Rockets Over Rhema

Every year, our station hosts a Freedom festival around the 4th of July where they bring in food, music, and all sorts of activities for the family. Last year, the festival was combined with the annual fireworks celebration done by Rhema Bible Church which is the biggest fireworks display in Oklahoma. (Awesome, but its still no Rosenblatt).

I've worked some pretty long days in the hotel business, some 12, 14, and more than a few 16+ hour days. Although maybe not quite as long, yesterday felt longer than any day I had ever worked. I began my day around 10:30am helping the audio guys set up and getting the caterer set to go. My day completed after I had everything torn down and the bands were safely on their way back to their hotels around midnight that night.

It was such an awesome time though and couldn't have been more perfect of a day. It was a high of 85, not a cloud in the sky, low humidity, and very little wind.The bands we had were Connersvine, a new worship-rock blend similar to Telecast (whose frontman, Hunter Smith is the punter for the Indianapolis Colts), the Afters, and Mark Harris (formerly of 4Him). The night went great and I just had an awesome time. One of the great things about working for this station is their reputation is so high, that bands just love and feel honored to get to do these concerts. Makes for good experiences.

Here's some pics from the show. Just click to enlarge:

More pics will be available on the station's website

E-mail Scares

This is partially in response to a blog Andy @ bloginyourface had posted about a Best Buy e-mail he had gotten. Ironically I had just been thinking about posting a blog about this site, as I refer to it at least once nearly every week.

We've all gotten those e-mails - Little Jimmy has cancer and if you forward this e-mail AOL will donate money for ever person who receives it. - or - Forward this e-mail to get a cool video to pop up. Many of us aren't so naive anymore and know better than to believe these crazy hoaxes(despite the frequent forwards and myspace posts I still receive), but what about the ones that are a little less obvious such as the above mentioned Best Buy e-mail my friend Andy received.

Snopes.com is a website that with a quick search of your subject can prove or disprove any of your urban legend questions. Generally the format of the site is to state the claim being debated, tell whether it is true or false, then support its answer. Nearly every e-mail I have ever gotten I've been able to find on this site such as the Best Buy disgruntled customer.

Besides e-mails, it also goes into other common wives tales or urban legends such as gum taking seven years to be digested, or hair growing back thicker after being shaved, or a tooth left in a glass of Coke will dissolve over night. There's also a whole list of true and fake viruses you get warnings about through various e-mails.

So next time you get one of these e-mails, check out snopes.com before you hit that FWD button.

Superchick in Studio

Today was a fun day. The band Superchick (you'd recognize them from their chick-anthem "One Girl Revolution" in the movie Legally Blonde) had a new album released today, Rock What You Got so they stopped by the studio to promote it. They did a fun interview on the air, then did a couple songs for us live, and stayed for lunch with some contest winners.

The band was extremely cool and even offered to serve all the listeners who had called in and won a spot around the table. Very nice. Melissa was also sporting her new tats. I have to say with her tats, piercings and red streak in her hair, she reminded me of a more petite version of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Weird, but very cool nonetheless (not that being like this ex is uncool). If you can't tell from the picture, its a tree branch with flower buds and two birds. It also wraps around to the other side of her arm.

More pics will soon be available on the website at kxoj.com and there are more videos posted at youtube.com/kxoj including another track from their new album.

Superchick - Crawl (Carry Me Through)

Floor 42

So I've had this curiousity of what's on the 42nd floor for quite some time now. My office is on the 55th floor, so quite often, I am the last off the elevator and I've gotten into the habit of reading the directory that's posted in the elevator to see where they work. I've always been a people watcher and I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to recognize people because of our "elevator relationship" so I just wonder what they do.

The 42nd floor has been shrouded in mystery, however. Its primarily young people getting on and off the elevator (probably around my age) and often times they are people most would consider to be of the attractive variety, and they are always dressed in business professional attire. The floor isn't posted on the directory, however, and its the only one. It also has to be accessed by a proximity key. This of course has made my curiousity and imagination run wild. I had some grandiose ideas but considering them highly unlikely, I had pretty much settled on it being some type of telemarketing company or demographic research, or at the top of my list, the center for those pyramid schemes... something along those lines anyway.

