Howdy!

So, I finally made it back home to Minnesota for the long haul.  It has been a whirlwind since I got back.  I arrived home just before 2am on Saturday, got up a few hours later to help MSP shoot the wedding of  Melissa, one of my friends from work (I was just practicing, this was Michelle‘s gig).  I had Sunday off then went back to work bright and early Monday morn.  A workshop for work, actually, and it is pretty fun.

Anyway, I still have a lot of photos to go through, etc before I start another run of blog posts but I had to sneak this one in real quick.  After spending the summer in Texas, I started making a mental note of all the different things I noticed between my home state of MN and my home-away-from home, TX.  Here is that list:

• The sun rises earlier and stays out much later in St Paul (45′ Latitude) than it does in Austin (30’32″ latitude).  I always knew this but it was so much more obvious this summer while in TX.  The reason being that MN is so much further north and tilted closer to the sun.  I love the longer days and missed it.
• Students in Texas (probably all over the South) address their teacher as “Miss” or “Mister”……. without attaching their last name to it.  It is not meant to be disrespectful, that is just how it is.  That never happens in MN! It is almost always Ms ____ or Mr _____.
• Teachers in Texas make FAR LESS than MN teachers.  The salary only increases by $500 a year down there and there is no real raise for having a Masters degree.  In MN you can make anywhere from $4-6k more per year by having a Masters, even more by having up to a PhD.  I would have to work in Texas for 35 years to make what I am making in MN now. (Guess I am glad I teach in MN!)
• There are a million panhandlers in Austin.  One on every corner, seemed like.  Not as common in the Twin Cities (although they do exist)
• Everyone listens to country music in TX.  Didn’t hear any heavy metal on the airwaves at all.  Missed it! The jury is still out as to whether country music has grown on me.  Its probably the only genre of music that is not in my repertoire.
• Minnesotans and Texans each have distinct accents.  Mine was very noticable to many people when I first got down there.  I mean DOOOntcha knOOOOw I am from MinnEsOtAaaaa? but then I started to find myself saying ya’ll in the most Texan of ways. (But what do I know? I am practically hearing impaired. Damn heavy metal) Haven’t heard my accent? Watch an old video blog like this one.  Haven’t done one of these in about a year now.  That was when I broke my old camera.  I still miss that G9
• Just outside of Austin is the Factory of the most delicious ice cream, Blue Bell.  I adore it with all my heart.  Banana Pudding ice cream? With real bananas and vanilla wafers? Omg,  The homemade Vanilla is pretty amazing too.  You can find pints of it in yummy flavors everywhere you go.  Trouble for ice cream addicts! I swear I only had a few pints total all summer ;)
• The crickets in Texas are huge and black and they would probably destroy their smaller cousins in Minnesota.  Those buggers are extremely loud and it is not pleasant at all when one finds its way into your hotel air conditioning unit and proceeds to chirp all night long.  Why does that always seem peaceful in the movies? I used to feed crickets to my leopard geckos years ago when I bred them and they didn’t bother me as much.
• There is road construction absolutely everywhere in MN this summer whereas I experienced only one patch of road construction that I found in Austin.  Bad roads are usually a result of winter weather conditions.

I know there were so many more things I have thought of but since I didn’t write them down, some have escaped my thoughts.  I will add more if I think of them……