Oklahoma City's own Big Truck Tacos wins a spot on Food Network's "Great Food Truck Race:

Big Truck Tacos is going national.

The gourmet taqueria owned by Kathryn Mathis, Cally Johnson and Chris Lower won a nationwide online contest, earning them $10,000 and a chance to compete on Food Network's "Great Food Truck Race” next season.

The announcement was made Sunday during the finale of the inaugural season of the show, hosted by Tyler Florence.

The Great Food Truck Race America's Favorite Giveaway was conducted on the cable channel's website. Fans from across the country were allowed to vote up to 10 times a day through Sept. 10.

Have I ever been to Big Truck Tacos? My goodness, no! Big Truck Tacos is hip and trendy. I'm a middle-aged father of two; I don't do hip and trendy. Not my pay grade.

Good for them, though, and all their fans. Good for Oklahoma City, too. Further evidence that we, in fact, rock.

Snow Leopard Kittehs Are Cute!

Awwww!



One of the snow leopard cubs at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

(The photo is from AP. No way could I take a picture like that.)

When The Rain Comes

Yesterday's commute was certainly different:

Storms dropped about 10 inches of rain on at least one part of Oklahoma City on Monday, flooded neighborhoods, closed some interstates, stranded motorists and left some residents clinging to trees and awaiting rescue.

The training storms also led authorities to declare a state of emergency in 59 of Oklahoma's 77 counties.

Officials reported more than 50 rescues of residents and stranded motorists in the Oklahoma City area. The state Health Department reported nearly 140 injuries, but none that required hospitalization. No deaths were reported.

It was raining when I left for work but I had no clue of what was in store. I-35 was jammed up at the I-240 exchange but it usually is. By then, though, I had an idea of what was in store, so I got off and went over to Eastern Avenue and headed north. It was mostly clear in that direction but at the I-40 exchange, traffic began to back up again. I could feel the bridge swaying over the Canadian River - that's where the last dam is and the gates were open wide and river was blasting through in torrents.

I got onto I-40 with the hopes of traveling north faster on I-35 but it was jammed up there as well for no apparent reason. I managed to get off at 10th street and work my way back West back on to Eastern and traveled north again. No trouble on that route until I reached the Springlake Vo-Tech; a creek had overrun its banks there and the crossing was treacherous. Several cars had stalled out but pickup trucks and SUVs were getting through and I did, too, but not without some heavy duty steering wheel gripping.

I continued on without trouble. At the light at I-44, the Deep Fork Creek was just about up to the bottom of the bridge; it wouldn't take much more before the road would be flooded there. I worked my way up to 63rd and then headed west. The traffic began to back up around the Cowboy Hall of Fame - cars were coming off of I-44 at Kelly and then further up 63rd another creek had spilled over and people were turning back so things were tied up for quite a while. When it was my turn, I had little trouble crossing the creek and after that it was clear the rest of the way into work.

I was the second to arrive and as the day wore on the rest of the crew managed to make it in with their own thrilling tales of travel. The rains let up, the waters receded and by the afternoon it looked like the drive home would be a much different story. More rain was predicted so it was wise to head out early.

I was too busy driving and too stupid to think to take my own pictures but these'll give you an idea of how things were:









Click through the link above for more pictures.

Tornadoes!

Tornadoes blew through here last night but for the most part we got through just fine.

Emily was at the high school for band practice and I had to go get her when the weather was a'stirrin' and the sireens were a'wailin'. They had the kids in the safe hall - built after the May 3rd tornado from 10 years ago - and I took her out of a perfectly safe environment and put her in my car and headed home. I call that good parenting. We got caught in the hail and managed to find a drive thru bank awning we could get under before things got too bad. I was worried the windshield would go but it was fine, just a big dent in the hood. After it cleared up, we got home, and the tornadoes were dancing all around us but we were pretty much out of danger by then. Clara's brother, though, and his wife had their front windows blown in, water in the house, shingles torn off, deck damaged, trees downed - you know, the usual. But otherwise unharmed. (They live where they do because they followed a relative who had moved 10 years ago because they'd lost their home in that May 3rd tornado. Yikes!) If you see pictures of the Loves Truck Stop that was destroyed, that's right near where they live.



