Why I’m Voting Obama This Year

It should be painfully obvious.

My Arena

As a lifelong Tulsan (aside from the three years I was temporarily insane and lived in Texas), I’ve always felt a sense of pride in my city.

None so much as lately, with the continuing construction of the BOK Center.

What is it?: a new convention center/arena. This city has languished in it’s old convention center, which, for a city in the 1960s, was sufficient. But the capacity of the Tulsa Convention Center was about 9100 for center stage events. Math tells you that is incredibly small for a metro area that is creeping up on 1 million people. Losing events to places like Little Rock, Omaha and Oklahoma City were becoming too much to handle. The new building will hold a little over 18,000 for center stage events.

On May 8th, I was offered the chance to tour the arena, still under construction, along with about 60 other members of a community website, Tulsanow.

The tour began at the Tulsa VisionBuilders office, with a short video that promotes the new arena, and some facts about it’s process from conception to construction.

Like the fact that Cesar Pelli (yes, the Cesar Pelli that designed the Petronas Towers) envisioned the design from a drawing of Native American mud huts that had a swirling, moving line to them.

The fact that OKC’s Ford Center still hasn’t sold out their suites. Five years after they have opened it. But Tulsa has sold out suites in a building that is still over three months from opening. And all 682 club seats are sold. Sold so well, as a matter of fact, that there is a waiting list over five years long.

Designs for the Premium Level borrowed from Balitmore’s Camden Yards, where in the BOK Center, you have Loge Boxes that lets you live a little more in luxury, but still feel connected to the crowd.

The fact that there doesn’t appear to be a single 90-degree angle in the building gives it a modern feel.

The fact that donations allowed for us to pay for an eight-sided plasma scoreboard, said to be one of, if not the, finest in the country.

A lot of Tulsans say ‘Why do we need this?’.

I say ‘What took so long?’.

Fast facts:

BOK Center capacity: 18,041
Designer: Cesar Pelli
Location: 200 S. Denver, Tulsa, OK
Cost: $178 million, funded by sales tax voted on by the County
Grand Opening: Sept 1 2008
Opening Act: TBD
Acts currently booked to play:

• Kenny Chesney with LeAnn Rimes – Sep 10 2008
• American Idol – Sep 13 2008
• Rascal Flatts with Taylor Swift – Sep 25 2008
• NBA Exhibition Houston Rockets vs Orlando Magic – Oct 13 2008
• Neil Diamond – Oct 21 2008
• Celine Dion – Nov 13 2008
• Celtic Thunder – Nov 19 2008
• NCAA Basketball University of Tulsa vs University of Oklahoma – Dec 6 2008
• Radio City Christmas Spectacular – Dec 22 2008

Out with the old, in with the new

 

Being forty, I have owned several vehicles throughout my lifetime. I’ve owned some older Pontiacs, some later model Fords (never again) and some older and later model Chevrolet’s.

My latest car was a 1995 Chevy Lumina that was in pretty good condition for a 10 year old car, and getting it for under $2000 was a steal, even if it did have ~120k miles on it. I added a neat little stereo with Sirius satellite radio, and had the vehicle from about April of 2006 on.

Then, in November, I noticed a slight ‘ticking’ noise in the engine, that almost sounded like lifter noise. If it was only that I’d be ok.

I had a week’s vacation, so I decided to take the car to someone to have it looked at. Bad news, the engine had pretty much worn itself out to the point that it could no longer maintain oil pressure. To fix the problem would cost more than the value of the car, which wasn’t much.

Let me begin the next section with the following caveat: I’ve never really looked in earnest for new vehicles. Never owned one, never really had the inkling to own one until this year.

My boss and good friend at work had recently purchased a 2007 Dodge Caliber, since the company we work for has a special discount rate with Dodge because our company uses DaimlerChrysler for their fleet vehicles. One percent off of factory invoiced (not MSRP) price. A little small for me, although I did like the car. The 2008 Avengers were coming out and I liked that line because they resembled the Charger, but didn’t have the sticker shock. I never really thought I would purchase one.

But I did.

This past Friday.

The most harrowing experience of my life was wheeling/dealing for a new car. I really wanted to build mine, but I have had some credit ‘issues’ in the past 5 years or so, plus with it being the end of the year I was told by both Dodge and this salesman that it would take nearly 12 weeks to finish the build. The salesman wasn’t a sleazeball, but the same person that sold my co-worker his new car. He made the process a little more bearable and worked with me.

So, on Friday, I nervously drove my first new car off the lot.

A 2008 Dodge Avenger SXT.

My Christmas present to myself for 2007.