AIT (Architect in Training)

She is her father's daughter.....


Although I think she needs a lesson about the bigger the base the more stable the structure!

Tulsa Talons 70 : 34 OKC YardDawgz: Dawgz Taken to the pound

This one was ugly early, unlike last week's game at Arkansas. The crowd was the largest of the season so far, and it was loud (as usual).

We sat by a player's father tonight - #23 Terrance Carter. Very nice guy, which was good because he had at least 4" in height and 50 pounds on me. When we get to our seats in section 209, I always take the seat away from the aisle so Sarah can have more room. Mr. Carter was in seat 3, and as I took my seat, I told him "I guess we're gonna wedge ourselves in here tonight." He smiled and replied that it was no big deal - they were there to watch their son's ballgame. At first, they seemed a little uptight - I think race had a little to do with it, but that would quickly pass. When Sarah was getting settled in, I was a little tense because I didn't want to invade his space, and he sensed that and said it wasn't a big deal. I replied, "That's OK, once we're settled in, I'll put my arm around (Sarah) and we'll be good. Besides, I'd put my arm around you, but no offense, you aren't my type."

Mr. Carter replied with a huge laugh and with that, the slightly tense mood was broken and we had an enjoyable night.

Read more about the game here. BTW - a beer to Riker at Talonsnews.com for using my recap post for the coverstory about tonight's game.

Wow - a sunny weekend day!!!!

I'm stunned - yes stunned by the fact this weekend was a beautiful weekend. One where we could get yardwork done. Oh wait, what? Forget that. Let's go to the park and enjoy the day! An annual ritual here in Tulsa, the springtime trip to Woodward Park is a must for those with kids (young and old) so you can update the photo album with some new "springtime" photos.



Miriam had her own designs on running around and picking the flowers and even trying to "re-plant" some of them after she gave them to mommy. We walked through the park and enjoyed the last round of tulips, the near-peak blooms of the azaleas and then over to the city rose garden (where unfortunately nothing much had bloomed yet. We'll go back in a few weeks.)









We also visited the Linneas Learning Garden - which opened about 2 years ago, but had not had a chance to visit yet. Unfortunately, they close at 4:00 PM and it was 4:05. This place looked pretty cool though - lots of native vegetation planted around a giant koi pond ("giant" meaning "about the size of your average residential swimming pool") and several gardens and greenhouses with more plants. We'll make another trek over here another weekend - hopefully with about two hours to spare to see it all. I'll be sure to take some pictures for everyone to see then.

The biggest event though, was a total Miriam meltdown. Total. Melt. Down. Miriam has decided to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 AM the last two days. In fact, she was up so early today that she needed a mid-morning nap. So while walking through the park she was already exhausted, but she snapped when we went by one of the rose garden's fountains where we found a frog swimming in the water.



S encouraged me to pick it up to show Miriam. Miri had seen it (after some pointing and "Look!! Froggie!!'s from us) and was making "ribbit" sounds and was somewhat enjoying herself.



I reached down to grab the amphibian and missed a couple of times before S swooped in and retrieved it from the water, turned to Miriam with it in hand and....



AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!H!H!H!H!H!!!!!!!!!!

Miriam absolutely lost it. Screaming, shouting "NO FROG, NO FROG!!!!" and attracting an audience from a group of pre-teen boys who thought the frog was pretty darn cool. S handed the frog to me but it jumped out of my hands and landed awkwardly on the edge of the fountain pool and knocked itself silly for a moment before heading the wrong direction away from the pond.



S retrieved it and placed it back in the pond where it swam quickly to a corner away from the walking path. The whole time this was happening, Miri was screaming bloody murder. S and I have determined that Miriam's definitely a "girly" girl - the jury is still out on whether or not this is good or bad news!

Once we settled Miriam down, we decided to head for the car. Miriam was more than happy to make those "ribbit" sounds again, and hop like a frog for a bit as we made our way from the rose garden. She even posed for some good pictures with me and S...





The bliss was short-lived though - once she realized we were leaving th park, it was time to fuss again.



Now about the vase full of those tadpoles mom sent over here last week from her pond...

A Fun Little tid-bit.......

I found this on a friends blog it is a fun way to waste a bit of time, but who knows how accurate the data is.

First we will do Ryan..... (but I will use his first name William)

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 147 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

And Ryan (as Ryan with first name)

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 20 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now my turn (the first one is with Curington, my maiden name, the second one is Wilbanks)

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Sarah Wilbanks....

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 30 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now lets do Miriam.....

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 4 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Other interesting name Stats:

There are 3,734,508 people in the U.S. with the first name William.
Statistically the 6th most popular first name.