My office okay. My staff's fine - Terra had texted me and said she was okay but her brother, our intern, saw the tornado touch down in Norman. He was okay, though. The office should be abuzz this morning.

Clara and Rachel managed to get out and scoop up some of the hail on the ground. Not quite the size of canned hams but they'll do some damage:

Here's some of the damage. The hood of my car:

Ouch! Well, we're fine and healthy and if this is the worst we get, we'll manage. Pray for those who lost their lives and sustained real damage.

I.M. Pei OKC: Resurrecting the Model

Some months ago, I made a passing Prior post reference to the destruction of downtown Oklahoma City at the hands of architect I.M. Pei. Now Pei's model of his plans has been resurrected and the revisionist historians have taken over. Did you know that it wasn't Pei's intention to raze many of the fine old buildings that were destroyed to make way for his vision? Nope. Well, okay, maybe not all of those buildings. Just that one and that one and that one over there. Beautiful buildings turned to rubble and dust to be replaced by some of the most painful eyesores you can imagine. So don't blame him. Blame urban renewal. And greedy land developers, according to some paranoid commenters at the site. You know, the usual suspects.

What happened to Oklahoma City happened to many large cities across the United States. Residents fled to the suburbs not because they were duped by developers to leave downtown but because it was preferable to live in the suburbs. And we've never returned. Sure, I admire some of the efforts we're now making to attract residents back downtown but I think, in the long run, it's folly. We're not Manhattan. Never have been. Never will be.

I can't be bothered to plow through the site and learn where Pei is today and what he thinks about how Oklahoma City implemented, or didn't implement his plan. All I know is it seems he high-tailed it out of here out of here after milking us yokels for his fee and was never heard from again. Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe Pei weeps long into the night because his dreams of a Utopian Oklahoma City never came to fruition. But the history of Oklahoma City and its grand buildings speaks for themselves. This exhibit is should serve as a reminder to those who think the new plans that have recently received approval will somehow be different.

It Ain't the Thunder's Night

Dang. The Oklahoma City Thunder lost:

The Los Angeles Lakers are moving on — battered and bruised, but not beaten.

Pau Gasol putback a missed jumper by Kobe Bryant with a half-second left and the defending champion Lakers survived a late comeback effort by Oklahoma City and eliminated the Thunder 95-94 in Game 6 of the first-round playoff series on Friday night.

“This is the playoffs. This is what it’s about,” Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson said. “When you have teams that have won 50 games in the course of a season like this Thunder team did, they have a sense of pride about them. They can play a game that’s obviously not far off of what our mark is or was this season.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. And for a team that's only be in existence two years, not a bad performance at all. Way to go, Thunder.

Home Base for The Flaming Lips Leader and His Wife

Let's dial up the coolness factor for OKC just a notch. Dig this about the cool, cool home of the Flaming Lips' lead singer, Wayne Coyne, and his wife:

Some call it “Wayne Manor.” Others know it as “the Coyne Compound” or simply “that house where that guy from The Flaming Lips lives.” Regardless, Wayne Coyne and his wife, J. Michelle Martin-Coyne, just call it home. The Coynes have lived in their Central Oklahoma City house for nearly two decades. In that time, it has served as their residence, a crash pad for Coyne’s Flaming Lips bandmates and friends, a place to rest and relax after months on the road, a de facto movie set, a rehearsal space and, most recently, an innovative architectural project.

The online article is woefully lacking in photographs - pick up a paper copy of OKC Biz for some really good pictures of the Coynes' house - but I managed to glom onto this:



That's their house in the background. I don't think the mirrored balls are really part of the landscaping but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Panel urges Core to Shore Changes

Remember all those big dreams we had when MAPS3 passed? Great things were a'comin'. And soon.

Okay, maybe not so soon. Fifteen years you thought? Try fifty:

An Urban Land Institute panel reviewing Oklahoma City’s Core to Shore plan warned Friday the project will take 50 years, and not 15 years as anticipated, and advised a proposed boulevard will not be a successful retail corridor.

The panel also concluded Core to Shore office development is unlikely any time soon and a new convention center should be built south of Bricktown, and not across from a planned central park.

Wow, that's a downer. But hardly a surprise. I think it's a wise thing to look at these kinds of projects just like you would if you were renovating your home. Figure out what the time and cost will be and then double it. Why would anyone think a government sponsored project would be executed on time and on budget?

