New record: Longest domestic solo trip

I actually have something to write about for the first time in a royal blue moon. I figured I'd travel to the A&M basketball game in Columbia Freaking Missouri ( or Missourah for all you Dave South fans) and get out of the armpit that is Houston. (Sometimes it even smells like an armpit).. anyway, I leave at 1:00AM on Tuesday after getting some sleep and drive 14 hours straight to catch the game at 7:00PM that night. I was amazed that I didn't get tired at all the entire trip. My only stops included Texarkana, some no name town in Arkansas, and some no name town in Missouri.

Oh, and my stop in Arkansas was in the Ozarks in NE Arkansas just before the border. It had snowed a good half foot and it was beautiful. A small river or stream flowed through the town with geese hanging out on the sandbars... or whatever you call them..you know the little islands that are always in the middle of a stream. I was glad when I saw it that I had decided to take a trip, albeit I needed to save money but oh well. It was worth it already.

So I made it into Columbia at about 4:00PM and found a hotel. I jetted up to the game about 6:00PM, and it took me about 45 minutes to figure out where to park and everything. The cool thing is that their parking garages are free.. yeah ... FREE!!! So, I just parked in FREE visitor parking and headed to the arena.

Missouri's new basketball arena is nice. I was impressed... it looked more like a professional arena than Reed. For some reason, Reed Arena just doesn't have that dazzle about it. As I expected, Missouri's crowd was very weak. They turned out about 6,000, but the noise level was equal to that of a Reed attendance of 30... maybe 32, cuz I did hear two guys yell one time and the whole arena could hear them... yeah it was that quiet. I asked a guy behind me about the crowd and he said the student section is awful. They only come out to games against top opponents when Mizzou is good... I told him, too bad. (I thought about saying, "Dang, I wouldn't know how that feels".. but I restrained as he was a nice guy). I was part of a "whooping" (not to be confused with whopping) 5 Aggies that I saw the entire night, not that I expected more.

The game was actually pretty boring. It was kinda like watching the Baylor/A&M football game this year. Just waiting for the Ags to start playing, but never really turning up the mojo... only to have the team outplaying us hand us the game on a silver platter. We did play good D in the 2nd half though. The fans were all crying and booing their players, it was embarrasing. I was proud to be an Aggie, and proud that we don't boo our own players. To top it all off, Mizzou's campus is ugly. Just a buncha regular brown buildings.

So, the game was ho-hum, and I was so tired that I went back to the Motel 6, a nice room to my delight, without eating all night and crashed in about 54 seconds. I woke up the next morning and drove to Fayetteville.. home of the Razorbacks. I checked out their campus. It was ok. It was hard to get to because the roads are all windy (as in wound up, not breezy) and they go up and down the Ozarks. Lots of the students looked like hippies, I thought I was in mini-Austin. Once again, I thought about how proud I was to be an Aggie. One of the gas clerks I talked to when stopping noticed my Aggie Ring and complimented it. I decided after checking out the town to drive on and see where the road takes me.

I left Arkansas, and headed west towards Tulsa, OK. I got into Tulsa at around 5:00PM and found a cool Cherokee Casino just east of town. I went in and played blackjack for a couple of hours, watched the Duke game and had a drink. I came out exactly even, and this casino even makes you ante 50 cents every hand. BOGUS!! I actually came out on top if you think about it. So, I figured I'd call it a night and headed to another Motel 6 to get a room. I noticed that Motel 6's are underappreciated. The room was just as big as any nice hotel, and less than half the price. I only spent 40 bucks, and the clerk was exceptionally nice.

The next morning I drove down all the boring Okie roads to Dallas, and then on to Houston to home sweet home. I concluded after leaving OK, that it's not OK. Oklahoma really does suck.
The pleasant surprise was that Arkansas was cool. The people were all VERY friendly (infact much more so than Houstonians jerks)... and the scenery was much better than expected. It was like a poor man's Colorado. The funniest thing about the trip was how many ollllllddddd beat up cars Missourians drive. It was unbelievable some of the jalopies these people managed to put an engine in and make run. I seriously was just waiting for one of them to disintegrate into thin air.

I was glad I got to get away from Houston even if it was 2,032 miles of driving in about 3.5 days. Yeah, 2,032 miles. I at least felt a spark once I got back and had to come to work tonight. I'm driving to Amarillo on Tuesday. God help me. Driving a total of 3,432 miles in 10 days will be crazy. I hope my car holds up....

The groundhog is a genius

Well, looks like old man Winter will finally make a late season appearance... (actually seems like February is always his favorite month)

The weather pattern from last week helped to finally break down the warmer air and neutralized its "endurance". In other words, winter may finally break through and actually stick around for a while. This weekend the winds look to whip to the north and bring in cooler air just like last weekend. The difference in this system is the pattern will sustain itself into next week.... meaning we could have a full week of highs in the 50's or lower... lows near freezing.. and overcast, drizzle/rainy condition for several days between Friday and the following Wednesday.

