The Dust Bowl

Instead of the Cotton Bowl, Dallas is now home to the "Dust Bowl". This is what we lived in this afternoon. Yuck!!

Up, up, and away

THEMIS took off from the Cape Saturday at 6PM. NASA's most daring attempt at launching a satellite occurred with it releasing five separate probes to study the effects of solar storms on our atmosphere.

Now, with TAKS week here, let's hope Stacey's class has a success like this!

THEMIS Launch

While I won't bore you with the explanation of the acronym, THEMIS, I did want to tell you a story about it.

The pictures show the THEMIS payload as it is about to be encapsulated in the payload fairing and the other photo shows it from the inside so you can see the payload. For those of you who never understood what I was working on in Mississippi, this is probably one of the most practical examples of it to show you. There are two of these shrouds which make up a payload fairing for each mission and they primarily serve as protection while the spacecraft is on the launch pad and while it is ascending past maximum dynamic pressure. While this mission is a NASA mission that studies the affects of solar flares and the aurora borealis (aka Northern Lights), it was one of the first Delta II missions I worked on and one of the more exciting ones.

Launch is set for Friday, Feb. 16 just after 6PM ET from Cape Canaveral, FL.

Even churches are bigger in Texas...

This entry probably should be titled, "Bubba goes to the big church!"

One of my yearnings when I found out we were moving to the metroplex was to visit Prestonwood Baptist Church. For the uninitiated, Prestonwood is a mainline Southern Baptist Church on the outskirts of Plano and Carrollton and has about 25,000 members. The sanctuary is quadruple the size of our church home in Florence. It reminded me of Highland Baptist on steroids. I had watched Dr Jack Graham on TV for some time now (and occasionally listened on the radio) and had read some of his published material which has been biblically sound. No disappointment here, just amazement at watching a church that's part TV broadcast (with it's 200+ member choir, orcehstra, wall- to-wall TV and sound monitors, TV camera and boom, and 10 member praise team) and part on fire and spirit moved church with a baptistry full of folks, joyful worship, and sound message. And by the way, I left there with spirtual hoofprints on my rear end. God works in the big and the small places.

Stacey, can we get an "AMEN!"?

Of course, I temper this by saying, until we finally get planted into the metroplex, who knows where we'll end up, but it is great to know that we can be fed while we await on the direction we head next.

General update

Been a crazy few weeks for us, so apologies for not blogging.

First, I have been sick for about 3 weeks. First was the afformentioned stomach bug in my previous post, then I got a second bout of it a week later. From there, I developed a respiratory infection and am just now getting over it. Luckily, it kept my weight down, but what a price to pay for getting ill.

Stacey has been busy getting her students ready for the TAKS as well as trying to settle some health issues as well. She got one of her two crowns put in last week. Been very long and trying since this was originally to be done in December and there were issues with it coming on time. Next, Stacey's foot really began to bother her again and is back in the walking boot, taking more medication and is doing P/T to curb some of the aggravation on her achilles.

Next, we each have seen examples of God's mercy and provision on the job for which we're thankful and pray this continues. More to come in the future.

7 lbs lighter and 2 days later...

Well, someone once told me that if there was a stomach bug to be had, I would catch it. They were right. Shortly after my trip to East Texas this weekend, I came in on Sunday night feeling a little uneasy.

That uneasy feeling continued until Monday morning and then it turned into a mule kick in the gut. From there, I knew it was all over. Thus, I got two days off from work courtesy the latest incarnation of the stomach bug traversing Texas. At least I can say that it was the kinder version of what I have received in the past, no projectile vomiting or the like. Just general blahs, no desire to see, smell or eat food, and you want to stay in bed - except for those quick U-turns. Yeah me! Any volunteers to be the next in line?

On a positive note, this turned out helpful in my work's weight loss challenge allowing me to lose the most weight for the week - just not the way I wanted to.

Get out of here, Murphy!

I'm sure you get the point that Murphy refers to Murphy's law. The weather here has been awful since last Friday. Starting Friday we had something like 5" of rain. The temperaures proceeded to drop nearly 40 degrees and hasn't been above freezing since Sunday when the rain switched over to freezing rain. Monday, I wasn't able to get to work because of the bridges and overpasses icing over and Stacey could not leave because the remnants of that wave of storms hit E. Texas. If that wasn't bad enough, my computer monitor died Sunday morning, my car battery died Monday night, and our humidifier went on the fritz overnight. I awaken this morning and it snowed in the metroplex and the roads are once again a mess.

Yet, I'm thankful that I haven't been in an accident (knock on wood) and had the means to replace those broken things. So all is not lost, nor do I mind a day off every once in a while.

Hopefully, Murphy will leave town, quickly!

PS Did I mention my cell phone battery, too?

Merry Christmas!!!

