Randomness

There doesn't seem to be much news of lasting significance around here these days, so we'll shoot from the hip a little bit and maybe tell a story later on.

We're nearly a month into home ownership, and out of cardboard boxes, for the most part. We've unpacked much, thrown out some, and put some into storage. That's right, we finally have more space than we have stuff to put in it. We had our trivia friends over for food and games last night, so that did lend a sense of urgency to the last few days. We still absolutely love this house, and there's more to be done, but we've traveled a good distance.

I've taken to my front yard just a little bit-- watering every other day, as well as checking to make sure the ant hotels are vacant. It'd just be nice to have a little rain here and there, as it's been pretty dry here the last three weeks. Today I went and bought some Roundup and a weed eater to help with the weed action I've been getting.

I've been back to running four days a week, basically in the same neighborhood. The paved trail is 13 minutes away now, not four. Two weeks ago my mileage was 18, 14.5 last week, and a projected 20 this week. I hope to be near 30 miles most weeks. There needs to be a marathon in my future, but there are some things on the horizon toward the end of the year, making those plans a little murky.

Okay, now story time.

I worked at the radio station in Levelland, Texas for two and a half years-- April 1998-December 2000. News, sports and sales. I was half of the full-time staff. I covered school board and junior college regents meetings, did the crime beat, did newscasts morning noon and evening, sold advertising the best I could. Long hours and there were never enough fingers to put in the holes in the dam, especially when the station manager (who hired me) took a job in Temple ten months after I started. That made me the entire full-time staff.

However, all I ever wanted to do was broadcast games. And this gig offered no shortage of opportunities. I'd done some baseball games the previous spring.

But football is where it's at, and my first game was September of 1998 at Dick Bivins Stadium in Amarillo, Texas. A Saturday afternoon tilt-- LHS against Amarillo Caprock. Several teams in town use the stadium, so if two teams (say, Tascosa and AHS) were at home, one would move their game to Thursday or Saturday. Anyhow, my folks were along, and they were drilling me on the Lobo names and jersey numbers on the two-hour drive north on I-27. I'd been to this stadium many times in the past, as engineer for another network that did games, so the turf was familiar. Assistant principal Mel Gierhart was my sidekick for road games. I remember him bringing up the town of Notrees, Texas (near Midland/Odessa, I think), though I forget the context. Likely something to do with game travel. But my mother, who always travels with a full pack, broke out her trusty map of Texas and found it. Yeah-- it's pretty remarkable what sticks in your head 13 years later.

I was still learning my craft, so my game performance is up for debate, but I do remember Levelland winning my first game, 32-13.

Following the game, we got back into the company car-- a Dodge Neon, and headed south for the Texas Tech-UTEP game, scheduled for that night in Lubbock. The first half went OK, but the game overall was not a good one for my guys, as my alma mater beat my favorite team on the planet. Tech 35, UTEP 3.

There were three seasons of Lobo football for me, and this was the first. The win over Caprock got the seaosn off to a good start.