Happy Birthday Champ

Today is Champ's 1st birthday

Oh yeah...



Celeste also finished her last final. We'll be back soon. Me for a few days and Celeste for the summer

That Blows

So there wasn't much sleeping going on in the England household last night. At about 1:30 am, we were awaken by the loudest wind I have ever heard. Before attempting to go back to sleep, I checked the weather information on my phone and it said that our area was getting 40 mph winds. Now, that is the regular wind, not the gusts. According to the local newspaper, the Warr Acres area, which is about a half-mile from our apartment, reported 70 mph gusts. I believe that is pretty much the same speed that blew over the Dallas Cowboys' preactice bubble and paralyzed a team scout.

Anywho, apparently the roads were a mess of power lines this morning, but since I don't commute to work, this doesn't bother me much. As far as personal damage, one of my dog-walking flip-flops that I keep outside the door was missing this morning. Luckily, I was able to spot it in the middle of the courtyard.

At least the wind was blowing from the south which means temps in the high 80's today!

Happy Anniversary

So it has been a little while since either of us has posted, but I think that this is a pretty good follow-up to the last one I did.

Yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of the THE most destructive tornado in Unites States history, based on dollar damages. I don't know the whole story behind this thing, but it completely tore up the OKC suburb of Moore, killing a bunch of people in its path. I also have heard that the tornado sirens malfunctioned, which led to the current mandatory testing of them every saturday at noon.

Take a look at this crazy footage


F5 TORNADO! From Moore, OK On May 3, 1999

Twister Tales

So yesterday we got our first lesson in Tornadoes 101. Luckily, we didn't get hit directly or else we probably would have failed. Although we had known that the Oklahoma-Texas-Arkansas area had a good chance of some tornadoes, it looked like we were on the fringe of the danger area, but around 2 o'clock, the tornado sirens started sounding. Celeste and I were working in the den and immediately turned on the TV. Talk about a great feeling to see your house in the expected path of destruction. At the time, the gigantic spinning cloud was about 10 miles to the south-west of us, but it was projected to head north-east and fly (or possibly touch down) directly in our vicinity. So, we did what any couple of fools from tornado-free Utah would - turned up the volume, grabbed the dog, and headed toward the bathroom.

Once the sirens turned off, we started venturing back into the den to see the live footage about what was going on and the situation was actually worse for us. The cloud had just touched down at Rockwell and NW Expressway, which, according to Google Maps, is about 0.7 miles from our apartment. I decided to look out the window (despite instructions not to by the local weatherman) and saw that it wasn't terribly windy or haily outside, but we were getting a substantial amount of rain.

After the tornado had officially left our area, one of the weatherfolks driving the weather van was attempting to make a U-turn to assess the damage. From the dash camera, we could see our complex. He then turned around and headed toward our local Chuck E. Cheese (0.5 miles away) to show us how the twister took off the entire back of the back of the building.

After feeling a bit relieved, we watched the TV for a little while and watched the coverage of the tornado growing larger and touching down in Edmond - an OKC suburb - and apparently going directly past Champ's daycare. Edmond got hit a lot worse and a lot of homes and buildings were damaged. Just as we were relieved that we didn't get hit by that, the weatherman interrupted and told us that Tornado #2 was headed our way. Talk about fun! I actually think we got more rain and hail from this storm, but the storm never 'tornadoed'.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. We had to stay at home and just kind of hang out; however, this morning as I escorted Celeste outside, I noticed that she had a tire that was completely flat. I don't know if the storm caused it, but luckily the good folks next door at Hibdon Tire fixed it up for us for free - other than the personal cost of wasted time and a crappy scissor-jack. Hopefully things will now be back to normal, but hell it is only February....

Gone Campin..

Today has been the fist day that I can remember working without Champ since our move to Oklahoma. This is because today is his test-run at Camp Bow Wow, a dog boarding business that attempts to be pretty dog friendly. I gotta say that it is nice to be able to leave doors open around the house and we will probably do this more often- assuming that they allow him back. It is nice for us not to be constantly hounded by him and its gotta be great for Champ to actually get to play with someone during the day.

My favorite part about this place is that it has a bunch of Doggie Webcams set up so you can waste all day at work watching your doggie run around.

Merry Christmas

From Celeste, James, Champ and Santa Clause. Ho Ho Ho

The OLD Champ

So I was rummaging around the den today when I stumbled upon my old phone that had a bunch of pictures from the beginning of our adventures in Oklahoma. What I was happiest about most was finding the pictures of Champ. Every picture we took was from the first week in Oklahoma, making Champ less than 2 months old in this picture.




Compare that to a more recent pic.



He's still adorable, but I'm afraid he can't compete against himself