I think the battle is only beginning. When this is finally finished, few of us will be around to witness the results. Results which will look entirely unlike anything that was planned.

Rural Client

I had a business client call me around lunch time this past Wednesday wanting to schedule a time to review her QuickBooks accounting; what I had to say was more than what I could do over the phone and with the direly predicted ice and snow storm approaching, it might be a week or more before I could get out their way. So I dropped what I was doing - I was approaching a stopping point in what I was doing anyway - hopped in my Sequoia, and headed out. My firm's not too big just yet where the principal can just come out on a moment's notice; I like being able to do that and I hope my client's notice the difference.

The client wasn't far - about 25 minutes from my office, via Interstate - and I took care of business quickly and she was happy when I was through. I headed back to the office and I was struck as I often am about how easily you can find yourself in a rural setting here in Oklahoma City without having to travel far at all. The business location is just a couple miles south of the airport but looking around you'd think you were out in far west Oklahoma:

(Those clouds are the ragged shreds of the winter storm coming our way.)
Lonely gravel roads. Grain silos. Farm country.

Minutes later, I'm back in suburban Oklahoma City and then running down the Interstate back to the office. Twenty-five minutes later, I'm back in my chair in front of a computer monitor. The swift change of settings is a little disorienting.

I haven't been to a lot of cities but I imagine that Oklahoma City is one of the places where this kind of thing is becoming quite rare. Soon we'll be like all of the other big cities - we've been saying that for years and years and some day it'll be true - but for now, we're not. There are still some things that make us unique. Let's count our blessings before we become just like every other place.

Oklahoma City Ranks in "100 Best Places to Work” with three high-ranking businesses | NewsOK.com

You don't need me to tell you what a great place Oklahoma city is to work. Fortune magazine will tell you:

Fortune magazine’s latest "100 Best Places to Work” list provides more evidence that Oklahoma City has joined the ranks of big-league cities.

Fortune magazine’s latest "100 Best Places to Work” list provides more evidence that Oklahoma City has joined the ranks of big-league cities.

A glaring omission from the list of best places to work: Peter Terranova CPA.

Looks like I'm gonna have to have a little talk with the staff about this. That special, quiet time we share in the morning when I'm chaining them to their desks would be perfect.

Oklahoma County Quakes, Shakes, Rattles, Rolls

Didn't feel it but the occurence is so noted:

Two Friday morning earthquakes centered in Jones are believed stronger than any that have hit Oklahoma County before, but geologists said the current swarm of activity is no cause for alarm.

Geologists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey reported a magnitude-4 earthquake at 9:18 a.m. Friday with an epicenter three miles northeast of Jones — the strongest earthquake to hit the state since a magnitude-4.2 earthquake was recorded in 1998 in Comanche County.

A second earthquake, recorded at 9:27 a.m. about a mile northeast of Jones, measured a magnitude of 3.8.

Both quakes could be felt as far away as Tulsa and Stillwater, but several people said the second quake felt stronger.

Tornadoes, blizzards, teeth-cracking cold, searing heat, earthquakes. You can have it all in Oklahoma!

Crossroads Mall and More Memories

Waldenbooks is pulling out of two locations here in Oklahoma City so they've marked everything on sale. I went to the closest one at Crossroads Mall - here's my earlier post about the mall and what it means to me - but going there I knew I was running the risk of a flood of memories coming back. Good memories to be sure but memories made sad because of the demise of the mall.

It was a on overcast, chilly day, with mounds of plowed snow and ice piled up around the parking lot. Even on a sparkling clear day it would have been difficult to fill up the lot, I'm afraid. But you can tell not a lot of people are just flat out uninterested in coming here anymore:

Waldenbooks is one of the few national chain stores still stubbornly hanging on. Not for long, I'm afraid:

I browsed for a few minutes but was summonsed home for a change of plans. Before I left, I took a quick stroll through the mall. I had my iPhone with me so what better chance than now to make some kind of document of the place?

Well, I could take pictures all day long of empty, closed stores in the gloom. If I'm going to do that, I might as well take pictures of places that mean something. Here's the store front of the old Tops and Trousers.