We want to wish everyone a Merry CHRISTmas!!! We have already thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!! We have been with my family since Saturday and today we're leaving to go back to Dallas because Stephen's family is coming tomorrow. It is awesome that we get to see all of our family at Christmas!! May God Bless all of you!!

Alto Wins State Championship!!!

The school where I teach, Alto, won state championship today, 42 to 13!!! What an awesome season!! They are undefeated!

School will be interesting Monday!! :-) (in a good way of course!!)

Speaking of school, I am ready for Wednesday at 1:00, the time I am out for the holidays!!

It's snowing...well sorta

It's more like icing. I can speak from personal experience with the numerous amount of overpasses I had to take on the way home. The DFW area had a huge temperature drop of more than 50 degrees last night and then it rained, sleeted, and turned to snow. Not much snow for those of us who are used to living in snowy areas, but enough to turn the roadways into parking lots. Why? when you add roads that are not planned with it ever seeing snow or ice (many overpasses and high rises at that), it's enough to get the locals riled up.

Trip Home

Well, after 7 months away from Alabama, I finally got to go home and see my family for Thanksgiving. Yes, I was homesick for the Heart of Dixie and the trip couldn't have come soon enough. Of course, being home with my folks was the highlight of the trip. We even took a stroll over to Starkville, MS, got to hang out with the best man at our wedding and went to check out all the happenings at MSU. Lots of changes - in the 1.5 years since I have been to Starkpatch and some of it wasn't recognizable. We got to eat at Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur, AL and that settled my pork BBQ cravings and we ate at the local Jack's Hamburger stand a couple of times while dusting off those steak biscuits.

Also, one of the fun parts of the trip was getting to play with the lab mix we got for my parents last Christmas. Buster is all grown up now, but he's still a big puppy. As some of you may know, I kept him for a week last December while I was waiting to give him to my dad. Unfortunately, he's no longer a little fella and there is no way I could pull him out from the Christmas tree anymore (without losing a hand). I tried to get some good photos of him, but he won't be still long enough to get a good photo of him. Yet, he's still a darn good doggy!

As you might suspect, here's a picture of Buster doing what he does best - begging for my mom to pet (or feed) him. Trust me, he eats better than Stacey and I, so no wonder he's looking for more chow. The Chowhound is quite the charmer, the first time she picked Buster up, he licked her cheek. Some things never change...

Sweet Home Alabama....

Tomorrow we'll be hopping on a plane to travel to Alabama on the busiest traveling day of the year!! Stephen is so excited he can hardly control himself!!! To say he's homesick would be a huge understatement.

Have a great Thanksgiving. Praise God we have so much to be thankful for. Take time this season to remember what all we have to be thankful for, especially that we have such an awesome God who is so good to us!!

I'm in the Christmas spirit now!!!

Wow!! I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream Saturday as Stephen and I went to the Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. You can click on this link to get more info. Just click on Dallas because that is the one that we saw. It was better than I ever expected!!! Stephen and I were just like kids!!

This was my favorite, when they were toy soldiers!!

Four More Years!!!

Stacey's dad has been re-elected as County Commissioner! Our prayers have been answered!

To read more about this, click the link, and go down to the story about Precinct 4 Commissioner.

Swearing in will be New Year's Day 2007...

Best Birthday Ever!!!

I am officially 30 now. I don't feel any different!! I am quite tired though. I don't really think it's because of being older. It's just been a wild weekend. Not that it was wild, just crazy!! My family took me out to dinner Friday night at my new favorite place to eat, Jalapeno Tree. Of course I got embarrassed when they all came out to sing to me and I had to wear a sombrero. We got back to my sister's house to open birthday presents and have cake. My nephew has been sick, so he got worse. My sister had to hunt down a thermometer to take his temp. Meanwhile, my little 4 year old niece, Lauren, starts suddenly having sharp pains in her lower right side. We automatically assumed appendix, so we load her into the car and take her to the emergency room. We were there until 2 am when they finally admitted her into the hospital. They say now they don't think that's what it was, but I have my suspicions. They basically told my sister they had no idea what it really was but just hope it doesn't happen again. Whatever!!

Speaking of emergency rooms, Stephen and I had quite the time people watching!!! You can really see some crazy folks in an ER on a Friday night!! Let me tell you!! There was 1 woman who was majorly strung out on something!! She was the patient and she was dancing around the waiting room. There was a man that came in with possible heart attack and they made him wait until they could do paper work. Stephen was sure to tell me to never bring him there if he was having chest pain. Bad!! I could go on and on!! You would have just had to see it!! If you ever need entertainment, there you go!

Honestly, this was the best birthday ever!! My family took care of me!! Stephen came to work with me Friday and was my "aide"!! He can grade papers like no other!! He's handy to have around!! :-) He works pretty cheap too!!