Well, today a lady pressed the button and she had a nametag hanging around her neck, but it was backwards. It seems fate stepped in because she dropped some papers and bent down to pick them up. When she stood up, the tag had flipped over. -Guardian Security Systems-

I googled it and it appears to be your average home security company. My conspiratist mind is convinced its more than that. I'm sure its just like the monitoring center or the sales office or something, but I'm quite happy thinking its something more. It's more fun that way.

I'm waiting for the day a suit with dark glasses and an in-ear monitor stops on that floor.

Blackberry to the Rescue!

Let me start out by saying, I absolutely love my phone. Proceeding to the blog:

If I had to sum up my job in one word it would be "coordinate". Any concerts, or live events. CD giveaways. Or in this case studio performances.

We have a band coming in to the studio to kick off their CD release on Tuesday and will be doing a live interview and lunch with the staff and ten of our listeners who won their spot last week. As in typical fashion when working with these bands, things change last minute. I got an e-mail Sunday evening that the band would need to leave promptly at 2pm, the scheduled interview time. We had already secured the catering for 1pm so rather than move everything, we simply moved the interview time to noon and kept the lunch the same. Not a huge deal, but it took several e-mails between myself, the tour manager, the band manager, the label rep, and my boss to figure out just what we were going to do. Crisis averted from the comfort of my own home.

Thanks Verizon Wireless Blackberry!

Requiem For A Day Off

I'm sure this has been around for a while but I just came across it thanks to GirlRobot. Who knew John Hughes had a dark side?

Stupid Crime

Well, I was having some difficulty earlier thinking up blog content; now, the ideas are just pouring in, however I'll end the evening with this one.

They announced on the news that two masked men robbed a Dollar General at gun-point this evening in North Tulsa.

Now... call me crazy, but if I ever got ballsy enough to rob something (not that lack of ballage is the only thing keeping me from robbing banks), I don't know that I would pick a store with "dollar" in the name. And if I did, I think I would feel safe leaving my gun at home.

I'm curious what they banked off this. Just how much crack can you can buy with $43.27?

My First Celebrity Crush

I've actually been wanting to blog all day but have been suffering a little from "blog constipation" (every time i sit down to write, nothing comes out).

I'm now watching the 2008 Women's Gymnastics Olympic Trials and I'm reminded of what was probably my first celebrity crush. As I write, I'm actually starting to recall very well watching the 1996 Olympic Games (I admittedly had to look up the year) from my Grandparents living room in Rogers, Arkansas. I watched very intently to both of the Dominique's (Dawes and Moceanu) but particularly paid special interest to Dominique Moceanu, whom I found incredibly hot, or whatever a 13-year old boy called a cute girl in 1996. This was also the year Kerri Strugg stuck her famous landing, or more remembered by me, Chris Kattan parodying it on SNL.

Back to the actual show, I'm curious as to how old some of these girls are. They look 13. I know a girl who was a pick for the '96 Olympic Team for Rhythmic Gymnastics. She wasn't a part of the "Magnificent Seven" but she was still pretty stinkin' great! She declined her spot on the team and was 16 when she retired from gymnastics (she would have been 17 or 18 by the Games.) I remember hearing stories of her eating disorders and the birth control they put her on to prolong the onset of puberty. I just can't imagine that life. Not to mention that these pre-pubescent 16 year olds can probably bench press me. And if not, they could use me as a springboard to do a triple flip twist mounted ollie off the hook... or something. Still, it is pretty impressive the amount of agility and talent these girls... and all the athletes that I have yet to see, possess. Besides the horror stories of the eating disorders, I've also heard amazing stories of extreme training schedules, diets, and levels of commitment and determination I could only dream of.

I think I just got myself excited for this year's Summer Games.

Go America!

O.A.R. - This Town

This was shown at one of the CWS games. See, everyone loves Omaha!