Finding anything on the Internet about that old clothing chain is beyond my Google skills but maybe you'll have better luck. But Tops and Trousers was a hip clothing store of its time, sort of like Buckle but not quite as cutting edge. This is the store where Clara and I met; she was an assistant-manager and I was a post-Christmas, part-time hire having left a several year career in fast food at A&W Drive In. Tops and Trousers had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Clara was helping them wind things down. It wasn't long before we started dating and, well, the rest as they say, is history. Tops and Trousers would fold long before the demise of Crossroads Mall and stores would come and go in this location but sometimes, when we found ourselves in the mall, we'd stroll by and remember how it began for us.

Once Tops and Trousers went out of business, Clara found a reservation position with Hertz and I moved across the mall to the National Shirt Shop store, which was similar but different from Tops and Trousers. It, too, would pull out, before Crossroads started its long slide to obscurity, but this is where it used to be:

The only thing I can find about National Shirt Shop on the 'net is a possible location in Chicago. Again, I was hired as part-time sales help during college but for the summer break I worked full-time as an assistant manager. One evening during my last Fall there, after having bumped back down to part-time sales, I was talking with the new assistant manager hire. Some young, slick guy, full of stories, one of which he was weaving for me when the Oklahoma City Police came in and placed him under arrest. Something about an outstanding warrant for auto theft in another state. They cuffed him and led him out, leaving me on my own, speechless. Well, my assistant-manager skills kicked in and I called the regional manager, Jim Goins, who was a great guy, told him what happened, and agreed to look after things until he could make it to town in the next day or two. (Jean Chronister, the manager, was on a well-deserved vacation.) Jim came in as promised, took over, and we had quite a tale to tell Jean when she got back.

I'd finish out my part-time working career there at National Shirt Shop until I graduated from college and my employment at Crossroads Mall would come to an end. But, like I said in my previous Crossroads post, that wouldn't be the end of our times at the mall.

Rachel was born in January so the mall was a good place to take her for an outing when she was a baby. When she grew to be a toddler, she and I spent a lot of time in the center court waiting while Clara shopped. There was a fountain then and steps that led to a stage-like area, and you could spend a lot of time there amusing a toddler.

Those things are gone now. The flying ramp was dismantled and replaced by an elevator. Probably a good thing but let me tell you, it could be a lot of fun for toddler to run down a long ramp unimpeded. Looks like Crossroads managed to have some sort of a Santa station during the holiday so some childhood memories were still being made this year:

The stage and steps where we played were taken out and replaced by a carousel. No, not our memories but someone else's. Some day someone may reminisce about the thrilling times they rode it. I hope so.

That's about all the time I had for the mall that day and it was enough. It's still full of the phantoms of our prior lives but visible only to me. Our lives have moved on and, sadly, it looks like the rest of the world has moved on from Crossroads as well.

Who knows what's in store for this fine old mall? It's in dire need of a face lift and the work needed may be too extensive to justify; a razing may be in order and, if so, that would be too bad. It's still a great location and though the neighborhood around the mall has decayed, those kinds of things are temporary. Maybe the mall will have a re-birth. And maybe this is the last of it.

Either way, I managed to get a few pictures. The memories were always there.

Oklahoma Charity Sues Ex-chief, Claiming Porn, Bribes

Yikes. Looks like Feed the Children brought a gun to a knife fight:

Larry Jones took bribes and hid hard-core porn magazines at the charity, Feed The Children is alleging in a countersuit against its fired president.

The charity also is accusing Jones in the civil case of other misdeeds, including misspending charity funds, pocketing travel money, keeping gifts from appearances and misusing a charity employee as a nanny.

Jones, 69, denied wrongdoing.

These are all allegations, of course, so Jones isn't guilty of anything. Though this kind of response isn't helpful:

He specifically said the alleged bribes were above-board payments to him and that the magazines were research for a new novel, "The Zipper Disease,” about AIDS in Africa.

So it's not that these actions didn't occur; it's that the interpretation of these actions that make them so nefarious.

Sigh.

I admire Feed the Children's work. Larry Jones is responsible for much of its success over the last 30 years. They're a prime example of how a charitable organization can provide services to people in need far better than the government can. But I wonder how it will be able to survive this kind of scandal. I hope it can.

Best U.S. Made-Over Towns Worth a Visit

Who made Yahoo Travel's list of best made-over towns worth a visit? Oklahoma City did!

