I think I'll call in sick tomorrow....

Nah, just kidding. Although today, would you like fries with that sounded awfully appealing!! It has been one of those weeks!!

Here is a synopsis:
Monday: School goes into lockdown...long story which I won't bore you with!
Tuesday: My sister becomes really ill at school which I get to deal with...
Wednesday: Parent (school) being irrational over something I have no control over...
Thursday: Another parent being irrational....

Spring fever has become an epidemic in my class......need I say more???

Not to mention...the job search is still going on in full force, still with no luck, which is becoming very aggravating......

Pray for me!! I need it!!

Take Cover!

Ahh! Once again, we got hit with bad weather. Tuesday made the third time in less than 2 weeks that we've seen storms, hail and tornadoes. We had a weak tornado go through the adjacent suburb of Flower Mound about 10PM last night, fortunately no one was injured and another went through the town to the north, Denton. Fortunately, we only had to deal with a lot of rain, about 5-8" around here, but the lakes are so low that it's welcome.

The Texas Tornado...

This was the tornado that hit Haltom City yesterday, which is fairly close to where we live. We were eating dinner with Missy and Ryan and never realized it got this bad until we got home.

photo courtesy of Dallas Morning News

Congratulations!!

Congratulations Justin and Sara, our friends from Lansing. They are new parents to Miss Ellie! Welcome Ellie!! We can't wait to meet you!!

Yes, this is East Texas!!

My brother-in-law decided to take his little canoe trip that he usually takes on Easter weekend. This is a 32 mile trip by river. Let's just say his trip was cut short due to the "blizzard". This is what it looked like when he got ready to leave. I have never seen weather like this in East Texas in April!!! Let's just say he was glad to be back home in the warm house!!! This will be a family joke around our house for quite some time needless to say!!

Ailments, Aberrations, and Astros = Adventure

After being with various ailments from allergies to some type of strep throat illness, I finally headed out to Nacogdoches to spend time with Stacey's family over the Easter Holiday. I didn't even feel up to talking or eating until Thursday evening with all the fun I was having with my tonsils being swollen together.

Once I got to East Texas, the weather was changing. Friday's weather was okay and in the upper 60's, so I really didn't think much about it. The Weather Channel was saying that it would be 70 degrees in Houston, so I didn't bother packing warmly to head to the Bayou City. Somehow, I knew I was in trouble when I started recalling a conversation Stacey and I held earlier in the week when I said, "I know it's impractical, but I'd really like one of those Astros sweatshirts." Thus, we head to Houston, it's 42 degrees in Nacogdoches, but remember, the Weather Channel says it's going to be 70 down there. We get about 2/3rds of the way to Houston when Stacey's sister calls and says that it is snowing in Nacogdoches. Ahh, whoopty-do, did they see one snowflake and panic like every other East Texan? - I thought. So, we keep going to Houston and stop off at a couple of sporting goods stores and there is that Astros hooded sweatshirt, almost on cue. Then again, I'm thinking, okay Minute Maid park is a retractble roof stadium and has A/C, so surely they'll turn the heat on, right? So, I bypass the $50 sweatshirt and head to the stadium. We get there and it's raining and 43 degrees on the outside and not much warmer on the inside. Yet, we proceed to enter the stadium with the Astros T-shirts and the medium weight jackets we have. That's right, this sucker ain't heated and we're freezing our booties off. To add to our misery, we are hearing stories that it's still snowing in the Nacogdoches area and Richard's canoeing trip ended early (see below). Still, I'm not totally sold on this idea of it really being that bad in the Piney Woods.

Since the Astros had started off 0-4, and were playing the World Series Champion Cardinals, we weren't having real high hopes for a win. Yet, Roy Oswalt took the hill and we knew they had a chance as long as he wasn't pulled for Lidge or let Albert Pujols hit the train with another of his bombs. Oswalt came through with a complete game, Pujols didn't crush anything, Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee homered, and the 'stros won 5-1.

