I'm bored...

Why am I bored? I think it has something to do with the weather (it's thunderstorming). Maybe I should go into biometeorology; my mom's complaining about back and shoulder pain. Oh, well, off to check the NWS page for more on our storm.

Merry Christmas to all...

... and to all a good night! Merry Christmas, everybody!

I'm home - finally...

That was a trip. I was supposed to fly home last Saturday from Oklahoma City, OK (OKC) to Greenville, SC (GSP) by way of Chicago O'Hare (ORD). I caught a ride with a couple of my friends at 9:30, even though my plane didn't leave until 2:00. Well, at 11:30, United called to notify me that my flight to Chicago was cancelled because of the winter storm. I ended up going from Oklahoma City to Denver, CO (DIA), to Washington Dulles (IAD), to Greenville. I got home at 11:15 that night, tired but glad to see my family. At least that's over.

Round two...

So finals are almost over, and I'm doing pretty good (A/B) so far. Only one more left, but that's calculus. Joy.

The National Weather Service has placed Norman under a Winter Storm Watch valid Friday morning through Saturday morning. As of right now, it looks like we'll be getting somewhere between 2 and 5 inches of snow. That shouldn't affect my flight Saturday afternoon, but... we'll see.

Less than three more days before I'm back home!

Wow...

That was not good. Preliminary reports say that we got over an inch of ice total. I know here at OU, several trees have broken and a few cars damaged. Fortunately, we haven't lost power (yet), but over 300,000 in the metro have. And the worst part: 11 deaths. Finals here start at 8:00 AM, though, and I have one, so I'm going to bed.

It hits the fan...

All right, y'all, this is serious. The National Weather Service has just issued an Ice Storm Warning for Cleveland County which replaces the freezing rain advisory. There are thunderstorms out right now that keep tracking over the same little area, and since it's right at the freezing mark, it's coming down as freezing rain.* We're supposed to get between 1/4 and 1/2 inch of ice through this morning, and more tonight (Sunday night) and tomorrow (Monday) morning. I'll let the bulletin speak for itself:

AN ICE STORM WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF ICE ACCUMULATIONS WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS OR IMPOSSIBLE. TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. COMMERCE WILL LIKELY BE SEVERELY IMPACTED. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT... FOOD... AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY. ICE ACCUMULATIONS AND WINDS WILL LIKELY LEAD TO SNAPPED POWER LINES AND FALLING TREE BRANCHES THAT ADD TO THE DANGER.

So, will finals be rescheduled? Tune in tomorrow - same time, same channel.

* It's a little more complicated than that; maybe later I'll explain it.

Weather overload...

The National Weather Service has issued a Dense Fog Advisory for 19:00 CST tonight through 12:00 tomorrow. In addition, there is a Winter Storm Watch in effect from Sunday morning through late Monday night. Ice accumulations are predicted to be around one-half inch.

Also, the folks at Colorado State University have released their annual hurricane predictions. They're calling for 13 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes.

"Weather forecast for tonight: dark." ~George Carlin

Weather update...

The NWS is calling for freezing rain to hit the Norman area Saturday night, and again Sunday night through Wednesday night. It's too early to tell exactly what's going to happen, but this could be significant, y'all. See the following webpage for more information: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/enhanced.php










Did you click the link? Go look!












You've just been RickRoll'd! What is RickRolling? See this site for information - and I promise it's not another RickRoll!

Oh, yeah, here's the real link to the NWS Norman page.

Stress...

The last week of classes... called "dead week" by faculty and staff, known by students as "death week". I swear, the reason that graduation rates are so low is because students drop out the week before finals. Gah. Anywho, I'm going to go to bed now. I leave you with this "so awful, it's funny" joke from Decorum Comics: "What do you call the blood that comes out when teenagers cut themselves? Emoglobin."

Inspirational thought for the day...

I unabashedly stole this from a friend of a friend's Facebook page:

"'Twas the night before the Big XII and all through the land,
not a Tiger was stirring, not even the band.
Their Jockeys were hung by the locker with care,
in hopes that the Sooners soon would be there."

"Truman was nestled all snug in his bed,
while visions of the BCS danced in his head.
And Pinkel in his kerchief full of Tiger pride,
and Bob and the Sooners ready to ride."

"When down in San Antone there arose such a clatter,
Chase sprang from his bed to see what was the matter.
He realized the Option was gone in a flash,
and Maclin's dreams of running had just been dashed."

"The Tiger tight ends trembled as they watched the show,
A Crimson and Cream luster set the horizon aglow.
When what to their wondering eyes should they find,
but a miniature Schooner, seven National Titles behind."

"With a wizened old driver, skilled in leading his troops,
they knew in a moment it must be Bob Stoops.
More rapid than Temple his players they came,
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name."

"'On Bradford , on Joe John, now Patrick and Murray!
On Chris Brown! On Iglesias! On Hartley and Kelly!
To the top of the conference! To the top of it all!
Now dash their hopes! Dash their dreams! Dash away all!'"

"And then in a twinkling, the Tigers fought back a scream,
and Chase saw the last of his Heisman trophy dream.
The defense drew in their breath and looked all around,
and realized that their "Pig" was nowhere to be found."

