My Brush With the Law

I almost got arrested today. I was driving around, running some errands; I dropped off a package at UPS, got some coffee at Starbucks and headed home. I had noticed a white truck in my rear-view mirror that I thought I had seen before and I thought kind of jovially, “I wonder if she is following me?” I put on my turn signal to turn left into my neighborhood, and she started to do the same. “What the…? Maybe she is following me.” I went out of the turn lane and she did the same, I drove a block and started to turn left again, she did the same. “Holy cow this chick is really following me!”

I turned back onto 31st, and she did the same. All of the sudden a Tulsa Police Officer came out of nowhere, and pulled me over. Before I knew it there were six or seven police cars in the shopping center where I pulled in, and the lady that was following me was running around with a piece of paper talking to the police. “Okay, this is not a speeding ticket, because I wasn’t speeding, what the heck is going on?”

Apparently that lady had a green Ford Ranger extended cab with a dent in the fender and a W04 sticker in the window that had been stolen. Just like my truck! It didn’t help that the collar on my steering column was cracked open (that is a long story), or that the VIN on my door was scratched off (that’s another long story).

So after about 10 min of discussing, they finally decided that it really wasn’t her truck and they let me go. I kind of feel sorry for that lady, I’m sure she was ecstatic to get her truck back and was sure that she had caught the guy that stole it. I hope she gets her truck back.

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stolen vehicle
mistaken identity

The Red Ring of Death

After 2 years of being an apologist for Microsoft's Xbox 360 hardware, my Xbox finally kicked the bucket, suffering complete hardware failure as indicated by the infamous "Red Ring of Death."

It's going to be hard for me to argue with my Playstation 3 friends now...


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red ring of death

Divorce is Bad for the Environment

I despise my wife, and have nothing but contempt for my children; however, because of my complete and utter devotion to Mother Earth and to the Environment I've decided to stay married. I recently learned that divorce is bad for the environment.

Splitting up would no doubt make me happier, but at what cost? My wife and I would end up in in separate households, thus increasing our carbon footprint.

(Divorced) households have fewer people in them. So on a per capita basis, divorced residents consume more goods, use more electricity and water, and thus contribute to the emission of more greenhouse gases than those whose marriages are intact.

So I guess I'll stay married...

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divorce
the environment

Camelot Demolition Continues

I drove over to the Camelot to get some more pictures of the ongoing demolition. As you can see, they are making some good progress.





For all my Camelot demolition pictures including those of the fire, click here.

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Camelot Hotel

Golden Compass Not Pointing Toward Profit

Wondering how The Golden Compass was doing, I went over to Box Office Mojo to look at the totals. It doesn’t look like The Golden Compass is doing so well. In its opening weekend, the Compass took in $25 million, $5 million short of what it was expected to make. This weekend, it brought in $9 million.

Meanwhile Alvin and the Chipmunks raked in $45 million this weekend, and Will Smith’s I am Legend brought in $76 million. Speaking of I am Legend, I went to see this movie on Friday and I give it the Roemerman Seal of Approval. My only advice would be to respect the PG-13 rating; this movie has some intense moments that would smooth freak out the innocent minds of children. (I assume your children have innocent minds).

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I am Legend
box office

Advent Mischief

This is the second year that the Roemerman household has celebrated the Advent with a calendar. The five-year-old has successfully guessed what was in a few of the days. She asked, “Daddy, is there makeup in number 11?” “Why do you think that?” I replied. Of course it was makeup…lip gloss, really. I asked if she looked and she said no. Then yesterday she got caught messing with the calendar; as a result she lost that day’s prize.

When I was talking about this later with my wife I asked if she really was looking into the calendar to see what was coming. “Uh yeah, how do you think she knew what was in there, do you think she is psychic!?” Today, she asked me before we opened up day 14 if day 22 was make-up. 22 was makeup! More lip gloss, I thought, what a little weasel! So I showed her, I mixed everything up, and moved the lip gloss to today. When she opened it, she exclaimed with glee, “Makeup!!! Is there going to be more makeup on 22? I bet there is!” I thought, “Yeah that is what you think...”

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advent calendar
parenting

Cleanup

As Tulsa’s power starts to be restored, focus will turn from keeping warm to cleaning up. Since my power was restored on Wednesday, that is exactly what I did today. Fortunately for me, the mess wasn’t that bad. My neighbor’s tree dropped several limbs on my side of the fence.

I think I heard that the city would eventually remove tree limbs and debris from the front yard, but I decide that I did not want to wait for that to happen so I loaded as much as I could into my truck.

The City of Tulsa Green Waste Dump Site, located on 56th street north just west of 169, is where I took my truck load, and apparently I wasn’t the only one who wanted to go ahead and get their yard clear. I found a long line of trucks waiting to get in, and on the inside, there were scores of folks dumping off tree limbs.



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Oklahoma
Ice Storm 2007
cleanup

POWER!!!

The power just came back on at my house!!!!

To PSO, the out-of-state power workers, and Tulsa Public Works: THANK YOU!!!!! I know you have worked and continue to work very hard, it is much appreciated.


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Oklahoma
Ice Storm 2007

Tending the Fire

I spent all last night tending the fire in my fireplace to keep my house warm in the midst of the ice storm and the resulting power outage. I’ve had fires before, but never one that was as important. I couldn’t just throw a couple of logs in there and hope that everything worked out. I couldn’t just say the fire was important but not do what it took to make it a quality fire. It required work and sacrifice on my part to keep it going for more than a few hours. The flames required constant attention; all night my time was spent tending to the coals, adding wood, and adjusting the gas.
I found that the time I spent with the fire and my effort to keep it going was not without return. I received light in the darkness of my house. I received warmth, and a sense of comfort from the freezing rain that fell outside. I gave the fire my care and attention, and in return the flames carried my family and me through the night. The morning came, and seeing my family wake from their warm beds, I’m not sure that I didn’t get back more than I invested. I wonder if there is a lesson in there somewhere.

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Tulsa
Oklahoma
Ice Storm 2007

The Camelot Comes Down

I went to the Camelot to take a few shots of the second day of demolition. I'll try to go back and get some more shots when it has been torn down a little more.




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Camelot Hotel

Welcome to Roemermanonrecord.com

Hey I have a new address, it's www.roemermanonrecord.com

It took a while to get it set up so if you tried to visit my blog earlier today and got bupkis, that is why.

Nothing has really changed. My blog is still really at roemerman.blogspot.com, but due to some behind-the-scenes magic, you get redirected here. I think the way it works is that there is some kind of gnome, elf, troll, or fairy inside one of Google's servers. When you visit my new address, the server fairy intercepts your http request and serves up my blog to you at this new address. Okay, I don't know how it works, I just know that it is cool.

What does this mean for me, you ask? Well nothing really...you can either remember this address or not. If you want, you can continue to use whatever you have bookmarked. Ohh yeah, and the cool thing is that all my old links still work, even my very first post automatically re-directs here...

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devil's magic