Some Serious History About Texas with a Side Order of Texas A&M

Since LC Aggie Sith seems like a friendly sort, I'll only do this once (unless it happens to be Thanksgiving, then I might do it again provided that the annual football contest happens the way it is suppose to happen).

Texas A&M is a fine university and I've always had a deep respect for its academics in engineering, architecture, military studies, agriculture and science among other areas of study like animal husbandry. In Texas, the Aggie is the brunt of all insulting jokes (we use them in lieu of the Polish people), well, until the last general election. Now, we have a more adequate target.

A&M has a conservative value (virtue?) that permeates the campus and the general mindset of the student body that is rare on college campuses around the country.

This photo was taken on the campus of Texas A&M. It depicts one of the strengths of the agriculture academic programs - feeding barnyard animals gin from a styrofoam cup. I also like that they keep the leftist jackasses behind bars where they belong. The only issue I have is that the sign says, "Beware of dog." This is partially why many jokes are directed toward the university's graduates and student body.














For me though, being in the engineering biz for a substantial portion of my existence, I have worked with hundreds of Aggies and consider them all to be above the grade intellect wise. In fact, the most accurate joke told on them is this:

Q: What do you call an Aggie four years after graduation?

A: Boss.

It's true in many cases.

Many people label the Aggies as a sort of a cult in that the bond held between it's graduates probably exceeds, in camaraderie, that of any other university. I have always been amazed at how close the Aggies seem to be after graduation.

Further illustration of the conservative attributes of Texas A&M is this proposal, which took place on campus beneath the much revered Century Tree. I don't know if she accepted the proposal, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be capable of not doing so considering her hands are stuck to her face in awe in spite of his affiliation to The Corp.














Tradition is held in high regard at Texas A&M and for that, I will always have a healthy respect for the university.

Some of the other things I know about A&M:
- They have a dog grave yard at the football field score board.
- They name all they're dogs (collies) Reveille.
- Reveille is a five star general and highest ranking officer in the Aggie Corp of Cadets.
- If Reveille barks while her attendant is in class, that class is dismissed for the day.
- The don't have cheerleaders or song girls, they have yell leaders...and they are all male.
- Each class of undergraduates has they're own hand sign and yelp.
- After football touchdowns, everybody kisses each other...on the lips.
- The student body stands up through out the entire game.
- They are very, very loud.
- They hate Texas Tech, Baylor (1926) and most of the time Texas.
- They have a most incredible yell practice prior to the A&M vs. Texas game. Did I mention that they are very, very loud?
- They say "gig'em" a lot for no apparent reason.

Ok, one side note here...on occasion, the corp boys (or corpse boys as the pinhead in office might say), have a tendency to do some rather idiotic things. Reference the sword threat versus SMU and the 1926 debacle, which caused the feud between A&M and Baylor (that event was messy at best and caused a 30 year hiatus in football contests between the two schools).















And I always knew Nebraska fans were less than bright, but you have to know that when you do a road trip to A&M, you MUST mind your manners...and for the love of Reveille stay off the football field.
















LC Aggie Sith reminded me of the LSU dust up, but I couldn't find a timely photo.

Move along, move along..

Welcome to The Republic of Texas
April 21 was the anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, which was fought in 1836 following the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence, which was deemed official on March 2nd of the same year. Not coincidentally, April 21st was the day that Texas won its independence from Mexico. For some nine years, Texas was a sovereign republic, which is a claim that cannot be made by any other state in the union.

I have several lines of ancestry (including the line with the surname by which I am known) that date back to times prior to the events leading to independence. Some of my ancestors undoubtedly fought in those battles, which are now considered by many to be some of the more interesting battles fought in American history.

The Battle of The Alamo:
On March 6th, 1936, several thousand Mexicans showed up in San Antonio for fiesta and siesta in anticipation of a war rout. It didn't quite go as they had planned, because 140 (estimated) Texans and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) had other ideas and were able to fight for two weeks. This was important because it gave Sam Houston time to retreat to the east and gather his troops in what was known as the Runaway Scrape.













Alamo casualties:
Texans and Tejanos - 140 (estimated)
Mexicans - 600 (estimated)

History is unclear on the actual numbers, because while all Alamo Texas fighters were killed (allegedly some family members were spared), the lingering wounded Mexicans died in the following days and weeks due to lack of medical personnel.

