Texas Trip - Side Show At The Rodeo

We were at the Austin Rodeo................it was my first rodeo ever. Sure, I have seen stuff on television.........and this is the real deal. I have other stuff to tell you about, but first and foremost, I must tell you about the side show. For the most part, the rodeo itself pretty much takes place indoors in huge buildings and an indoor arena much like the First Mariner Arena in Baltimore, except a bit smaller........okay then, maybe it is not so huge.....hehehe. Outside of those "facilities" it is basically the equivalent of a State Fair............in other words, rides....amusements.....displays.....sales pitches......food.....food.....and more food..........oh......and animals galore. As these kinds of things go, there is always a side show of some sort. I had always bypassed these side show freak shows. I figured that they were a scam...........but Supernurse, this time, gathered us up and we all entered this side show tent before we left to head back to Noodle's house.

Somehow, I had the impression that the signage would be better than what would be found inside the tent.............but I really did not know what to expect.

There were only about three or four live animals in the tent. The cow with extra legs.........the two nosed cow.........and some other freaks of nature. Okay........the signs didn't lie.......but the animals had birth defects. I would have been more interested in seeing a woman with six breasts or a four-legged basketball player with six ears. So we continued inside the tent and looked at the non-living displays. Taxidermy anyone? Multiple legs........one eyed cyclops........yep.....just like the signs said.

And then there were the jars. If you cannot read the labels in the picture, just click on the image and it will go full screen for you. To return back, just press your "back" arrow icon that is at the top left of your browser window. More birth defects preserved in formaldehyde.

I couldn't help but think back to the late 1970s when I managed a convenience store. There was always a couple of huge jars on the counter.............pickled pigs feet and pickled eggs..........hmmmmm...........hey,......come to think of it.......I was a sideshow barker.....hehehe.

I couldn't get this thought out of my head................I was thinking that there was probably somebody attending this rodeo, wondering while looking at these jars, and thinking "I wonder what that tastes like!"

And then there was the two-headed baby in a jar. Apparently, this one had been around. I cannot say for sure if it was real and I would think that there would be some sort of law discouraging the pickling of humans for display..............no ........wait........I guess it IS legal after all.............I forgot about funeral parlors. Then again, this was not a funeral parlor........but some funeral parlors ARE similar to a side show........hehehe. Hmmmmmmm.......sometimes you see things that make you go "hmmmmmm".

Now this was interesting. Imagine having an aquarium in your living room with this dude in it. I could not actually tell what this was supposed to be..........but THIS was the icing on the cake for me.

This was "Twilight Zone" stuff! Get a good look at it..........no.......it isn't Michael Jackson.

Maybe this "dude" is actually a female something or other. It has a flipper.........maybe its a mermaid. I have been all over the Caribbean and did not see one mermaid.........not even a merman............not even Ethel Merman...........and I come to Texas and see one? No way.......it can't be............or can it?

That's it for the side show.............now you know what is inside the tent.

I still would have rather seen a six breasted woman eating pickled pigs feet and shooting baskets with a four-legged dude named Johnson.

Maybe one day...............

A Moment With Signtopia Expansion Pack 2.1

It's brief..........then again, you probably would not want to hear the sound that Supernurse is making for more than 30 seconds.

Our Visit With Noodle

It has to be called "progress". It is never easy to have family move so far away.......this kind of "progress" always rips another hole in your heart. It is something I have had to deal with my entire life. I really hate it when people that I love leave.........but I also really do understand why those people leave. It is not as if I am being left behind..........I like to think of it as I am the one holding down the fort..........I will maintain that part of their lives that is called "home".



