[speaker002:] here we go I guess we're on the air huh yeah well I tell you what this been pretty nice today hasn't it
[speaker001:] yep uh yeah we've been uh real lucky here it was one of those days where you wish you uh you didn't want to have to go back into work
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah I'm well I'm on I'm taking some vacation this week so it didn't bother me uh I'm a distance runner by hobby and uh I might say it was a little humid running out there tonight I was probably wetter than I have been in some time
[speaker001:] uh-huh huh
[speaker002:] but uh for for a guy that likes to be outside as much as I do and run like I do this Texas is almost ideal because uh I would say probably I run three hundred days out of the three hundred and sixty five and there's probably not more than thirty of those days that I can't wear shorts and tee shirt
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I mean I have to wear long sleeves and maybe some long pants and that's fine with me if I can wear shorts and tee shirt I'm perfectly happy
[speaker001:] yeah I would I remember how the weather was when I was down there I got a sunburn in February working on my uh my roof in a house in Plano so I uh I remember how it was yeah it's it's really great um here on the east coast we've you know we usually have the traditional April showers but it has just been so unusually wet here
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] we've had all the rain that they should've had out in California
[speaker002:] yeah well what what what we like to do is get enough rain so not to have to water the lawn
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and it's been I've watered once in March and not any time in April because I figure we figure if we go five days without rain we need to water and just about every fifth day we're getting rain right now
[speaker001:] well that's great
[speaker002:] so everything is pretty and green here and we're not really uh and not having to pay money to water and uh of course of course summers summers uh I I guess uh once you get climatized and I am I mean I kind of look forward to the hundred degrees days except except for the air conditioning bills I I could I could do without the three hundred dollar electric bills
[speaker001:] yeah I remember those yeah well we've moved into a new house uh at the end of February
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and of course it's a new development and there's only one house in the whole thirty houses that are here that has grass
[speaker002:] oh for goodness sake oh I know what that means
[speaker001:] so everything everything else is mud
[speaker002:] that means mud in the road yep
[speaker001:] there's mud in the road there's mud on the sidewalk there's mud in the house I mean you just can't get away from it and of course it's been you know ideal weather for grass to grow
[speaker002:] yeah yeah oh sure
[speaker001:] and unfortunately they haven't gotten around to put they you know they were waiting until they got I think the other two houses on the cul-de-sac on one done before they're going to plant all the grass at one time
[speaker002:] what what do you do you put in up there do you I mean here we know we know two grasses Saint Augustine and Bermuda uh what what do you normally put in up there
[speaker001:] uh-huh you can put in any number of grasses up here uh a lot people like the red fescue they like to mix red fescue in with uh Kentucky Blue um the uh
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] my favorite is uh a zoysia grass uh when I lived in Laura which is about sixty miles south of where I'm living now
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh that my neighbor had it and I was forever trying to get you know decent grass to grow in my yard and he talked me into trying to some plugs of the zoysia and I just loved it because the zoysia you can uh you can quite literally just plug it around the yard and it just spreads and it chokes out the weeds and the weeds can't get in there and so you don't have to weed and feed and do all that other crazy stuff you just you know the only bad part about it is during the winter the grass is brown but I mean you know
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh oh that happens here too
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but this year of course we got uh we had a very mild winter this year with very little freeze uh so we didn't have any problem uh uh with the uh uh with the grass greening up quickly you know last year it was well into May before all the bare spots got covered
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh because of the of the severe winter that we had around Christmas of eighty nine but this year it uh we did have some cold days but not down in the single digits or anything like that so when things started greening up in March they greened up and everybody's grass is is is perfectly green do your homes you say you moved into a new home are homes normally built there with central air conditioning is that part of the uh the standard for a home
[speaker001:] yes pretty much standard now
[speaker002:] oh okay I I didn't know whether you were far enough south for that of course I'm I'm from New England my parents are there and it's it's unheard of there I guess anybody that wants air conditioning goes out and puts a window unit in
[speaker001:] well the uh the thing about uh Maryland is um the last few years uh since I've been back and uh it was like that oh it started this way about mid seventies um we started having a very abbreviated Spring
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] you would go from having fifty sixty degree days right into the eighty eighty five degree days which you know in Texas it's not bad because the humidity is real low but here when the temperature is eighty degrees the humidity is eighty
[speaker002:] yeah no yeah the humidity is eighty degrees along with it