I know most of us have been waning for some colder air, and this winter heat could only last so long. After the warmest January on record, the groundhog was right. 6 more weeks (in this case 6 weeks total) of winter... ENJOY!

We are created to conform to HIM

One great thing about my job is that when people aren't flying to Le Bourget, White Plains, or Jeddah, I have all the time to myself to do whatever I want. I learned to use this time wisely, whether it be to read one of the books on my shelf that I haven't read yet or to do those IQ puzzles that causes the brain to be on the brink of exploding. Today, I decided to go buy "Blue Like Jazz", since I figured it wouldn't be a very active night. Sure enough, only 4 flights tonight... so I began to thumb through the first couple of chapters...
I already like this book a lot. Why? Well, for starters, this passage jumped out at me as I started the second chapter.

"I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time... the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious...if the devil can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging god."

So true.. infact, when I begin to write books, I thought about writing on this very issue. I had to underline it and write "BINGO!" next to it.

This is the biggest reservation I have in regards to the many denominations of Christianity. Church of Christ, Baptist, Methodist... even Catholics, as a whole they basically all teach habit. Religiousness, defined in my mind, is when man begins to take the criteria or guidelines set forth by the church as a traditional method in "worshipping" God. In other words, the seperate denominations tell us how to worship... we must conform... we will all praise God in the way that man sees "best fit". Hogwash my friends, hogwash.

I go to non-denominational churches for this very reason. I am free to worship without holding back because nobody is saying I need to act a certain way. If I want to jump around I can, if I want to raise my hands I will... and nobody will give me funny looks. Not only that, but more importantly, my heart is fully susceptable to the Holy Spirit. Religiousness takes away from the possible experiences we can have in the Spirit by placing limits on God.

Bottom Line: The devil uses religiousness/tradition in the church to keep our minds stuck in habit. Which prevents us from growing in the spirit and fulfilling our relationship with God, because we're too worried about whether our actions are befitting the mold that has been selfishly placed in front of us by narrow-minded Christians with an agenda.

I just ask all to think about how we can let go of man's teachings and grasp those of God.. and embrace the Holy Spirit with all your heart... without regard to human reactions.

So... 3 things:

1) Don't let habit mold your walk with God .
2) Don't place boundaries on Christ.
2) Let your heart seek out the true nature of our Creator, one free of human limits.

Have a great weekend, and BTHO OSU!

Warning: Rain Guarantee

A low pressure system it's currently forming off the Colorado Rockies. It will race southward into Texas later today... and then down into SE Texas overnight Thursday into Friday morning. There's is a 99.999% chance of rain for Friday. Take an umbrella... you might even grab a fresh pair of socks cuz walking to class will suck. The temperature is also going to take a fall so have your jacket on and/or with you.

The .001% of it not happening is if the rapture occurs by then, otherwise it's 100%.

Heed my words...

H stands for Hurry and get the Heck outta Here

The H stands for Hurry and get the Heck outta Here

I've decided that Houston isn't a place I want to be for too long. This city just isn't appealing to me. I talked to my dad and I'm close to deciding on moving back to Amarillo and working as an engineer. Not now.. but within 2 years. I can handle Houston for that long anyway. One real benefit is that I will be making TWICE the money as being a Meteorologist. Kind of ticks me off in a way. Meteorology is tough.. not quite as tough as engineering.. but it focuses on many similar classes. So why do we get the hammer? Not very fair if you ask me...

I don't think I'll be working in Amarillo all that long either though. I figure 2 years in Houston... 2 years in Amarillo... and then I'll find a nice job in the midwest. Unless unseen circumstances sneak up, i.e. marriage/sickness/etc... 2 years working as an engineer with be enough to pay off my 20K worth of student loans and then I can do whatever I want. The funny thing is I don't really know what I want to do still. I'll always enjoy weather, but I don't enjoy it enough so that I wouldn't switch careers in the future.

I made a conclusion this week... I always said I wouldn't worry about money in finding work.. but you know, there isn't a job out there that I'd be happy enough to take a large pay cut to do it. So, I've decided that I WILL take a job to get more money, if it is a substantial raise... at least temporarily... I mean I can work for ~30-35K a year or ~60-65K for a few years. What would you choose? Exactly my point! As long as I'm not miserable.. you really just have to weigh the pros and cons of these things.

In other news.. the Groundhog saw his shadow today, which equals 6 weeks more of winter. Considering we haven't had ANY winter this year, with the exception of one December week, I'll take it. I tend agree sort of... that we will have a chilly late Feb-early March, but not chilly like you might think. Just below averages for SE Texas.

February is officially "Spend as little as possible" month. I suppose that means no V-Day date. Not that I'd have one anyway. I want to take a trip to Europe in the late summer... so I'm gonna put back a couple G's.. this means I probably will have to put flight school (the air portion) on hold. Which doesn't really bother me that much for now.

Well.. anyway.. I don't have any mind bending thoughts today. Maybe at 5 AM I'll have some kind of breakthrough... like if Global Warming will kill us in 50 years.

- Benjamin K