It wasn't easy to accept that my "Noodle Girl" would end up moving away to Leander, Texas. Yet another hole in my heart............but I am okay with it for now. I do worry though........I cannot be there to help........or make sure they are safe. This trip......this visit......is helping me deal with it all. As I stated, I understand all of the reasons they left Baltimore. It was actually a no-brainer, but I was not familiar with their chosen new home. The fear of the things that you know about is bad enough, but it is the fear of the unknown that eats you up. Seeing things for myself is very therapeutic. It makes everything taste better. As a Dad, you kinda like to believe that you have some sort of control over your kids...........but they grow up............and it is at this point that whatever job you did raising your kids, will be revealed. Okay.........enough of that.................let's get to the visit already.........




For those of you out of the loop........this is my grand-daughter "Princess Fartknocker". She is my eldest daughter's second child. Her eldest child "The Mayor Of Simpleton" was not with us on this trip. We brought Fartknocker with us for two reasons..........1......"Signtopia" is the one who looks after her during the week while her parental units work.........and 2...........this trip would give her an opportunity to visit with her other grandparents who just so happen to live not very far from Leander. In the picture, Princess Fartknocker is in bliss........and she is in bliss because she is with her cousin "Signtopia Expansion Pack 2.1"..................

................and, as you can see............Signtopia Expansion Pack 2.1 is a happy baby.

We spent alot of time just spending time with my Noodle Girl. Noodle Girl is , of course, my youngest daughter. Here we are enjoying a game on my laptop............of course I had my laptop with me. This laptop has been on two cruises, went to New Orleans, went with me to Jamaica, Cancun (twice), the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands,..........wherever I go.

My son-in-law, "Number Cruncher" took me for a drive to show me the road signs that they discovered...........and, of course, I had my trusty camera with me.

How often do you find this?

Look close.............I guess they actually ran out of names................hah......it's one of those roads where you can actually tell someone "I don't know the name of that road".

Right next to their home is a community pool and playground. I took Fartknocker there so she could burn off some energy.

This is the Noodle Girl's new home.

On the left........the community pool..........and the wavy sidewalk between the fences.

The yard is fenced and is a pretty decent size......plenty of room for the Expansion Pack to play.

It is also plenty of room for my two granddogs "Dory" and "Sammy" to run around. At some point, there will be a patio......but.....hey........they are just getting started.

Four year old hacker. Maybe she will have her own blog one day and write about her memories of me................well.............maybe.

Inside the house is very roomy.............of course they have alot more stuff to get yet.........but they have time for that.

I fixed two dinners while here.............lasagna on one night........and country fried steak on another night...........by request. I was happy to fix it.

I was also happy to go to this place.............Duke's. What can I say?...............Barbeque!............and the pinto beans!............let's just say the beans were what you want to eat about two hours before getting on a plane...........hehehe.

Noodle Girl and Number Cruncher...................yeah I like seeing this kind of stuff............makes me feel good.

When at a barbeque restaurant, there are certain things you have to do with the children.............stand them up on the table!...........hehehe.

Actually, Number Cruncher is very good with the baby. He is going to be a great dad............seeing this also makes me very happy.

My wifey-poo, Supernurse, was very happy to spend some time with the baby. Seeing her dote over the baby as she did........well.........you know how I feel about that, too.

This alone, was worth the trip.

Pictures speak louder than words...................and it's a good thing he isn't old enough for the pinto beans.......hehehe.

I have to mention this place. It is a store called HEB plus! Think Sam's Club meets Wal-Mart meets Costco meets BJ's meets Albertson's. I love this store. I just cannot understand why we don't have these in Baltimore.

Oh well...........stay tuned, I have to tell you about the rodeo next.