Now, time to go home. Okay, so now it is 37 degrees and raining cats and dogs. By the time we get 40 miles from downtown Houston, the temperature starts dropping and we start seeing sleet. So, maybe they weren't exaggerating about the weather. Go another 20 miles and the temps are hovering around 34 and it's sleeting and snowing. Hey wait a minute, this is East Texas, not Michigan, eh? About half way home and it's coming down so hard that visibility is less than a mile and I'm having flashbacks of driving in the Michigan winters again. Next, we encounter freezing rain and 31-32 degrees nd the road has turned to slush. Stacey starts asking whether this is anything like Michigan since I'm not appearing nervous. We get to Lufkin and now the trees have snow on the branches and the cars are all covered. Thirty minutes later, we make it back to Nacogdoches and it's still snowing. Fortunately, we were blessed to get home safe and sound and no accumulation.

By the way, anyone think I can get that sweatshirt now?

Photos C/O Houston Chronicle

What time is it?

Have you ever felt like you just didn't have a grasp on what time it is? Well, that's what I've been going through the past week. Somehow, the IT department at work failed to upload the daylight savings time patch on my computer and that has me all out of sorts on my appointments. Secondly, not living a full year in Texas means I still don't know when it is supposed to be daylight (or daybreak to some of you), so getting up in the mornings has been a bear. Next, I have been working issues with a client in Singapore, who is 13 hours ahead, meaning that I'm working until 7-8PM on the nights we have teleconferences with them. Finally, Monday morning, I made a rush trip back to Alabama and returned home on the red eye Tuesday meaning I was up at 3:30AM in order to be at the Birmingam airport by 5.

All Aboard the Yard Heathen Express

Ah, it's great to be back in the metroplex again. Stacey and I took a few days of her spring break to venture off to Alabama to see my family. Good time, good BBQ, just not long enough, but we can still see that their Lab, Buster, is still eatin' good in mom and dad's neighborhood.

For those of you who don't know me very well, the term "yard heathen" was introduced in the 2001 time frame and it originally was intended to mean any child under the age of accountability (check your Baptist Theology if you don't know what that means) who tends to be the little kid who plays in the yard and makes mud pies, plays with all the critters that can be found, and comes home with dirt from head toe. This is in contrast to rug rat who stays in the house all the time.

One of those weird things happened to us again, somehow we figure it must be God's way of showing us some humor since we don't have children. First, there was the kids eat free night at Dickey's BBQ and now we were on the Yard Heathen Express. On Saturday afternoon, we flew from Birmingham to Dallas. I knew something was bad when it was a full flight. Then we got onboard and the flight attendants were grousing about some car seats for someone's yard heathen. You can see this is about to turn into a comedy of errors. Well, they had to delay taking off to get some of these child seats onto the plane, then as we're taxing down the taxi-way, we have to stop to move an infant away from the exit row area. BTW, did I mention there were something like 5 of these yard heathens under 5 sitting within 5 rows of us? Nothing like a blood curdling scream from one of these toddlers as the plane is taking off, poor Stacey almost lost it.

I know, one of these days it will be my turn, but hopefully, I'll be blessed with one of those gas guzzling, soccer mom SUV's to drive back and forth to Alabama.

12th and final SEC School

Well, I finally made it to all twelve SEC schools and have visited each campus. While I was growing up and was in school at MSU, I made it to all 11 campuses and SEC Football stadiums (including second home fields like Legion Field and War Memorial), except for one, the University of Arkansas. I don't know nor do I care, but they always seemed to have an aversion to playing MSU in Fayetteville and we ended up in Little Rock. So, being less than 2 miles from Fayetteville town limits, I drove on over to the campus to see the house of horrors disdainly known as UPig or University of Wal-Mart by the MSU faithful. Not a bad place, just very hilly, which is pretty standard for NW Arkansas. Felt bad for the students, they must need thighs and calves like tree trunks to handle all that walking. Have Mercy!

Sooner or Later

I had to go back through Oklahoma again and let me tell you, it was desolate. I'm currently in Springdale, AR attending a class for work and using the hotel computer. 5 1/2 hours through the backwoods of SE Oklahoma and NW Arkansas will give you a new appreciation for the 5 million inhabitants of the metroplex. Needless to say, my co-horts have lots of dueling banjo stories to tell. There's no telling what will happen before the week is up...

Let me end it by saying that I know why Carrie Underwood wrote a song about not being in Checotah (OK) anymore.

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.