My heart belongs on Bourbon Street

I am my mother's child. There is probably a really good reason that she never took me to New Orleans until this sumer. She knew good and well that I would become obsessed.
My room is adorned with picture of New Orleans, Mardi Gras beads, fleur de lis, and masks. But that's not even close to the extent of it. New Orleans is somewhere in the back of my mind 95% of the time. The French Quarter is my favorite place on this earth. I am addicted.
I'm sure you can relate my experience today with the experiences of a drug addict. At lunch today, I just started craving an oyster poboy. Cajun food sounded absolutely delicious. I could taste it. I started thinking of the absolutely fantastic oyster poboy I had at this place called Johnny's in NOLA. Mouth. Watering. Then I started just thinking about the city. All of a sudden I just had this urge to go there. So I made plans for spring break. In September. I'm going, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Back to my story though...I had this itch. I couldn't get it out of my head, and I just had to go.

It's only gotten worse.

I am currently googling hotels in the French Quarter, how much gas money it would take to get there and back, and listening to a "New Orleans by Louis Armstrong" Pandora station and pretending I am there.
New Orleans has a way of stealing a piece of you and never giving it back. I love Texas more than anything, and I absolutely love Texas Tech, but I have come to the conclusion that my heart belongs on Bourbon Street.

Here are some pictures I took during my French Quarter expedition. They don't even do the place justice.

We might be saying bye to the Big 12

With my job, I know what's going on with Texas Tech. And the Big 12. And of course I have opinions.

A&M wants to go to SEC. A&M denies ever sending a letter to SEC. A&M leaves Big 12 (conditionally). SEC invites A&M as long as there are no legal issues. Baylor threatens litigation. And now Iowa State is thinking along the same lines too. And Kansas, Kansas State, Mizzou, Baylor, Iowa State, and Tech aren't signing the waivers required to A&M to SECede. This has been my life the last week.

OU is now thinking about leaving if A&M gets to leave. If OU leaves, OSU will leave, and we'll be stuck without a conference. If this happens, the rumors are that OU, OSU, Texas, and Tech will all go to Pac-10(16) and create a superconference. This might be cool, because Texas would be forced to share their network with Tech half and half. But at the same time, a superconference would have it's downfalls. There would have to be a ton of money to keep that thing alive.

Scatterbrain moment...let's just talk about why this whole thing happened. Simple reason: The Longhorn Network. Ok, here's the somewhat more long winded version: A&M has always been really jealous of the Texas Longhorns (and I am by NO MEANS a longhorns fan). I mean hell, they dedicated their fight song to the Longhorns. They won't admit it, but they're really jealous.

So here's what could be happening.

Baylor is threatening to sue. They're terrified the Big 12 will fall apart, and for good reason. Baylor has the worst conference record in the Big 12. No one like the Big East or Pac-10 is going to pick them up. They're going to be stuck in a horrible conference like the C-USA or Mountain West. Or, even worse, forced to go independent. They won't make enough revenue to keep their current large program up.

Texas will most likely go to the Pac conference, in which (as long as invited) Tech will most likely follow.

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will probably also go. Rumors are spreading that OU is currently already in discussion with the Pac-10/12/whatever number it will be. OSU will most definitely go wherever OU goes.

Mizzou, Kansas, K-State, and Iowa State remains up in the air. Albeit, Mizzou, Kansas and K-State probably won't have any problem being picked up by a decent conference. Some may even join us in the Pac if we have to go over there, and we would then create the Eastern Division along with Arizona and some more.

Let's just say OU doesn't leave and create a big clusterfuck. We would need some more schools to build up our diminishing conference. We talked to Arkansas, that won't happen. They left us for a reason. BYU? SMU? Houston? Louisville? SMU and Houston seem the most probable, and both are good schools; it wouldn't be bad to have them. The Red River Rivalry could continue, the Tech/Texas rivalry could continue...everyone would be happy.

But if A&M leaves Big 12, and they no longer play Texas, what happens to "goodbye to Texas University?" They're gonna sound like huge idiots singing that when they're playing Ole Miss or Bama. Oh wait...they kinda are huge idiots. If they would've just sucked it up and dealt with Texas being the powerhouse that they are, we wouldn't be in this giant dilemma right now. I mean hell, even with the Longhorn Network, they would have increased network coverage because of the big rivalry between the two schools.

So within the next week or two, Big 12 might disappear. Tech might be part of the new Pac-16 Superconference. Or, we could get new members of the Big-12. We will see.

Football is back!

Ahhh, football season. So glad you're back. And let me tell you, yesterday was one hell of a return. I honestly think yesterday was one of the funnest days I've had while at college.

I woke up, got ready, and waited to tailgate. Yeah, I was ready way before I needed to be because I was so extremely excited.

Got to the tailgate. It's the first time I've tailgated with this group of friends, and I love it. They're the best. Everything needed for a tailgate was there. Food, fun, friends, and of course some other liquid essentials. Mom and Dad even joined in for a bit! It was so good to see everyone decked out in red and black again. Game days rank right up there with Christmas and my birthday on my list of favorite days. It is a glorious sight.

We finally started walking to the game, which was quite a walk since we tailgated so far out. We had to make a few stops along the way, which made it take a little longer. We got to the game at the beginning of the second quarter. By halftime, a dust storm had blown in, and between people wearing contacts and my dress blowing up, we decided to leave. We went back to the tailgate for a while, and then started making the rounds needed for people to clean off and change. We all met up at my house, and then went back to the tailgate. And yes, the game was way past finished at this point. We won 50-10. Sorry, Texas State.

Last night was part of the reason it was so fun. We had a party in the parking lot. Cops didn't bug us, either, which was really cool. We had loud music, and plenty of people. Everyone was dancing and having a good time. It was so much fun! If this keeps happening every game, which is a good possibility since everyone loved it, I will earn as many degrees as possible just so that I can stay in college forever.

Anyway, here are some pictures of yesterday!

Sadly enough, we're more together than my cheer team in high school ever was, and we weren't trying.

This is my favorite picture taken all day. And I don't even remember why we were doing that.