Set where the state’s eastern green Ozark leftovers open into the wide-open plains of the west, Oklahoma City is justifying the claim that it’s "oh so pretty" from the Bobby Troup song "Route 66." Long the dusty cow town at the point where old Route 66 crisscrosses with I-40, I-44 and I-35, the city has passed a one-penny sales tax to pretty itself up. The change so far has been stunning. Its long-domeless capitol finally got its top, its central river finally has water (and sculler rallies in stylish new boathouses), and its downtown has transformed from a mass exodus scene at 5 p.m. to an after-hours destination. Here you’ll find the NBA’s Thunder playing at the new Ford Center, rooftop cocktails and independent films at the relocated Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and Bricktown’s San Antonio-styled canal passing a minor league ballpark, barbecue restaurants and Flaming Lips Alley, named for the local rock heroes. Those needing something beyond the usual meat-and-potato go for authentic Vietnamese pho (beef noodle soup) or banh mi (sandwiches, filled with tofu or pork) in the in-progress renovation of "Asian District" – centered on old Route 66 at NW 23rd St and Classen Ave.

MAPS3 is already paying off.

(Hey, I've blogged about the independent films at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Hipster!)

Good for us. Next time you're out this way, stop by. You won't be disappointed.

Great Cities and Mass Transportation

Althouse gets the ball rolling and her spirited commenters take over about this post which links to this column about the bamboozledry of mass transit.

It's too late now, of course, but what strikes me about the above links and commenters is that the same arguments seem to be trotted out in whatever city deems it desperately necessary to have mass transit. And how those promises never seem to materialize. I'm afraid that those people who put mass transit on the top of their shopping list for the new MAPS3 projects have been sold a bill of goods.

Yeah, yeah, mass transit works well in a lot of big cities; I've been to Washington only twice in my lifetime and I find the Metro endlessly pleasing to ride. But for a lot of other big cities mass transit doesn't work and it won't work here, either. We're not limited by geography - we're not an island or otherwise hemmed in by natural borders - and we're free to expand as we need to. Which is really the crux of the argument, isn't it? Freedom. By relying on mass transit to get us around, we're giving up the freedom to decide how and when we'll get to wherever it is we're going. We let the government decide for us.

MAPS3 Passes

And by a pretty good margin:

Hoping to continue Oklahoma City’s renaissance, voters on Tuesday passed a far-reaching MAPS 3 initiative aimed at continuing citywide progress that began with the first MAPS in 1993.

"Oklahoma City’s golden age continues,” Mayor Mick Cornett said at a watch party for the Yes for MAPS campaign as red, white and blue confetti blasted into the air. "Let’s enjoy this. Let’s take stock of who we are and keep in mind we’re creating a city our kids and our grandkids are going to be proud of for generations to come.”

The penny sales tax that will pay for the $777 million package passed with more than 54 percent of the vote with all precincts reporting.

Voter turnout was about 31 percent, about twice as high as a typical city election, said Doug Sanderson, Oklahoma County Election Board secretary.

The final vote was 40,956 yes, 34,465 no.

Though some quick math with these numbers and those from the pro and con groups public filings will tell you the anti-MAPS forces were about as twice as efficient with their resources as the pro-MAPS forces. Also, I doubt anti-MAPS watch parties were "dining on upscale foods and vast selections of artisan breads, cheeses, meats and fresh vegetables" like the pro-MAPS watch parties were. Not that I'm trying to start a class war here or anything but this detail fits in nicely with my earlier David vs. Goliath theme. This time, Goliath won.

You've got to hand it to the pro-MAPS people. They got their message out there with a carefully planned campaign and what they were selling was irresistible: bright shiny new projects painlessly paid for by a sales tax that's already in place. Now they'll have to keep their promises and there's no reason to think they can't; it's only a matter of will.

For the anti-MAPS forces, now's the time for gracious losing. They had their chance and the people decided. If nothing else, they should be grateful for that. I know I am.

Vote!

No matter your stance on the MAPS3 issue, get out there and vote and unleash the power of the free exchange of ideas in the marketplace.

