thunder gear at the mall. It is so stupid. I know that you are a bandwagon fan and once the NBA season is over, here comes the OU or OSU gear depending on who is doing better. I will admit that OKC has quickly become a hotspot for sports with OU's Blake Griffin going first in the NBA draft last year, Sam Bradford going first in the NFL draft this year, and the Paris sisters going to the WNBA. We have the Texas Rangers minor league baseball team, we have a one level down from the main NHL ranking hockey team and then we also have the Yard Dawgs, an arena league football team. There are plenty of choices if you are a sports fan as we have everything covered. But me personally, I don't give a rats a$$. I am too busy with work and school.

"Say Hello to my Little Friend"

We all remember that line from the best mob movie ever made, Scarface. The barrage of bullets that followed as Tony Montana unleashed his M16 assault rifle on the henchmen sent to kill him. Turns out in Utah, you can request a firing squad as your choice of death if you are death row instead of lethal injection. At first, when I saw the article I thought that there was no way that death by a firing squad still exists in the US. Although Utah no longer allows it if convicted of a crime and sentenced to death, those that were sentenced prior to 2004 can take option B, the firing squad. I personally think that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and will probably be stopped by some court order. I have read about the quickness and efficiency of lethal injection in the prison system and I believe that it is the most humane way to die if sentenced to death.

The story is about Ronnie Lee Garner who shot and killed a lawyer back in 1985 during an escape from jail gone wrong. When the judge asked him on April 21,2010, "lethal injection or firing squad?", he chose the latter. Critics contend that it needs to be abolished as it a relic from the Wild West days back in Utah. According to wikipedia, there have been an estimated 142 deaths from firing squads in the US, but most date back to the times of the Civil War. Surprisingly, Utah is not the only state that allows for death by firing squad. The only other state is Oklahoma, but here it is only allowed as a backup. If Mr. Garner is granted his wish, he will be the third person since the US Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the continuance of the death penalty. Mr. Garner's lawyer has stated that he will probably appeal his clients death, now scheduled for June 2010. I don't think that with all the media coverage and human rights activists that this death will be carried out especially the way a firing squad works with five men pointing a gun, 20 feet away while Mr. Garner is blindfolded. I agree that this seems like it is out of the old west, and not going to fly in this day and age.

Mr. Garner happens to be just the beginning as there are three others sitting on death row in Utah that also want to be shot. I think they are going to be very disappointed when the Supreme Court strikes it down and they end up having to spend the rest of their days in an 8x8 room. There is however one benefit from this type of death as the only organ that is harmed is typically the heart, allowing for the other organs to be donated. But this also assumes that the shooters have decent aim and don't miss.

I am firmly against this type of death and I guess that I will have to wait and see if this is going to be allowed as it is not humane. I don't think that it will be allowed and I know that there are others who feel the same way.

I Am Victorious!!!!

Some of us in this class are familiar with "Wophunzira's*" nickname for one of the professors at MSSU. His class is very hard, takes a lot of time to read the materials for the bi-weekly exams and he relies on your judgement to choose the very best answer on an exam although there may be more than one answer. Because of this and other factors, his nickname has been hereby affixed as "Dr. Evil". Well, Dr. Evil allows you to appeal an exam question if you believe you are right. People who know me by now, know that I will fight to the death..no wait..be persuasive enough to prove a point. After submitting three questions to appeal, I was victorious on one. Yep, one. But the thing to remember is that I was right on one. I proved him wrong. That was the real victory, as this professor can be really intimidating and the failure rate in his class is high.

To celebrate my victory, tonight I will crack open a beer and light up a Rocky Patel cigar and just sit on my porch watching the day give way to the dark of night. This victory is like remembering your locker combination in that stupid reoccurring dream where you forgot it. We all have those, right? This victory exposes a flaw and now, I might appeal every wrong test answer in this class, just to make him read them. I doubt he will give in, because you can tell that he takes his role as a professor really serious. My 1-2 record may soon become 1-10, but again, knowing that I was right just once, will allow me to hang my head high. Not to mention word of my victory came on the same night as Sam Bradford, OU's former star quarterback was chosen as the number one pick in the NFL by the St. Louis Rams and the Oklahoma City Thunder actually won a playoff game against the defending NBA champs, the Los Angeles Lakers. What a great night. Now I can go back and root for the Ram's like I did back in high school when the Ram's were known as the "Greatest Show on Turf".

For those of you who think I'm gloating, I doubt that you have taken either of the two required classes from Dr. Evil. They are insanely hard and will bring down the best student's GPA like the Wall Street crash. Most "A" students will end up with a "B" and that will feel like a victory to them. I wish that sometimes there was a way to find out the grade distribution in classes as I am curious. I would like to know so that I can better educate new friends who may not be as far along as I am on what professors are great and which ones are not. Unfortunately MSSU isn't one of the schools listed on www.ratemyprofessors.com like OU is. It would be a big help for students.

* Name changed to protect the innocent. Once you find out the meaning of the word as well as the origin, the person's identity could become clear to you.