Link: The Alamo (very well done website)

The Battle at San Jacinto:
It took 18 minutes for Sam Houston and his 850 fighters to defeat the post Alamo remnants (estimated to be about 1500) of the Mexican Army. Apparently Santa Anna's troops were full of fiesta tequila and siesta headache on the day of April 21, 1936. Sam Houston being worthy of legend status around these parts, decided to use this lack of respect as an opportunity for a do or die attack. A wounded Santa Anna was later captured while hiding in the thick woods wearing a private's uniform, which was somewhat significant considering he was a proud and pompous dickhead.












San Jacinto casualties:
Texans - 9 killed, 30 wounded.
Mexicans - 650 killed, 200 wounded, the rest captured.

Side note: The Texans held two main battle cries; "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad." The Goliad Massacre occurred on or about a March 27, 1836 skirmish between 60 Texans and 350 Mexicans. The Mexicans won the skirmish and subsequently took the remaining Texans prisoner. Santa Anna (dickhead) ordered all prisoners to be executed.

The Yellow Rose of Texas:
The brilliance of Sam Houston offers one side note of genius on the eve prior to the battle. One of the legends claims that Houston sent an attractive mulatto slave, Emily Morgan (or Emily West as the legend is unclear), into the camp of El Presidente Santa Anna to distract him from the war plans. Santa Anna was well known to have surrounded himself with attractive ladies.

Link: Timeline of the Texas-Mexican War

Being a natural born Texan, I find this stuff fascinating. The rich Texas history has many legends of heraldry including some excellent stories of the famed Texas Rangers - them are some bad-ass dudes make no mistake. I've known one or two of the modern day version and I can tell you this - you really do not want to be on the wrong end of their ire. History shows that they don't always play by the rules. No doubt this is a topic for future posts.

I'll most likely sprinkle more of my favorite historical notes in this blog as time passes. For now, though, there are chores to be completed or the domesticated room mate will introduce me to her specific brand if ire.

Cheers and be safe.

My Solar Magnetic Conveyor Dance Works! Not to Mention That Okla Homa is Two Words!

As I mentioned in this post from last week, I was gong to perform a solar magnetic conveyor dance to help speed up the solar magnetic conveyor so that we could see more images like this one.












There is a new tool out there in space and I'm not talking about Al Gore this time. The new tool is some newly birthed and fresh baked outer space flying machine contracted by the governments called the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO).

The SDO was launched in February of this very year (2010) and has finally reached it's cruising altitude of 22,000 miles above terra firma.

According to SOHO, the SDO is capable of:

"...super-HD, full disk frames (4096 x 4096 pixels) and with a frame rate of an image every 10 seconds in each of 10 wavelengths, SDO will capture details of motion that scientists could only dream about just five years ago."

Here is some of the SDOs fine work as released today. The image was taken on April 21, 2010. Check this out for the video and other SDO information.

















That's a big "O", as in Oh, WOW!!! Which incidentally has absolutely nothing to do with the idiot in the White House...nor does it have anything to do with Okla Homa.

Which reminds me...

Being born in Texas, there isn't much about Okla Homa that I particularly like. Ok, that's exaggerated, but if my family were to hear me admit to that, I will be without a family. However, I can think of two things about Okla Homa of which I am quite fond.


















Ok, make that four things...

















Here is Okla Homa during the the 1889 Land Rush. Looks like fun if you're into cheating, killing and squatting, because there was a lot of that going on at the same time. I heard on the radio that this week was some sort of anniversary for this madness.











[Insert]
This is not Okla Homa, but rather, it's Kyle Field located in tranquil College Station, TX. It is the football home of the Texas A&M Fighting Aggies (this is what many of us call the "other" great Texas university). While I am certain this photograph that I subversively bagged from a local Trading Post somewhere in Texas was not produced this Spring, it does illustrate against what we are up weather wise at this time of the year. I have actually been to a football contest at this field and consider it one of my most treasured experiences in spite of my loyalties to THE University of Texas.












[Edited because, while in my Saturday-lulled mind, I didn''t originally see how the Okla Homa Land Rush of 1889 had anything to do with the intended topics of this post. LC Aggie Sith over at Hookers and Booze called me out and adequately corrected me. Props to her...and close insert.]

