Sometimes a picture says it all!

Rainy, rainy May

Normally, I really enjoy living in an area that gets so much rain. Most of the time, the rains come gently and the sound is incredible as I sit out on my covered porch and watch the rain fall. However, this month it has rained nearly every single day. We have had a couple of storms, but nothing dramatic. Just rain, rain, and more rain. It's lost its romantic appeal and become more of a nuisance. I guess I really shouldn't complain since so many places really need rain, and I wish we could send them some of what we are getting, but it is starting to depress me! I crave a warm, sunshine filled day. I am sure I will write again in August - complaining about the countless days of heat and son and lack of rain, but today, I will just complain about the rain....

We were supposed to go to an outdoor concert at Lake Eufaula today, but looks like it will be cancelled due to the rain. We went out on the lake in the boat yesterday to hook up with the K-Hits folks (Tulsa rock station) since they were advertising my lake rental, but the weather was chilly and it rained off and on all day. The lake was surprisingly busy considering the weather. We didn't stay out on the water for very long.

Rain, rain, go away....come again some other day!

Shout out to GEN 300 Students @ UOP!

One of the benefits of teaching at the University of Phoenix, as the nation's largest private, accredited university, is the variety of students that I get to meet. I have been with University of Phoenix for about four years now and have taught non-stop year round. I drive to Tulsa, Oklahoma, two nights a week and teach 4 hour sections for 5 weeks ( and I teach a great many directed studies courses) and it is highly accellerated, and students have to be highly motivated and disciplined to make it or they drop like flies. For almost two years I also taught flexnet (online) courses in addition to teaching on the Tulsa Campus. Well, since every 5 weeks at two classes per week, over the past 4 years I have had hundreds and hundreds - maybe thousands of students. You don't always get to know them like you do in a public traditional institution. However, I have a class that will end next Thursday night and the course is called Skills for Professional Development. (A course that many people I have known or worked with in the past really ought to try to take sometime!)

This class has been awesome. Everyone gets along great and has great attitudes; they are psyched up every class night; they turn all their assignments in on time; and treat each other with the greatest of respect and courtesy. We have had a lot of laughs for the past 4 weeks and I am going to miss them. Last week they did their powerpoint presentations about conflict resolution or team building issues. Every single one of them was unique and it was obvious that they had each put a great deal of time and effort into the presentations. I use Power Point for every class I teach rather than lecture notes, so I know how time consuming it can be to get them just the way you want them.

So...these kids got creative and had music, sound effects, humor, great transitions and custom transitions, and they knew their topics. It was great. Next week they will be presenting their team research papers and giving me a presentation that is a wrap of of the five intensive weeks of study. If last week was any indication of what to expect, then when that much creativity and ambition is combined on a team - watch out. I can't wait to see them. They also decided we are going to have a potluck dinner celebration. This is a class that I am really going to miss, but....as I told them all - they have probably not seen the last of me as I am certified to teach 34 courses and generally get the same students somewhere down the road in their program.


UOP shout out to Tim, Kelly, Julie, Wade, Jennifer, Chris, Toni, Giavanni, Paula, Bob Nelson, Burhan, Michael, Alex, Heather, Retina, Gianno, and Tammy.

Congrats to Greg & Susan Nedrow

Rodney and I were fortunate enough on Saturday to be able to attend the wedding reception/party of our good friends, Greg and Susan, over in Wellston, Oklahoma. I have known Greg since 1970 and Rodney has known him a few years longer than that. We met Susan last year when they came out and spent a weekend with us. Susan was perfect and fit right into the old gang. Greg owns and runs a very successful print shop and Susan, like Rodney, is a CPA. So we all have a great deal in common. We also had the opportunity to meet the wives of a couple other people we have known since High School, Ray and Paul, and to plan a get-together some time this summer. This was a great party that started at 3 in the afternoon and went into the night. Catered meal, beautiful wedding cake, lots of interesting people and live music. Fort Worth musician, Danny Robinson, was awesome, and he played a wide variety of music. I greatly enjoyed listening to him and will be adding some pics to my gaylasgarden website. He played sometimes by himself and sometimes accompanied by others. Rodney got to jam with the other musicians and I even went up and did a song with them. But the day was really about Greg and Susan and it was a perfect day all around. It is really a wonderful feeling to watch two people so much in love. I think they are absolutely perfect for each other! They make each other happy - and that's what really matters. I believe this is an ideal marriage that will last forever.

I was most amazed with Greg's son, Terrell Nedrow - remember that name. This guy is young and already an amazing musician. I think you will be hearing more about him in the future. He has natural talent - which is rare, and is very comfortable on stage and interacts really well with the audience. He has a quick wit and a huge repertoire of songs already. Excellent guitarist and perfect lead singer to front a really good band. I predict he will go far in the music industry. I am hoping to help him out with this endeavor. He has the talent....he just needs a break! As I told him - we have to MAKE things happen. "Luck is preparation when it meets opportunity."

The Landlord (Will Ferrell)

Check out my husband's new website!

