My Cat Misses Me

Over the past few weeks, the only night I've consequtively stayed at my apartment has been Thursday night. It's pretty sad that I've spent more time sleeping at Nick's apartment than my own over the past 2 weeks. It's even sadder that I've spent more time in Austin than in Montgomery during the same 2 weeks...

Anywho, it's been good. I really have enjoyed it despite being away from my apartment almost constantly. This next week I'll get a slight break. I'll be out of town Thursday and Friday. The only night I'll be away is Thursday night. I'll be spending the night in Sugar Land and unfortunately missing Penny's Ring Day which I was really wanting to make it to. I hope she can forgive me.

These past couple of weeks, I've really taken a step up in my job. I've kind of been let out on my own and was in charge when I was in Austin. In Sugar Land, I'll be alone to run the seminar and dine our clients. Hopefully this responsibility will help me feel more competent than I currently feel. I'm working on it.

The Ags convincingly won their football game and despite it being a game against ULaLa, they looked Very impressive. This game boosts my spirits much more than the Citadel game did. Soccer however suffered 2 losses this week against 2 top 10 schools. Regroup Ags, we'll get em Friday.

Just a quick post because Clinton's Aliases are harassing me and because I actually have a couple of minutes to type before bed.

And now before I close out, let me add one thing I just witnessed. My cat, in the bathroom, slid off the back of the toilet, caught the handle and flushed it as she fell in the shower. Thanks Anna Belle!

A couple more cities

Well, another week, some more travel. I'm Austin, just arrived from Kileen. Kileen was a good visit, a very confusing city, but pretty cool people. Definately likable and they have more stories than I do... Well, I'm about to head for dinner and whatever else comes our way tonight. Tomorrow morning, there's a big meeting that we're attending to meet, greet, and learn a little bit more about some state recommendations that have been made for County Health Care. That's what we're here for. I'll be back next week for fun and then business. But first comes the weekend that I have been waiting for. Two top notch soccer games and kickoff weekend for Football. Whoop! Now is you wit me?

Aggie Sports

Fall sports are back! In the most amazing soccer game I have ever witnessed, we beat Soccer Powerhouse North Carolina in double OT. Along the way, we also Shattered the all-time regular season NCAA attendence record. This ladies soccer team is a special team and I'm looking forward to bringing a National Championship home. It wont be easy thought as we play the #1 and #2 teams along with 2 more top 10 teams in the next couple of weeks. I love Aggieland.

And since volleyball posted 2 wins at their tournament, right now the Aggies are undefeated in sports so far this season.

Keepin It Real In Kerrville

Why does Housekeeping in these hotels always leave the curtains wide open for you when you return to your room? Don't they know the first thing I want to do is take off my pants? Well now it gets kicked down to 2nd... Right behind Close The Curtains...

Multi-tasking

I'm watching the TV for Reggie to come out in his Bengal uniform, keeping track of what's going on over on TexAgs, updating McLennan County for work while I wait for my pizza to cook. I thought I might as well check in on my blog. Once again, I'm going to reitterate the reason for my sudden abscence. I work on my computer most of the day on a typical workday. When I come home, staring at the screen literally makes me want to vomit...

I'm doing very well here in Montgomery, enjoying everything. Very excited about football season of course. And definately looking forward to the Soccer game next week (even if it is an exhibitiion). Other than that, I'm keeping it real, lived it up in SA last week. I like that town more everytime I go. Which is good, because I'll be back like 4 times in the next couple of months....

Lastly, this just occured to me. I don't really like Olive Garden commercials. Super cheesey. Have any of you seen a family like that at Olive Garden? Anyway, I think TexAgs crashed and I'm going to go check on my pizza.

Alright, check in is over, now I'm checkin back out.

Quick Notes

Yeah, I've been busy. Driving all around North East Texas yesterday left me little room for anything else. Tomorrow I'll be in La Grange. Not much else happening. Oh yes, good news. I got the product management position that I'd interviewed for Months ago. I never heard back from them until today, it was a job I was quite interested in. Oh well, I told them I already have a job and I'm right where I want to be.

It's bedtime now. So I bid you a good night.

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.

Home again

I made it back home. 7 Hour drive from Falfurrias. Why? Because we hit Houston traffic at 5PM on a Friday...of a holiday weekend. Probably the number one worst time to come through H-town. I don't know how Anna is going to like me going to Waco in a couple of weeks. She's mad at me as it is. She's always mad at me, but especially since I left her her for the past 3 days. Kevin visited her briefly to check on her, but about 99% of the time was spent alone. And she got locked in the bathroom. She wasn't happy about being cooped up. Poor thing.

