I'm back...

First of all, my apologies for being blog delinquent. Two weeks ago, I had the trouble with my computer which took a week to fix. I can't complain because the Texas State University IT department didn't charge me a dime to fix it. Then this past week, I had internet problems at home which only got ironed out yesterday, so there's my excuse. (Not to mention the fact that when I DID have internet, I also had blog block.)

So now I'm back. I've been at Texas State for two months now and I'll have to say I'm loving it more and more. I've lucked out in that all the staff, students and faculty in my department are extremely nice and respectful. I keep comparing it to my last job from hell, and the differences are so amazing I can't believe it. Now I work with Ph.D.s who you'd think would have the "big head" with a "holier than thou" attitude. Quite the opposite. In fact, at my hell job, very few people (including the owner) had educations and THEY had the big heads! Insecurity, I suppose...feeling they had to prove themselves and making their employees feel bad to make themselves feel better. Sad.

At the hell job of about 20 employees, we rarely had anyone come into the office and none of us ever had a reason to leave the office, so it was just us...all day...every day...no change. Now that I'm at the university, I am loving the activity on the campus. With the elections coming up, it is buzzing with energy.

Lots of booths are set up trying to get everyone's votes.

Everyone on campus can vote early, so I'm going to do that next week.

Love this guy's shoes...and everything is so color-coordinated.

Campaigning dog.

It's a pretty campus and they keep it extremely well manicured. I love walking around during my lunch hour just to see what's going on. Cool Batman book bag.

These guys were clowning around and playing music for tips.

Must have been a kids field trip to the University.

Bobcat bus.

Uh-oh...here we have another instance of "boots with short skirts." You could never guess the weather by looking at this picture. The guy on the right is all bundled up with a jacket, jeans and boots. The girl in front of him to the left is wearing shorts and a tank top. The girl with the boots is wearing a sweater with extremely short shorts. And the guy to the far left is kind of in between them all. I'm guessing it was about 80 degrees that day. To each his own.

Even though I'm not a very political person, I'll end this on a political note because of the upcoming elections. You see a LOT more of these around here...

...than you do these.

But then again, this is Bush country.

This next week will be my last in helping out at the local newspaper. One of my responsibilities has been editing the copy that comes in from groups and organizations into a format appropriate for publishing. The worst are the womens' Republican groups which are dripping with opinions and subjective content...and completely inappropriate for publication. This is a part of what they submitted about their delegates attending the Republican Convention...these are direct quotes.

"Protesters were filthy, vile and despicable. Some of the hooligans had buckets of urine or buckets of nails."

"Most everyone was 'taken' with Gov. Palin. By the end of the Convention, they were referring to the nominees as 'the hero and the hottie'."

I'm sorry..."the hero and the hottie???" How very professional. Needless to say, those comments won't get published. And just as a sidebar...if those kind of comments had been submitted by the Democratic side (which they NEVER have been), they would have been edited in the same way.