One night at TechCon, they loaded all 700 of us onto a caravan of buses and drove us into the Texan countryside. The buses stopped next to a small rodeo arena with a wooden stadium on one side and an announcer's platform straddled by bull pens on the other side. The announcer started hollering in a Texan drawl and horses were running around barrels at full throttle with young women struggling to stay in the saddle. Next came the bull riding which I had seen on TV before, but I never had a sense of how powerful these bulls are in person.

The most intense moment came when a bull rider got his hand stuck. He had to run beside the muscular animal trying desperately to extract his hand from the rope handle while the bull bucked and twisted to get rid of him. A rodeo "clown" bounced in front of the bull, trying to distract him from the human attachment. The bull's head dipped down and then quickly bucked up and caught the clown in the jaw with an uppercut-like strike which knocked the poor guy out cold on the dirt. I was watching the rider so closely, who did finally get his hand out, that I didn't see the clown sprawled out on his back. The other cowboys fanned their hats over his face (cowboy first aid?) and the crowd hushed for a very long minute. Finally, he got up and with lots of help from his friends, limped to side of the ring. The announcer resumed his hollering, everyone clapped, and horses started running around furiously again.



Video: Bull rider


At the end of the show we streamed out of the bleachers and shuffled down a dirt path to a huge Texas BBQ to gorge ourselves on some of the best pork ribs I've had. As we made our way down the path I looked over my shoulder at the rodeo ring in the distance and could see the flashing red lights of a fire engine. I felt guilty that the rider was injured while entertaining us, but I suppose he has his job and I have mine. In any case, I hope he is ok.