The Texas Visit Part One

The airport in Austin is quite a bit smaller than Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall Dixon O'Malley Rawlings Blake D'Alesandro Schaefer Schmoke Kweisi International in Baltimore. One thing I found strange was that it appears to have a huge amount of parking lots.......probably more. Everything went smoothly even though there was quite a bit of wind for some reason. We arrived later in the day, but the temperature had been 91 degrees earlier! Imagine that!.......91 degrees in late February...............I do not even want to think of how hot it will be in the summer months in Texas. Aside from absolutely clear blue skies and a bit of wind, the first thing I cannot help but notice is the air................it is clean air........not like Baltimore air. Call this trip a fact finding mission to see where my daughter is now living and raising a family. I was not happy that she moved so far away................I was even more disturbed that she relocated to an area that I was unfamiliar with. Oh well..........the world keeps spinning and life goes on......there ain't much I can do about it. I cannot blame them for wanting a decent existence away from a place such as Baltimore. Even though there is much I love about Baltimore, I can understand why people leave it.

Anyway...........we leave the airport in Austin and head northwest to an area known as Leander...............you can call it one of those "bedroom communities" outside Austin. From my observation, there is less traffic........well maintained roadways...........very efficient toll roads to save travel time..............and very noticeably less police vehicles roaming about. I mention the police vehicles because you cannot leave my house and not see a police car within a few moments. We seem to have a plethora of cops yet the crime rates are always rising.............hmmmm........as I think about it, I have forgotten that in Texas......people are still allowed to have guns to protect themselves. Besides........I have come to the conclusion that we have alot of police patrolling around in order to get a grasp on those who do not wear seatbelts. Surely you must know that there is money involved...........yep.......as in fines for not wearing the seatbelt............almighty revenue.........the other form of taxation.........highway robbery..........gee.....with all of that revenue they could.........well........they could hire some more cops and catch some more seatbelt law violators.........after all.........O'Malley has this "structural deficit" that has to be dealt with......hehehe. Gosh I love Maryland.

So we get off of the highway and hit the smaller roads.........and I still have not seen one cop car........but I have seen a shitload of Ron Paul campaign signs everywhere. They seem to love him here.........somehow I think it is drug-related..........well.........from what I hear about Austin is that there seem to be many libertarian hippie types hanging out here. I suppose I would fit in rather well here actually.......hehehe.

The other thing I notice is that this place reminds me of Florida quite a bit............maybe because of the view of the horizon...........it is all flat, it appears. Keep in mind, I have no idea where my daughter lives or what it looks like...........and the road I am on is making me hear banjo music, if you know what I mean......hehehe.

My eyes were looking everywhere and I noticed this odd thing. Maybe it is not odd for you, but where I come from, our traffic lights hang down.............red on top, amber in the middle, green on the bottom...........but not here. This would take some getting used to for me.

Also, I can see alot of undeveloped property that is soon to be developed. It is obvious that this is a growing area. In the picture you can see the train tracks...............which will be used for commuters who work in Austin. Ahhhhhh...........I like the fact that they seem to be planning ahead.

I don't know about you, but when I saw this, I had all sorts of stuff running through my mind.
Banjo music.............people with leather faces and chainsaws running down that road..........people screaming..............nahhhhh......this cannot be where my kid lives...........is it?

Look at that sky!..........Maybe I will get to see one of those unidentified flying objects I heard about on the news recently.........I have my camera ready!

So we head down the road a bit further, but not too far down the road.............and I am not really seeing much of anything.............hmmmm.........ok........where are we going?

The homes are out there yet they seem to be hidden.........it is a bit strange.

Ahhhhhhhh............a traffic backup because of a traffic light!............this makes me feel right at home! Seriously, though........this light is not as long as the lights near my home in Baltimore.

At this point, I am starting to see indications of civilization again......hehehe.

The banjo music in my head is fading.

We make a left turn onto a side road and VOILA! We are there! THIS is where my daughter lives now. Pretty good........I feel relieved.

The lawns are a bit parched, but overall, this is a very nice community. I am very relieved...........because the bathroom was just a few steps away at this point and I had some plumbing to take care of........hehehe.

Seriously, I was very impressed with what I had seen so far. I felt good about my daughter living here in her brand new home and community. I will write further about this in another installment.........so let's move on shall we?

