Watch with shock n awe, as the top Baristas from Green Country’s best cafés compete until one drops from a caffeine overdose. Not really, but you can catch the aromas, tastes and talent as Baristas challenge each other in a coffee contest that is a first for Tulsa and hosted by Café Topéca. Proprietor of
Café Topéca, John Gaberino III (Chip) says, “This will be an interactional event.” “Our (coffee) culture is at the right time for this (type of event)”.

So what is a “Barista”? A “barista” is a person who is a expertise in the making a espresso-based coffee drink. You know how cool those “art forms” on the top of the crème of your latte are and how quick you like your tasty beverage to be in your hands. Now is your chance to see artists at work during a day long competition against the best in Oklahoma right here in your own T-town.

The competition will be taken on by one representative from each participating café. They will get 10 minutes to perfect a espresso, cappuccino, and a personal “signature” drink (in the epitome of the Iron Chef”) for two USBC certified sensorial judges using manual grounding, dosing and tamping of the coffee beans. How serious is this? Besides the 2 sensory judges (one flying in from Nashville),
there will be 1 Technical judge and 1 head judge in the mix. The two sensory judges will judge
timeliness, consistency, cleanliness, quality, taste and presentation. 1st place gets $100, 1/2
day roasting class on a Detrich IR-12 Roaster., 2nd place-$50, 3rd place-$25 and 4th place a
can of Folders.

Participating cafés will be: Jews Coffee & Health, Coffee House on 15th Street, Café Topeca, DoubleShot, Shades of Brown, and Coffee Slingers.

All the details

Where Café Topéca, 115 West 5th Street (south-east side of the historic Mayo Hotel)
When Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 10:00AM

Just arrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Tulsa is the second largest city in Oklahoma, falling just behind Oklahoma City, and is currently the forty-sixth largest city in America. Tulsa used to house the world’s most important oil centers, which was why it was once nicknamed, “Oil Capital of the World.” Tulsa may have lost its number one spot, but it still is a very important oil-based headquarters in the country.

Some of the other nicknames this city has adorned includes, “America’s Most Beautiful City” as well as “Green Country.” No matter what you call this city, there is one thing that is for sure - it has some really amazing hotels. Although there are a lot of hotels in Tulsa, Oklahoma; I have reviewed a few that would be wonderful to stay in.

Regardless if this stay in Tulsa is for yourself, or perhaps one of your family members that is visiting. ThisTulsa.com has the insiders guide to hotels.

Radisson Hotel, South - Tulsa, Oklahoma

The first hotel in which I reviewed is the Radisson Hotel Tulsa. This three-and-a-half-star-hotel is located only ten miles southeast of downtown Tulsa, and this hotel is centrally located to all major highways - making this hotel a favorite among driving travelers and business travelers.

Some of the various amenities this hotel offers its guests includes 24-hour complimentary shuttle service to the Tulsa International Airport. There is also a lobby workstation, which features a computer with complimentary high-speed Internet access, there is also complimentary wireless Internet access available in the lobby.

There is also a fitness center, sauna, spa tub, and a large indoor/outdoor swimming pool. This hotel is comprised of 325 guestrooms, all of which include complimentary high-speed Internet access, complimentary premium television channels, as well as during the week, the hotel offers its guests complimentary newspapers.

Mariott Tulsa - Southern Hills, Tulsa, Oklahoma

The second hotel in which I checked into is the Marriott Tulsa Southern Hills. This three-and-a-half-star-hotel is located in South Tulsa, which is only ten miles from downtown, and is only one mile from the Oral Roberts University campus. Some of the various amenities this hotel offers its guests includes an on-site day spa, hair salon, indoor swimming pool, sauna, fitness center, as well as 43,000-square-feet meeting space.

There is also complimentary wireless Internet access available in all public spaces. This hotel is comprised of 383 guestrooms, all of which include complimentary high-speed Internet access, complimentary premium TV channels, as well as phones with voicemail.

Hilton - Southern Hills - Tulsa, Oklahoma

And the last hotel in which I reviewed is the Hilton Tulsa Southern Hills. This three-and-a-half-star-hotel is only twenty miles from the Tulsa International Airport, and it is within close proximity to the Oral Roberts University campus and the Mabee Center. Some of the various amenities this hotel offers its guests includes an outdoor swimming pool, fitness center, and banquet facilities. There is also a computer rentals and photocopy and fax machines available.

