The Lone Star State

This weekend I made my first trip to Texas. I've never been before and K-State Hockey scheduled a weekend of games down there. So, Jenette, Shannon, and I went down to watch the team. Michelle rode with us too, but she goes to every weekend the team plays (I mean she is a coach).


Michelle and Jenette got here Friday night and we at at Abuelo's and then went back to our house and played Pandemic with 4 people. This game is really fun. Newgen bought it for Shannon for Christmas and we've only been able to play it with the two of us. That has been fun, but everytime we play we want to try it with more people. So we got our chance and it was really fun. We played about 3 times and lost all 3 times, but were SO close the last time!

Then Saturday we left for Texas. Before we went to watch the games, Shannon, Jenette, and I went to Fort Worth to see Audri's new place. Her and TJ (her husband) just got it 1 week ago after a few months of chaos. But thanks to a really nice guy who works with TJ they got a HUGE house. I mean, huge! It's got like 5 bedroom all with walk-in closets half the size of the bedrooms. The master suite has a bathroom that is substatially larger than our upstairs bedrooms. Plus there are 3 living areas, a big kitchen, and a nice sized back yard! It's pretty groovy.


While there we also saw Brenda and Audri and TJ's two kids. One of which is 1 week older than my niece. It was fun to see how similar yet different they are.

Okay, then to the rink to watch the team. They played Texas Tech first and pretty much stunk. They looked slow and not together. It was rather frustrating. Plus it was the first time I've watched the team and not played on the team. I'm sure that helped in my opinions.

The second game Saturday night was against Univeristy of Texas. We played really well. We were tied 1-1 for a long time and then we were down 2-1 for the rest of the second period (I think). But then UT scored a bunch and we couldn't match. We ended up losing, but the team played together and I think they matched/out-skated UT in the game as well.


After that, we met up with Lyndo at Applebee's and had some un-impressive food. Applebee's really isn't that good. Everytime I go I am just disappointed. But, not many places are open past midnight.

Sunday we woke up and watched 2 more games. We played Texas A&M and University of Texas Arlington, lost both. But again, they played pretty well. In the A&M game, one of our defenseman covered the puck in the crease, which resulted in a penalty shot. C-r-a-z-y. You never see penalty shots.

Well done, goalie.

Besides not having enough shots on goal, there were a number of absurd penalites. The refs in Denton called a totally different game than the refs in St. Louis. Plus it seemed to be incosistent at times. In one game, one of our guys got called twice for roughing while using his body on the boards to get the puck. Totally clean at St. Loius. In the same game, one of our guys got elbowed against the boards and got his upper arm injured a bit, but nothing was called. And we weren't the only ones a little taken by this. A few players and fans from other teams commented to us that it should have been called, but eh. What are you gonna do?

It was a good weekend. It was awesome to see the team and talk with old friends. I didn't realize how much I missed friends and family until I saw how nice it was to just sit and talk with them in the bleachers.

Hi. My name is Richard.

Friday night we did a fund raiser for the hockey club. We provided valet parking and coat check for the Beach Art Museum. We went to Applebee's for dinner afterwards. A few things to note about this. First, I don't really like Applebee's and I always forget this. There just isn't much to get there that is good. And the good stuff, isn't really that good.

The other note is a story. Our first server left halfway through serving us. He basically just got us drinks and took our order, maybe refilled drinks once, even though we could have used more. Anyway, our new server, Richard, was all involved and made sure he knew who was drinking what and what every one got. He apologized for the other guy having to go and made a rather large deal of a small thing. But that's cool, he was at least attentive to our drink situation.

So, we order, eat, and then go to pay. He brought the bills and we got out our credit cards (Chris paid for he and Nette, I paid for Shannon and I). Eventually, Richard came back for our credit cards and then asked "Can I see some ID's?"

The first thing I thought was, "uh, we didn't get any alcoholic drinks..." But, he looked serious and so we gave him our ID's. He asked if we were surprised by this and then went on to tell us about how he had is card number stolen and it was a real bother to get it straightened out. That was enough to be annoying because really, the reason we are to sign the back of the cards is so the server can validate that it is indeed our signature on the bill. This isn't even the point.

He checks my card and says, "Woah, is that your real name?" I thought, "uh...yeah..." He follows it up with, "Your last name?" I said "uh...yeah..." but was really thinking, "no, it's my first moron." Perhaps realizing his overwhelming stupidity, he blabbers about how it's not a very common name (which is not correct) and then says "Hey my first name's Dick."

What an idiot.