A busy four-day weekend

THURSDAY
On Thursday, I was going to attend the Music at the Mansion program, but J said I had better conserve my strength for the evening concert we have been waiting on for several months.

That evening, we went to a concert at the BOK Center in downtown Tulsa. This was our first time to attend an event there. We got there early to be sure we could find a place to park. We parked in the parking garage near the BOK Center. Near the Center was a giant Christmas tree next to an ice skating rink which had been set up as a temporary thing.

To get out of the cold, we went inside the building and waited for the doors to open. At 7 pm, the doors opened and we went inside and found our seats. The group we saw was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. You might think from the name that the TSO was an orchestra that played classical music, but it was more like a rock band. I counted 20 members in the group. Out of the 20, twelve were local musicians which had been hired for the event.

The concert engaged all of the senses. The light show was fantastic. Each piece played was accompanied by banks of lights which flashed on and off in a variety of colors. Streams of pencil-thin laser light shown just overhead. You could feel the heat when the gases on stage were ignited. At one point it started snowing inside the BOK. Snow drifted down and fell on the audience or the floor.

I was glad I had brought ear plugs for the volume was deafening. Musicians strutted about on stage and above the audience by means of floating walkways suspended from the ceiling by cables. The concert went on for two and a half hours. Attendance exceeded 10,000. Judging from the price of the tickets, this one show brought in more than a quarter million dollars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqJ1fSOgCqo&feature=related

FRIDAY
The Tulsa chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation had a special guest in town over the weekend: Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the FFRF in Madison, Wisconsin. On Friday evening, we attended a reception for Annie Laurie at the Dusenberry home. There were about 15 people there -- all members of the local FFRF chapter. I took my camera and came home with several pictures of the event. I will post some later. Annie Laurie thanked me for the indexing work I had done for them back in the 90s. The Dusenberrys providing lodging for Annie Laurie while she was in Tulsa in their half-million dollar home.

SATURDAY
We began Saturday by going to the campus of Oral Roberts University. There is a giant statue of praying hands just as you enter the campus. I brought my six-foot banner with the words "NOTHING FAILS LIKE PRAYER" on it. We stood beneath the statue with our banner unfurled for photos. Next we went to the prayer tower and were going to tour it, but it was closed for the Christmas holidays.

I returned home and got ready for the 2 pm HAT meeting. I went through the listing of members and gave each a reminder call about the meeting. The previous day I sent out an email to each to remind them of the meeting.

About 30 people showed up for the meeting at which Annie Laurie spoke for an hour and a half. She spoke about the recent history of FFRF litgation dealing with church/state separation. Annie Laurie once again mentioned my role in providing the Foundation with indexing of its newspaper, Freethought Today.

After the meeting was over, I returned home and took a nap. At 8 pm, I was at Randy's. Many people were there. I would estimate we had 30 people there. Will and I sat in the Bradley's entertainment center and played music. Will plays guitar. I played the electronic keyboard which I had brought with me. I was recognized for the small role I had played in the Foundation and given a "Founding Father" t-shirt.

SUNDAY
This morning I went to Church of the Restoration. There were just six and a half people there. The half person was Larry's five year old granddaughter who spent about half the time in the sanctuary and the other half outside the sanctuary. She was in and out quite a bit, but we are such a small church that no one cared about her comings and goings. Joy read a lengthy children's story. The main part of the message, delivered by Mary Rounds, pertained to the four basic elements: earth, air, fire, and water, and the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west.