Also, there is complimentary wireless Internet access in all public areas. This hotel is comprised of 293 guestrooms, all of which come with multi-line phones with voicemail, coffeemakers, Internet access, which is available for a surcharge.

HOTEL CONTACT INFORMATION:

Hilton Tulsa Southern Hills
7902 South Lewis Avenue
Tulsa, OK 74136

Marriott Tulsa Southern Hills
1902 East 71st Street
Tulsa, OK 74136

Radisson Hotel Tulsa
10918 East 41st Street
Tulsa, OK 74146

Tucked away just west of Peoria towards Madison and directly south of Sixth (6th Street) street, lies a hidden beauty of Tulsa, Oklahoma. During our recent exploration of Tulsa Centennial Park we were left with the impression that the park is pretty much completed. There does not appear to be much of anything left unfinished in the parks beautiful 11 acres of lush greens, water, and stone walls. The park has a wonderful view of the downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma skyline: Mid continent Tower, Atlas Life Building, Philtower, OneOK, Bank of America Building, The Kennedy Tower, BOK Tower, and City Hall. The skyline is meshed between the 75-N/75-S to 51-Eastbound (Broken Arrow Expressway) and 244-E/W.

While we were there we saw a bit of wildlife: squirrels, rabbits, birds, and a variety of insects. The park is wrapped with a quarter mile walking trail, lush greenery that is contrasted with the large stone walls, water falls, fountains, and numerous benches to rest on.

There is a variety of photographs we took throughout the evening we explored. Amanda brought her rottweiler Joey to join in on the adventures and allowed her to run freely around the park. The grass was of great height to just kick back and enjoy and other individuals in the park didn’t seem to mind the dogs roaming. Granted there were no dogs randomly roaming — but more or less sitting with their owners enjoying the park just as much.

The walk ways were clear of debris and the ponds free from pesky mosquitoes! The only eye-sore to the whole project was the large amount of garbage collecting near the edges of the ponds. The clean-up process wouldn’t be too difficult; just a matter of keeping it under control.

I must say, the park was beautiful in the day time hours and even more beautiful at night. The park began to illuminate from the lamps strategically placed around the paths. It is near the VFW on 6th Street which has a old neon sign that shines brightly against the greenery of the park. If you have not seen the park at night — go sometime soon!

Tulsa Centennial Park Features and Highlights

• 11.6 acres
• Designated parking with handicap spaces
• Centennial time capsule, scheduled to be unearthed in the year 2048, includes items such as a protype of the 1998 Plymouth Prowler, a City of Tulsa Financial Report, student essays on what Tulsa will be like in the year 2048 and Tulsa restaurant menus.
• Playground area with, shelter, spray pool, big toy, swing with 2 sling seats
• .4 mile walking trail
• Ornate park benches
• Picnic tables with grills
• Lots of trash cans
• Lots of tree shaded areas

Remembering the construction, before and after:

All in all, downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma can be proud of Tulsa’s Centennial Park as an addition to its growing list of parks and recreational facilities. The City of Tulsa is really doing a wonderful job opening up new parks and managing the large list of existing parks. Kudos to Kathy Taylor and everyone involved in helping keep Tulsa a thriving and beautiful place to live!

Last weekend is likely to be remembered as one of the most rocking weekends presented to our community. Friday afternoon, I stopped by the Dfest media tent to pick-up our staff writers’ press badges and related materials. Later, we arrived downtown to begin capturing the moments from some extremely marvelous bands.

The night immediately began with a killer performance by Paramore; however, we missed the amazing show (so-we-heard) from Danelle Phillips’s band Congress of a Crow. Although we missed Congress of a Crow’s performance, we did not miss the opportunity to socially network and have a chat with Danelle Phillips, their lead singer. We even persuaded her to throw up the 918, in support of both our website and the local community she represents. “Thank you so much!” she exclaimed as we presented her with a memory card for her digital camera so she could capture the moments herself.

