Day 1 in Lubbock, TX

Lubbock is not set up for pedestrians, which really doesn't bother me all that much except for the fact that we were pedestrians this morning. So the day begins with contextual griping. But we walked our way to our destination without incident.

On campus, we met up with Mike, a dear old friend from Cincinnati. We talked about guns and gun control and what underlies the seemingly intractable debate about these issues. Mr. Big Food had some things to say about reward vs. fear circuits in the brain. I showed a picture of our neighbor, Walker. (I'll add links when I'm home.)

"Emotions and the Marketing of Gun Control"

Mike's talk had some reprints of crappy old NRA ads from back in the crappy old days, as well as some more recent. He made some exceptional points about the emotional appeals of the ad, and how they'd changed over time.

Then Mr. Big Food did some decision theory about Libertarian cooperation, and we suffered through a really not good talk about something, and a not so bad but I was getting bored already talk about feminists perspectives on female social networks.

And then, thank God, we high tailed it outta there. Seriously. I've never been in Lubbock. At this stage of the game, all college campuses look alike to me.

You can change the vegetation,

you can rotate the message of the week,

but they all look the same.

Add a little rain and a bull dog or two and it's like I'm in Starkvegas.

So Mr. Big Food and I hit the road. And by hit, I mean we were in a tiny little rental car. Yesterday, when we picked up you little rent-a-tiny-car, the fellow asked what we'd prefer. I said, "a truck."

I didn't get a truck. And I'm trying to drive this tiny thing like a truck in Lubbock, TX.

Anyway... .

We got a map of Lubbock County and we proceeded to explore Lubbock County.

Now. I wish I had more pics for you but here's the problem. The speed limit on two lane roads is 75. It's hard to take pictures and drive 75mps. I did my best.

We were racing our way to Shallowwater, TX.

A representative abode in Old Shallowwater, Tx.

We drove around,

came across the Shallowwater Elementary School,

and found then the Middle School, and High School-- which was expanding-- while looking for down town.

Meanwhile-- and I wish I'd taken pics but there was a cop and I didn't want to be conspicuous, not driving a truck and all-- I saw little kids playing in the streets in of low-income mixed raced diverse neighborhoods. 

We couldn't find the downtown. Keep in mind that every time we exited and then re-entered the town, there was a sign telling us we were entering a town whose population was 2471 (or close to it).

And then we figured it out. Why is the high school expanding? Because

Fences

And then we picked up some BBQ, brought it back to our sweet suite, turned on the tv to watch Texas high school football, and commenced to wonder what this (above) would mean to high school Texas football.

Like, do you let your little boys out after dark with their helmets secured to scrimmage with the Big Boys over the fence?