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Roadtrip? What Wi-Fi hotspots would you recommend along old #Route66 ?

Know what I sayin?

One of the pitfalls of no longer drinking alcohol is knowing that raw oysters on the halfshell is a dish best served with cold beer. Regardless, give me some crackers, horse radish and red sauce, and I will make it work. 

I’ve had oysters on my mind since I hit Houston last month. For days, I have been seeing this funny little seafood joint … you can’t miss it over on FM 1960.  The building is custom designed to resemble a landlocked shrimp trawler. How clever and nostalgic.  Don’t make ’em like that anymore … not in my part of Texas anyway.

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Houston versus Texas Tech … a great matchup pretty much ignored by the favor-playing, subjective major media, but #IIWII.  The reality: the most prolific offense in college football was facing a team on a winning streak … a team led by the best defender in the country … a D squad that was giving up only 9 points a game … A game ignored except for someone’s quirky sense of humor — assigning the former, much-maligned, totally unsuccessful Texas Tech replacement coach Tommy Tuberville as a play-by-play announcer.  What were they thinking?

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When you were a child, did you know what you wanted to be when you grow up?

I knew what I didn’t want to be at about nine and it involved math.  Ha … I recently figured out that I was good in math back then only when it involved memorization — pluses, minuses, multiplication tables and all of that. Not so much the reasoning, formulated part of math.  Mix in an X or Y variable, and … (as you read this, make that sound effect of a brain exploding).

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Currently, The Dirty Gig has stationed me in Houston, in the wake of one catastrophic storm as a second just had its way with Florida after ravaging all the vacation islands.

We’ve all read so many tragic stories of individuals and even entire families being overtaken when their vehicles failed to negotiate flood waters.  It’s no laughing matter.  It could happen to anyone.

So I am hesitant to retell my recent brush with “turn around, don’t drown” — not wanting to seem callous or flippant toward others whose stories did not have happen endings. But, I vowed to share a few more thoughts from a recent road trip.  Here we go.

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Fort To Fort

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It was about 1972 that my friend took me to the mountains of New Mexico for my first snow skiing trip.  It was the time of my life at that point.  We went to a tiny, family-operated ski resort in Raton Pass, New Mexico.  The ski  instructor taught us how to “snowplow” only and turned us loose.  All day we went up and down the tiny mountain trails. 

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Monahans Rainbow

On the Facebook feed I see, the current cover story in Texas Monthly magazine seems to be the most shared article, ever, for that magazine.  Funny that it takes a horribly sad story to remind TM that The Panhandle even exists.  It’s a great place.  A potential state in its own right, if that myth about dividing Texas into five smaller states ever comes to fruition.

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My first “attempt” at college was a dismal failure.  It was so bad that I pretty much considered an “incomplete” grade for a course a bit ot a win — as opposed to a fail.  Thank goodness that university kicked me out and saved me a few bucks. Then, I went and grew up, entered another school, and became a very serious student.  Ha.  I think a reformed college drop out re-enrolled may be even more self-righteous than an ex-smoker.  The second time around, I took my college education very seriously, and foolishly I expected all the other students to take it as seriously.

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