As it was, my son-in-law spent one day driving us around to show us the area. Not far from their home is Lake Travis. This entire area is also known as Hill Country. Imagine that......it is as flat as can be where my daughter lives, yet just down the road a piece...........hills!........and a lake!

Actually, this area is very impressive. Lake Travis was beautiful. I was told that Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaghey(sp?) both own homes here by the lake. I cannot say I blame them.

As you can see, it was very windy. In fact, that darned wind persisted throughout our entire visit.

The road winded around Lake Travis. Alot of the homes are dotted throughout the hillside.

From there, we headed into Austin and drove through town. See the statue/whateveritis?

It is a large spinning bat made of metal. Why? Well, because just around the corner is a bridge that is famous for having a gigantic population of bats that hang around underneath it. Apparently it is an attraction.

So......of course, we made a left turn at the light and headed over that bat bridge! I suppose that one of the most noticeable things about Austin is that is appears to be very clean.

.........and it also appears to be growing.

Austin is the Texas State Capitol. This is the Capitol Building. I did not get to roam around on foot in Austin and check out the various shops.......not on this trip......there will be a time for that someday in the future.

So we drove around some more and headed back to my daughter's house. We did not come to sight-see.......we came to spend time with our daughter and our new grandchild Signtopia Expansion Pack 2.1. We had some visiting to do.........and visit is what we did.

Stay tuned..........there is more to tell.

TSA Must Mean Something

So there I was............at the Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall Dixon Rawlings Blake O'Malley Schaefer Mfume International Airport............waiting for a plane to show up. Lately, I have noticed that when I arrive at my assigned gate for departure, my plane is never sitting there waiting for me...............still in the air somewhere. The jet engines hardly get a chance to cool down in between flights...............I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing..........oh well.............there are enough obvious bad things to deal with at the airport these days.............and this day came full tilt right off the bat before we ever got to the departure gate. Aside from having to wait for your plane at the gate.......hmmm.....the waiting process might just be a cooling off period for pending passengers.............everyone is subjected to the scrutiny of the TSA. It is miraculous that people are able to hold back their anger at some of the bogus things that we are subjected to as a result of a few towel-headed morons having a desire to make history and go hang out with something like 70 alleged virgins with hairy armpits and enough peach fuzz on their faces that Achmed might think he was ripped off by Allah and sent to a gay oasis. Oh well.

As it is............and we just have to live with it.........we have to each go through a security checkpoint operated by the finest idiots in the USA............well.........okay.........."some" of the finest idiots...........it would not be fair of me to categorize idiots as all being "fine". If there is one thing I hate about traveling on a plane, it is the process you go through before you ever get to see a plane. Now don't get me wrong here.......I fully understand and accept the necessity for having a security checkpoint. What I do not understand is the bullshit that comes with such a thing.

You reach the checkpoint and you have to put all of your stuff on trays that you send through an x-ray machine. Take your computers OUT of the computer bags and put in a seperate tray...........what? This does not make any sense to me...............x-rays can't see through computer bags?.....huh?.......since when?..........I ain't buying this crap. Hats off..........remove your shoes and send it through...............okay, okay........I understand the shoe thing......but not the hat thing. After all......I am about to walk through a METAL DETECTOR!.......and I am fond of my cast iron baseball cap. But WAIT!................."Sir, please remove that Baltimore Ravens jacket before you enter the metal detector!" "Put the jacket in a tray and send it through the x-ray machine along with your computer.........but put the jacket in a seperate tray." Everyone knows that a thin Ravens jacket blocks x-rays. If the jacket covered over the laptop computer, the idiot that is carefuly analyzing the monitor on the x-ray machine might not be able to tell that it is a laptop.

Are you getting my point here? Sometimes we step into such a huge pile of bullshit that it takes weeks to remove the stench from your nose.