Given the opportunity to sit backstage and converse with the bands and the other members of press was more than a great experience; it was an opportunity for us to show our wealth to the community. Even something small and generous like giving away AA batteries to a random fan backstage of Paramore or giving Danelle a memory card was our chance to be positive. This feeling was more than reciprocated throughout the event. All of the bands were generous with their time and words.

The All American Rejects blasted fans away with a pretty long performance with all their current and previous hits. We met a few great fans and captured some pretty sick shots of the group. Throughout the night we continued to snap photos, take names, and try to mentally note the performances and performers. We did a pretty decent job, from talking to Doug, a 12 year old fan who was leaning against the railing jamming out to “Move Along,” to four random guys we met while picking up refreshments.

Meeting up with Anthony a.k.a. PDA Friday night and being personally invited to his show Saturday at the Blank Slate stage was a great feeling. He has read our website (thistulsa.com) before and was more than supportive of our small-time publication here. Friday night ended with a small party at Brad’s house with some friends and family of PDA and ourselves.

We continued to rock out Dfest Saturday with Sworn Against, PDA, The Roots, Zappa Plays Zappa, Colourmusic, and the crowds backstage.

The parties were great, crowds polite, people awesome, performers excellent, and overall left a definite hole after it was said and done. More about each individual band and their performance soon!

As a little girl I was not the type to walk around with a lace tablecloth around my head and pretend to walk down the aisle. I very rarely dreamed about my wedding day and what everything would be like, and even after being engaged for over a month I have only purchased one bridal magazine in my life. Going into wedding planning, for someone like me who had no idea what she wanted, was a little intimidating. I had no idea what venues were available (let alone which ones were good), where to start my cake search, or even where more than one bridal shop was for me to start looking at dresses. I have lived in Tulsa my whole life, but I simply have not paid attention to these things until lately. The great thing is that Tulsa is a wonderful place to plan a wedding, and after searching websites and calling a few places most of my wedding is already planned. Tulsa is full of great resources if you just open your eyes to look for them.

The first thing I did (which I believe set the tone for the entire planning process) was visit RealSimple.com and download their wedding planning checklist. This checklist is amazing, and goes through everything you would otherwise forget to think of. They break down how much you should spend on various aspects of the day based on your overall budget, give you a month-by-month checklist of what needs to get done, and give you all kinds of helpful tools like an alcohol purchasing chart and a photography checklist. I love lists, and this website really hit me in the right spot.

There are plenty of wedding planning websites designed specifically for those planning Tulsa weddings, but I couldn’t find one that met all of my needs. I simply Googled things like “wedding venues in Tulsa”, and “Tulsa caterers” and lists and lists of options came up. So far I’ve encountered some great people and some not so helpful people along the way, but I’ve found that most people in Tulsa truly want my wedding day to be great, and they want to help in whatever way they can.

The first big obstacle was to find the venue. This was a little difficult for me because my finance’ and I wanted our wedding and reception to be at the same site. For those of you who are like us and want your entire shindig to be at one venue, it can be rather difficult to find places that are big enough to accommodate more than 120 people. We actually were lucky since that is exactly the number we are inviting. Here were my favorite places after searching Tulsa for a few weeks:

Tulsa Historical Society: This venue was really nice, but since we were planning a day time wedding and they are open during the day they didn’t want us to interrupt their visitors, so we reluctantly stepped aside. For weddings of around 120 people you can have a nice indoor ceremony, but if you get blessed with nice weather their outdoor scene is gorgeous.

Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame: The jazz hall of fame was fun, and would have been great for a night-time casual wedding and reception with mingling and hors d’oeuvres, but we wanted a day-time event and it just didn’t seem to fit.

Dresser Mansion: Another gorgeous venue for an all in one event. The only reason I didn’t consider this one was because one of my best friends had her wedding there, but I would have jumped at it otherwise. It’s perfect if you’re fearless when it comes to weather, because the ceremony will only fit outside if you want more than 100 people.

After lots of searching, we decided on Tarp Chapel. It’s a perfectly adorable, glass chapel in Broken Arrow that is perfect for a daytime ceremony like we want, or for a sunset ceremony in the evening. Many, many people had suggested we check it out. It turns out that other people’s advice led us to the right spot even when a wedding website in Tulsa couldn’t. I guess the best wedding planners in Tulsa are the guests!