We happened upon the largest cross in the western hemisphere.











BBQ Texas.

In Texas we called it a night at Vega. "I love tech-no-lo-gy." Cell phones are useful since my friend's father tracked us periodically by Google Earth (awesome software if you have high speed connection). We never felt lost with the GPS. No only that, all the hotels we stayed at had wireless Internet.

Anyways, the clerk at the Comfort Inn welcomed us to the "edge of civilization" because we were on the border to New Mexico.

We stopped at a town named Amarillo which was along our route. This town has an airport and a rodeo. We ate at the Big Texan Steak Ranch which was interesting for the atmosphere but disappointing in terms of food. The outside had a huge sign, bright lightbulbs outlining the building (tacky but maybe it draws unsuspecting tourists). When we walked in we heard loud yee-hawing and a trio playing "You Are My Sunshine" on the guitar, fiddle, and bass. We saw cowboy hats and a plethora of mounted animal heads on all the walls. The restaurant's claim to fame is a 72 oz. steak that is free if you eat it within 1 hour. That's 4 pounds of meat. (Kobayashi where are you.) A newsarticle on the wall reported the record time as several seconds above 9 minutes.

We ate some steak, but taste was lacking. "Steak tomatoes" were just tomatoes cut in half with black pepper sprinkled on it. "Steak onions" were raw rings of red onion. "Steak fries" were fried from processed frozen stuff. My ribeye steak was decently grilled but my friends were quite disappointed with their sirloins. "You Are My Sunshine" played a few more times in the background. Overall: limited effort in preparation. (For the same price, Chicago steakhouses far surpass this place in taste.)

Near the end of our meal a couple got up and started dancing while the trio played away. The waiter was a nice fellow who sat down and chatted with us. We commented to ourselves that this is part of the southern hospitality where strangers readily strike up conversations with you.

We drove across Oklahoma today and stopped in Texas. Oklahoma is hilly and the soil is interesting because it is like red clay. When we hit Texas, I noticed 2 things: the price of gasoline going up and the landscape turning to shrubbery. The cheapest gas prices were in Missouri and Oklahoma. You would think Texas with all its oil refineries would have cheaper gas. Shrubbery stretches from Texas to California. You wouldn't have much use for a lawnmower and mowing shrubs would be difficult and if you removed the shrubs all you would have is dirt. Here are some interesting plants.

The first picture shows one of the weeds, they're like dark hairy fists.





"They came from pods!!!" Actually, I believe these are the fruit of the yucca.















Here is a plant with pink wisps and white flowers.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I rode up the south side and down the north side in a 5-seater pod.

 

Bales of hay in Missouri. 

Blazing Cool Chip
IBM & Georgia Institute of Technology have created a silicon-germanium semiconductor chip that can run at 500 GHz when cooled to -268 degrees Celcius and 350 GHz at room temperature. Compare that to current computer chips that run at most at 3-4 GHz, it's a giant leap. They say that such technology would reach consumers in about 1-2 years and could potentially support near the frequency of a Terahertz at room temperature.

I attended a graduation ceremony today. Some observations from the graduation:
The guest speaker said his psychiatrist friend was asked why he went into psychiatry. His friend responded: "Surgery was not invasive enough." Delving into the mind is more invasive. Why? Because our thought betray our hearts. Such exposure is something people fear. The Bible says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9

Still, what a strange response from the psychiatrist... there must be more purpose to direction than the sake of being invasive. Is it then ultimately a grasp for power and control? So banal.

When nonmedical* people meet a psychiatrist, they often wonder if the psychiatrist is analyzing them -- as if psychiatrists can read minds (they can't). I'm told the punchline is the psychiatrist responds, "No, I could analyze you for a fee."

There was something uneasy about todays speaker, he seemed bored and nervous from the getgo: leaning on the podium, slouching to one side, unsure of where to place his hands - often placing his fingers together like Mr. Burns of the Simpsons. Perhaps he was jetlagged or came at short notice.


*Concerning the use of the word "nonmedical": In roles of service there is a distinction made between the service provider and others as in [Military/law enforcement vs. civilian], [clergy vs. laity]. However it is not quite encompassing to say medical vs. patient since not all people are patients. Is there a better word for nonmedical?