The new 50 floor Devon tower in Oklahoma City is now high enough that it can be seen above the trees on I-40. I was driving through downtown last night at 11:30 PM and was able to see it clearly from the freeway. Soon it will be towering high enough to be able to see it from 20 miles away on a clear day. This photo was taken from the live camera on OKCTalk.com web site.

As you can see on the right side of the picture above, fifteen minutes after the game was over,  “OKC” was the number one trending topic on Twitter, worldwide.  “Thunder was the number three trending topic on Twitter.  If you are not familiar with Twitter, this trending topic shows the top ten most posted things worldwide.  This means that millions of people were posting “OKC” and “Thunder”.  The Lakers won the game but at that moment were not in the top ten although “Kobe” was.  This tells me that for that brief moment, many people were also caught up in the emotion of the game and the amazing feat the Thunder had accomplished.

Two years ago, the Seattle Supersonics were moved to Oklahoma City and renamed “Thunder”.  This was a very hostile move that resulted in a lot of hard feelings up in Seattle.  I can understand this because the fans were completely innocent of all the games that were involved in the move.  For this reason, I really do hope that Seattle gets another team very soon.  When they moved to Oklahoma City, they were nearly completely rebuilt with young kids and virtually no one gave them much of a chance.  In fact the team only won 23 games out of 82 last year.  It did not matter to us  because we were thrilled to have a professional team in our city.  People were happy to support a losing team because they wore “Oklahoma City” on their jerseys.

One year later people including myself were not very confident they would win very many games.  We all thought they would be better than last year but not that much.  This team worked so hard and improved so much that they won 50 games in the regular season and then went on to win two out of five games in the playoffs against the champion Los Angeles Lakers.  In addition to that, the players have become known to the public as great guys with very good character.  The city has grown to love this team because the team is not only good on the court but also in their lives.

Over the last few months I have been seeing these flags appearing on cars all over town.  Signs are up in windows and buildings.

As you can see on the building on the left, it says “Let’s GO Thunder”.

It was clear mid way through the game last night that the game was not going our way.  I think we all knew this was going to be the night that it ended so there was a little sadness there.  What did surprise me was the way everyone stayed in the stands after it was over.  Our Sooner fans are really rabid yet they are heading for the gates ten minutes before the games are over.  I fully expected to see this last night.  The fans were loud and continued to chant for the team even after they lost.  Anyone that has been paying any attention this year would have to have noticed the perseverance of the Oklahoma City Thunder players.   Our star player, Kevin Durant is only 21 years old and won the NBA’s most points scored making him the youngest in NBA history.  He also beat Michael Jordan’s record for the most free throws in a season.  Our coach won the Best Coach Award for the NBA. 

I started following Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Hardin, Nick Collison, Serge Ibaka, and Jeff Green on Twitter many months ago.  I learned by following these guys that they are real friends off the court and take their jobs very seriously.  They genuinely work hard and have taken that as their motto.  They never show boat and take credit to themselves but make a point to give credit to the team.  It is difficult not to love these guys.  I think that is why this city has such a strong attachment to them whether they win or lose.  I cannot tell you how many times I heard on ESPN, ABC and TNT that our fans are the loudest in the NBA.  That is because the people genuinely love this team and scream with their hearts.  It was very moving last night to see everyone stand up and cheer them knowing this was the end. 

Last night was a proud moment for me and I know many others.  I was pretty confident that this team would be here for a long time but last night solidified my opinion.  I know that this team has been accepted as a part of our world and family.  I just want to congratulate this team players, staff, and owners.  They have done a great job and everyone here loves you.  We are very excited even after the loss.  As far as I am concerned, this team could not have been more of a winner if they had gone to the end and won the championship.  Thanks again!

Nice video from the Thunder web site showing the excitement of the NBA playoffs.  Listen to the crowd.  Game four comes on at 8:30 tonight, 24 Apr 10 on ESPN.

My wife was commenting about how she had to call 911 two days in a row.  I told her that I should blog about this and she told me that I need to title it “To Hell in a Hand Basket”.  So in honor of my wonderful wife, I did.  For some reason she always laughs when someone says that phrase.  I don’t understand but I think it is cute.  Anyway, I thought I would share the events of the past week.

