I’ve never been a fan of the heat and humidity that summer brings to our area, but I recently remembered a reason to love summer.  After owning a motorcycle for 5 years, I can’t believe I spent the last 2 years without one.  Now I’m back on two wheels, and I can’t get over how much it feels like a part of me.  I hope that I can always own a motorcycle.

For those interested, it’s a 2005 Harley Sportster 1200 Custom.  It sounds quite nasty, in a really good way.

I remember when I first decided I wanted a motorcycle.  I was 20 years old and had just begun working at the Sears shoe department.  I remember riding in the car with my family in Branson and watching with awe and lust as motorcycles passed all around. I remember telling my dad that I wanted to buy one the next summer.  My new job turned out to be good enough that I bought one that fall.

My old bike, the one that started it all… the lowly but stylish Yamaha V-Star 650.

The problem doesn’t really lie in the money.  The problem is in the principle.  No matter how much money I make, I believe that if I pay $720 for something, it had better be good.  So how good is internet everywhere I go?

Well, half of that money goes to buy internet at my home.  I think that is definitely worth it.  I use the internet to watch all of my TV and most of my movies.  Plus all the other crap like hockey scores, banking, paying bills, facebook, homework, etc, etc.  Internet in my home is indispensable.

I’m not so sure that it’s worth doubling the price of the internet just to have it on my phone everywhere I go.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that I love my iPhone.  But do I really use the data plan that much?  I use my iPhone a lot when I’m at home, but at those times I’m always on my wireless network.  Same thing at work.  The only times I really use the mobile data are in my car or when I’m shopping and want to do some quick last-second research before I buy something.

I decided to test how much I would miss having mobile data.  If you jailbreak your phone, you have access to an app that allows you to turn off mobile data.  I spent a week without mobile data access on my iPhone — wifi only — and, no big surprise, I found that I hardly missed it.  There were only a couple of times I wanted to use the internet and couldn’t, and those times just required me to wait a little bit.

My AT&T contract expires in June.  Until now, I’ve taken it for granted that I’ll buy the newest iPhone this summer and renew my two-year contract.  Now I have a new plan: keep my iPhone, disable data, and cancel my $30 data plan.  That way I still have my iPhone, it would just be limited to wifi networks for internet access.

As a bit of warning, don’t try this unless you jailbreak your iPhone.  The iPhone pulls data all the time, and the charges would add up quickly if you don’t have a data plan in place.  But if you have an iPhone, you should be jailbreaking it, anyway.

There are fewer people born on December 21 than any other day (don’t get me started on leap year, which is a myth).  People born on the winter solstice have a special birthright; their candles burn briefly but brightly, giving the world a rare and unique glow.  They are the physical embodiment of a fleeting, magical moment in time.

Here’s a fact: I don’t know anyone else whose birthday is today.  That’s right!  And I know hundreds of people!  What are the odds of that?  I’d tell you, but math is irrelevant on the winter solstice.  Something to do with the cosmos.

The winter solstice is a great day for achievements.  You could be the only person in the Guinness Book of World Records to set a record on December 21.  It’s also a great day for mistakes, because a brand new day is just around the corner.  And if you’re going to live each day like it’s your last, today is a great day to start because it will soon be over, sooner than you can even imagine.

So live it up today.  It’s the shortest, most precious day of the year.

I started the reward system a few years ago, buying Naked® smoothies for myself to drink if I got up in time for class.  That usually worked, but when it came time for tests and papers, it just wasn’t enough.  The preward system saved the day.  Plus, it was a way for me to get a reward for my efforts despite the fact that by the time I finish my papers, there is usually just enough time to grab a couple hours of sleep before class.

Now that school is over for a while, I need to find something else to p/reward myself for, because I love snacks.

So it’s a Casa Grande townhouse.  You may be thinking that this is a perfect opportunity for me to work on my Spanish, but it turns out that Casa Grande is largely an English-speaking community.  Why is it named Casa Grande?  I don’t know.  Maybe the founders hoped for a different demographic.

My new place is much bigger than my old.  I feel like the king of a third-world country.  There is room to walk around, which was literally not the case before.  I’m also going from a single diminutive closet to a whopping six medium-size closets.  Six!  This makes my reluctance to buy a laundry hamper look like genius — I have a dirty clothes closet now!

It’s also a lot warmer, and today is the first time I’ve turned the heat on.  Last year at this time I had already quarantined myself to a tiny quarter of the apartment that I could keep at a reasonable temperature.

Needless to say, I’m very happy to be here.  The only problem at this point is that I have to carefully space out my belongings so my home doesn’t look too bare.  I may have to break down and actually buy things to fill it up.

Yeah, I’m a jerk.

Image used without permission

This morning was the first time I’ve gotten out of bed before 7:00 a.m. in a very long time.  Probably over a year.

My classes began today, and, despite the early start, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  In my Linguistics class the professor thrilled and warmed my heart when he showed the following on a powerpoint slide:

“The pillars of the discipline of English: language, literature and writing.

An English major should love the language, be amazed at it, study it, collect examples of it, create new expressions in it, and desire to communicate all of the above to anyone he or she encounters.”

I couldn’t help but smile, because that describes exactly how I feel about English.  I guess I wound up with the right major after all.

I’m also fairly excited about my Film Noir class.  The professor seems more like a “real” professor than some I’ve had — passionate, strict, mean, funny, over-educated — you get the idea.  I think it will be my most challenging class yet, but since I’m only taking two classes this semester I’m kind of looking forward to it.

So college still sucks, but being an English major helps much of it.  The only drawback is that most English professors don’t like you to use your MacBook or  iPhone during class because they are afraid of technology.  My handwriting is so bad that I might just start writing with my left hand; it could actually be an improvement.  I literally cannot read most of what I wrote today.

By the way, if you do a Google image search for “librarian,” you will overwhelmingly get the hot and sexy kind.

On August 19, my sister released into the wild a baby boy named Biff Youngblood, her first son and my first nephew.

I’m excited to be an uncle.  An uncle’s duties are very similar to a brother’s: harass, annoy, exasperate, tease, and love.  I’m a veteran with a proven track record.

Being a new uncle is not wholly glamorous, though.  The flip side is spending an entire day at the hospital, even though — thank God — you have no part in delivering the baby, and — double thank God — you had no part in creating the baby.

I don’t like hospitals.  I used to want to be a nurse, but after spending some time in hospitals I realized I wasn’t cut out for it.  Plus, just being in the same room as someone with an IV is enough to make my skin crawl.

So, pictures.

All of Brittany's reading material carried a common theme

Tyler, Brandon, and I played "I Spy" with the cars in the parking lot

Ty and Biff

Finally, Brittany as a baby, with Stephanie and me. Photo of a photo, hence the weird smudge.