He finally did it! I have felt for years that Rodney should put up a website and he has been working diligently on it and it is now out there on the www. I worked with him on developing some of his graphics, logo, and as his content editor. I certainly could not write the content since the last thing I am is a CPA! It is a huge and amazing site. The only thing he has not written is an "about me" page. You know the old joke about CPA's. They are generally introverted and talk to you while looking at their own shoes. Not him! When he talks to you, he looks at YOUR shoes! So, I feel it is my duty to continue to harass him until he completes an "about me" page as he does have many hobbies and interests and collections that I think people would find quite interesting!

THE MASSACRE AT VIRGINIA TECH

Having spent many years as a college faculty member, and also having a daughter who lived on campus when she was in college, violence on college campuses has always been a particular concern of mine. I have read several books that discuss college campus violence, security measures, security systems, faculty training, and all other aspects of minimizing possible violence. There appear to be two questions that the media are focused on at this point. First, could more have been done to prevent this from happening? And second, did the university act appropriately after the first incident occurred early that morning?

With a student population of 26,000 plus a faculty and staff of another 10,000 people, there is bound to be violence. Comparing this to a city of this size, even the largest, best trained, and efficient police department could never have stopped this event from occurring. When a disturbed person like 23 year old Cho Seung-Hui decides to go on a killing rampage and can carry everything he needs in a backpack, how can this be prevented? We live in an uncertain world. This type of violence can happen anywhere, at anytime, for any reason. Have we come to the point that we need gun detectors on EVERY SINGLE BUILDING in the United States? And even if we did that, a disturbed person can open fire outside anywhere at any time. We saw this with the Tulsa shootings from an overpass on a turnpike. How can those types of incidents be stopped? They can only be stopped after there are deaths and the police can finally track them down and arrest them. It is impossible to watch and regulate 3 million people, 24/7.

However, this particular student should have been on a watch list. He was a senior and an English major. His writings in his Creative Writing class were so disturbing that his teacher turned them over to the counseling department. So was he being watched? The teacher obviously saw him as dangerous. Having taught Creative Writing for years, I have seen some disturbing writings, but never anything that indicated a psychopathic personality or I would have done the same as his teacher did. As this story continues to unravel, there may be many factors that will come to light that will help explain why he did what he did, although that will be of absolutely no comfort to the families of the victims. America is a violent nation. It always has been, and a study of our history clearly indicates exactly how violent we are as a people. I wish I had an answer to this problem, but I simply don’t. My concern is that we will give up yet more of our own personal freedoms in our desperation to be “safe” in an unsafe world. I do not believe it is possible to prevent everything that can happen in the modern world.

Regarding the Virginia Tech’s response to the events, I must say that I am very disappointed. From the moment of the first shooting at 7 am, the entire campus should have been on lockdown and all students notified to stay where they were, with doors locked. Security and police should have been immediately brought in – full force, and I also believe that this delay resulted in the mass murder that ensued. When the shootings occurred at the Fort Gibson School in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, I was teaching at a college campus about 4 miles away and even though this had not occurred on our campus, we immediately went into lockdown mode. Virginia Tech administration should have assumed the worst – that there could be more than one killer on campus. Had they not learned anything from the Columbine school shooting? How could they possibly make the decision that it was an isolated incident? They keep saying that they were acting on what limited information they had at that time. Well, that is exactly my point. They did not have enough information and it is better to be safe than sorry. Lock down the campus and figure it out later is much better than allowing innocent people to continue about their day, believing that they were being protected by the security measures in place at their school. I believe in the days and weeks to come that their responsibility for making a very bad judgment call will haunt them. Personally, if I had a child going to school there, I would pull them out of that college based on this incident alone.

My heart goes out to the families of the victims of this horrible tragedy.

The Red Hatters Party at my Getaway!

If you don't know what The Red Hat Ladies Club is, then you don't know about women over 50 who know how to have a good time! 7 Red Hatters and 2 Pink Hatters (under 50) just spent a few days at my lakeview getaway house. They are on the go ALL THE TIME! I don't see where they get the energy, but they certainly have it. I don't know the ages of the pink hatters, but the oldest of my guests was 86. I worried about them on Friday night. I waited up until 1:30 am before they showed back up! And the next morning, they were up and at it again! These are amazing women with tons of energy who know how to enjoy life to the fullest. Come to find out, they nearly got kicked out of Denny's at midnight because they were so rowdy! What a great bunch of women and by the way, Vanda, my dad is already taken!

Way too many irons in the Fire!

Okay, I will admit it. I have WAY too many irons in the fire! I don't even meet myself coming or going. A bit of advice here....never start two major new businesses at exactly the same time. Or, let me put it another way - know your limits. No one handed me more than 24 hours in the day, but I do have that tendency of biting off a bit more than I can chew! My schedule book is almost impossible for me to keep up with. I do not have a clone.

Here's the thing. I moved way out here in the country on the lake to RELAX. I taught full-time at a community college. Then I started also teaching for the University of Phoenix. All I did was teach, drive, grade and do prep. I had no life. So, without going into details as to why I quit my full-time job (that's one heck of a soap opera in itself!), I thought I would have more "free" time to take on some projects I had wanted to do for a long time. And I did. I just should have done them one at a time.

For those of you old enough, "Calgon! Take me away." If you didn't get that, you are not a baby boomer.