Bombing Thoughts, Guitar and Survivor

Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. I started my day off reading an account forwarded by someone who was working in the area at the time of the blast. It was fairly emotional and made me think back to what I was doing and the people I knew that were in Oklahoma City that day.

I was in Las Cruces, NM with Tamara. We heard about it on the news and spent the next few days watching it on TV. We called Lee, a lawyer friend that works in downtown Oklahoma City. She wasn’t feeling well and had called in sick that day. A friend of her’s that worked in the Journal Record building, across the street from the Murrah Building was severely injured as the glass from her office windows turned to shrapnel in the blast. Another friend, Mark, who also worked in the Journal Record building was on the night shift and had left the area already.

The closest call was my brother, David. He had an appointment for 9 am in the Social Security Office of the Murrah Building. If he hadn’t been running late and blew off the appointment then he would have been in a part of the building where there were few, if any, survivors. But his inherently absentminded nature saved him. All-in-all a pretty good record.

As days go that was pretty much the highlight. There was work for 8 hours with some leftover Mexican food for lunch. Tamara made salmon patties with oven fried potatoes, carrots and peas for dinner. Duncan and I are pretty lucky having someone who can cook as well as Tamara does.

I went to my guitar lesson. I’m working on Shocking Blue’s Venus. It was covered by Bananarama and has just been picked up as the jingle behind a new razor aimed at women and named “Venus.” It’s a pretty easy song (lots of Em and A for the verse and Am, D, C and Bmaj7 for the chorus). We’re doing all the chords as barre chords so that makes them even easier, although I do sometimes get a cramp in my left hand from all of the barring.

Tonight he transcribed the short solo. It’s trickier than I thought it’d be but being short makes it easier. At least it’s not tricky and long. I think after I have this one down we’re going to start on something that is tricky and long – Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower.” I have the Bob Dylan version too but I think my guitar teacher wants to do the Hendrix one. I’m open to it. I was able to get through the solo for Boston’s “More Than A Feeling” so I imagine it’ll just take practice for this too.

I almost forgot. I watched Survivor tonight. We tape it when it comes on at 7 (8 on the coasts) and then watch it after Duncan has gone to bed. This way we can watch it without interruptions and even rewind if we miss some cutting remark hurled at one of the contestants.

Tonight they had a lame, but nice, challenge. Everyone got to chat with relatives back home and get a Danish and coffee at the Survivor Internet Café. The winner of the challenge got a 30 minute chat and a 500 dollar gift to give the folks back home that they could buy on-line. The hard part was that the families back home had to answer a trivia questionnaire and the winners corresponding survivor would win the challenge. Tina won that.

The immunity challenge was an interactive test of listening comprehension. Colby won but only because Keith dropped one of his locks on the way back to the finish line. Everyone was shackled and told a tale of the original penal colony settlers of Australia. They then had to go to various stations and answer questions based on the story. Correct answers unlocked parts of the shackles. After all of the locks were off they had to carry the whole lot back to the finish line. This is where Keith lost it. Tamara groaned because she’s tired of seeing Colby win.

At tribal council the remaining Ogakor tribe held together and voted off Roger who had campaigned for his expulsion so Elisabeth could stay on longer and potentially win more money.

Well, that’s it. That’s my lame day and my equally lame comments about television.

Since I’m using lame a lot you might think I have something against people who don’t have the full use of both legs. Well, I don’t so get over it. I’m sure by now lame isn’t even what you would want to call a person reflective of that situation – although I think crip or gimpy are still OK. (Do I really even need to insult you by putting a smiley emoticon here? Nah, I didn’t think so.)