There are 507,456 people in the U.S. with the first name Ryan.
Statistically the 109th most popular first name.

There are 771,819 people in the U.S. with the first name Sarah.
Statistically the 58th most popular first name.

There are 100,276 people in the U.S. with the first name Miriam.
Statistically the 526th most popular first name.

There are 11,942 people in the U.S. with the last name Wilbanks.
Statistically the 3117th most popular last name.

There are 1,307 people in the U.S. with the last name Curington.
Statistically the 21778th most popular last name.

Conclusions:

Miriam will likely go through life without ever meeting another Miriam Wilbnaks (and will probably not meet many other Miriam's as well!) William is very popular (I am glad Ryan goes by Ryan instead!)Wilbanks is by far a more popular last name then Curington is. And the more popular your first and last names are the more likely there will be many with the same name. DUH! I could have figured that out without the name calculator - of course it wouldn't have been as much fun!!

Case #1 why you should see an arena football game

Outscoring your opponent 36-10 over the last 25 minutes to win.

Read here.

RW

A promised update.....

I

Miriam loves gymnastics! This has by far been the best idea I have had to date for activities for her. She is turning somersaults (sometimes in not so great places, jumping, scaling and best of all pulling up. She likes to get between the tub and toilet (i know - gross) and pull herself into an L seat. Recently she has started dangling from the close bar over her changing table. I am so proud of her!!!

I still don't have a leotard pic - actually I still don't have a leotard.

The XS size (the smallest I have found) is way to big for her. So we have been going in a onesi. Even though she doesn't have the latest and greatest in leotards she is still the cutest kid there!


As much as I enjoy taking her and watching her (when they are within sight) do not enjoy the other moms. They are very cliquey and snobbish. Conversation revolves around the very wealthy divorce' (it is really hard for me to feel sorry for her) and her dating adventures and how she can get more $$ from her ex. Oh yeah and the spa and junior league events. I am considering switching to a different class in the fall hoping the mom karma might change - surely not everyone who goes there is like that.......????????

Sometime in May they are having a parents day - so look for more updates and pictures then!!!

Tadpoles......

So we are raising some baby froggies. Miri loves frogs (ribit ribit). She likes watching her tadpoles swim. I can not wait for them to become little frogs and I cannot wait to see M's expression when they start jumping around.

We have the tadpoles (donated generously by Nanny) in a vase. They have all congregated to the top of the water. Do you think they need more oxygen? OR maybe they are hungry - what the heck do I feed these little guys anyway....... questions I must google!

(I will try to get a pic posted of the little guys soon, our computer (only 2.5 years old!) is on the fritz so it might be awhile)

NOISE.......

Obviously from the last two post you can see that Ryan and I go to Talon's games. I surprisingly enjoy going. At first I liked it b/c it was a chance to get out of the house sans baby (we started going regularly the summer after she was born). I do still enjoy it for that reason, I also love to crowd watch and invent stores in my head about the people sitting around us. For example (this was at a game last year):
In the row in front of us was an older gentleman (40ish), a young woman(early 20's)and two kids (a boy that was pre-school age, and a girl that was elementary aged). I noticed through at the game that the young girl artfully arranged it so the young woman was never sitting by the gentleman nor herself. The preschooler didn't seem to like the young woman much either. It was entertaining to watch. I believe that the young woman was probably "daddy's" new trophy g/f and the kids did not like it one bit.
So yes I get I am a bit weird. But it is a fun past time. I also enjoy watching the game, but I am not a disciple sports fanatic so I don't really get into the whole nit picky rules that are or are not called. I just like watching guys fight over a ball, and if for some reason there is an actually fight all the better.

Now the two things I don't like about going to games:

1. The drinking of disgusting beer. Why oh why must people drink bad beer? It is gross, "oklahoma p*ss H2O". Now I am all for alcoholic beverages and I love "good beer" (i.e. greater than 3.2) I feel like if we all avoided drinking 3.2 beer maybe the powers that be would get the hint and stop trying to control what our drinking options are. I also hate watching people get drunk and knowing that they will get in cars and drive home. Last week Ryan and I watched the people in the rows in front of us get blasted. The couple directly in front of us could barely make it down the stairs they were so wobbly. Now do you really think they called a cab??? Two rows in front of us were two couples. One of the women was about 7 months along (thankfully all she was drinking was water) But everyone else was guzzling the grossness down - I really hope prego was the one driving, but judging from the way her hubby acted (alpha maleish) I get the feeling she was probably not. I will be the first to admit - I use to love having a drink or two. But I never drove afterwards. It scares the you know what out of me to think of these people out on the road.

