Round Trip

Well, a round trip to Kileen and back wasn't what I was expecting today. Spending the majority of my time in the car makes me feel like the day was wasted. Some IT problems up there barred us from doing what we traveled all that way to do. On the way back to Conroe, I was almost scheduled to take a trip to Larado tomorrow. Luckily, I missed out on that one. Who wants to drive even more tomorrow?

Waco Wisdom

As I get ready to depart for Belton tomorrow, let me share with you a few more tidbits of knowledge I acquired from the Waco trip.

First, an important thing to remember if you're exploring the Baylor campus unguided, is that Memorial Hall does not house classrooms, faculty offices, or a student center. It is a girl's dorm and I'm not supposed to be in there. Especially on a week when it's full of mothers and daughters attending an orientation.

The business school in Waco isn't as good as Mays Business School at A&M, but the influence of A&M is felt there. The first conversation I heard on campus was in Baylor's business school. It was a little after 7PM and some students were walking up the stairs from some territory I had not explored. One of them hogged the conversation as they passed me, "And A&M...please..they're even worse! This is their schedule! The first two weeks they play Army and The Citadel (incorrect). Then they play Louisiana-Lafayette and some other pansy cupcake team. A&M is pathetic..." Before I could correct him on his schedule errors, they'd progressed to a classroom.

The most important lesson I learned in Waco was college is important, it holds the key to your dreams. This became apparent during dinner at Taco Bueno. As I walked up to the counter to order, the cashier took notice of my Freebirds shirt.
The cashier put his fists in the air and exclaimed "Freebird!"
I looked at him, nodded and said "Yeah!"
"Now is that the band Freebird?" He asked?
Well to be honest with you, bro, Freebird is a song, not a band. I simply answered, "No, it's a burrito place."
"Oh, is it as good as Taco Bueno?" He asked, beaming with pride for his employer.
"No way dude, Taco Bueno is awesome."
"Yeah!" He exclaimed. "Where is this Freebird place?"
"Well, there are 4 in College Station. There are also some in Houston and Austin and stuff," I responded.
"I bet you went to school in College Station, didn't you?" He asked.
"Yep, just graduated in May, I'm up here for my job." I told him, giving him more information than he asked for.
He returned the favor by providing me excess information, "I was gonna go to college once." He paused. "But they told me I couldn't drink beer. So me and my brother decided we didn't want to go to college."
As he spoke, I glanced at him with a confused look on my face.
"Yeah," he continued, "Looking back, I probably could have gone to college and drank beer."
"Probably," I told him, trying to hide the amusement I was getting from his reflection.
"College..." He said, "If I would have gone, I would have done robotics. I'd be rich right now." He went on in an Uncle Rico-esque manner, "I would have built something, I don't know, like....like uhh... A Robotic Taco Maker!"
I chuckled, he didn't. I proceeded to give him my order and told him to have a nice day. Sadly, I'm afraid barring a taco maker invention, the story depressed him for the rest of the day.

Goodbye Ol Chap

This morning I sit in an empty looking downstairs apartment on Balcones. Boxes cover the couch in this living room, a bag of mine lays on the floor. This is one of the few rooms that still has furniture in it. My room sits down the hall, having been vacant for a few months now. The newest vacancy is the next room over. The last time this room was vacant, it was a joyous occasion. It meant the opening of our study room/dance room/rec room. But that's because we knew soon we would have another roommate. Early this morning, Clinton hit the road to Midland to set up his new home. I don't like the way things are changing, it feels weird. As time progressed, the distance seperating two friends has changed from 15 feet to 45 miles and now over 450 miles. This house, my first real home away from Corpus is going to be completely empty in little over a month. It will become a foreign place to me, where I will no longer be welcome. Strangers will be living and making memories in what in our minds is Our Home. The past 3 years have gone by fast, but it seems that we've lived here for a much longer time. I know it's nothing to complain about, it's just a different feeling than I've experienced. The fact that all of our lives are changing is something that's hard to grasp until the change actually occurs. The saddest reminder of the change is the foam letters that Nick and Clinton would always message each other with in the shower. They know spell out "Goodbye Ol Chap" on the bathroom wall.

