Well I finally have a good chunk of time to do some blogging…
Well last Tuesday night we arrived in Tucumcari, NM and stayed at a hotel. Wednesday morning we headed to Quay, where my grandma Jo grew up. After a few wrong turns we were on the right road and headed down about 30 miles, the house was only supposed to be about 15 miles down. We turned around and stopped at some random house along the way. We asked the lady if she knew of a two story brick house and she said there was lots of them around. My dad then told her that it was where Josephine Dunlap grew up and she perked up and said ohh yeah… head down two miles and it is on the right. Unfortunately the gate was locked and it was up about 1,000 feet or so. I took some pictures and will post those soon. From there we headed out for McKinney, TX. On the way to McKinney the Audi reached the 200,000 mile mark woot for the Audi, it made it.
Got in around 7PM and they had Little Caesars pizza waiting for us. Now if you have never had Little Caesars before you are missing out, plain and simple. It has to be some of the greatest pizza around. There used to be two of them in Bremerton and Silverdale but they closed up a long time ago. Their bread sticks are totally awesome. Alright, back to the story. We just hung out and talked the rest of the night. Brandon, Amy and Riley are doing great and have a very nice house. And a nice surprise for everyone, they have another baby on the way.
Well we left McKinney around 8AM and started the trek to Longview. It was about a 3 hour drive. We took the 320 to the 69 to the 80 (staying far away from Dallas) and saw very little traffic. Maybe 20 cars every mile or so. So if you ever make the drive, that is the way to go.
We got into Longview around 11AM and spent the next half hour or so trying to find the college. The map they gave us didn’t seem to be very accurate. We were an hour ahead of schedule for our orientation time so we went up to the RG LeTourneau museum. That guy made some incredible stuff. Very cool.
Well that night we just did some random stuff and hung out. Nothing too special. Friday morning I took my dad to the Longview Airport at 4:30AM. That was so early. We got there and the place looked like it was abandoned. The lobby was locked and we weren’t sure what to do. We circled around and were going to go to the security office and saw someone walking out of the main building… the guy had just unlocked the building. Said see ya and gave my dad some hugs and he went inside and I drove off. On the way out I made a wrong turn and ended up heading to Kilgore, TX. Oops… got turned around and started heading back to Longview… then I decided to turn around again. I realized that my dad’s plane wouldn’t leave for the next hour and a half or so and he was in there sitting by himself. So I headed back to the airport and sat with him until he headed through the gate. I am definitely glad that I did that… beacuse thinking about it… that is the last time I will see my dad until Christmas.
We definitely had a great time driving down. One thing that my dad said that keeps coming out in my mind is this… he said he had been thinking and realized that our paths aren’t going to cross too much anymore. Wow. It hurts typing this right now.
Well the rest of Friday was mostly registration stuff. My classes will be Computer Science I, Biblical Literature, Principles of Management, Discrete Mathematics, Accounting Principles I, and a LeTourneau class called Cornerstones. It is just kind of like a college basics class that helps you find out some things about yourself and develop some good study habits.
Saturday was not a good day. I got the Bacterial Meningitis vaccine on Friday and the lady said that you could feel flu like symptoms. Well I didn’t really notice it on Friday but Saturday was our incoming students service project. Our various teams broke up and did things around the community. The transfer students had the task of roadside cleanup. Our group did a street south of the campus that was totally trashed. I think about 10-11 bags total in less than half a mile. It was at least 90 degrees out and with the sun beating down and that shot doing who know what to my body I was not feeling good. At a few times I felt like I was about to puke. There was one of the city guys that came by a few times to give us water. Another time a lady from the Longview paper came by and snapped some pictures and took our names. She offered to go to the store and get us some water as well… that was definitely a blessing. At lunch I could hardly keep a ham sandwich down… I took a nice long nap after that though. Later in the afternoon I got smart and took some Advil and that cleared things up a lot… it did take about an hour for it to kick in though. I had a mega headache.
Saturday we had a church fair where churches in the area came to share info with the students. Some looked awesome and others were definitely the hymn singing, suit and tie type. Today a group of 4 of us went to LifePoint Church [http://www.lifepointonline.com]. That was totally an awesome experience. They meet in a warehouse in town. A very cool atmosphere and the service was awesome. The worship was incredible…. a great band and it was all upbeat, contemporary music. They had communion today and that was another unique experience. They had six tables setup at the front of the building and had people in groups of 15 or so head up as they feet lead. The table was candlelit and it created a nice atmosphere. They passed out the bread, then a leader at the table read out the verses and prayed. Then the same thing for the wine (well grape juice or whatever). I think that was a really cool way to do things. Next week I think I am going to check out Church on the Rock [http://www.cotr.cc]. They have a college group called Life Challenge [http://lifechallenge.org] and it looks pretty sweet. There are a few more that look promising and I will check those out as time allows.
As for the computer, I got it setup the Thursday night and everything seemed ok at first, then it started slowing down and then I finally decided to reboot it. After that it gave me a Smart Status Bad (aka your harddrive is hosed). It was my windows drive which fortunately only has windows on it and very little data. I have everything backed up on the external though. Well I got it out and got windows installed on another drive I brought with me. I did an advanced replacement on the other drive since it is under warranty and should get that this week. I think Western Digital is in Texas somewhere so that should help a lot on getting the computer back up fully very soon.
Well I think this is it for tonight. It is 11:45 now and I need to head for bed soon. I will post more on the dorm/room mate and such another time. Tomorrow will be stuff like getting books, yearbook photos (we have to wear a button up shirt and a tie. Luckily I brought mine. They have jackets that we can use because I definitely don’t have one. I would love to hear from everyone. Drop me an email, leave a comment or give me a ring. All my contact info is on http://www.frosteddark.com/Contact.aspx.
Peace