I noticed that my local grocery store now sells water from my hometown – Mineral Wells, TX – population just under 16,800.
Here’s a little more on the story of Crazy Water and Mineral Wells.
Bag of Randomness
- It may surprise you to know that I’m not a very out going person. If I were to take a personality test and ran across the question on what I would do at I party, I would choose the answer that related to standing in the corner and observing. That’s what insecure people like me do.
- I mention the information above because I did something very uncharacteristic of myself (I have no idea if I should have used me or myself in that last sentence, I suck at grammar). The new church I’m attending had a guys night out event where all the men were meeting guy’s house to watch the NCAA championship game. I figured what the heck, let me get out of my comfort zone and do something new.
- The gathering started at 6:00 p.m. even though the game wasn’t scheduled to air until 8:00 p.m that night, with actual tip-off being closer to 8:30 p.m. – so I made sure to be fashionably late and arrive about a quarter past seven.
- It turns out the house where the event was being hosted wasn’t a house, but a mansion. That was a surprise. This is the second mansion I’ve been in, the first being one of the Perot’s houses. This didn’t quite match the Perot’s house, but was still pretty darn spiffy.
- I have a bad habit of looking up people’s housing appraisal value on the web. But hey, it’s public information.
- The event wasn’t held inside the house, but outside on a stone covered patio with a very large plasma. That’s right, the guy keeps a plasma outside in his back yard – you can see the thing from the other side of the pool and from the woods, since there are no neighbors behind him.
- I really liked the host, he’s been extremely nice to me at church, and was exceptionally kind to me at this gathering. I just had no idea he was the head of several oil and gas companies, some of which he started and sold.
- He also told me that he was at the infamous Chris Webber time-out game.
- I think I was the youngest dude at the party.
- It never really occurred to me, but the church I attend is in a pretty nice neighborhood, so the folks that attend that church are pretty well off. While at church I really had no idea what most of these guys do for a living, but it turns out there’s a lot of doctors and middle to high level executives in the bunch.
- Yup, despite everyone’s warmth and kindness, I was feeling a bit inadequate. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really blessed and have things much better than a lot of other folks out there, but sometimes it’s just hard not to be content with what you have and to be humble, thanful, and appreciative. Sometimes hanging around these folks make me think I’m not pushing myself hard enough, or that I’m no where near my potential, that I may be shortchanging my family because I’m not providing enough for them.
- It was my first church event in which beer or alcohol was readily available. The inner Baptist in me was curled up, shivering, in the fetal position, left murmuring inaudible words like chik-ah-may-may. I think only two people that read this blog will get the reference to the last word in that sentence.
- No, I didn’t drink. I just don’t like the taste of alcohol, not to mention I get flushed when I drink alcohol and it burns when I pee.
- Ooops, being too honest and open all of a sudden. Can you tell I’m writing this pretty late at night? Got . . . to . . . turn my sensor back on.
- For the most part, I think I had a good time as I found the right group of folks to talk to. Other than small talk and work talk, we talked about college sports, Las Vegas, and Disney.
- In retrospect, I don’t think I did a lot of talking, more listening and observing.
- A few of the guys were going to grad school and talking about their experience at TCU and Tech.
- Yesterday was National Scottish Heritage Day. I only found such a thing out as a male coworker dress in full Scottish regalia – kilt and all.
- Half-Asian comic strip humor
- It appears that the Ballpark (yeah, I know it’s officially called the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, but I’m just gonna call it the Ballpark, which was the original and much cooler name, and besides, it just sounds better) has some major upgrades in regards to screens that wrap around it. And I think that the old-time score board has been replace with a larger screen. I kind of thought those old score boards were a bit overrated anyways.
- Dubya threw out the first pitch. From the high lights, I would say 80% of the crowd cheered and the other decided boo. If I were there, I would just be silent – as I’m thankful for his service but disappointed with a lot of aspects of his two terms. But having a former president who use to be a managing partner/owner of that team throwing out the first pitch just seemed to make sense.
- I usually get into the whole nostaglia of opening day, but not this year for some reason.
- It doesn’t make much sports sense for opening day of baseball and the NCAA mens basketball championship game to happen on the same day.
- I wonder if anyone missed Billy Packer.
- The 98-year-old John Wooden was on a commercial and looked good for a 98-year-old.
- In high school, most of the time a major term paper was due the morning after the NCAA mens championship game. At the time, most students turned in hand written papers with footnotes and such. I bet teachers don’t accept hand written papers nowadays.
- At the end of the championship game, the winning team climbs a ladder to cut off a portion of the basketball net. This is the first year that I can recall a ladder company actually sponsoring that event. Smart move, I wonder why it wasn’t thought of before.
- I feel numb when it comes to sports all of sudden. I wonder if this will be the same for me when fall arrives.
- I’m part of a scholarship committee, and I recently updated the application form to make the process easier on the applicants and scholarship selection committee. Turns out half the applicants weren’t smart enough to figure out how to fil out a form created on MS Word. Blerg.
- The end is in sight . . . Lent is almost over . . . WifeGeeding and I are ready to eat out come this Sunday. We came close to breaking Lent when we drove to Stephenville, but we held true.
- I read somewhere that some folks break Lent on Sundays because it’s a day of worship and not suffering, or something like that. We decided that wasn’t for us, and go the entire period.
- I’m not a fan of mustard, and yesterday I bought some potatoes in the cafeteria that looked mighty good, but it turns out it was some kind of warm potato salad covered in mustard that you couldn’t notice off hand. Most of the afternoon I was left burping the smell of mustard. Grrrrr.
- I don’t think any state is more beaten down than Michigan right now.
- I enjoy Geico commercials. Sometimes they have to grow on me, but I always end up liking them.
- Grace
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Dog overboard found four months later
SYDNEY (AFP) – A pet dog that fell overboard in rough seas off Australia has been reunited with its owners after surviving alone on an island for four months, reports said.
Sophie Tucker, apparently named after a late US entertainer, fell overboard as Jan Griffith and her family sailed through choppy waters off the northeast Queensland coast in November.
The dog was believed to have drowned and Griffith said the family was devastated.
But out of sight of the family, Sophie Tucker was swimming doggedly and finally made it to St Bees Island, five nautical miles away, and began the sort of life popularised by the TV reality show “Survivor.”
She was returned to her family last week when Griffith contacted rangers who had captured a dog that had been living off feral goats on the largely uninhabited island, in the faint hope it might be their long-lost pet.
Moonset Timelapse
Moonsets are not often quite as exciting as this one. But amateur astronomer Marc-Andre Besel was impressed by the brilliant lighting displays that joined the first quarter Moon and stars of the constellation Scorpius in western skies. On August 22, 2004, his view looked across the Gulf of Mexico from Anna Maria Island, Florida, USA, a region that would experience even more stormy weather in the coming days. The alluring digital image is a time exposure, by chance capturing the details of a brief flash of lightning along with an overexposed Moon and dramatic cloud formations. In fact, the exposure is long enough to show the background stars as short streaks or trails. The bright yellowish star trail, just above and right of the lightning flash, is red giant star Antares.
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