Vidcast 1.2

Family Tree

I got bored today so I decided to do a little family research. I've never really known much about my Waggoner roots and in talking to my dad he didn't know a lot either. He wasn't even sure the names of my grandpa's brothers and sisters. I got myself a free 14 day trial of www.ancestry.com and got to work. I was fascinated!

My great great great great great great grandfather, Henry I. Waggoner was born in Germany in 1733 and came over with his wife Katrina to Virginia and we kinda spread out from there.

If you consider Henry to be first generation Waggoner (which it is likely that in Germany it was a different pronunciation and spelling) that makes me a 9th generation Waggoner. I'll probably do a little more research next week.

That's all for now!

Fact Page

Did you know that eagles mate while airborne? That's freakin sweet.

www.hookedonfacts.com

Vidcast 1.1

Archives

Since I don't have ESPN and I don't have money to go to a pub to watch the ASU-Fresno St game, I've been watching the updates online. (ASU is currently down 5-7). While I wait, I made some changes to the blog as you can see. I uploaded some of my old blogs to this site and I pre-dated them so you'll can find them in the archives. I've also started tagging to make it easier to find.

How the Raccoon Got His Mask

I found a box of old stuff while cleaning. The following is a story I wrote circa 1st grade (when do you stop using the brown tissue paper with the handwriting lines?). Its pretty much the best story ever. I left in the spelling for fun, so this is word for word how I wrote it. Enjoy.

How the Raccoon Got His Mask

There wants was a littel raccoon houw hadn't had a mask at all. He wanted one so bad but he couldn't aford the money. He dicided to look for gold. Days wint by, weeks wint by and finly, a month wint by and he still didn't have any gold. One day he wint to the Picific oashion. When he came back up he had a..... tresher chest fild with gold silver and all kinds of coins. He wint to the bank to see how much it was it took them two weeks to fuiger it out it was worth 10,000,000 dolers. But he didn't know wher to get one. He wint to the Mall of the Blufes. All he foulnd in most of the stors were shirts, shose, underware, and pants. He went into a candy store. Nothen in here but candy. He didn't know what to do then he knew it he akes his mother. she said, "dig one up" so he bought a shovel and lots of diging supllys. Finely he foulnd what he was loking for a nice shining black mask he was so glade and happy.

The End

Greatest Show on Dirt

So, I'm really excited to go back to Omaha. Less than a week now. I'm not so much homesick as I am just really wanting to watch some of America's favorite pasttime in its truest form - College World Series. Growing up in Omaha I was spoiled to be able to go every year (except my summer spent in Oklahoma doing my internship four years ago). I always had a good time but never realized how much I loved it until that point. Some Omahans aren't to thrilled about the new stadium being built, and maybe it was a waste, but if thats what it takes to keep CWS home, I'm all for it. I really think that this will be one of those things I keep coming back to Omaha for, no matter where I'm at or how much of my family remains there.

So for any who are interested in joining me, first let me start by saying I have no intentions of repeating last year's infamous fiasco and hope to enjoy the game in its entirety this year. I plan on going to the 6pm game on Saturday the 14th, so you'll find me in line to get tickets bright and early Saturday morning. Anyone who would like to join me is welcome, just call my cell. I'll also be at the Sunday night game and hopefully the Monday afternoon game. Hey, I work at a sports station, maybe I can pull some credentials! :)

Think of a midget when you're having a bad day

As I was driving to work, I saw one of the funniest things I have ever seen. A midget on a Segway...I'll let it sink in.

You know how on some motorcycles, when bikers ride, their hands are almost above their heads because the handlebars are set so high? Picture that, only its Segway scooter, and the midget is standing straight up. It got me curious, so I hopped online and googled "segway" and "midget" together. I actually found a blog dedicated to the little people so I thought I would share. I hope this brings as much joy to your day as it did to mine. Take some time to peruse around the site. There are some good reads about dwarf tossing, midget bowling, and cute little article about a midget who glued a vacuum cleaner hose to his own "little person".

http://allaboutmidgets.typepad.com