I'm off topic again. Sorry. [Broken statement in question]

The point of this post is to report that there is unbelievable evidence that our pal Sol is finally getting with the program and the end of the world as we know it is again scheduled for eminent.

I figure that even the dirty lyin' AGW people will try to discredit my theories on GW being a solar problem and not a Human problem. I say this because that fiery crack in the Earth called Mount Eywhateverthefuckitscalledkull (this link is fucking ridiculous, too, by the way), which is located on the Land of Ice and is polluting the atmosphere at such a fantastic pace that it will undoubtedly leave us with a cooler summer. I think our old buddy Sol might just offset that dirty Earthly spat out darkness with some counter balance.

Of course, all this will be ignored by the lying left as they whine about how the speeding up of the magnetic conveyor is insignificant and that AGW is real cause for all the volcanoes and earthquakes that seem to be causing all sorts of chaos lately. Naturally, they will ignore the patterns that we already know about and the latest evolving theories on this sort of seismic activity being somewhat cyclical to boot.

NEWS FLASH: As I type this, I hear on my transistor radio that another volcano has erupted in the land formerly known as Iceland. More on this later, because I am now quite interested.

I find it retarded that the greenies are now beginning to glorify this blowd up glacier mountain for helping to curb CO2 levels in the atmosphere citing the reduction in air travel as the cause for such scientific non-sense.

Well, let them yammer on, because I am onto them before they get started. Bring it, bitches.

Triple hell-yeah and a double mono-digital salute, assholes.

Oh, one more thing...
What the hell was I hearing about earlier this week about some Islamic cleric saying that all the earthquakes and volcanoes were because some dude named Allah was pissed off? The cleric said something about some chick or what ever showing her legs publicly, which has angered Allah, who is punishing the entire planet, because nakedness is not right? Now, this is fucking retarded, because everyone knows that when females show too much skin, that has more to do with GW than anything else and nothing to do with seismic activity or plate tectonics.

In fact, that is my new theory - Naked chicks cause global warming.

I'll have to add this to my research list.

Just for Fun...No Sooners Allowed.

Oh, just for the hell of it...and because I'm working my ass off. Looks like a late night, too.

One of the most entertaining home made song/videos that I've seen (but I am sort of partial). It was originally called None Suck More Than OU, but I couldn't resist implanting another set of initials in the chorus. The original viddie is at the bottom of this post.

BTW, will college football never get here? I'm so ready...

...and it's only April.

None Suck More Than B.O.
from Lonestar Hill Productions
(lyrics slightly revised, because none suck more than Obama)

Paper cuts, lawn darts, silent but deadly farts,
AIDS, Ants, Humidity, John Tesh, Stupidity
Liars, Lies, Lice, Roth
Priapism, Pessimism, The ice monster on Hoth
The Price of Gas, the price of rent…the price is Right, the plague
The Unabomber, Jeffrey Dahmer, sinusitis, Squeaky brakes
Out-of-order ATMS, PMS, MSG,
DUI, Double dippers, Floods, flies, flats, fleas

All of these things they suck it’s true
but none suck more than B.O.

Going bald, halitosis, infomercials, notes with post-its,
Tom Green, earthquakes, Allergies, rats, snakes
Dead beat dads, Celine Dion, car dings, Neon Deon
Fabio, rubberneckers, Taxes, faxes, non sequiturs
404, not found converting Dong to British pounds
Having back hair, being broke, road rage, Religious cults
fraud, crack, warts, Sids, DOS, gnats, war, zits,
Rust, debt, guilt, Spam, Asbestos and dishpan hands

All of these things they suck it’s true
but none suck more than B.O.

Hanson, Charles Manson, Soccer, non-stick pans that stick
Mistaking cooking powdered chocolate when you want a Nestle Quick
Having to work on holidays, hiccups, jock itch, hurricanes
Jihad, the 4th Vacation movie, L R. Hubbard, Nazi’s, pain
Beggars, Bums, and hobos, paparazzi, pop-up ads
Burnt Popcorn, pot holes, propaganda, Botox, bow ties, and boy bands (like New Kidz)
Chiggers, cheaters, beepers, and dry heaving in the can
The spins, and dander and panhandlers, and dandruff, Rather, Dan

And the music video...