Gangland: Crazy Killers (Latino Gang In Oklahoma City, OK) [44 Minutes]

You may remember a post back in January when I took many gang graffiti pictures around South Oklahoma City.  This post had become a hostile place for rivals to post their hatred toward one another.  It got so bad that I had to disable the post.  At that time, I never realized that we had much of a problem other than the graffiti.  This week, the History Channel’s Gangland profiled a local gang, the South Side Locos and their hatred for another gang, Grande Barrio Centrals (GBC).  The above video is that program that was on television.  I know that many times the media tends to exaggerate things and that may be the case here as well.  I do however remember a couple of the events in this video happening.  We often hear about a shooting on the South side on the news but when it is reported on TV we never hear what it was about.  Most people ignore it because there are always going to be shootings on the news.

I was surprised to see this video on a national network.  For one thing, I never thought it was that bad around here.  Another thing is that I am not sure how wise it is to give them coverage on a national stage.  It is hard to imagine what positive things could come from this type of exposure.  In my opinion, this exposure can do nothing more than inflame the situation.  In the entire story, they consistently put down this GBC gang.  Although I am not really familiar with either of them, it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the GBC’s are likely going to be offended by this program resulting in even more violence.  On another front, I am not too sure that any city chamber of commerce wants this kind of publicity.  When you have your city profiled on a national network for gang activity, it turns potential new residences away.  I mean, people that just want to live in peace are not likely to want to move to a place that is on national TV for gang violence.

Although I do think this program does exaggerate the situation to some degree, there is no denying their is a gang issue on the South side.  If you drive anywhere from I-35 West to May Avenue, and between 15th down to 59th, the graffiti is very prominent.  I have seen entire buildings that are painted over from the ground to the roof as displayed in the photo below.

In the picture above you can see on the bottom right where someone has posted LK for Loco Killer.  Someone quickly changed the L to a C for Central Killer.  These two gangs are talked about in the video above.  These two gangs are not the only ones in the area but they are the ones that are profiled in this program.  The photo above is just one small example of the tagging that has taken over the South side.  It is sad to see the constant vandalism that has taken over this area.  I have always seen small areas of graffiti around but it was quickly covered up.  It is so bad lately that it would take thousands of dollars just to cover up what is already there.  I have always been proud of my home town but this is the sort of thing that no one wants for their town.

One of the sad things about all this is that I have actually heard people defend the vandalism by calling it art.  It is not art when they are destroying other people’s property.  If they want to paint up their own house then so be it but leave other people’s property alone.  I first read about this story on the OKCTalk web site.  They were posting about the show being on at the moment but I missed it.  I found it on the Internet and thought I would post it here.

Hopefully in my idealist world, the people will see this and take a stand to clean up the problems.  Unfortunately it will likely result in more hostility between two groups that are being ‘dissed’ on national TV.  That is likely going to be the end result of this program’s airing.  It will make them even more emboldened where the tax payers are less safe and end up being stuck paying to repair all the damages.  I hate to be so cynical but the media coverage paints a rosy picture as though there is nothing wrong.  Our local media does not even know their is a South side.  One thing that I have noticed about this city is the enormous blinders that are on.  Our city has a North side that tends to reap most of the financial benefits that come with having one of the lowest unemployment numbers in the nation.  There are lots of great stories about how our economy has faired well in this downturn.  I have met people on the North side that have not been to the South side in 20 years.  They have lived here their whole lives and do not even know where some of the main streets go through.  It is this vacuum of knowledge about what is going on around them that keeps these problems out of the media.

The local media is almost exclusively comprised of North side residence.  I work with people that live on the North side that do not even know about the things that go on in the South side.  I do hold a little hope that having a national television exposure will wake up those in our local media so that the tax payers will know what is going on.  I sometimes think it is sort of like that awkwardness that people experience when they are at a red light and there is a homeless person standing there holding a sign.  It is too easy to stare straight ahead and pretend he is not there.  It is easy for our locals to pretend our problems are not there and ignore it because they live in their expensive home on the North side.  We do not want these types of stories getting national attention because it only exacerbates the problems.  I still love my home town and hope to see it retain its family values roots.  I do not want to see it become a den of crime to a point that no one wants to live here.

