Our neighborly BBQ on Sunday was German. I made pheasant, red cabbage, and zucchini bread. This was wine where they lit a sugar cone above it; it's something Germans do around Christmas.
Usually about 10-15 people show up.
This toilet at the school sometimes gets stuck. The cover somehow gets pushed over the button and holds it in. It's really easy to stop, but most people just ignore it and let the thing run all day long.
There's a calendar at school for birthdays, but they don't always keep it updated. It still has January up.
I have a hard time understanding this black woman at a Sonic right by the optometry school. Other black people can hold a full conversation with her, though. When she and a guy in front of me talked for a few minutes, I caught maybe a few words; I understand Spanish better. I think the main problem is that they didn't enunciate anything; it just kind of all flowed together and sounded like mumbling to me.
A jogging path near my apartment. I don't use it much, though, because I don't like running on anything other than dirt roads since they're so soft.
That makes it difficult for people to get by on the sidewalk.
Dr. Montemayor was an optometrist who sat at my table for a TSO-sponsored dinner for our class. He mentioned he was also in a band and they were playing at the Houston Rodeo BBQ cook-off. We talked to him about it, and he got us 8 wristbands to get into the tent. You couldn't get into any tents without the correct wristband, but once you were in, the food and beer was free.
The BBQ cook-off was next to the carnival on the rodeo grounds.
These horse statues are nearby, too. However, they all have fences around them with signs saying to stay off, which kind of ruins them.
Construction on the road I take to school. When they're working, the right lane is blocked off, but they weren't working today. You'd think they would work every day, but it seems to be only a few days a week.
Friday night some of us went to Joystix. They have a lot of older arcade games, and their main business is buying them, fixing them up, and selling them to schools, churches, etc. On the first and last Friday of every month from 9pm to 1am, though, they open it up to the public and put all of the games on free play. They also have a bar and a DJ, so it was a lot of fun.
They have a ton of pinball machines, and this is my favorite one of all time. I used to play Monster Bash at USD, and it has a lot of fun bonuses and sound effects, not to mention I like the way the flippers feel.
Revolution-X and Gauntlet Legends, also games I used to play. Gauntlet Legends is neat because you can save your progress with your initials and a password, so hopefully the next time I come back the game will still be here and they won't have cleared the memory because I got to level 25 with a couple of other people. Another guy and I beat the entire Revolution-X game, which would have been really expensive if the games hadn't all been free.
This woman was using both guns at the same time on a shooting game.
Three guys playing Off Road.
They have a few newer games, too, like this racing game.
Saturday morning was the Cornealympics. It was kind of like a field day for UHCO students, and we divided up into teams based on class, although all the 4th years were at school. This was one of the relays. Matt had just handed the egg (which was used as the relay baton) off to Paul. Matt is really fast, so he got a huge lead over the other two runners. I ran the first leg of a longer coed relay and got a really big lead, too.
This was another relay involving eggs, although this time they had to carry them on wooden spoons. Our team dropped the egg here, but since it didn't break, they ran back, picked it up, and kept going.
A lot of people brought their dogs, most of which were really small. These two kept playing with each other.
They ran in about 20 circles until the one decided to play dead.
Another event everyone participated in was a balloon toss.
After the game a water-balloon fight broke out.
The last event was a tug-of-war. Teams were 6 people, and there was a men's, women's, and coed division.
This was the 1st-year men vs the 2nd-year men. Our men and coed team won, and the 1st years won the whole thing. It was a really fun time.
Saturday evening I drove down by Galveston to meet some friends who scuba dive. A bunch of them had rented a house for the weekend and were just hanging out, and there were about 6 of us who had never dived before and were signing up for lessons. There were a lot of really beautiful houses and yards down there.
The house they rented was pretty nice, and it had a huge yard that went down to the shoreline with a dock.
It was a really beautiful night. We grilled kebabs and fish and played horseshoes. People tend to complain about mosquitos down here, but there are only a few compared to the hundreds you can have coming after you in the midwest, so they don't bother me at all.