Tornado Watch and A Great Trip to Texas A&M

It has almost been a week since I've blogged so I have some catching up to do.

Wednesday we had a Thunder game and with it came the first "tornado watch" since I arrived. The weather has been great all month (other than the wind) but we had a little rain for all of 10 minutes and talks of a potential tornado for a short time starting at around 4:30 that night. I wasn't too concerned though as I figure the Ford Center is not a bad place to be if we do get the "T" word. The warning was only in effect until 10pm and by the time it passed I was off of work.

Friday I headed to College Station, Texas to go to a Saturday afternoon football game between Oklahoma and Texas A&M. The Aggies of A&M have a very storied football history and tradition and I certainly wasn't disappointed. The drive was just a little under 400 miles each way and I pulled into town just a little after 9pm. Met up with my friend and former co-worker Mark who was in town to meet with a vendor for a few days and we went to a local bar/restaurant to grab dinner. While there the server told us about how the students and fans gather at the stadium at midnight for "Midnight Yell" which is a tradition that goes back over 75 years. It is very similar to a Pep Rally where all of the fans practice the various team "yells" and fight songs. It lasted for about 30 minutes and I would guess that over 5,000 people attended. It was definitely an experience that I would recommend.

The game on Saturday was a blowout but the experience itself was incredible. Oklahoma won 66-28 but the college football atmosphere at Kyle Field is unbelieveable. Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN is on record saying that he thinks the best fans in the nation are at Texas A&M and he might be right. The original home of the "12th Man", just ask the Seattle Seahawks who were sued by the university for using the phrase. The entire student body is constantly participating in various cheers and songs the entire game as they take their orders from cadets that keep them pumped up the entire game. The best part of the game though was their cadet band performing at halftime. Hardly anyone leaves their seats while the band performs and it is a must see if you go to a game down there. I've seen the Grambling State band and I've see the Ohio State band "dot the I" but this was the best college band performance I have ever seen. A long ways to drive for a football game but definitely worth it.

Left College Station at 9pm on Saturday night and got home at 4:15 AM on Sunday night. I did try to get a hotel about 100 miles from OKC but the 3 hotels I tried were full. Drove another 20 miles and pulled into the parking lot of a 4th hotel. As I parked my car I decided to recline the seat back and ended up taking a 45 minute nap. When I woke up I decided that I didn't want to spend any money on a hotel since I was only about 75 miles from home and had a "second wind" thanks to the nap. Drove home and jumped right into bed for a 4 hour "night" of sleep as I knew that I had a Thunder game waiting for me.

Worked our 4th regular season home game tonight. Still a little tired from my trip but my adrenaline is usually keeping me going once I get into the arena so made it through the game. Things continue to get better each game but still are not a smooth as I would like for them to be. We are getting there though and my stress level goes down with each game.

Time to go to bed and make up for the lack of sleep from my trip.