I would like to thank Shawn Wright for Tweeting the post…

“@tmonews can you confirm 3G in OKC? My phone just started indicating 3G…”

It was his Twitter post that made me check to see if it was true.  It looks as though our T-Mobile has finally turned on 3G for most of the Oklahoma City metro area as you can see from the map above.  This image was taken from the T-Mobile site.  I am both happy and disappointed by this map.  Happy because it is finally here and sad because the metro area coverage is very poor, even missing Norman completely.  I am going to believe based on previous examples of T-Mobile’s 3G deployments that this is just the first wave of coverage that is expanded within weeks.  I have seen this happen in other cities around the country as well.  I do think this is a positive step and I thought it was important enough to share even before leaving for work.  Since neither T-Mobile, nor Tmonews.com has announced OKC’s turn on yet, it leads me to believe this is not even official yet.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that T-Mobile does a massive expansion over the OKC metro real soon.   This is great news for the T-Mobile faithful.

Yesterday I was driving around in our local Asian District and thought I would take this picture of the sign.  I have mixed feelings about things like this because although it is nice to have many cultures around, it also makes me wonder if our own culture is being squeezed out.  While Oklahoma City is not a huge city, it is large enough to see that different parts of town are predominantly one race or culture while others are different.  For example in this area of the city in the photo above it is predominantly Asian with a heavy population of Vietnamese.  On the South Side, there are mostly Hispanic leaning heavily on Mexican.  On the Northeast side of the city, there it is mostly a black population.

While I have nothing against any of these groups, I often wonder about all the promise in the 1960’s and 1970’s of our country being a melting pot where immigrants would come and assimilate into society and become American.  I am not saying they should give up any cultural influences of their homelands. I have seen that in many cases the various groups of people have become segregated from the rest of society into pockets.  Since my school years were in the 1970’s and 1980’s I can remember all the talk about integration and desegregation.  Despite all that talk, we find ourselves in a position where differing cultures are separate.  Again, understand that I am not putting anyone down but rather telling of my observations.

We have gone from being the “melting pot” to a multicultural society where differing cultures live in the same community maintaining their own cultures.  In some cases they are keeping the native language of their homeland furthering the segregation.  I am still unsure of whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but it does tend to go against all the lessons we were taught in school in the 1970’s.  Back then it was the prevailing thought that if you integrate children then they will be equal.  The idea was that separate but equal was not the same as equality.  Despite the teaching of those days we find ourselves living in communities where differing cultures are segregated into pockets.  Our community leaders are promoting this multiculturalism by honoring the different cultures with designating certain areas of the city as “culture” districts.  In the above photo we see how city leaders have chosen to not only give them an entrance into their community but also change the street signs to look like more of an Asian by using certain Asian fonts.

On the Southside of Oklahoma City the Mexican population has exploded and many businesses are not only in Spanish but fly the Mexican flag.  I have not seen any attempt by city leaders to give them an entry sign into their neighborhood but they do have their own Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.  Since my mom was born and raised in Southern New Mexico I have a soft spot for Mexican culture.

To date I have not heard any complaints about this type of segregation but I did think it was worthy of mentioning.  With the civil rights movement of Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960’s it was really pushed that we would not allow segregation.  At the time it seemed their motives were pure, and to help create a more equal society.  It was seen that whites were the dominating force and were suppressing the rights of others.   The portrayal of other races being segregated was being a bad thing and would not be tolerated.  It seems that now it is not a white force but rather differing cultures joining together to form their own communities.  There is no racial factor at all but rather the normal human nature that people are more comfortable within their own groups.  This comfort is not a slap in the face at others but just that, a comfort level.

