"Roll Call" - Introduce yourself

[Pete]

Awesome! Congratulations on your Central Avenue Villas purchase.

[s00nr1]

I guess I've held out long enough so here goes:

My name is Lance and I'm a proud born-and-bred OKC'er (Mercy Hospital, c.1984). I spent a few years in D/FW (1994-2002) before moving back to Norman and earning my degree from OU in 2007. My wife and I just recently moved to Moore from southeast Norman and couldn't be happier. Being only 15 minutes from downtown now as opposed to 35+ has made us much more frequent visitors of my favorite part of the city. Considering I grew up with a very depressed downtown (and OKC in general) it has been exciting to see the growth the past few years and being a frequent user of OKCTalk certainly keeps my excitement at a fever pitch (on most days, haha). I am a golf professional at one of the metro's finest courses and work for TaylorMade Golf as well. If you have any golf questions, don't hesitate to shoot them my way! I look forward to what the future holds for this site, OKC, and the new OKC'ers I will meet along the way.

Kind regards. :smiley051

[Pete]

Hope you'll post more often, Lance.

Welcome!

[OKCbrew]

Yo! I've lurked on this forum for a long time (almost 3 years apparently) and have never posted but check almost daily.

I live in Norman, work in OKC doing art/design stuff, I'm a craft beer nut (obviously) and have a great love for what I find to be our simultaneously wonderful and infuriating metro!

I'm amazed at the amount of information that can be found on this forum. I find it intimidating sometimes because my own awareness of local affairs is relatively recent and I struggle to comprehend the positions of some of the more informed folks here, much less form an opinion of my own. But I do know I love my OKC and my Norman and this forum helps me to stay informed so I can brag whenever I leave town! So, thanks for being OKC Talk!

[Pete]

Welcome to the world of posters, OKCBrew! Glad to have you.

[Slicker]

My name is Chase and I'm from Oklahoma City originally. I recently moved back to the metro from Michigan (Traverse City) to attend OU. I feel inclined to admit, like so many other introductory user posts, I have been lurking and keeping up with projects for over a year, and have finally mustered up the courage to start posting. Looking forward to it y'all

[Mississippi Blues]

Hey everyone, my name is Myles and I am 18 years old and proud to say I was born and raised in Oklahoma City outside of a few short and long stints in the Yazoo City, MS area. I am a senior at a smaller private school called Trinity School on 36th and Classen and have also attended Putnam City Original my freshman year and John Marshall my sophomore and about 1/4 of my junior year.

My username comes from me being big on blues and jazz as those are two big time music styles in Mississippi which is where all of my family is from, so I've embraced those styles of music. Most of my family is located in the central Mississippi area, mainly within an hours drive from Jackson but have an Aunt and Uncle in the Tupelo area as well as two cousins in the Tunica/Memphis area and even a few down on the coast. That's where "Mississippi Blues" came from.

I am enthralled with developments, both urban and suburban. My dream is to be a city planner of sorts and maybe even look into developing something of my own if everything goes in a positive manner. I like to say I am an advocate of the "new urbanism" movement although I do not know its history and origin. I love OKCTalk and everything it has to offer. I love being able to get on here and know what's going on in the city with just a click of a button. I have followed OKCTalk for quite sometime and keep up with most of the happenings. I am excited by the talk of a new tower in the works for downtown as well as what is going on down on the Oklahoma River, among many other things. The future is bright for OKC I believe and I'm beyond excited to be a part of the future here!!

[Pete]

Welcome Myles!

Love to see young people that are interested in OKC and city planning / development in general.

Hope you'll post frequently.

[AP]

Hey everyone!
My name is Andrew. I'm originally from the east side of the state, currently live in Stillwater after graduating from OSU. Right now commute to OKC every day for work. Planning to move here very soon. I've read the forum for a while and just decided to start posting. Looking forward to continuing to get great info from everyone here!

[Pete]

Welcome Andrew!

Always love to welcome former lurkers.