2. Babies. Yes I am a huge fan of babies - you would know that about 5 seconds after talking to me. BUT I am not a huge fan of babies at an indoor football game. It is just way too noisy! We will not be taking M to a game this year (in fact she has never gone to one) I might consider it next year, if the size of the new arena helps with the noise factor. It truly shocks me to see people bring their babies to these games, and I am not just talking about toddlers either, but newborns, infants the whole shebang. Now I know how fortunate Ryan and I are to have both sets of grandparents here in town, and most of the time able to baby-sit for us. But if that were not the case you can bet that Ryan would be attending these games by himself or with a friend. I would be at home with M, because I refuse to chance damaging her delicate little ears for a couple of hours out, not to mention I somehow don't think it would be as fun trying to contain her. I have to wonder what kind of damage these parents are inflecting on their little ones - do they know? do they care?

Tulsa Talons 65 : 28 Boise Burn: Talons Roll again, Chill Burn

The Tulsa Talons returned to the field on Saturday night to face a stiffer test in the Boise Burn. Once again, the opponent was playing their season opener and there wasn't much known about the foe.

Once again, it was over by halftime.

The Talons stopped Boise defensively 4 times in the first half and cruised to a 65-28 victory of the second year Burn.

Justin Allgood (seven total TD’s – 6 pass, 1 rush) hooked up with Kellen Allen (3 TD’s total) and Jeff Hughley (4 TD’s) a total of five times in the first two quarters on seven possessions. At least three were short possessions - starting at the Boise 15 or deeper. Boise went four and out in their first possession giving the ball to Tulsa inside their own 7. Allgood hit Hughley on the first offensive play to start the scoring. Boise was shut down again in their second possession, but their defense stiffened to hold Tulsa to a 26 yard Luke Phillips field goal. Boise QB B.J. Rhode found Casey Allen open behind a coverage bust and connected for a 42 yard TD strike. Kellen Allen then took an Allgood pass, broke several tackles in re-extending Tulsa's lead back to 10.

Tulsa scored on Allgood's third TD pass of the half (a 16 yard strike to Hughley) to push the lead to 24-7. Boise then countered with Rhode finding George Williams in the back of the end zone to cut into Tulsa's lead. Williams made a great catch, then got one foot down (at least from my vantage point in section 209) then took a punishing hit from the end wall. That was as close as they would get the rest of the night. The Talons defense got rolling again and held Boise scoreless the remainder of the half. Two more Allgood TD passes (30 yards to Kellen Allen and 8 yards to Hughley) made it 37-14 (a missed PAT by Phillips is thrown in there too.) It was almost 44-14 at the half when Delenell Reid took a missed Burn FG attempt and took it all the way to the north end zone for an apparent score with the help of a couple of good blocks by CJ McLain and Aaron Chavers. Unfortunately a holding penalty on Barrett Allen negated the run and ended the half.

It was more of the same in the second half, but it was a quiet third quarter with Tulsa posing the only score on their first drive. Tulsa imposed their will offensively, moving the ball with relative ease. Delenell Reid ended a Boise drive with a great interception. On the ensuing drive, Tulsa drove all the way to the Boise 2 and looked like they had scored when Michael Shack extended the ball over the goal line where it was knocked out of his hands. The play was ruled a fumble and Boise recovered, ending that threat. The only other real blemish was a bad center-QB exchange that ended one drive. A forced pass by Allgood was intercepted by Boise, but it was negated by a defensive holding penalty.

The death blow came in the fourth quarter with about 6 minutes remaining. Allgood executed a perfect fake to Hughley the rounded the opposite corner to walk into the end zone to make it 51-14. On the ensuing kickoff the "Chaos Theory" of Arena Football was put to work. Phillips's kick clanked off the iron, and neither George Williams nor Da'Ronn Finley could cover the ball. It rolled into the top of the end zone where Jamar Ransom covered the ball for a Talons score. Another 3 feet to the left on the ensuing kickoff could of repeated the whole scene.

Boise then salvaged some pride by scoring on their last two possessions, with a short Derek Rasmussen pass to Kellen Allen - which Allen literally took away form the Burn defensive back – sandwiched in between.

The Burn was by far the best-behaved team in terms of sportsmanship I have seen in my few short years watching arena football. There were a few short tempers, but nothing really inflammatory. They played through the whistle, but not excessively after it. They even helped Tulsa players up and offered pats on the back when they could.