P.S.......

Who said that the root canal didn't hurt?!??!? That wasn't me!! My poor mouth is still sore!! I have had some not so good times at the dentist office lately!!

I go over the "hill" Friday. It's a big deal to me. I always thought that 30 wouldn't be, but it is!!! When you're in your 20's, you're still young. 30 just makes you old! No offense to my elders, but I just can't help it! At least now Stephen won't feel like he's robbing the cradle (too much!) :-) By the way, I think he has something up that sleeve of his, but he won't tell me anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does anybody wanna give me a hint????????????????

More than you bargain for...

Poor Stacey, she's at it again. Yesterday, she went to the dentist here in N. Texas after the failed attempt to go 2 weeks ago in E. Texas and had a rough time of it. Under the belief that she was just getting a crown to complete the endodontist work from September, Stacey went in thinking this would be an uneventful visit.

So much for that, we got there and our new dentist shows us the damage to another tooth that we thought only needed a filling. So, we relent and let him start working on it in hopes only a crown would suffice and there wouldn't be a need of a root canal. Wrong again, the good news was the root canal didn't hurt, the bad news was that it was a root canal.

Long story short, four hours later, Stacey ended up with a new crown, root canal, filling, and a permanent crown still to come. Fortunately, we were able to see with photos and X-rays how severe it was, but it was still difficult to swallow.

Pssssst....someone's birthday is coming up!

Not me...and it may be a big one....

Busy weekend complete

Wow! It's nice to be back home. No offense to Stacey's family, but I never felt like I rested the entire time I was in East Texas this weekend. Stacey, her nephew- Ryan, and I went to the Alto - Grapeland game on Friday night expecting a good game since both teams were ranked in the top 10. Instead, we witnessed another blowout by the Yellow Jackets and thus keeping their unbeaten record in tact. While I enjoyed attending an event where Stacey works, my poor nephew was bored to tears. Of course being up 40-0 before halftime kinda has that affect.

Saturday, we basically surrounded ourselves with the SFA homecoming events. We were running late and the non-sensical blocking of traffic for the parade made it even worse. Yet, we arrived just as the parade made its way down to where we eventually came to view the parade. From there, we dropped off the kiddos back to their parents and headed out for one of my favorite stops: Butcher Boys. Once again, a pleaser. We went to the game and witnessed SFA fall apart again only to come back and then squander two FG attempts that would have tied or won the game.

Sunday morning, everyone lost shut-eye because of the excitement over the local paper's endoresements were coming out. Once again, my father-in-law was endorsed for the position which he is running for re-election. God willing, there will be a third term. From there, we went to church at Woden and watched the baptistry stay busy. Always an exciting time to see God working in people's lives. We can hope and pray this is just the beginning for these people. From there, we went to another popular hangout: Clear Springs Cafe and of course indulged in onion rings. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and running errands before I had to trek back to the metroplex.

Go Cowboys, Yellow Jackets, Lumberjacks, Bulldogs, Corndogs, Tigers...

What a week!

It's been crazy for all of us. Stacey attempted a break-neck attempt to finalize her crown only to be delayed by the flooding weather and an uncooperative medical professional. So, a couple of more weeks and she'll finally be done with that part of everything. I'm sure she'll be more than happy to fill you in on the rest of her eventful week when she manages to get online again...

Last weekend, we managed to go to the State Fair of Texas. I must say that I enjoyed it even though it is completely overrun with folks and in an atrocious area to access. I even managed to chomp down on a thingy called a corny-dog, which is known to the rest of the US as a corndog.

Of course, last Sunday was the Cowboys-Texans game at Texas Stadium. Wish I had some pictures to post, but Stacey headed out with the digital camera and has yet to send me the pics. Yet, Stacey mentioned that she learned a valuable lesson, never wear the opposing team's colors in Dallas (not that we did). We hopped a tram to the stadium along with 40-50 more Cowboys fans and they heckled and harrassed every Houston fan they saw on the way. Guess we have to keep the Houston stuff hid while going through Irving from now on. The weather was dreary and rainy and the Cowboys' offense was just as bad in the first half. Fortunately, we sat just under the overhang of the roof and got to see T.O.'s final touchdown happen right in front of us.
The Boys 34- Houston S*(%S 6

This weekend it's off to see Stacey's alma mater, SFA play the McNesse St. Cowboys for the homecoming game at SFA. Never been there for HC, hopefully it won't be a blowout. Hopefully, I will get to see our own Friday Night Lights tomorrow evening when Stacey's employer, Alto, is playing their district rival and their undefeated record is on the line.

How bout those Detroit Tigers?

Oh yeah, did I mention that the Bulldogs (MSU) finally won? All I can say is finally...


PS I started my Christmas shopping today, how about you?