This is one of the giant pizzas from Gumby’s. They are still in one of the top spots for best pizza around. We only have a few other pizza places to try.

At the movie theaters here you can not only get a trash bag size bag of popcorn and a wheelbarrow full of soda, but you can also get a cold pickle in a bag! I am not trying one, though maybe I can get Teresa to…

This is a little bar somewhat near us. It is the type of places with no windows, and some interesting locals. It is also the kind of place that draws the greek people around. Not sure why that is yet. Anyways, we have gone a couple times, and besides being an play bar, it has very cheap drinks, especially during happy hour. The Aggie Martini is just a beer with an olive in it. We don’t know what the Flaming Dr. Pepper is, but I think we can make a good guess.

Teresa was brave enough to try the wings during happy hour at the Ptarmigan Club. She is still alive, so I guess they were okay.

They put Texas on everything out here, even on the porta-potties. It’s crazy.

Over the weekend Teresa and I went on over to Lake Bryan. We went for a little exploration. One of Teresa’s cohort members had gone with his family, and they enjoyed it, so we decided to check it out. Plus, it has been a little warm, and getting in the water is a good thing on days like those.

We drove out to the lake, which took about 20 minutes, and drove around a little to find the best spot to park. Then we walked around a little. Since we are in a bit of a drought here we were able to walk along the not-usually-there beach. Tons of jetsam was on the beach; beer cans, water bottles, various other garbage, and a bikini top. It made us want to come back with garbage bags and pick some stuff up. It seems like it can be the kind of lake that college kids, or just kids, go to and do stupid things on. Such as; driving boats too fast, drinking too much beer while driving boats too fast, listen to bad music on their fast boats, and other such shenanigans. Thankfully the day we went was the day of a football game, and the lake was not as crowded as we thought it might get. Though there were a few knuckleheads who seemed to like going fast on their watercraft.

So, after walking around for a while, we decided to put our blanket down on the grassy, shaded, area near the beach. I laid down, and relaxed, while Teresa slowly immersed herself in the water. As she was doing that, we both watched some of the knuckleheads try to get their boat out of the water. Their pickup kept spinning it’s tires and not going up the ramp. Eventually some other knuckleheads offered their “expertise” on the situation, bouncing up and down on the back bumper. This actually worked, and the knuckleheads with the boat problem were able to drive away. I was kind of hoping that they would be stuck there, and that maybe their pickup would end up in the lake and some drama would follow. Oh well, maybe next time.

It was a good outing, something we will have to do again, and hopefully with more people. The only problem with the whole thing, besides knuckleheads, were some unusual bug bites. We ended up with red dots on our arms and legs, only a few for each of us, but still more than we would like to have.

Are you bored, and need something to do for the next 10 minutes? Why not fill out an anonymous survey! It’s fun and everybody is doing it.

Teresa has posted her dissertation research survey over on zoomerang and needs people to fill it out.

Here is a link to the survey: zoomerang.com
Here is a link to the Facebook group: facebook.com

Here is a little info Teresa wrote about the survey:

This study is being conducted by Teresa Blevins, B.A. I am a doctoral candidate under the supervision of Randolph Pipes, Ph.D. at Auburn University. The purpose of this study is to understand attitudes about psychotherapy and how they relate to personality traits. Your participation in this study will help provide more information about how psychotherapy can be more effective.

The survey is confidential and will take about 15-20 minutes to complete. For each completed survey, $1 will be donated to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. You may withdraw participation at any time. The current study has been approved by the Auburn University Institutional Review Board (IRB). For more information regarding IRB approval and contact information, please click on the survey link below.

Now that you’ve read that, go take the survey and help Teresa finish school!

As Teresa posted about, we went to a Kolache Festival on Saturday. She explained most of what I would have said, but I have some more photos, and some video! First, the photos.

Sheesh! It’s been awhile since I have been able to get on here and say a few words…by now it’s probably clear that that means I will have more than a few words to say…Oh well.

I am happy to report that school has started for the students and I STILL love my internship! We had a full 4 weeks of training before the students came back to school, so I was definitely ready to start seeing some clients and getting busy. My schedule is filling up and I am excited to be doing an assortment of Counseling-Center type things this semester–group, outreach, supervision, learning about the afterhours HelpLine…WOOOOHOOOO!!!