In a similar way you could have a room full of white people and one black person.  A new black person enters the room and will naturally gravitate to the other black person when they do not even know each other.  This is not a discrimination thing but rather just desiring some comfort from familiarity.  It is my belief that some of this comfort level along with cultural pride has caused our communities to have segregation all over again.  I do not see it as a bad thing as long as our American culture does not begin to fade.  I am not too worried about that because these segregated communities have been going on for several decades now and yet most of these differing cultures have no problem working together at their employer.  I have found it to be interesting that a practice just 20 years ago would be frowned upon is now encouraged.  The term “melting pot” has faded from the vocabulary of most Americans.  In many neighborhoods you do find differing cultures living on the same street.  Despite this, we still have pockets of predominantly one race over another and that is not necessarily a bad thing. It seems that despite the racial concerns of a few, America is now more accepting of others and for the most part that is a good thing.  People no longer worry about having a certain race in their neighborhood like they use to.  I for one like not having to be concerned about having “one of them” in my neighborhood.  It is a different world now from what it was when I was younger.  I can remember when people would make racial slurs openly and not even think twice.  Looking back on it, I feel that it was shallow to feel that way.  I was one of them when I was younger but then that was all I was exposed to at the time.  I am curious how this will play out in the end.  How about you?

I guess it is that time again.  The photo above shows the temperature as 109 degrees while the National Weather Service only listed the high as 105.  Oklahoma gets a little of both cold and hot.  This is fairly common temperatures to get in summer though it only happens about two weeks each year.  The average high on the hottest day of the year is 94 degrees though we have periods of much warmer like this.  Just thought I would share this.

I ran across this video on Youtube today advertising some motorcycle event coming to Oklahoma City this month.  I have never been much of a motorcycle fan myself but I have many friends and relatives that do.  This event is supposed to bring thousands of Harley Davidson riders to the Oklahoma City area.  It looks like it will be very interesting to bring more visitors to the area.  We already have a large motorcycle ridership here in the metro as I have seen hundreds of them Bricktown and over on Meridian Avenue near the airport.  This event is supposed to be June 26th and 26th so people will need to be paying attention to the roads.  I hope you get a chance to come to the area and visit.  Since the city of Oklahoma City put this video together, it is clear the city will be welcoming them with open arms.  This could be a huge event to see.  Hopefully I will be available to take some photos. Maybe it is wishful thinking but it would be nice.

Today is April 19th and is a big day in Oklahoma City.  It was 14 years ago today that Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.  At this event there were 168 people killed.  Above we have a picture of the Oklahoma City National Memorial that I took a couple months ago.  This was represents 9:03 in the morning.  Behind me there is another wall that says 9:01 am.  Between the two walls there is a reflecting pool representing 9:02 when the bomb exploded.

In this picture you can see to the left, or South of the view in the picture on top.  This shows the 168 chairs lit up that represent all of those that were killed in the bomb.  These chairs have the names on the top and front so you can see who they represent.  These chairs are sitting on the very ground where the building once stood.  In fact if you look at the wall in the background, you can see the wall of the parking garage that was under the building.

In this picture you can see a day time view of the memorial.  The bottom photo was taken a couple years ago.  This view is looking to the Southwest showing the same wall as in the first picture above.  This memorial seems to be done with some taste showing dignity to those that were killed.  I would have gone down there today to take some pictures of the crowd today but the North wind is really blowing hard and I really do not want to fight the crowd.  It is hard to believe that it has been 14 years since this happened.  I was living in Phoenix, Arizona at the time because I was stationed at Luke AFB. 

I remember being in the M-16 firing range certifying for my upcoming move to Alaska.  My wife paged me in my class to tell me about this bombing.   I remember at first my instructor seemed irritated that his class had been interrupted by my being paged.  Then once he heard what it was about, he went to get a television and brought it into the range so we could see what was going on.  After the class, my supervisor let me go home early because my family lived in Oklahoma City.  I remember I could not get in touch with my parent’s or my wife’s parents because of the circuits being busy.  Eventually later that night, I was able to get through to my parents to find out they were not near this explosion.  They were able to hear and feel the boom from their home.  Shortly after this, I came back to Oklahoma City to visit my family on my way to Eielson AFB in Alaska.  I was here long enough to see them implode the building to finish it off.  It seems like it was just yesterday.  I just thought I would share this day with you and post a few pictures that I had taken at the memorial.