[speaker001:] and eighty per cent and and and worse I mean I've seen days here when the humidity is like ninety three a hundred per cent and it's just absolutely the worst feeling in the whole world
[speaker002:] yeah uh-hum yeah I'm I'm aware of that did you have a very severe winter
[speaker001:] uh not really we had uh a couple uh real good snow storms uh but they were the kind that came stayed for a couple of days and then melted off and that's the best kind to have around here
[speaker002:] um-hum okay yeah yeah we we had zero snow here in fact we haven't had any measurable accumulation now in six or seven years uh
[speaker001:] yeah I remember the uh ice storm back in uh nineteen eighty eight
[speaker002:] yeah that was a nice one too that was an ice storm there and uh uh I remember one year
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I can't tell you the exact year it was probably about uh eighty seventy nine or eighty that we had such a severe ice storm that it uh knocked tree limbs down on the wires and there were some uh four hundred thousand homes out of electricity
[speaker001:] wow
[speaker002:] and I know it was after seventy eight because we built our home here in seventy eight and it was a new development that didn't have any trees yet so we had electricity and we had fifteen people camped out on our floor in sleeping bags
[speaker001:] jeez
[speaker002:] and and unfortunately when it thawed then most everybody's houses got filled with water too and uh but we we were fortunate that year and even at that this development was built in seventy eight and even now all all the utilities run under ground
[speaker001:] oh God uh-huh
[speaker002:] so there's still no big trees in the development but the uh uh all all the utilities so we we wouldn't have to look forward to that but we had a uh we had a mild winter as I say the previous year we had three or four days uh it it wasn't much it was only about a week and I think it was the week just prior to Christmas when the temperature got down into the single digits and as a result a lot of the the trees and uh the grass and shrubbery was killed uh was killed out and at this time last year nothing looked very good but it it does right now uh at this time last year we were under water most of Texas was under water uh if you remember uh uh uh downtown Dallas you could go down and look up in the Reunion Tower and look over toward the Trinity River and it looked like lakes not a river
[speaker001:] yes yeah I remember that
[speaker002:] and uh Lake Texoma was up uh twenty feet over flood level
[speaker001:] wow
[speaker002:] uh at at this time last year it was it was uh it was pretty bad but uh I'm I'm hoping you know you you don't want anything to flood but you want to get normal rain and uh we're probably some where near normal right now
[speaker001:] yeah I noticed uh tonight when I was out driving around that the uh the one of the main reservoirs in the county I live in is uh fuller that I've ever seen it I mean it's it's up over its banks but it's not that far over its banks
[speaker002:] how long have you been back in Maryland from Texas
[speaker001:] uh moved back here in uh eighty nine yes so I spent two uh just about two years exactly in Texas
[speaker002:] eighty nine okay yeah and where did you say you lived in Plano
[speaker001:] uh yeah I lived in Plano um worked at Spring Creek for a while and was on the moon job and then when my clearance came through for APD I worked for DSEG uh worked at North Billings for a while and then down at Love Field
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah oh okay okay that's a nice facility at Spring Creek isn't it that's the that's the Taj Mahal of TI facilities
[speaker001:] oh God I tell you it spoils you rotten to work there you you work there and they send you any place else it's like you've been demoted
[speaker002:] yeah well well we're in the I don't know if you're familiar with the center complex uh in in Dallas it's across LBJ from the main TI site it's three glass buildings and that for someone that's been at TI thirty two years this is kind of unTI like too
[speaker001:] right I had a uh a uh an employee that I hired there Lita Mytek Lita Mytek I mean she uh she worked over in the building at Center Three I think it was and uh you know she said she liked it over there
[speaker002:] yeah yeah I'm in I'm in center one the big thing that I think other than the fact that we've all got double the size offices we've ever had anywhere else and it's so quiet that you can hear a pin drop to me the big advantage and I didn't realize it when we came over here is the covered parking it is amazing in the middle of the summer when it's a hundred and ten out to go out and be able to get into your car and touch the steering wheel which we could never do parked outside of the SC Building or the South Building or various other places that I've I worked and and you notice the finish on your car lasts longer when you wash it it stays clean longer
[speaker001:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh it is is uh uh to me to me that's that's probably one of the biggest advantages that we've got over there plus I'm in center one and the credit union is down on the first floor and it seems that I'm always always there I've got a daughter away from college away at college that's always out of money so it's easy I can get down to the credit union quite often and uh are you looking forward to a hot summer there now
[speaker001:] um I'd I'd prefer it not to be that hot uh the the days usually aren't aren't that bad um it's just when the humidity gets up I mean it's like last week we had a day it was I think it was eighty degrees but the humidity for some strange reason was only nineteen per cent and that
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh oh that that's Texas like
[speaker001:] yeah that was a rarity for here and God it was just beautiful
[speaker002:] that's Texas like did you ever get out to Midland while you were here
[speaker001:] no I never did