Well good, the siamese cat from down the hall has jumped in my lap to console me. The only problem though is that she's changed too. For some unexplicable reason, she smells like skunk...

Feeling Old

I just returned from my adventure on the Campus of Baylor University. I think I have more stories from this trip to Waco than any other recent trip. Also, I came to a life-changing realization. I'm old.

That's it, plain and simple. In this 22nd year of my life, it hit me for the first time. The feeling of growing up, the understanding that I'm not young anymore. Now, before any of you skip down to the bottom and comment on this, let me explain how this happened. I take you back to last night. I'm in Waco, I'd been invited by Chelsea's brother to play a little Ultimate Frisbee. Now, I've played Ultimate like one time since high school, so I'm a little rusty. I agree to play anyway. When I show up, the game is already going on. I'm assigned to the shirts team and we end up winning (an amazing comeback really, but that's a different story). After the game, we gather as a group and they begin chatting. I stand silent mainly, as I don't really know anybody here. Then a girl addresses me. Gathering from my shirt that I'm an Aggie, she says, "So, do you, like, go to A&M?" Feeling a little uncomfortable being the oldest guy out there, I tell her, "Yep...I Go to A&M."
"Cool! That's where I'm going next year!" She exclaims. "So, whatcha doin in Waco?"
I glance around uneasily as all ears are turned my way.
"Actually, I graduated from college. I'm here for my job..."
"Oh.." She trails off. All of her excitement quickly fades. All eyes still on me as I grow uncomfortable.
"Yeah, I'm a college graduate, an adult. Playing with a bunch of high schoolers," would have been an appropriate reply and those words definately crossed my mind.
The discomfort was eased by the dude next to me telling me that he was a sophomore at ACU. The truth of the matter was I was surrounded by recent high school graduates and first or second year college students. The trend was towards the younger side of things however. The actual situation wasn't as bad as it seemed in my mind, but after I announced I was a college graduate, no one addressed me other than the ACU kid.

Afterwards I thought about it. Did I ever hang out with collge graduates when I graduated from high school? No... Especially not ones I didn't know. That's just weird. Why? Because they were old!

A Couple of Links

I'm busy here in Waco. But I will share with you a couple of links that I stumbled upon today.

First, this is probably my favorite news story:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5766288?FSO1&ATT=HMA

And secondly, this website was brought to my attention by Clinton. It's a website where people can go submit their secrets for all to read. Get it off your chest, feel better, blah blah. It's a marketing campaign for Secret Deodorant. BUT, look at the secret I found on there!

http://www.secret.com/share/secrets.asp?id=3186

Technology

Last night I went to Lakeside Bible church, got to meet several people my age. College students of course. I'm not old enough to feel comfortable sitting at a table with a man and his wife and kids as I began the night doing. The college crowd was much more comfortable. As I said, this is a small church, so the college group was about 7 people. All of them were totally cool, people I could hang out with. We went to IHOP after church, apparently the place to hang out in Lake Conroe. Not as cool as Sonic or Whataburger, but a decent hangout nonetheless. I'm sad because I'll be gone for the next couple of Wednesdays and Sundays, so I'll be absent from this church.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired of technology. Working at my company, all of my time is spent near a computer or at least talking about them. When I come home, the thought of sitting in front of another one kid of makes me nausiated, so this is all I'm typing. I will now sit on the couch and shoot nerf darts for my cat to chase.

"Blow North Korea Off The Map" Party!

And all 191 of you countires are invited! Come on China! Frane, you can join us. Australia, you're always welcome! And what the heck, Principality of Sealand, we'll see you there! Yeah, World Party!

What is that crazy little North Korean man going to do next?

Happy 4th of July!

When I showed up to work this morning, I found out that we only had to be there till noon. So it's 3:00PM now and I'm already in College Station blogging. And this is after a nap! I love half days.

Other than that, have a great 4th of July and I know it's very cliche, but do remember how lucky you are to have the freedoms that we have here in the United States. People have a lot of complaints with the country and the government, but shut your mouth for a second and realize what a blessing it is to live free in a country as great as ours.

One Year and Counting

And so today marks mine and Penny's one year anniversary. Funny how one year's time can seem so short and yet it seems like I've known her forever.

One year and I love her more than ever.