How I spent my summer

[birdie]

dang rite, austin is NOT dry heat. moab, now that's dry heat. spent a year there too...
i'm dyin over here... and my plants... and my dogs... and my wife. oy...my wife
not to mention adjusting truss rods every other day!

[Nocturnal]

We hit 111 again yesterday. I'd like a couple of those 92's please!!

[Pilgrim]

I grew up in Houston so I know all about the extreme humidity. But Austin is not dry heat. And the heat this year has been awful even for south central Texas. Today was the 69th day over 100 at the official station at the New Braunfels airport. Across the line here in Guadalupe County it was day 72 over 100. That's over twice the old record, and it's still August! So don't gripe about your wussy 92 degree days.    

[Having successfully escaped central Texas in 1998, our hero whistles and wanders idly down the street in lovely Fort Collins, Colorado, where today's high will be about 85 and humidity is about 40.....perhaps he will cross the street and get a mocha from one of the numerous locally-owned coffee shops? Only time will tell. ]

A downtown weekend stroll....



Looking west from campus to the mountains....



I'll try not to suffer too much.

[Dave W]

Rub in, will you.

I do like summer, but this one makes me want to move to Frostbite Falls.

[Lightyear]

[Having successfully escaped central Texas in 1998, our hero whistles and wanders idly down the street in lovely Fort Collins, Colorado, where today's high will be about 85 and humidity is about 40.....perhaps he will cross the street and get a mocha from one of the numerous locally-owned coffee shops? Only time will tell. ]

A downtown weekend stroll....



Looking west from campus to the mountains....



I'll try not to suffer too much.

You, Sir, may BITE ME

We'll see 82 in November - here's hoping that your mocha is made with instant coffee

[Lightyear]

I grew up in Houston so I know all about the extreme humidity. But Austin is not dry heat. And the heat this year has been awful even for south central Texas. Today was the 69th day over 100 at the official station at the New Braunfels airport. Across the line here in Guadalupe County it was day 72 over 100. That's over twice the old record, and it's still August! So don't gripe about your wussy 92 degree days.   

Compared to Houston's humidity Austin is a dry heat - especially this summer with the drought.  Yes, I was taking certain liberties but after having spent my entire life in this sweat box Austin is dry to me.

Now Death Valley - that is a dry heat.

[Dave W]

You, Sir, may BITE ME

We'll see 82 in November - here's hoping that your mocha is made with instant coffee

What he's not telling you is that Fort Collins lacks the intellectual ferment of College Station. He's still possessed by the Spirit of Aggieland, although I hear exorcism can take care of that.

[Lightyear]

I understand that it's something in the water in College Station that causes that - and he did spend a few years there   I bet he still fights the urge to buy only maroon cars and trucks

TAMU is a nice campus but it can't compare to his shots.  Hell, I was up there a few weeks ago and everything was burnt to a crisp

[TBird1958]

Hey now! you should know better, picking on a Coug!

[Lightyear]

Come on Mark!  He was once an Aggie   And Aggies are always in season

Plus, he's posting pictures of Colorado and I'm sitting in a gentrified swamp - this will not do

[TBird1958]

It's 59 and raining here this a.m.
Which means it'll be a very busy day selling light fixtures!

[Lightyear]

I'm jealous - 59 AND rain!  Haven't seen much of either here lately

Even worse the wife and I still badly want that Arroyo($$$$$) chandlier but other things have to come first.

What the hell did we start out talking about again

[Pilgrim]

Hey now! you should know better, picking on a Coug!

Mark knows what's coming......

And it ain't from Aggielend......nossir, it ain't........where it's over 90...and WILL be over 90 every day of every year, from May through November 1st!  Whereas we in Fort Collins and my friends in Pullman are both in the low 70's today.  

Fact is, I met some great people in Aggieland - and found that I was completely out of place in a town and university culture that was 20 years behind the rest of the US.  I used to ask newcomers to College Station "how far back in history did you move when you came here?"  The average answer was "20 years".  I was so frustrated at trying to move that university forward that it was amazing I stayed long enough to finish my Ph.D....but that was the ticket I needed to escape Texas and get back into a culture more like the Pacific NW, here in Colorado.

I grew up in Pullman - my dad taught for 34 years at WSU - all four kids in my family went to WSU - all four kids in my wife's family went to WSU (and my dad taught some of them) - and all but one of my nieces and nephews went to school at WSU.  I earned two degrees there, lived there for most of 20 years, was on faculty for five years there, have been active with the alumni association for more than a decade, and am now a Past President of the WSU Alumni Assocation.  I am as thoroughly and completely a WSU Coug as any person I've ever met.

When I finished my Ph.D., I told my Aggie friends that the ring finger was already taken - by a ring that has a Crimson stone in a Grey metal setting, emblazoned with a WSU Cougar head logo.

Here is a cell phone photo of my left wrist:



It's a town of 27,000 people...and 17,000 of them are college students. It's 80 miles sough of Spokane, WA, where the nearest Interstate runs.  In other words, Pullman IS WSU and WSU IS Pullman.  You are only there if you planned to be there....and if you're there, you ARE a Coug.

We take some price in being an overgrown farming community...for instance, here's a band made up of football players performing at a farm:



And here's a shot of campus on its hilltop:



And it's one of only a couple of places in the world where wheat (100 bushels per acre, thanks) is harvested on hills up to a 45 degree angle...here's a shot of the Palouse area in spring:



And as always, we close with a hearty  GO, COUGS!  And a photo of Butch T. Cougar, winner of the 2007 Capital One Bowl as the nation's best college mascot:

[Lightyear]

Sigh...... I must call you task - it will break 90 in the third week of October at College Station

As for the ring - won't get you much out of Texas regardless - in Texas the ring means you have a good chance of getting a job ahead of anyone else - unless it is a more qualified Aggie.  I have accounts that are almost entirely made up of Aggies - they do look out for each other - in a "Children of the Corn" kind of way  

Oh, and it's 96 here in the swamp

[TBird1958]

It's a pleasant 67, heading for 79 here in Seattle, I love Washington state!
Thanks for the pics, they sure bring back some memories for me, having spent a couple of years there ('64-'65) my father took my brothers and I fishing and camping all around that part of the country, it's so beautiful! There's a small park at the foot of the hilltop the campus is on, we'd go there at night with flashlights to gather nightcrawlers for bait........... It was a great place to grow up in, my father took care of the Wa National Guard Armory, we played on 6x6's and jeeps with 105mm recoiless rifles mounted on them. The Union Pacific and Northern Pacific railroads were very close by, I saw trains everyday - thus why I enjoy them so much as an adult.