I wish she spoke English. I could tell her what is going on. And to stop getting in my bathtub...

On to Corpus Christi

First off, typically I won't be traveling this much forever. Right now is the busy time for us. Couple the fact that this is the time in which we do upgrades with the fact that there are a lot of conventions and such that we need to be at during the summer and the result is a busy traveling schedule for the company. Now add in the fact that I am new and they want me to be exposed to all of this, so they send me along on most travel oppurtunities that arise. And that my friends is why I'm in a different city every week. My stay in Montgomery was short. I came back from the Plano and Kerrville trip Thursday night plenty tired and ready for sleep, so I unpacked quickly, dumped my dirty clothes in the hamper, threw my clean clothes in the closet and went to sleep as soon as I could. Friday I left work early and after a short nap, I made my way to CS for the weekend. It was a great weekend. We celebrated Penny's birthday Sunday night, so I got to see and hang out with everyone, just like the old days (6 weeks ago). After work on Monday, I once again drove to College Station for the night to spend the evening with Penny on her birthday. I thouroughly enjoyed the time I spent with her, as always. Once I got home late Monday night, it was sleep time. After work on Tuesday, Kevin and I went and ate at the Magnolia Diner which had just opened right next door to my apartment. I'd been anticipating the opening ever since I moved in. The atmosphere was nice, the food was decent, but I was a bit disappointed. After going to Wal-Mart with Kevin it was already nearing after 10PM. So I quickly washed some clothes, which then caused a shift of dirty clothes to the closet floor and clean clothes in the hamper. Make-shift organization often causes a mess. After packing, I slept. I woke up this morning at 5:15, got ready and headed to Corpus with my coworker. I'll be here till Friday evening, which means I will arrive home late Friday night to a mess I still surely won't want to deal with. And in closing, that is why I haven't blogged...

Somewhere in the whirlwind of activity, I also changed cell phone providers. My motorola...ahem my third Motorola in a row gave out on me. Perfect time for me to compare phone companies. T-Mobile came out on top for me. I knew what phone I wanted, all the companies provided a similar one. And my research put T-Mobile over Cingular most notably on price and service rating.

My family just left, we went to eat at Fridays. I'm sorry I won't have anymore time to spend with them this week. I don't get down here as often as I'd like.

Alright... I am tired. But it's only 8:30, so I'm going to go to Barnes and Noble and hang out till I'm ready to come back and go to bed. They're open till 11, I won't be utilizing those hours to the fullest, I promise.

Holdin It Down In Plano

Yeah, I'm in Plano. This internet cost me...well the company $10. The stinkin' Marriott doesn't give free internet. Bums... Anyway, I'm put up in this Marriott in Legacy Park. Plano's got it goin on. I haven't got to get out too much. I've walked around here, eaten at a few of the restaraunts around the block. I was at the Fox Sports Grill tonight since I was on my own. Its good to see that there are some hockey fans here in Texas. All the diners were rooting for Carolina in tonight's Stanley Cup Game 7. Most lilkely because they want America to beat Canada in this Carolina Vs. Ottawa championship. It looks to me that it will have that outcome. It's currently 2-1 Carolina's favor in the 3rd. Anyway I'll be leaving here at noon tomorrow to go to Kerrville. I think I'll be sharing a room with the boss man, so I doubt I'll get too much internet access. It's been a busy day, met some comissioners and judges, including the guy responsible for getting those protestors off Bush's ranch. An interesting mix of liberals and ultra conservatives. Lunch was Mi Cocina. No, not the one in CS, a different chain that actually serves decent Mexican food. Especially if you like live bees in your tacos. Yeah, our food got comped because there was a bumble bee walking around my plate when they brought it out. Oh well, it's not like we pay for the meals anyway. Ottawa's got a powerplay now. Better get back to the game.

Kitten's Greatest Hits

Alright, I'm about to head out of town. But before I do, I decided to put up another video. This has been up for about a week and 112 people viewed it. I've made Kitten a star! The video of course is the classic, "Flying Kitten." Enjoy.

Business Trip

Hey kids, it's Friday, whoop! I haven't gotten to whoop too much since getting here, I just realized that. Anyway, I doubt I'll be able to blog too much either this next week. I will be in Dallas all week for work, so I can't promise any posts between now and then. Just a heads up for y'all. Hope summer school is going well for all you kiddos, I plan on being in College Station next weekend. And those of you that aren't in school, it's pretty awesome not having any homework, isn't it? Alright, keep it real and just roll it back like Wal-Mart.