Last weekend, I got a chance to revisit the old stomping grounds. Herein is the tale.

The wife and I flew out of Newark Int'l Airport to Houston Intercontinental Airport (which has been renamed "George Bush Intercontinental Airport", but just as I still refer to "3Com Park" as "Candlestick Park", I'll still refer to IAH as Houston Intercontinental Airport).

We arrived at Newark early, about an hour and a half early, and arrived at the last monorail stop where we heard that there are delays on the monorail. The monorail was moving just slightly faster than a normal walking pace. After thirty minutes, we arrived at the first of the three terminals. Our flight was leaving from the last terminal on the line. We sat for five minutes when the announcement came. "This monorail train has to return to the previous station." Everyone gets off. The platform is crowded. Our flight is boarding. I tell the wife to come on. We take a taxi from Terminal A to Terminal C, check our one suitcase, dash off to the gate, and make it just in time for the final call for boarding.

Despite the flight being on Continential Airlines, the flight went rather smoothly. We were back in the cattle car section and for lunch, they served a round chickenesque thing on a bun. I didn't think it was actual meat until the wife found a bone in hers.

The first thing I noticed about Texas is the Big Sky. Here in the New York Metro Area, if you want to see the sky, you have to look straight up through that sliver of space. Back in Texas, you can see to the horizon. Not only that, but Texas also has terrain! Rolling hills, thick forests... Yet the sky is still huge! It's because there's space out there -- space between houses and buildings, lawns, yards, parks. Everything is so crushed in here. Even in the areas here where you can see for miles in a direction, everything seems so confined. Texas is open.

The next thing I noticed about the state is the flag. Perhaps that should be capitalized. The Texas Flag. No other place in the nation have I seen such devotion to a scrap of cloth. Certainly, throughout the states, there is respect and admiration for the American Flag, but there, in Texas, there is an even more powerful feeling for the state flag. It's a feeling of adoration.

Take a group of Texans into combat. Wave the state flag when the battle starts to go against them. They'll rally stronger than a group from Illinois rallying under the American flag. Americans are patriotic. Texans are chauvinistic.

You see that flag everywhere. To a Texan, it's a glorious thing. Mythic.

I have a vague idea what the New Jersey state flag looks like. I think it's yellow. I have no idea what New York's looks like. I could draw Mexico's flag better than I could draw Illinois' state flag, and I lived in Illinois for over a decade!

The third thing I noticed were all the billboards around Houston advertising "Vasectomy Microsurgery Removal". Wow.

In Texas, we have sudden rains. "Texas Downpours" I call them. We encountered one on the way up to Aggieland. It was like a lake materialized above our rental car and succumbed to gravity. The windshield wipers would clear maybe a half inch of the deluge. Thirty seconds after the rain hit, we passed out of the wall of water.

Little did we realize this was no ordinary Texas Downpour. This was part of the Tropical Storm that just broke up a day or so prior. Smart travellers we, not having read any weather reports for the area. That weekend, parts of the Houston area had up to three feet of rain. We found out later that our airline cancelled about a thousand flights on Saturday.

That night, while the wife went off with her old lab group, I went over to visit some friends and managed to try out the Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition rules. It ran much easier than I thought.

The next day, we found out about the "remnants from Tropical Storm Allison", or "The Flood of a Lifetime", as the newsreaders called it. All the ATMs in the city were down. We tried to buy some used CDs at Disc-Go-Round and wound up having to pay cash for the stash. ATM service wasn't restored until later that afternoon.

Thinks have changed in College Station. The Half Price Books store moved from the crowded house into a place in a strip mall. It left behind cramped quarters, limited parking, and some of the shop's charm. There are more private dorms going up around campus. About ten years ago, a big stink was raised when a company opened up University Towers. Now there are at least ten non-campus affiliated "private dorms". The campus life without living on campus.

When making our plans for visiting, I had a list of places to eat at, food to try, and beer to drink. I managed to hit every place on the restaurant list except for Layne's (this is the second time I didn't get there). Food-wise, I only got to sample a handful of jalapeno-flavored potato chips. Beer-wise, the only thing on my list was Shiner Bock, a Texas regional beer that can be purchased from coast to coast, but not north of Maryland. Luckily, it's in abundance down in Texas and I was happy.

We went to the wedding reception and there was much retelling of humorous stories, most of which involved explosives, fire, and messy chemical reactions. Silly physics graduate students.

The next morning, we all said our farewells. When we arrived, we were afraid that this would be the last time we'd all be together in one place. When we left, we knew that we'd all get together again someday for a reunion. Several people are coming out towards the east coast. One lives in Ohio now. Another is thinking of coming back to the New York area. Another works outside of Washington, DC, for the CIA. Just to make certain he reads this, I'll add a few sensitive words here: Typhoon-class nuclear President Zamf covert. It's hard to believe that one of my drinking buddies now is responsible for The Safety of the Free World.

Anyway, we finally got back home. No food on the flight. The catering level at Houston Intercontinental Airport was flooded. Back at Newark, the announcement at the baggage claim said that luggage from the flight would be "on display at carousel five". I idly wondered where one would be able to claim the luggage.

Then we were home.

-Faux "still wishes he was back there" Pas