A few less than notable moments from driving the PubCon Conference materials to Las Vegas from the WebmasterWorld office located in Austin Texas. Adam Young (jatar_k) and I spend 24 hours on the road over 2+ days. I make no claim that this is anything but boring and is meant only to highlight how mind numbing the actual event was.
3:30 pm
It’s time to get on the road since we have a mission. The eventual mission is to get to Vegas but the more immediate concern is the Dallas vs.Green Bay game that is scheduled for 7:15pm tonight. This is the game that has caused a stir because of the fight between the NFL and cable companies over the inclusion of the NFL network amongst the general cable offerings. The majority of the U.S. population with cable cannot see the game making any home or business with satellite an instantly popular location. We tried to map out stopping place options that were large enough to have at least one sports bar where we could watch the game. The trouble with West Texas is that “stopping places†are very limited and you usually have to take what you can get. We decided Junction Texas was our best choice given the number of hotels that were in the area and the fact that a college was located there. Any place with a college must be large enough to offer several bars and at least one would must have the NFL Network. We were off.
3:45 pm
Given that we are hauling a bunch of the PubCon Conference materials to Las Vegas we climbed into a 15 ft. budget rental truck for our journey. I’d love to try and convince you it was surprisingly comfortable and fun to drive but I prefer not lie this early into the trip description. It actually drives about the way you would expect – gutless, difficult to stop when loaded and with shocks so bad that going around a corner gives you a similar experience to riding any number of the rides from the Travel Channel’s “Top 10 Scariest Roller Coasters†episode.
4:00 pm
Texas roads and road signs are goofy. For example, it seems that every road in Texas has two names. One is a name – “Texas Capital Highway†for example while the other is a number such as “Highway 183â€. This makes following directions from Google Maps or a well intentioned bystander extremely confusing!
4:15pm On the outskirts of Austin we saw several traditional â€Caution†signs labeled “Churchâ€. This led to a discussion as to whether:
- the church might sometimes move on it’s own into the middle of the road
- it was intended to warn atheists that God might be lurking around the corner
- or the signs were warning drivers that churches might cause additional traffic concerns on Sunday
Regardless, we were amused.
4:30 pm
More trouble with Texas roads and road signs. We missed a junction to the road we need to take because the sign said “Junction 12†but did not list any roads that were “junctionedâ€. 30 minutes later we were back on track but only after surviving a one lane bridge and traversing two 165 degree turns on a very narrow two lane road.
6:00 pm
While going through Fredericksburg Texas we follow a newish GMC pickup which had written on it’s back window in large vinyl letters, “Jesus Gave Me This Truckâ€. Directly below that was the question, “Are You Ready for Jesus Yet?†in even larger letters. We discuss when it was that God began offering signing bonuses?
7:10 pm
We are coming into Junction Texas and see a sign for the local college. Hopes for a good sports bar to watch the game are high.  We pass up the chance to stop at the first hotel we come across (a Days Inn) and head closer to the center of town where we might be able to park the truck and simply walk to watch the game.
7:15 pm
We decide to take an exit that has 4 hotels and several restaurants listed on our beloved Texas roadsigns.  After taking stock of our options we decide to go to a Best Western where we assume we can check in and get directions to where we can watch the game. It turned out that the first part of the equation (checking in) was not a problem at all, in fact the place was so deserted they were so eager to have us stay that we were offered a $20 discount from the regular room rate. The second part of the equation (directions on where to watch the game) was something entirely different.
Me: Do you have the NFL network here?
Clerk: No we don’t have satelite. Â
Me: Can you suggest a good sports bar in town?
Clerk: No, there are no sports bars in town.
Me: Really? I thought there was a college in this town and it would surely have a couple.
Clerk: The college is an extension campus for a college in another town.
Me: (Mental Cursing) Can you tell me the way to any bars in town so we can see if they might have the game on.
Clerk: You don’t want to go to any bars in this town.
Me: Why not?
Clerk: There are punks in this town that like to mess with people that are not local, you don’t want to go there.
Me: Look of incredibility.
Clerk: They don’t call it the blood bucket for nothing.
Me: Still looking dumbfounded.
Clerk: I think my friend’s aunt has satellite, I’ll call in a while and see what the score is for you and let you know.
Me: Uh – Okay.
The conversation was odd. Okay, odd doesn’t really adequately explain it. The clerk at the hotel could have just been weird even though she seemed nice enough (She really did call to update us on the score later.) It could also be that the whole town was so weird that a visitor really wasn’t safe going to a bar. Lacking a gun (we are in Texas after all) and/or an unusual level of courage we figured hiding out in the rooms we rented was the better part of valor.
7:30 pm
We checked in and gathered in one of the two rooms to figure out where we could find game coverage other than on TV. Luckily there was internet at the hotel so we were able to load up gamecast which shows a text version of all of the plays in the football game. We were also able to watch streaming video from NFL.com which would show roughly 3 minutes of live game play in between 10-15 minutes of commentary. At least we had something.
8:00 pm
After watching the streaming video for a while without incident the audio and video began to have so many starts and stops it became pretty much unwatchable. We have tried to get a radio broadcast of the game and couldn’t bring in any thing other than one station playing mariachi music on FM and another playing Christmas music on AM. Great, we are trapped in a hotel in a place that is unfriendly to visitors and is so distant from civilization radio waves don’t reach. Â
11:00 pm
I fall asleep in the fetal position clutching my cell phone in case there is trouble in the night!Â
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