So, I was invited to give a seminar Friday, 2/9, and a request was sent out to find a ticket for me for the Sat. game against Texas Tech. On two-week notice, I committed, thinking surely a ticket would come available.
Nothing was forthcoming from the dept contacts, so a few days before my visit I got into a couple of e-bay auctions, but dropped out when prices went over $100 (regular prices are $25 - $40). Decided I'd take my chance with sidewalk scalpers on game day.
Thursday, flew to OKC and spent the night with my Mom, sister, Verla, and her family in nearby Edmond, then drove to Stillwater (about 1 hr. away) Friday morning.
But first, the big entertainment event Thursday night was to go to rock concert by Luma, a band (oops, I should define them as alternative rock) that two of my nephews play in -- my sister, Connie's sons Marcus and Stephen. If you go to the Luma website, which may be the first time any of you dared to go to myspace.com, the first and third guys in the picture are them. The venue was called the Jazz Lab, sponsored by the U of Central OK, there in Edmond. Some name acts have played there, so being booked there was a big deal. Also, the show was being taped for a Live album. There was a large, enthusiastic crowd. My nephews, Stephen on lead guitar (electric, need I say) and Marcus on bass were all over the stage like good rockers are supposed to do. Amazing! Verla and I left before concert was over -- so I could go over my notes -- but we found out later that neighbors called police to complain about noise, so it was a great success.
Friday, in Stillwater: checked with the ticket office -- nothing reserved, but general admission tickets would go on sale, on-line, that evening at 6:00. But, that would require lining up a few hours in the cold before the game, so decided I'd stick with the scalper plan.
Several years back I had met the receptionist at the Alumni Association office and found that she was married to good acquaintance from Tonkawa -- Bob Vincent, class of '61 (vs. my class, '60). So, I looked her up and had a good visit, but, alas, no ticket leads. Also roamed the campus a bit -- here's quad with library at end, student union on right.
Meanwhile, why am I here? Oh, yes: statistics. Had lunch with dept chairman and a prof who came to OSU the year I graduated -- 1967. We've gotten to know each other well over the years. Lunch was at a nice on-campus cafe that the hotel and restaurant admin dept runs as a way for its students to get to know the business.
Gave seminar -- Passion-Driven Statistics. No doubt many of you recall I started flogging this theme with seminars at SMU and Abilene Christian a couple of years ago. The idea is that it is subject-matter enthusiasm and smarts, say in medicine, science, restaurant management, whatever, that leads to good statistical plans and analyses. But, you could never tell that from many of our texts -- boring. I name names, give examples. Got pretty good eyeball to eyeball feedback during the talk, but was disappointed at absence of questions and comments afterwards. Oh, well.
Also was disappointed to find that two of my profs who live in Stillwater had not been notified about my visit. I called Dave Weeks, who was my thesis advisor and is partly responsible for my concerned view of statistics, but no answer. Back to Edmond for pizza dinner at my other sister's, Connie, house.
Saturday morning I called the Weeks' residence again to set up a visit with Dave and Shirley either before or after the game. When I innocently mentioned that I was planning to buy ticket from scalper, Shirley insisted I use her ticket. So, I got to their house about an hour before game time, then went with Dave to historic Gallagher-Iba Arena for the game.
Back when I was a callow undergrad at OSU I liked to hang out at then Gallagher Hall just to watch "Mr. Iba" coach. Back before the shot clock, when basketball was really basketball. Since then Gallagher has been expanded, essentially by building a shell over the old gym and putting seats into the space created -- from 6000+ seats to 13,000+. The Wikipedia says it's one of the country's best, and rowdiest, college basketball arenas. It turned out that there were quite a few empty seats -- season ticket no-show, I guess. I didn't have time to see how much scalper action was going on, though.
The game was worthy of its setting -- a double overtime victory over Texas Tech, with OSU miraculously overcoming large deficits in the last minute of regulation time and the first overtime. Shirley had a pot of soup ready after the game and we had a nice visit before I returned to Edmond just in time to see nephew, Sterling, in a city-league basketball game.
Sunday morning was church with Verla, son Sterling, and Mom, then after lunch we all went to an Edmond nursing home where Verla played the guitar (acoustic) and led the singing and her husband, Clarence, taught a Bible lesson. Mom and Verla sang a nice duet -- this picture.
There was an OSU-OU wrestling match at Gallagher-Iba on Sunday afternoon, but I forewent that -- had spent enough time on the road between Edmond and Stillwater. OSU won big, as usual.
Brought back memories of when I was a grad student there and Tonkawa friends, Dennis Clark and James Gilbert, both OU students at the time, came to come visit the weekend of a OSU-OU wrestling match. Well, the match was going so much in OSU's favor that Dennis and James decided to leave before it was over -- beat the crowd and avoid having to listen to the OSU fans gloat in victory. BUT, after they left OU rallied -- won a couple of matches over heavily-favored Cowboys and won the match. Too bad, guys.
Oh, nothing was decided about teaching at OSU -- maybe spring 08. I ain't going unless I can get basketball season tickets, though.
Cheers,
Rob
Next weekend to Denver, so we can return this blog to its Malia theme.
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