But for those of you with a short memory about Oklahoma City, you might consider that whatever complaints you might have with this City, we're here today with no one to blame but ourselves. And Mr. I. M. Pei. (Scroll down for Pei's Central Business District Project, planning of which was completed in 1966. Razing of many historical and lovely downtown buildings commenced soon thereafter for a project that, well, is it complete or not?)

And for those of you who might think these new MAPS3 projects will materialize within the next few years (Yes, yes, I know, the original MAPS projects happened remarkably quick. Remember, though: past performance is no guarantee of the future.) the lovely Myriad Gardens (A post about our recent visit coming soon!) was part of Mr. Pei's plan. Let's see, planning completed in 1966, work commenced in 1970, the Gardens opened in 1988. Why that's only 22 years in the making!

Oh, and one of Mr. Pei's most famous designs is now having a little trouble. If you can call an $85 million repair job little:

In the summer of 2005, National Gallery of Art personnel and a consulting engineer were chasing down a leak on a roof terrace atop the gallery's marble-clad, I.M. Pei-designed East Building. Suddenly the beginnings of what would turn out to be a far more serious problem caught someone's eye. One or two of the 2-by-5, 438-pound marble panels on the building's main air shaft were tilting out.

At first, gallery officials believed the problem was localized, caused by the freezing of water lodged on the shaft's deteriorated asphalt lining. But tilted panels soon started cropping up on different parts of the building. To date, the displacement of some 400 of the East Building's 16,200 exterior panels—about 2.5% of the total—has been observed. That may seem a small amount. But because this is a public venue, and because "we can't model or predict the rate of failure," says Susan Wertheim, the gallery's deputy administrator for capital projects, National Gallery officials decided in 2008 to reinstall all of the panels. They plan on hiring a contractor to oversee the project next year.

Sometimes you get what you ask for.

The Battle for MAPS3

The battle for the minds and hearts of Oklahoma City voters rages between the supporters of MAPS3 and its detractors. Every day we receive slick mailers from its supporters and now they've started with the automated phone calls. The detractors: not so much. Besides yard signs we've seen in the neighborhood, we've received a door hanger. The detractors are poor but scrappy.

It's really shaping up into a David and Goliath kind of story, with big corporate interests on the one side and public safety unions on the other. The closer we get to election day - this Tuesday - the tighter things will ratchet up. If nothing else, it'll be fun to see how it all plays out.

More MAPS and Bicycling Trails

Following up to yesterday's post about MAPS and bicycling trails, we saw what we've been seeing every day on our ride in to work: a perfectly good, and paved, bicycle trail that runs through the median at Grand Boulevard. Amazing the things you can see when you look for them. Didn't quite look like a $700,000 per mile kind of paving job but it was nice.

Still, I was curious about where the route went when it headed north. The linked map is a little vague - it definitely isn't Walker since that's the route we take and there's not a bike trail to be had along that street. I checked Google Maps street view and moved over a block - ah, here we are, it's Harvey. Pan up or down a bit if the sign isn't visible but you'll see what I'm talking about.


View Larger Map

No, you can't read it but it's the universal yellow sign telling you that the street is the actual bike trail; the sign below it reminds drivers to share the road.

Well, I call that a little less than honest. When I'm promised a bicycle trail at $700,000 per mile, I'm thinking of something paved, not a sign thrown up next to a sleepy street.

Right, right, things were different with the prior MAPS; this time it'll be different. This time they'll come through on their promises. No fudging here. Why? Because they're, well, different. Trust them on this. The $700 million that'll be raised will go exactly where the promised. No lonely little sign on Harvey declaring it a bike trail. No sir. That was just a one time thing.

Sheesh.

Don't get me started on the mass-transit thing. (Oh, okay, here's a link to Reason's James Delong's article that most Conservatives cite when pooh-poohing mass transit. Still seems relevant. Google mass transit myth debunking and you'll get lots of articles insisting what Delong claims is untrue. But those pro-mass-transit articles make the same arguments the pro-MAPS people do about mass-transit here. Eerie. You don't think they're reading from the same play book, do you? Anyway, change your Google criteria slightly and you'll get plenty of articles detailing the promises of mass-transit that were never delivered once the kajillions were spent to put it in place. Oh, but I said don't get me started on this. So don't.)

False Alarm on OKC Biz

Yesterday's site change at OKC Biz must've been a temporary hiccup; things appear back to normal over there. Back to free content. Good deal.