[dankrutka]

Hey, everyone! I've been posting here for a while under the name "KilgoreTrout," a tribute to Kurt Vonnegut. I little bit inspired by Sid's positive and constructive presence on the forum I decided to use my real name. I believe this will cause me to be a more responsible and thoughtful poster (there are definitely posts I regret). Social networks like this can be a great place for advancing common good and posting under a pseudonym makes it more difficult to connect with others. Just thought I'd share the reason for my name change.

I am a native Tulsan who moved to Norman to attend OU in 2000. I lived in midtown OKC for only a year, but fell in love with the area and its potential. I definitely consider myself an urbanist and I love living in walkable, dynamic areas. I previously taught high school social studies at Westmoore High School before finishing my PhD and moving on to Wichita State University. No matter where I live Oklahoma will always be home.

[GeoGlyphics]

Hello OKCTalk

I've been reading posts here for over two years but have never signed up. Time to finally jump into the fray.

A quick bit about myself, I have been living in Oklahoma for two years. Prior to that, I lived in SoCal working for a GIS software company for two years after finishing college from LSU. I'm originally from Baton Rouge and am a die-hard LSU fan and Cajun to the core. I love Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, dark humor, and all things groovy.

I can usually be found somewhere around Midtown. I live in The Cline on 10th and Harvey and am writing to you now from the 2nd floor of McNellies. Midtown is my favorite place in Oklahoma City and I'm blessed to have done my GIS research in picking my relocation from California to this district of the city. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm engrossed by all things Midtown. You'll likely see me post a great deal of content specifically on Midtown news, development, community, organizations, business, individuals, and things in general.

I will be logging some ideas for Midtown development (some apply city-wide) on Neighborland.com. If you're into Midtown or civic engagement, please join up and post your ideas too.

You can find me on Twitter rambling in 140-char snippets about this and that.

Looking forward to talking it up with you all. See you guys in the forums!

Best,

Matt

[dankrutka]

Welcome, Matt, and its always good to have another Walking Dead fan. Maybe we can get that thread jumping next season.

[GeoGlyphics]

Thanks Sid. I'm really excited to see what OKC Gov and non-profits utilize out of the blossoming Civ-Tech industry. Open data, open planning, civic engagement apps, etc. Glad to know that you're working this in OKC.

I used to sell GIS software to local and state government in the Pacific Northwest and know how powerful gov2.0 initiatives can be. For example, Portland's Tri-Met has such an awesome open data structure that anyone can use their data and build Apps with it. The result from their open data policy is now the entire city benefits from really creative, useful Apps that anyone can download. I know that saved the city from having to pay a lot of money to have those built internally. (TriMet: App Center - Transit Tools for the Web and Mobile Devices) I'm wondering if they ever finish the street-car system in OKC if our Gov will be as open as Portland's Tri-Met with their data.

[GeoGlyphics]

Thanks Dan. Walking Dead Thread - I'm for it. I'll stay tuned.

McNellie's used to put Walking Dead on their TV's every Sunday.

[adaniel]

Good to see another Midtowner on here...welcome to the neighborhood.

[GeoGlyphics]

I've been having this conversation here for a while. We should catch up. The quick and dirty answer is we are getting it. The AVLs that are on the buses now are collecting the data and the vendor will be providing a GTFS feed. Let's grab coffee.

Sounds good. I'm for it Sid. I'm tinkering with some GIS data from the tax assessor right now.

[pkirk]

Hello all!

Long time lurker. First time my poster. My name is Patrick. I've lived in OKC all my life. I'm a filmmaker and new business owner. I'm one of those who always thought he'd have to move away to have a film and video career. However, there always seemed to be just enough work in film and video to keep me around. With the growth of the industry-despite the film incentive going down-and the overall economic success of the city in general, I no longer feel like I need to move. I can stay here and do great.

A shameless plug for my work can be found here: patrickkirk.com. A shameless plug for my new venture can be found here: indianheadpictures.com.

