Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Eric Bell's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, May 4th, 2008
12:44 am	All the things I felt and never shared All the times that you were lonely with me there The tears I wouldn't let fall from my eyes And how I let go without a fight The reasons I'm alone I know by heart But I don't want to spend forever in the dark I swear next time I'll hang on for dear life If love ever gives me another try There's no changing things that we regret The best that we can hope for is one more chance If the hands of time could just move in reverse I wouldn't make the same mistake again The reasons I'm alone I know by heart But I don't want to spend forever in the dark I swear next time I'll hang on for dear life If love ever gives me another try The reasons I'm alone I know by heart But I don't want to spend forever in the dark I swear next time I'll hang on for dear life If love ever gives me another try (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
1:07 am	Science Question OK, so this has been confusing me since yesterday so I have to ask. Yesterday I went into Le Target and one of the things I bought was a bottle of Gumout fuel injector cleaner for the Escort. When I got to the register it beeped at the checkout girl when she scanned it. It seems that in Oklahoma for "security reasons" you now have to be 18 years old to purchase fuel injector cleaner. Having never thought of using Gumout for anything other than, say, putting it in my gas tank to clean the fuel injectors on my car, I am completely baffled as to why I have to be 18 to buy it (the woman was apparently supposed to check my ID but didn't). So now I am idly curious as to what brought this on. Are people using this stuff to run their meth labs in Oklahoma, is it bomb material, or what are they doing with it now? So since I have no idea I figured I'd ask the science and engineering types I know and see if you all have any clue. Sorry, but there's no ingredient list on the bottle, so I don't even know what's in it other than the safety warning that it contains "hydrocarbon solvents." Current Mood: surprised (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 4th, 2008
2:33 pm	Alive Not because I haven't checked in so long, but... One of my friends was a little flipped out yesterday because he heard on the radio that someone named Eric Bell was shot and killed in Tulsa. (Although he later saw on TV that the late Mr. Bell was African-American, and therefore clearly not me.) So no, for anyone else who heard this, I am just fine, thanks. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
11:53 pm	Ato-ka, Ato-ka So it's time to start choosing the high school students to be on Oklahoma's Panasonic Academic Challenge. From late October through Thanksgiving, Gail (co-head coach and I) travel to different places throughout Oklahoma to give a preliminary written exam. The high scorers are then invited to the final round at the Oklahoma School of Science and Math in December; there we select the six members of our team. So today I got to go to Tulsa and give an exam at Booker T. Washington; yesterday Gail went to southeastern Oklahoma to give a tryout in Atoka. Atoka (pronounced uh-TOE-kuh), for those of you not from Oklahoma, is a small town that's primarily notable for the US 75-Indian Nations Turnpike junction on the road between Tulsa and Dallas. Gail has never done a tryout in Atoka before. So she was being asked by one of her acquaintances in Carnegie about tryouts and Gail was mentioning the various place she and I have been: Tulsa, Drummond, Stigler, Lawton, and various others. And, she added, she was for the first time going to do a tryout in Atoka. Her friend asked her "Isn't that going to be hard to do?" and then, when Gail was confused, said "Well, do the students have to wear one? Is it a Latin competition or something?" It appears her friend, never having heard of Atoka, thought that Gail had said she was doing a tryout in a toga. Some days you just wonder. Current Mood: giggly (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
4:32 pm	Rain, Rain Go Away We got somewhere around another 5 inches in Oklahoma City last night, and there's now flooding out near Lake Thunderbird. Normally at this time of year Oklahoma is waiting for rain; now we're waiting for not-rain. Last night was just terrifying. I directed the bridge game in OKC last night and got home just in time to beat the rain before it started coming down. My friend Jay took the week to travel with Britain to the bridge regional in San Antonio because Shelba, Britain's regular partner, was busy taking care of her very ill mom (who wound up passing away, RIP). Jay and Britain drove back from San Antonio yesterday although with a stop at WinStar they didn't arrive in OKC until almost 1am, well after I had left the studio and come home. Britain drove home and Jay set out from Britain's house (not far from the studio) back to Norman about the time the rain came pouring down. I was at home when the power went out and about that time the phone rang. It was Jay, but it sounded like it really wasn't, asking me to come pick him up and take him home. He was completely incoherent enough that I had a great deal of difficulty figuring out where he was until I finally managed to pry out of him that he was off I-44 at NW 23rd, which is not the greatest neighborhood in OKC. But I told him to calm down and I'd come get him. I kept him on the cell phone the whole time I was driving up there, and Jay kept talking about his car not liking him, about what would have happened if something had happened to Summer (his girlfriend), how he thought he was going to die, etc. He somehow wound up in the parking lot at the Hibdon tire store and wanted to know if he thought they could help him, but I finally convinced him no one would be in the tire store at 2am, even if their lights were on. I kept trying to get him to tell me funny stories about some of he and Britain's misadventures in San Antonio, but he kept saying he couldn't remember anything that happened there--even though not a few hours before he had called me as he and Britain were coming up I-35 and telling me all the stories of their doings in Texas. I eventually managed to