As far as fun stuff goes, I will work backwards since Wylie beat me to it for our weekend in Aggie Land…though I will have a few comments to add there!

TODAY–Sat. Sept. 12: It was very rainy and we were feeling lazy at first, so we caught up on some of our TV watching…that was nice. We thought that the rain would stop us from heading out to Caldwell, TX (about 20 miles) for the Kolache Festival…but we were wrong! We made the trek in the rain and found that at 3pm most of the kolache vendors were ready to get the heck outta that rain, and so we got 1/2 price kolaches! We sampled about 8 different kinds. My favorite was the poppyseed, then the raspberry, and the cinnamon roll (although I don’t think this counts as a kolache). Other than that, they all kind of just tasted like a danish. Some of them were gross and we didn’t even try them. I had a major attack of the sugars by then anyway…I understood why they were also selling giant sausages on a stick…something to cut the sugar! There was a polka band playing fine tunes and some people even dancing in the rain! I wished that the day had been nicer for their sake, but there were still quite a few folks enjoying the festivities.

We then went to Target because Wylie had some gift cards that were burning a hole in his pocket and I needed socks for when I wear dress shoes to work. Now I am writing this and we are relaxing. I still feel a little sugary, and am looking forward to some black bean and corn tacos when I get done here…

YESTERDAY: Fri. Sept. 11: HOORAY! Wylie was born today…well, today, but a couple years back!!! We had a very fun day…I get done with work on Fridays at 12:30 (because I work late other days, not because I am a slacker) so he also took the afternoon off and we went to a fancy-pants place in town with a vegetarian menu for lunch, and then to see Inglourious Basterds. (The movie, I will note, was actually pretty funny. I laughed out loud a few times and didn’t think that the trailer was accurate for the amount of violence–I had been wary of seeing it because it looked like it was going to be non-stop…it wasn’t that bad. I did cringe and hide my eyes a few times, though.) Then we came home for a little birthday celebrating at home–we had 2 kinds of pie (pizza and Dutch Apple, which I found at a local place that makes them from scratch and sells them to you unbaked so that you can feel like you are part of the process. I appreciated that. Except, some of the guts of the pie spilled out during baking and were on the bottom of the oven and made it very smelly and smoky in the house. I did not appreciate that. I think our oven needs to relax. It is an oven. Things will fall to the bottom….)

THURSDAY Sept. 10, 2009–Our first softball game was rained out! BOOOO!! We did, however, have 2 lovely practices before this. There were rainbows at one of them. There are actually a lot of rainbows here because there are tons of tiny little rainstorms that come and go in 10 minutes or less and the sky surrounding them is blue…kind of wonderful, in ym opinion!!! Good for leprechaun hunting, too!

LAST WEEKEND! See Wylie’s post for the details. Parts of it were pretty incredible. The dinner at the General’s house was kind of odd. I managed to insult his wife a little bit on accident…but I didn’t get fired on Monday, so that was good. Apparently the hiring of the general as the VP of student affairs is frought with a bit of political drama that is interesting to hear about, if you like that sort of thing…I usually do. He mainly roamed the lawn with a cigar, and that was awesome. Then we headed to the Dixie Chicken, where we also made friends with two gentlemen from San Francisco who were here on business with the university. It was nice to have some fellow outsiders to share in the awe of midnight yell. I think Midnight Yell was one of my favorite things. There were probably 30,000 people there. At midnight. To Yell. You get to kiss at the end though, which is fun. And whenever the Aggies make a touchdown. The game was cool to go to as well. I am thankful that my training director is generous with her spare tickets and her tailgating spot! Tailgating is one of the best inventions to go along with sports, if you ask me! I liked seeing the differences in the football culture between College Station and Auburn. I will say this: The students at A & M are WAAAAAYYYY more mellow than the students at Auburn, and the scene was more relaxed here. Although, the whole student section yelling in unison is pretty intimidating!!!

Well…that’s about it. I told you I would have a lot to say. I will try not to wait so long next time!