Staying involved and keeping tabs on what is going on with the future of the city is of great interest to me. I'm especially optimistic about Film Row and the Farmer's Market districts. I hope move my company to Film Row as soon as possible.

So, that's me. Look forward to interacting with all of you!

[bradh]

I never ventured over here when I started posting more, so here it goes.

My name is Brad and my family has been here about 4-1/2 years. I was transferred up here for my job from the mid-cities down in DFW, but I'm originally from a suburb in west Houston. As posted previously, due to my wife's previous job at the chamber, we were immersed in OKC from day one, which absolutely helped us get accustomed and acquainted with the local culture, mindset, and direction. The things I see right about here are the things I saw wrong in previous stops (Houston, Phoenix, and DFW). There, the cities were so big that they felt they could just snap their fingers to get employers, entertainers, etc to come to their knees to beg them to allow them to move to the city (and in Dallas' case, make fools of themselves and lose the Cowboys' stadium to Arlington). What I saw here from the get go, and during my wife's work on the MAPS 3 campaign, was a city that knew they had to work just a little bit harder than the next to get the attention, and for the most part, did, and it worked (and in my opinion is still working).

I work in the civil infrastructure field, mainly focusing on water/sewer/storm treatment and transmission. I know there are a few lurkers on here who know me, so what's up fellas

[Gene]

Hello. My name is Gene... true facts.

I'm about 33 years old. I grew up in Edmond, but moved to OKC when I was 18. I have a cottage west of the Plaza District by the Jimmy's Egg on May. My office and family are in Edmond, so I still go there a lot. Every summer I talk about moving somewhere cold, but before I can put my house on the market the heatwave ends and things go back to bearable. I do tend to romanticize Oklahoma. My father's family are farmers in W. OK, and they've been here since the land run and stayed through the dust bowl. I like the food and the relaxed atmosphere in OKC. I've traveled a bit, and though I've found places I want to live, it seems I'd be giving that up.

I can't remember what exactly brought me to this forum, but I ended up coming back from time to time. I'm seeing a lot of threads I want to post in, so I signed up. Looking forward to talking with you guys, but I can tell you up front I'm not going to get roped into political or religious topics.

[OkieStar]

Hey there! I'm Jill Brown DeLozier, Marketing Director for Downtown Oklahoma City, Inc. I'm excited to "officially" join the conversation after reading for years. Although I wasn't born here, I've lived in OKC since I was 3 months old, so I call myself a native. I've been at DOKC since July of 2011, and I can't wait to start sharing and learning more on OKCTalk. (And not surprisingly, the Spokies Bike Share convo inspired my first post.)

[BronchoSilverback]

Hi, my name is BronchoSilverback and I'm an al--umm...wrong forum.

I live in Edgemere Park (since Spring 2000) but commute to Edmond and enjoy my daily smirking at the morning southbound 235 traffic jams. I'm from Columbus, Ohio originally, am an academic, and thus have no useful skills. I found the site looking for info about the new downtown school.

Fun fact: A few months after my wife and I moved to tornado alley, her former office in Circleville, OH got hit by a tornado during work hours.

I consider myself an Okie now although my persistent upper-Midwestern accent betrays me and I am always asked, "So, are you from this area?" I really enjoy the historic areas and the revitalization of the center city since I moved here has been both amazing and exciting.

[daddycaddy]

My name is Kevin, I live in Moore. I work for IBM here in OK. I am 37 with a 10 years old daughter who I am raising by myself. We both play golf. She is better than me.

[KenRagsdale]

I have followed this site for a few years and decided register this week. My wife and I have lived in near north Historic Preservation neighborhoods since the late 70's. We've owned a business brokerage office in Oklahoma City for more than three decades. In addition, my spouse and son market health care systems to the medical community in a separate business. My daughter, son-in-law and grandson live in Texas. I may be able to provide insight into certain small business questions, as well as those involving the inner city.

[Pete]

Welcome Ken!