work out through a series of barely decipherable answers from Jay that Jay's car had spun out in the rain and did a 540 on I-44 southbound on the west side of Oklahoma City. Miraculously he came up just short of the retaining wall and neither he nor his car had a scratch on it, but he was so panic-stricken he barely managed to get off at the next exit and in to the parking lot. By the time I arrived almost 25 minutes later, Jay had calmed down enough that he could get out of his car and into my car, but he was still too out of it to buckle his seatbelt--I had to reach across and do it for him. I finally got him home well after 3am. I have never seen anyone have an honest-to-God panic attack or nervous breakdown, but whatever the heck this was, I was absolutely scared to death about how Jay was acting and how out of it he was. He seems back to normal today, however. I hope so. Current Mood: relieved (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 22nd, 2007
4:46 am	[her] If you see him Tell him I wish him well How am I doing Well, sometimes it's hard to tell I still miss him more than ever But please don't say a word If you see him, oh if you see him [him] If you see her Tell her I'm doing fine And if you want to Say that I think of her from time to time Ask her if she ever wonders Where we both went wrong If you see her, if you see her [him] Oh, I still want her [her] And I still need him so {both] Oh I don't know why we let each other go [him] If you see her, tell her the light's still on for her [her} Nothing's changed, deep down the fire still burns for him [both] And even if it takes forever, say I'll still be here [her] if you see him [him} if you see her [her] if you see him [him} if you see her Current Mood: lonely Current Music: Reba McEntire/Brooks and Dunn, "If You See Him/If You See Her (Comment on this)
Friday, June 15th, 2007
3:30 pm	True enough... What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Midland ("Midland" is not necessarily the same thing as "Midwest") The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it's a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn't mean you're from the Midland. Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
11:15 am	I'm staring out into the night Trying to hide the pain I'm going to the place where love And feeling good don't ever cost a thing And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain Well I'm going home Back to the place where I belong And where your love has always been enough for me I'm not running from No, I think you got me all wrong I don't regret this life I chose for me But these places and these faces are getting old So I'm going home Well I'm going home (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 31st, 2007
11:37 am	World Coverage... I did this a long time ago thanks to _mjf_, but I saw something else about it and decided to revisit it. What's the furthest: North you've ever been: Bothell, Washington, USA (47 degrees, 46 minutes north) South you've ever been: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (21 degrees, 18 minutes north) East you've ever been: Boston, Massachusetts, USA (71 degrees, 3 minutes west) West you've ever been: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (157 degrees, 50 minutes west) Total NS distance: 26 degrees, 28 minutes Total EW distance: 86 degrees, 47 minutes Approximate percentage of earth's surface area this represents: (26.47/360) x (86.78/360) = 1.77% Center of this area: 34 degrees, 32 minutes north; 114 degrees 26.5 minutes west Where this is at: just across the California border from Lake Havasu City, Arizona Closest I've ever been to this point: Topock AZ (along I-40) during our trip to the west coast in 1982 (34 degree, 43 minutes north; 114 degrees, 29 minutes west) While 1.77% doesn't sound like a ton, it was under 1% the last time I did it. Amazing that one trip to Hawaii almost doubled the "amount of the world I have seen." Current Music: "Home," Daughtry (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
10:21 am	I SURVIVED THE 2007 HSNCT 160 teams. One hell of a trip to Chicago that lasted 8 1/2 hours longer than it should have. American lost my bag both coming and going--AGAIN. I had to moderate Saturday morning in a T-shirt and jeans because my dress clothes didn't arrive until Saturday afternoon. Little to no sleep either Friday or Saturday night, and almost a little too much on Monday morning. Did I enjoy this one? Hell yes. Bring on 2008! Current Mood: high (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
11:15 pm	Happy Mother's Day To all the mothers out there (including mine), grandmothers, godmothers, and other relatives who love you enough to be a mother (Aunt Lita, I'm thinking of you), hope you had a great day. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
10:56 am	PT, and Reflections My physical therapist may be a slave driver, a sadist, or a whole bunch of nouns I can't say in a public forum, but whatever else she is, she's good. I have 16 degrees of flexion back in my wrist in a little over a week. I've yelled a lot, but I can't deny it's working. Today is April 19th, a day that probably doesn't mean a whole lot in a lot of places in the country, but which will ever affect many of us in Oklahoma. Twelve years ago today (has it been that long?), a building many of us had never heard of or driven past on multiple occasions without a second thought about it, was blown up in a domestic terrorist attack that forever shattered the myth that "it can't happen here." I didn't know anyone who died in the attack, although I have several close friends who worked downtown and were very close to it. Paul Duncan's wife was actually injured when the glass in her office window flew in, but not severely. As I suspect many people here do, in light of what happened at Virginia Tech and given the anniversary day, we stopped and talked this morning and remembered what we were doing in 1995 when the Murrah bombing happened. I didn't have class that morning, so I had just gotten up when word started filtering in what had happened. At first many of us misunderstood and thought it was in Dallas, because CNN did not have a bureau set up in Oklahoma City and most of the reporting was happening from their Dallas bureau