Hideaway Pizza

The first restaurant I ever went to was the Hideaway in Stillwater, Oklahoma; I was only a few days old. Maybe that's why I love pizza so much. I could literally eat it every day for the rest of my life and be happy. And there's no need to go crazy and add all sorts of toppings; a good old pepperoni pizza is as good as it gets. Maybe throw some mushrooms or pineapple on there now and then, but plain old pepperoni is all you really need. I'm sure some will argue with this, but to you, I'll just say you're wrong. And don't get me started on supreme pizzas. Too many flavors mixing together. It just becomes a mush of pizza. Toppings piled on toppings, building way too high for any pie. Then you've got toppings falling off, olives landing who knows where. It's a mess. Give me a pepperoni and cheese pizza.

I seem to have digressed. The Hideaway is a good pizza joint. They expanded a number of years ago and now have some locations in Tulsa. We go there every now and then when we're in town. This was one of those times.

Fu Manchu

Let me tell you a little something about myself. I listen to a lot of podcasts. Some are just funny and entertaining, like The Grapes of Rad, TBTL, and Jordan Jesse, GO!, but some are informational and provide a good learning opportunity. Lately I've been doing a lot of driving to Oklahoma for work, so I've had a lot of time to listen in the truck. One of the best informational podcasts is Radio Lab, produced by WNYC. It's entertaining and funny, while still being very informative. I listened to a particularly good one a couple days ago about a very sneaky orangutan. I don't want to give away the good stuff, but this episode was particularly entertaining; everything from the actual story, to Jerry, the head zoo keeper they interviewed. My favorite quotes from him were when he called Fu Manchu (the star of this story) an "ol' boy" and when he described one of Fu's female friends as "a big, heavyset girl." It's a good episode and it's a "short" which isn't a full episode. If you have 12 minutes to spare, give it a listen; it's a pretty good story.

Check out this episode here: Fu Manchu

And now for my orangutan! He didn't pull anything like Fu did, but he seems to have an attitude towards people. The guy was just laying there giving me the finger! How rude is that? Although we've got him locked up in this cage, so that's kind of rude too. I'd probably give people the finger too if they came by and stared at me all day and I couldn't go outside because it was cold. I've always liked great apes, chimps in particular. Orangutan's are pretty great too though. Especially Fu Manchu, and this guy. Just look at those eyes!

Small Animals Far Away

I didn’t have a zoom lens in Alaska. Sometimes I wished I’d brought one, but more often than not I didn’t want or need it. Here are a few times where a zoom would have been nice to check out the wildlife. I still like the pictures as is though. Although I would like to have been a little closer to those bears and the moose. But now it's just like where's waldo except with animals instead of a waldo. Can you spot them all?

Liz's Broadway Burgers

It was a Sunday and I was in the mood for a burger. Unfortunately our normal burger place is closed on Sunday, but my dad knew of a place he’d been meaning to try over on Broadway. They’re open on Sunday so we headed over there. Looking at the building you’d expect to go in for some tacos y burritos, but it’s a burger place. They may have had other things on their menu but I don’t remember; I was there for one thing. OK, I was there for two things, burgers and fries. Maybe I was there for a drink too. So three things; I was there for three things. We walked in and found a table in the back, right next to a small radio emitting the loudest and tinniest sounding pop music I’d heard in a long time. This was practically strike one because we could barely hear each other. Luckily we weren’t the only ones annoyed by the poor quality of this music, and the two guy’s at the table in front of us got someone to turn it down. Honestly I think we could have just gotten up and turned it down ourselves. We ordered a couple singles with cheese, fries, and drinks and before we knew it, they were ready.

The burger itself was good, but not great. I think it was lacking in the grease department; maybe a little healthier than you’d expect from a dive burger joint. The bun wasn’t anything special either, but I’m not one for the specialty burger buns. It was the fries that were worth writing home about. Thicker cut homemade fries; just about right. They had some kind of seasoning on them, which was good too. All in all, it was a good burger and fry combo for a Sunday. It doesn’t stand up to some of the harder hitters in Wichita, but it takes a good swing. Like I said, it’s a good Sunday burger for when the others are closed. Would I go back? Maybe under the right circumstances; I’d not be opposed to giving them another shot. They certainly weren’t bad by any means. If you're in Wichita, think about giving them a try sometime.

Alaska in Medium

You know what I haven't done yet? Posted any pictures from Alaska on here. Well, I posted a few, but not many. I've been really slow about uploading all my Alaska pictures to Flickr. I think I've gotten most of my film pictures uploaded, but almost none of my digital ones. Of course, I like film better in general, so that's why I've done more of them. Lately I've been really pushing to get all my Alaska pictures up but there are a lot of them and I don't like uploading a ton at a time to Flickr. So that's why it's taking so long. Here are some I took with my Hasselblad from all around Alaska. From Denali all the way down to Resurrection Bay in Seward. It was a whirlwind trip but I had a ton of fun.

that's enough, tv station

I'm sitting here with my Dad and Stepmom watching the KU game and I'm seriously considering putting a ban on the rest of the NCAA tournament this year. Even the rest of the KU games. I can't believe the amount of commercials they're playing. It's ridiculous. I'm 99% sure that there has been more time spent on commercials than there has been on the game coverage. I'm not interested in buying your product, going to your business, or listening to your stupid marketing campaign. I don't care. I just want to watch a little KU basketball. Luckily for me, that's all I'm seeing; a little. Now here's a picture I took today.

almost time...

I'm going skiing tomorrow. Finally. Last year I skied about once a week and it was awesome. This year it'll be just this one week. Some is better than none though. It’ll be nice to have a vacation too; even if it will be cold and snowy. But I’ll be skiing, so snow is good. Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures. I’ve never taken my SLR up on the mountain and I haven’t decided if this will be the first year or not. I’m bringing a few cameras and at the very least I’m going to bring my Holga up there. I’m loading it with 35mm film, which I’ve never done before but have been meaning to try. Hopefully I don’t screw it up!

Here are a couple pictures I took last week that I really like. I wish it would hurry up and be spring.





Here's another cool thing I found today.. It's a bike stand by ClankWorks. Check out the link or click the picture for more info. I just think it looks cool, and that's half of what matters, right?