"Bob's eyes how they twinkled, his coaches how merry!
As they carried on the legacy left them by Barry.
Gary 's sad little face and a fear in his belly,
he shook on the field as his knees turned to jelly."

"Pinkel spoke not a word, and the ball they couldn't carry,
Stoops filled up the scoreboard and then turned to Gary .
And laying his hand on the shoulder of his friend,
he gave Pinkel a nod and said, 'Like Norman again.'"

"Bob sprang to the Schooner, to his team gave a shout,
to the BCS they flew and left Mizzou down and out.
And we heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight,
'Boomer Sooner to All and to All a Good Night!'"

MIZZOU WHO? BOOMER SOONER!

That was awkward...

I woke up this morning to the sound of banging in the bathroom. Now, to get this, you've got to realize that two rooms share a bathroom. For the past week, I've been the only one in either room (Thanksgiving break). So I'm startled. I get up and walk to the door to find a note laying there. Seems that my suitemate's parents came back from Tulsa with him and didn't like the state of the bathroom. Now it looks just like a woman's bathroom. Gah.

Anyway, Bedlam was great. It's always fun to whoop OSU's "behindus", as my friend Nathan put it. And Sam Bradford was able to break the freshman touchdown record. So now we go on to play Mizzou in the championship game. As long as we play well and don't let our guard down, it won't be a problem.

Sad news for the day: I gained five pounds over Thanksgiving break - and I didn't even have a Thanksgiving dinner. Back on the bicycle tomorrow, if I can make it through the snow.

Oh - speaking of snow, the National Weather Service is predicting possible accumulation for the Norman area. Woo-hoo!

Cheers,
Travis

Black Friday...

... killed me.

I got up (NOT "woke up", as I never went to sleep) at 2:00 this morning and drove down to Toys R Us. They had a 30GB Zune mp3 player, regular price $199.99, on sale for $79.99. I was seventh in line; they had five in stock. You can see where this is going, right? So now my sleep schedule is all messed up, and I didn't even get what I wanted. And my ears are about to fall off. I'm going back to bed.

Gnuhhhhhh...

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's that time of year again... the holiday where we all get together and give thanks for how blessed we are. So I'd just like to say that I'm thankful for my family, friends, and God. And not in that order, either.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!!

Randomosity...

So, I haven't posted in a couple of days. I'm finally done cursing the town of Lubbock, and the Red Raiders of Texas Tech. I do hope that Sam Bradford and DeMarco Murray are all right, though. Anyway, on to my other favorite subject: weather! The last couple days have been gorgeous, and we (Norman, OK) are currently sitting on a record high temperature of 81°F (27°C). But tonight, the bottom's going to fall out. Lows will be dropping to the mid 40's tonight after only getting down to 61 last night. The high tomorrow? 50-ish. Then we settle into a pattern of highs in the 40's and lows around 30. That means that, with our slight chance of precipitation on Friday, we could get... something. Rain? Maybe. Snow? Maybe. Wintry mix? Maybe. Only time will tell. Providing your Blogger forecast for the OKC metro, I'm Travis. Peace out.

Thoughts...

Well, it's 4 hours until game time, and according to this site, we're a 7 1/2 point favorite to beat Texas Tech. They also expect it to be a high-scoring game, somewhere around 65 points. So I guess that would make it 36-29 by the odds. But I don't play by the odds. 45-17, OU.

On a side note, I find this webcomic really cool.

Football...

Here are the current standings (11-15-07) in the BCS:

1. LSU
2. Oregon
3. Kansas
4. Oklahoma
5. Missouri
6. West Virginia

Oregon lost tonight (thank you Mike Stoops)! They will drop out of the top 5 on Sunday, which, assuming everyone else wins, makes the standings look like this:

1. LSU
2. Kansas
3. Oklahoma
4. Missouri
5. West Virginia

Let's assume that all of these teams win the regular season. The exception would be Kansas playing Missouri on the 24th. Let's say Kansas wins, keeping the top 3 the same. OU would meet Kansas in the Big 12 championship. If we win that game, we'd be going to New Orleans to face LSU in the national championship game. Not bad for a team that lost to Colorado, eh?

Oh yeah...

Something I forgot to warn you about - I'm a weather nut. In fact, that's kinda why I'm here at OU - best meteorology school in the U.S. and all that. So come spring, expect this to get pretty image-heavy with pictures of tornadoes, thunderstorms, etc.

I should be writing a script right now, but yeah... no class tomorrow! Happy 100th Oklahoma! *whistles Steve Azar's "I Don't Have To Be Me ('Till Monday)"*

At the Borgo Pass...

Goot evening. Allow me to velcome you. My name is Travis, and I am a freshman at ze University of Oklahoma. I am typing in a Transylvanian accent because I find it very fun to do. Seriously.

Seriously seriously, you may be wondering why I created this blog. I'll be providing updates about my life at OU, OU sports, OU campus changes, and pretty much anything OU-related. And anything else that catches my eye. I hope you have as much fun reading this blog as I have writing it!

~Travis