A side trip in Texas
Driving through Texas provides endless discovery. Three hours plus from Austin to Stephenville, mostly on two-lane state routes, and the unexpected was a constant. Crippled rivers on sheets of white limestone, hoping to make it until the rains came. Multiple museums devoted to Billy the Kid. A small colony of Philadelphia Eagles fans, deep in the heart of Cowboys country, loyal to a native son in the green and white. A marvelous gourmet chocolate shop at a crossroads in Hico, pop. roughly 3000, with parking that was positively non-Euclidean. Massive ranch gates, stone and iron and God knows what else, rising up out of the landscape, guarding roads so overgrown that it's hard to imagine them being driven in many a year. One had three words over the gate: Jesus, Lord, and Hopper. For a fan of The Muppet Movie, it made for an odd disconnect.
I learned that in Texas, passing someone has its own rules. They add a slow lane to the narrow highways on the hills, a place for the less precipitous vehicles to pull aside and let the impatient drivers behind them pass, but the hills are few and far between and short, and so there's always the risk of being stuck behind - or ahead of - someone with a very different idea of appropriate cruising speed than you. If you are the fast car, you are expected to crawl up behind the slow car in front of you until you are sitting on their bumper, and they notice you're there. If you're the slow car in front, you are expected to notice the vehicle resting its front tires on the roof of your trunk and ease over onto the shoulder at full speed to allow your pursuer to pass you, friendly-like. I was driving the smallest putt-puttmobile I could rent, which meant that I was the passee far more than I was the passer, and it took me some time - and some angry guys in pickup trucks riding my bumper - before I figured out the ritual. But mostly, I was the only car out there: me and trees and scrub, and the dissonant, out-of-place voice of Jim Rome over the car's radio. He was complaining about the horror that is going shopping with one's spouse at high-end stores. It seemed a small thing to be angsting over in the middle of a space so big.
I was out there to give a talk at Tarleton State University, which went very well. Lots of interest, lots of questions, some good followups the next day with a user interface class in the CompSci department and at lunch with some music majors who are interested in doing game music; my talk had been up against the school jazz band concert, and it would have looked awkward if the sax section had cut out mid-Mingus, I presume. All in all, a worthwhile trip, and a pleasant one, and folks on the receiving end of my brutal powerpoint bludgeoning seemed pleased that I'd come.
And on the way back, I didn't listen to Jim Rome at all, and knew enough to pull onto the shoulder as needed. It was a much more pleasant drive, but that was only to be expected.
I learned that in Texas, passing someone has its own rules. They add a slow lane to the narrow highways on the hills, a place for the less precipitous vehicles to pull aside and let the impatient drivers behind them pass, but the hills are few and far between and short, and so there's always the risk of being stuck behind - or ahead of - someone with a very different idea of appropriate cruising speed than you. If you are the fast car, you are expected to crawl up behind the slow car in front of you until you are sitting on their bumper, and they notice you're there. If you're the slow car in front, you are expected to notice the vehicle resting its front tires on the roof of your trunk and ease over onto the shoulder at full speed to allow your pursuer to pass you, friendly-like. I was driving the smallest putt-puttmobile I could rent, which meant that I was the passee far more than I was the passer, and it took me some time - and some angry guys in pickup trucks riding my bumper - before I figured out the ritual. But mostly, I was the only car out there: me and trees and scrub, and the dissonant, out-of-place voice of Jim Rome over the car's radio. He was complaining about the horror that is going shopping with one's spouse at high-end stores. It seemed a small thing to be angsting over in the middle of a space so big.
I was out there to give a talk at Tarleton State University, which went very well. Lots of interest, lots of questions, some good followups the next day with a user interface class in the CompSci department and at lunch with some music majors who are interested in doing game music; my talk had been up against the school jazz band concert, and it would have looked awkward if the sax section had cut out mid-Mingus, I presume. All in all, a worthwhile trip, and a pleasant one, and folks on the receiving end of my brutal powerpoint bludgeoning seemed pleased that I'd come.
And on the way back, I didn't listen to Jim Rome at all, and knew enough to pull onto the shoulder as needed. It was a much more pleasant drive, but that was only to be expected.
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