Mark my words now Talons fans - Boise is a good team, much better than the Amarillo team we saw last week. (Aside – Amarillo shocked Central Valley at “The Cellar” one week after the debacle in Tulsa!) If they can improve their execution on offense, and clean up their secondary play, they will hang tough out west. That’s a tough task - they are in the National Conference’s Western division, so they will see Spokane, Tri-Cities and Stockton three times each plus Central Valley twice. Out of the division, they get OKC, Florida and Texas at home and go to Daytona Beach before it gets too hot on the beaches down in Florida in May. If they can stay above .500 in their 11 divisional games, winning 2 of the remaining 4 out of division games should put them into the playoffs. Don't be surprised if we see them again in August.

Tulsa is now 2-0, heading into a Friday night "showdown" game with the Arkansas Twisters. Arkansas fell 57-42 at Oklahoma City (Tulsa's week 4 opponents in Tulsa.) I say "showdown" loosely because this isn't the same Twisters team we saw last year. Several key players are gone - QB Villanueva, DB's Varner and Pierre Thomas, WR/LB Williams... in fact, I only recognize one player on this year's roster that's a holdover from last year (WR Schnoover.)

Boise is now 0-1, and they head to Stockton to face the 1-1 Lightning who were crushed in Spokane 70-12 on Saturday night.

Go Talons!

Williesan

(from: www.af2.com)
Boise Burn 7 - 7 -- 0 - 14 = 28 Record: (0-1)
Tulsa Talons 17 - 20 -- 7 - 21 = 65 Record: (2-0)

LEADERS:
PASSING: RHODE (BOI) 19-24-1-222; 4 TDs; ALLGOOD (TUL) 21-32-0-253; 6 TDs
RECEIVING: (BOI) Williams 6-58-1; (TUL) Hughley 12-118-4

Schutt Offensive Player of the Game: Justin Allgood (TUL)
U.S. Army Ironman of the Game: Jeff Hughley (TUL)
ADT Defensive Player of the Game: Jermaine Hope (TUL)
Cutters Catch of the Game: Delenell Reid (TUL)

Attendance: 4,514

1st QUARTER:

11:33 BOI 0 - TUL 7 HUGHLEY, Jeff 12 yd pass from ALLGOOD, Justin
PHILLIPS, Luke kick, 1 play, 7 yds 0:45 Time of poss.
06:40 BOI 0 - TUL 10 PHILLIPS 26 yd field goal, 4-1 2:01
05:20 BOI 7 - TUL 10 ALLEN, Casey 42 yd pass from RHODE, B.J.
SMITH, Robby kick, 2-42 1:12
01:42 BOI 7 - TUL 17 ALLEN, Kellen 35 yd pass from ALLGOOD
PHILLIPS kick, 5-45 3:02

2nd QUARTER
12:00 BOI 7 - TUL 24 HUGHLEY 16 yd pass from ALLGOOD
PHILLIPS kick, 4-29 2:18
08:25 BOI 14 - TUL 24 WILLIAMS, George 20 yd pass from RHODE
SMITH kick, 4-45 2:56
07:26 BOI 14 - TUL 31 K. ALLEN 30 yd pass from ALLGOOD
PHILLIPS kick, 1-30 0:24
00:13 BOI 14 - TUL 37 HUGHLEY 8 yd pass from ALLGOOD
PHILLIPS kick failed, 4-21 0:38

3rd QUARTER
11:54 BOI 14 - TUL 44 HUGHLEY 10 yd pass from ALLGOOD
PHILLIPS kick, 4-47 3:06

4th QUARTER
11:50 BOI 14 - TUL 51 ALLGOOD 3 yd run
PHILLIPS kick, 3-38 2:30
10:24 BOI 14 - TUL 58 RANSOM, Jamar net recovery in end zone
PHILLIPS, Luke kick
06:07 BOI 21 - TUL 58 BRUHN, Chris 4 yd pass from RHODE
SMITH kick, 7-45 4:17
02:32 BOI 21 - TUL 65 K. ALLEN 3 yd pass from RASMUSSEN, Derek
PHILLIPS kick, 5-14 2:52
00:52 BOI 28 - TUL 65 FINLEY, DeRonn 4 yd pass from RHODE
SMITH kick, 3-37 1:06

Tulsa Talons 69 : 13 Amarillo Dusters: The Rout By Champions

(OK - this one's about a week late, but Sarah insisted I post more. ;) ... RW)

The defending af2 Arena Cup Champions returned the core of the team with 12 returning players from 2007 on the opening night roster. They also added some big additions like Jon Holland, Aaron Chavers and Barrett Allen from their divisional rivals Oklahoma City, and Kellen Allen - key receiver from the Green Bay Blizzard last year. There's also some more players waiting to get their shot like WR's Prentiss Elliott (on IR), Jarrail Jackson (currently coaching spring practice w/ Dartmouth) and Rush End C.J. McLain (his signing was announced late this week - he's waiting to come back next week, presumably because of league signing rules.) The players were raring to go according to this morning's Tulsa World article.