So I ask the high-tech TSA guy......."My jacket?..........seriously?"......he said "Yes"......so I ask the question that begs being asked "Do you want me to take off my shirt too?". See.......I do not see any difference between a jacket and a long sleeved corduroy shirt. Common sense tells me that if you could hide something in a light jacket.......surely you could hide something in a shirt like mine. Furthermore, it is at this point I am now wondering about the quality of the metal detector that we are to walk through. Shirt fine........shirt AND jacket.......too thick for this equipment, eh? It could have easily gotten ugly at this point.........I was very vocal about my disgust over the ridiculousness..........but I got through the metal detector after succombing to their requests...........but then I hear the TSA person that is analyzing the x-ray machine call out "Whose tray is this?" and I look up and it was MINE! "Hey, that's my tray"..............."Sir, we are gonna have to run this through again".............it wasn't the tray with the shoes........or the one with the laptop computer.........not the one with the wallet, hat and glasses and camera bag................it was the TRAY WITH ONLY A THIN RAVENS JACKET IN IT!!!!!!!! Folks.........it IS the End Of The World.......and this little incident is just another fine example that we are well on our way.

So I had to wait as they ran my jacket through a second time................everything was being held up....slowed down........all for a Ravens jacket..............anyway.......I finally get my jacket back and get my shoes tied and turn around and what do I see? I see Supernurse and Princess Fartknocker standing there at the end of the whole operation, waiting as a TSA moron was going over one of those seriously dangerous items that Princess Fartknocker carries around with her...........

...................a Barbie Doll! The TSA guy was lifting the skirt up on the doll, held it to his hear, stuck it near some sort of analyzing machine................I made a comment out loud to Supernurse....."What is wrong?.....Did you forget to take the shoes off of the Barbie Doll?" Once again, things could have gotten ugly at this point, but I held back after one of those looks that Supernurse gives me when I start getting a bit obnoxious and sarcastic. Can you believe this? Then I thought about it...................and I think I fully understand why an x-ray machine can tell if your power supply pack for your computer is filled with c-4 explosives while at the same time cannot give a clue as to what is going on inside a Barbie doll.

Hmmmmmm....have you figured it out yet?

It's because it is all bullshit. The machines are probably the cheapest pieces of shit that money can buy.......which goes right along with the morons that operate it. Is it a good idea, in the name of national security, to hire the bottom feeders of the food chain? Huh? So what does TSA stand for? The Shit Accumulates?
This Shit Again?
The Slowest Agency?

So what are we left to do............knowing what we know now.........and having gone through what we have gone through..........................hmmmmmm. You have to take things into your own hands.........or eyes. If I have confidence in anything, I have confidence in myself......I trust what I see with my own two eyes. Now it is up to me to be aware of my surroundings.......and I have to sit there or stand there, waiting for the plane to arrive...........and inspect and analyze all of the other passengers that will be getting on my plane. I think I could spot potential Achmeds anywhere.


As it happened.......we were assigned seats in the very last row on the plane. The only things behind me was the restrooms and two small spaces for the stewardesses to sit. I can watch everyone..........and I did. It would have been nice if I could have had some confidence in the TSA, but not on this day.........a nap would be out of the question. I am pissed.

I was heading to an area outside Austin, Texas to see one of my daughters and new grandchild. Not a vacation trip............but a family visit. We would spend some time with those we miss. Not interested in roaming all over the place, sightseeing......stuff like that. The bonus for Princess Fartknocker was that not only did she get to see her Aunt Noodle and new cousin, but also her other grandparents. It is great when things work out that way.

It was also my intention to watch the skies once in Texas because there has recently been alot of reports about UFO's in an area not too far from where my daughter lives. If there was a flying saucer or something unusual.........I have my camera ready to go......................

......................and as I sat there on the plane..........I saw something!



I never saw anything like it before.........I had to take the picture.............damn.........and I was so close to it.........it was amazing..........it was almost scary......................definately something you don't see everyday.....................

............an eclipse!



Stay Tuned! I have some stuff to tell you about Texas.