Mecca

For old school Texas Tech students, Mecca might just be a memory of a shaved ice hut on the old Brownfield highway. Hot steamy Lubbock nights the first few weeks of school catching up with old friends while chomping on the world best snowcone, with cream, are things you will tell your children about. The old hut is gone. It has been replaced by “Paving the way to the Future” or the Marsha Sharp Freeway project. Progress, it seems, plowed through another memory.

Holly and I try to get to another branch of Bahama Bucks every time we return to Lubbock. Nothing takes you back to college days like have a Strawberry Bahama Rama with cream. Charissa will probably tell you that wedding cake was the best, she’d be wrong. Holly will espouse the glories of the Funky Monkey. She’d be wrong as well. You see in Mecca, or Bahama Bucks, it is the simple that is the best. Strawberry with cream. Yummy.

I was thinking about Bahama Bucks on Thursday of this last week. I though to myself, I wonder how much a franchise costs? I could own my own Mecca. As I stroll through the website I see an advertisement saying “Opening Soon in Plano”. In Plano? Plano, Tx? So I investigate.

Come to find out, indeed there are several Bahama Bucks scattered around the Metroplex area. One is not far from our house in Sachse. So after work, I simply tell Holly I have surprise for her and we take the fifteen minute trip to Mecca.

Our religious experience can be explained by the look on Holly’s face as she spotted the neon lights of that beacon of yummy hope. I got a strawberry daiquiri with cream and Holly indulged in a coconut with cream, of course. We lapped up every bit of goodness and told tales of the old days. It might have been 50 degrees outside, we didn’t care. We closed our eyes, heard Robert’s guitar, the cars honking as they went by and got our card punched for the free one!

Any of our long lost Tech friend’s jealous? Come see us, our treat!

Well I’ve been everywhere, man…

Dallas Love Field
Stop over in Kansas City
Change planes in Chicago
Two nights in Indianapolis
Return and change planes in Chicago, again
Stop in Kansas City
Two nights in Tulsa
Return to Dallas Love Field for two hours
Fly to Amarillo
Stay in West Texas for three nights
Return to Dallas through Lubbock

That was last week. Somewhere in there I got some work done and had a great time with the family in the panhandle. I’m tired….

A quick baby update: Things are going well. No major problems or issues. Holly is doing fine and adjusting (slowly) to not being able to do some basic things. The boy had a growth spurt and is measuring three weeks ahead of his scheduled date! Maybe New Years Eve was an optimistic hold out date afterall.

Did I Get Taken?

What a good weekend. I honestly cannot remember all the details, but I can tell by my relaxed feeling today that it was a great break from the norm.

What I do know is that we slept in on Saturday. Even our cat didn’t wake us up astronomically early, as if often the case. It had rained throughout the night and all day it was a cloudy overcast day. It has been a long time since we have had a dull day with dull weather. So very nice!

I decided that we would head over to Discount Tire and have Holly’s rear tires looked at. I am close to replacing her front brakes and while I was getting help on that our quasi-mechanic friend expressed concern over the status of Holly’s rear tires. He said it looked like uneven wear and a possible alignment problem. So I headed to Discount Tire to get a professional opinion.

The man that helped was the manager. He was a nice fellow. He looked at the rear tire and immediately said that it wasn’t alignment it was that we hadn’t rotated the tires. What? Ok. How often are you suppose to rotate your tires, I ask. Every 6,000 miles, he says. Ooops. How many miles has it been, he asks. I respond meekly, 35,000. Oh, is all he says.

He then looks at the front tires. He has the same diagnosis. I ask if we can rotate front to back and buy two new ones. He gives me this half agreeing smirk and says yes, but your front tires are pretty worn and who knows how long they will last. He suggest four new tires.

I quickly do a scenario in my head of my nine month pregnant wife calling me in Friday afternoon traffic on Central Expressway with a blown out rear tire and decide that safe is better than sorry. I have absolutely no idea how much tires cost. For that matter, I don’t know how much anything cost, short of a gallon of gas, for a car. (2.61 by the way) He begins by giving me a lot of details on warranties and mileage that is similar to me trying to explain the debt accounting accruals to Holly. A lot of ‘uhhuhs’ and head nods. He works his way through three tires, with the starting price of $678 and a low price of $616. At the bewilderment on my face of how much these cost he does offer a “low end basic tire” that is $414.

I am thoroughly confused at this point. What is the difference between a 678 and a 414, besides the warranty? He goes through it and convinces me that the 414 isn’t worth the money. I go for the 616 and call it good.

So the question is, did I get taken? How do you make spot on decisions on a subject you have no knowledge of? Would it be appropriate to say, “Hold on. I am going to call my dad” when you are 28 years old? The line in that place was atrocious as well. Anyway we have four shiny new tires, and a lot lighter pocketbook!

A Free Weekend?

I do not want to jinx it, but it seems that we have a free weekend. It is almost unheard of in our life to have a complete weekend to ourselves. We haven’t scheduled a social meal, outing or trip. Amazing. I was informed that the level of cleanliness of our house is not meeting Holly’s standards, and as such I can expect some cleaning chores. I will take that with the much desired home time!

Hankie Anyone?

by Justin

When did nose blowing become socially acceptable? My mother always taught me to go into another room, the rest room or at least excuse myself from the table to blow my nose. I was not allowed to simply pull a Kleenex and go to town on my nose. I also was not allowed to sniff it back up either. I was required to politely and discretely catch any drips until the occasion allowed to excuse myself to blow my nose. Is this not the case? Did I miss the change in etiquette or was I misinformed?

Case Study 1: The Man in the Balcony

I understand that the elderly are given greater latitudes. Hey they lived in the great depression, fought in world wars and birthed our parents in the 60’s. They can do a lot of things I could never get away with. Last Sunday morning a man, not that elderly, blew his nose three times during church. From the balcony it echoed all over the relatively small sanctuary. It was always during the critical point about grace and extending it. Was God speaking?

Case Study 2: My Cube Neighbor

The guy that sits behind me has a nose blowing fetish. It actually may be a OCD disorder. He will blow his nose no less than six to seven times a day. Most of the times it is a dry blow, meaning very little snot can be heard exiting his nose. On the rare occasion that snot actually exits it is excruciatingly gross to hear. Never does he exit his cube or say excuse me. I asked, about six months ago, if he had allergies. He said no, why? Why? I know it is just a fetish because we can sit in a two hour meeting and he never reach for a Kleenex (sitting on the conference room table), nor excuse himself. His nose blowing is not picky on the season of the year or time of day. He just has to blow it and it drives me crazy.

Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a room. A rubber room. Drove me crazy. Crazy?