In short - the Talons showed up ready for a battle.

The problem is, Amarillo didn't bother to show up. OK, the team physically showed up, but they were a ghost of a team.

Tulsa had their way with the Dusters. Justin Allgood was just that for the most part: ALL GOOD. He only made one real mistake forcing a ball into Kellen Allen in the second quarter, but he had a stellar night. Kellen Allen: a great pick-up by the Talons - he had 4 TD's. Hughley looked like the same guy who was Arena Cup VII MVP scoring 2 TD's. Michael Shack (1 Rushing TD), Jermaine Landrum (1 TD Catch - from rookie Derek Rasmussen), Jermaine Hope (short KO Return for TD) and Delenell Reid (45 yard INT return for TD) also scored for Tulsa.

The Talons' defense was simply incredible. At least 4 sacks by Terrence Carter and newcomer combo Barrett Allen and Aaron Chavers. They applied constant pressure on the Dusters all night. Delenell Reid picked off two passes (taking one back 45 yards for a score just before halftime) and broke up several more passes.

Special teams were a little porous on the return coverage - a missed FG for a TD (late in the game... more on that later) and Brett Rayl's snaps were erratic (one rolled to Allgood, two others were wide, leading to missed kicks.) Luke Phillips had a solid night - 9/10 PAT's (the one miss was the result of a bad snap) and his one of his two FG misses nearly resulted in a Talons TD. I call this particular "miss" intentional because of two things: he drove the ball into the side net, and two - the first man down to the end zone for the Talons? The kicker himself. I feel that on the missed FG return for the 4th qtr. TD by Amarillo the Tulsa defenders were not giving a full effort to get down and cover the kick leading to the big return. My philosophy is to play every down like the other guys are nipping at you heels -- finish the play.

Amarillo didn't help themselves out at all. This team was - to put it mildly - an embarrassment. There was no cohesiveness to this unit at all. The play calling was average at best. And when they did get the plays right they moved the ball - but not very far. But when they didn't - it was a disaster. Fumbles. Penalties. Drops. Misteaks. Miss-takes. Mistakes all around.

Physically, Amarillo is woeful. And I don't think it's because they spend too much time at the "Big Texan" steakhouse. Their offensive linemen were small and out of shape. Several had spare tires that make me look like I'm in shape. When you looked at the two teams as they lined up across form each other, you could easily tell who was going to dominate the game.

They were fundamentally unprepared for the af2 game too. Their eligible lineman rarely, if ever reported as the eligible one before he reached the line and got set. At least once, that caused a delay of game penalty, and another time caused Amarillo to burn a timeout. You never see this in the AFL, and hardly ever in the af2 - even with the expansion teams. The coaching staff at one point was on the field before a kickoff telling a player where to line up like you would see a parent do for his kid in Pop Warner ball.

If things don't turn around quickly for the Dusters, it will be a long, long summer for their fans.

I only noticed one Talon who was dinged up - Rod Green. Looked like he got the brunt of being on the bottom of a pile after a fumble. A Duster player #30 (can't find a name from the Duster roster on their official website - no numbers listed yet) looked like he tweaked a knee or hamstring in the 4th quarter and didn't return.

Officiating - you know what? No much to complain about here. They got the illegal kick by Phillips correct - but only after a lengthy discussion tho... but they did get it correct. They did miss several obvious holds, and a shirt grab on each team although whomever from Tulsa grabbed #56's shirt for Amarillo got their money's worth.

On April 5th, Tulsa stays home to play the Boise Burn who was idle this week. Amarillo returns home to play the Central Valley Coyotes - a 55-54 winner at Bossier-Shreveport on Saturday.

Cheers!

Williesan

Line score (from www.af2.com)

SCORE BY QUARTERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 = FINAL
TULSA TALONS 21 -21 - 7 -20 = 69
Amarillo Dusters 0 - 0 - 6 - 7 = 13

Leaders:

Passing: Allgood (TUL) 18-27-216-6, Steele (AMR) 18-43-167-1
Receiving: Hughley (TUL) 7-115-2, K. Allen (TUL) 6-60-4; Fulton (AMR) 8-60

ADT Defensive Player of the Game: Terrance Carter (TUL)
Schutt Offensive Player of the Game: Justin Allgood (TUL)
U.S. Army Ironman: Delenell Reid (TUL)
Cutters Catch of the Game: Delenell Reid (Int. return)
Attendance: 4,502