until they got their people to Oklahoma City. Like many people who lived in Oklahoma, I had never heard of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. I had been down to the Federal Courthouse across the street when I had jury duty the year before, but I had never paid any attention to it. I had only lived in Norman for 4 years and downtown Oklahoma City was not some place we went a lot (this was before Bricktown, so there was not much there unless you worked there or were going to a concert at the Myriad). Even when they got a camera crew on the scene and started showing scenes of the bombing, it didn't dawn on those of us watching in Cate Center Lounge what we were seeing. The Murrah building was a rather nondescript building downtown, and Oklahoma City, like many downtowns, does not have a particularly distinctive skyline. None of the footage that we saw clued anyone in that this devastation was 20 miles north of Norman. But then they swung around and did a panoramic shot and we saw the Sonic headquarters building, and everyone knew at once where that building was, and there was complete silence. And then one of the girls whose dad worked in downtown OKC started screaming (he was fine, as she would soon find out) and we just all sat there. I went to class that morning, but it was clear that many of us were just going through the motions. After class I went back to the lounge but soon left, unable to watch any more. Henry Herron of the Wichita State team emailed me and asked if everyone down there was OK, and I soon found myself emailing the College Bowl forum and posting in the newsgroup to let everyone know we were all unhurt. I was just numb for a while after that. College Bowl Nationals were that weekend and we went and most everyone was very consoling, but we still weren't sure what to make of the whole thing. We had purple ribbons (the tricolor blue/purple/cream ribbons would come later) pinned to our shirts but no one quite knew what to make of the bombing and what it all meant. The Greater New York Bridge Association, like many bridge units and the ACBL itself, made an extremely generous donation to the memorial fund and the Red Cross relief efforts. They could not possibly have known that just 6 years later Oklahoma's Sooner Unit members would rally to do the same for them in the wake of 9/11. It seems like after a while that tragedies don't affect day-to-day life after a while except for those people who lost a family member or something personal to them. You can't see the Oklahoma City memorial from either I-40 or the Broadway Extension and to be completely honest I drive past the exit signs denoting it all the time without paying much attention to it. I do think, though, that Oklahoma--and many other places--lost a lot of innocence after April 19th. Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
10:35 am	Team I couldn't go to practice with the Panasonic team this week because I was out of town, so Gail ran practice by herself. By the end of the first quarter of the 5-point round, things were totally out of control. Apparently the boys all told her they focused better when I was there because they don't like it when I get on to them. So Gail has appointed me "resident taskmaster and disciplinarian." <makes gurgling noises> Current Mood: confused (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 16th, 2007
11:27 am	Physical therapy sucks. Nuff said. Friggin sadists. Current Mood: sore (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 11th, 2007
11:40 am	Hand It took 8 weeks, I still have a brace for the time being, and I have to start physical therapy on Monday. But I am out of that *#&! @(#!* !(#*! @*$&# cast. Hallelujah. Current Mood: excited (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
11:57 am	Just kidding... I got my cast off but then because things weren't 100% back to normal, they put another one right back on. At least I got an hour to scratch, wash my arm, and get some air into the skin (it looks really gross, and I can only imagine what three more weeks will do to it). Now it's blue (the cast, not my arm). Current Mood: disappointed (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007
11:57 am	Hand My cast comes off tomorrow. Hallelujah. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
9:58 am	Saddest. Country Song. Ever. My little girl met a new friend just the other day On the playground at school between the tires and the swing But she came home with tear-filled eyes And she said to me, "Daddy, Alyssa lies" Well, I just brushed it off at first Cause I didn't know how much my little girl had been hurt Or the things that she had seen I wasn't ready when I said, "You can tell me" And she said Alyssa lies to the classroom Alyssa lies every day at school Alyssa lies to the teachers As she tries to cover every bruise My little girl laid her head down that night to go to sleep As I stepped out of the room I heard her say a prayer so soft and sweet God bless my mom and my dad And my new friend Alyssa, oh I know she needs You bad Because Alyssa lies to the classroom Alyssa lies every day at school Alyssa lies to the teachers As she tries to cover every bruise I had the worst night of sleep in years As I tried to think of ways to calm her fears I knew exactly what I had to do But when we got to school on Monday, I heard the news My little girl asked me why everybody looked so sad The lump in my throat grew bigger with every question that she asked Until I felt the tears run down my face And I told her that Alyssa wouldn't be at school today Cause she doesn't lie in the classroom She doesn't lie any more at school Alyssa lies with Jesus Because there's nothing that anyone would do Tears filled my eyes When my little girl asked me why Alyssa lies Oh daddy, oh daddy, tell me why Alyssa lies Current Music: "Alyssa Lies," Jason Michael Carroll (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
1:01 pm	(Comment on this)
Monday, February 12th, 2007
4:48 pm	Injury Report So Saturday I fell and broke at least one (maybe two; there appears to be a hairline fracture in one of the very small bones near my wrist) bones in my right (writing) hand. Typing is a pain so there may not be a ton of updates. Current Mood: tired (1 Comment |Comment on this)