Okay, I guess I lied with just a filler post because I just had an interesting thought.

First of all, like the title says, I like salads. But I like an equitable salad. Yes, I’m going to whip out some big term when I refer to my food.

See, salads are a fairly cheap item to make. Think about what it costs you at the store for a head of lettuce, some tomatoes, olives, carrots, and salad dressing, and then look at what the cost is on most menus. You’ll pay $6-7 for a salad that you could make at home for about that much. Now, sometimes you have to pay that much, othertimes you can squeak away by paying less.

Recently when I was on campus, I got a craving for a salad. I really wanted to have one because I was feeling unhealthy and like a fat-ass. I’m not fat, honestly. I’m about 6′2″ and I weigh in at just under 250. I’m a bit overweight and carry it around as a belly, but its not overly noticeable because I dress consciously of it. Or at least, I feel that way.

So I walked around for a little bit and found a few salads in the union. Everywhere that was selling a salad was a smaller sized portion for $5-7. There were Greek Salads that were in hot dog sized containers (the 8″ type boxes), BK Salads that I knew were “prepackaged” and wouldn’t be good, and there were salads at Wack-A-Doo’s that I knew would be good sized, but not for my wallet.

Today in wandering around, I found a salad on campus that is at such a wonderful size and taste that it doesn’t need dressing. And beyond that, I spent under $4 on it. Just a simple Greek salad with romaine, feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, black olives, and peppercinis. And it was at the new Barnes & Noble by the Arena. I was surprised to see a 7″ across dish for $3.50 with a pleasantly colored salad.

And with where they’re located on campus, well, you’ll damn well get your exercise walking to get one. All around, makes me feel better.

Now, writing this entry has made have to put my salad down. While I’m enjoying mine, here’s a question to ponder: What’s your favorite type of salad?

..is finding the motivation sometimes to do them.

I’m not really a slacker, honest. I just sometimes really don’t feel like doing that one or two things that I know I should be doing.

And the truth to the internet age is that its much easier to avoid those things that I know that I should be doing.

Today’s entry, in essence, is filler. Because I don’t really feel like writing. I’ve been watching the news and I’m sickened by so much in this world, and I do see a glimmer of hope, but I’m still waiting for… A nomination.

Like everyone else out there.

I’ll get into politics another time… Just not today.

Yes folks, its true. If you’ve heard me rant about this one in years past, you’re going to hear it again.

I hate Valentines Day. I truely honestly do. See, I’ve also got a thing against the commercialization of most holidays, but Valentine’s Day especially gets me going.

There are many possible origins of where it comes as a holiday from the roots of St. Valentine. Being Jewish, I never really got into the whole Saints and Priest things, I sort of just make the vicar and the little boy jokes and snicker as much as I can at the confessional booths. The idea of saying a few prayers and being absolved of whatever wrong-doings you did is amusing, but this is coming from a guy who doesn’t eat for a day and begs to G-D to be put into the Book of Life each year, so I have no room to judge. Of course, there is that whole “asking around for forgiveness for humanly transgressions” before that part…

Needless to say, there are a lot of great ideas about today as a whole. The main idea is this great concept of loving each other. My friend Kevin Allen has invited me to “James Taylor Day” on Facebook these past few years, and I really like that idea. But the generic “Valentines” idea where we add in Hallmark and Russell Stovers to the mix? I don’t think so.

Commercialization, red hearts, candy, roses, cards, stuffed animals, everything just has swamped out the meaning behind this. I’ve seen advertisements for today as Singles Awareness Day or even more advertisements for the Vagina Monologues. Everyone wants to assign some meaning to it or assign something to their life. Its all endless sinks of money. Why do we need to do these special things on this particular day out of the year? Why can’t we just do it when we spontaneously see fit? I already spent the damn money on the engagement ring, and the wedding rings, and I already make my wife dinner and do the dishes and laundry on a regular basis, so why do I need to conform to these consumer standards?

For me in my life, the only time I’ve been in a relationship on Valentine’s Day? Since 2003 when I was with Sarah. I never had a casual dating partner or was in a relationship with the exception of my wife. Oh sure, I had a good friend or a close friend from time to time, but I always hated the day and wanted to have someone to shower with all of the monetary anchors that we see as staples of this event. The flowers, the chocolates, the cards, the huge stuffed teddy bears.

Just. Stop.

Now that I’ve had a Valentine for the past few years, I don’t care about the holiday. I really don’t like the fact that I’m expected to perform to these conformist standards of keeping this revelry in consumer extortion going. And even though my wife knows how much I hate this “holiday,” I know I’d be deep up shit creek if I didn’t do anything for it.

So as you’re reading this, friendly reader, I can tell you that my wife will probably soon find the small stuffed dog keychain and the card that I left in her lunch box. Sure, its not much, but its what I needed to do to show her that I do love her, and I do recognize today is special.

But the true fact of the matter is, why should we care about it because its today? I’d like for everyone who’s reading this to know plain and simple: I appreciate you and I care for you each and every day out of this year. So thank you for caring for me, and let’s remind each other of that daily. That’s to my single friends and my relationship-bound friends. I make no distinguishment. As long as you have a friend, you’re never alone.

Let’s do this not with a cardboard cartoon valentine, or a lacy heart, or a box of chocolates and a teddy bear, but with a sincere call or text message to those you care about. Because that’s the true meaning of today: telling those you care about that you really do care about them. If we can remember that, I’d say we’re doing a pretty good job.

I finally added myself a LJ crossposter. So if you’re on my syndicated feed there and on my friends list too, you can read whichever you prefer. The only difference is, whenever it crossposts an entry to my real journal? You can’t comment there, you have to comment back on my website itself. If you’re on the feed, you can still comment there.

I thought about it from time to time, and I never really pursued it, but seeing this is public anyways, I figured why not?

Besides, it’ll save the work of those who want to read me and didn’t add the syndicated feed but are normally on my friends list.

Of course, this sort of makes my “Duplicated on my LiveJournal” category a bit erroneous in nature to have, but that’s the nature of the beast, I guess…

I don’t talk about it much, but a long long time ago, I used to play baseball. Course, I think everyone did when they were still single digits old.

Even still, I loved the sport growing up. I played YMCA league for three different years–Indians, State Farm, Mets–and I didn’t continue afterwards. But I always loved throwing around a baseball and taking a few swings. I played softball one year in intramurals here at UCF, but not much other than that.

I was very much a utility player. I started out in the outfield and was alright, but I really sparkled when they brought me into the infield. Usually rotated between second and short stop, my favorite spot was when they stuck me behind the plate as the catcher. I used to trade spots there with a friend of mine growing up, Matt Watsky if I recall his name right. Needless to say, I wasn’t amazing, but I was pretty good. I batted either third or either fifth or sixth in the order. Never was phenomenal. I kept about a .250 average at the least.

I loved the game, I really did. Then 1994 hit.

For those who don’t remember 1994 was a dark year for baseball with the baseball strike. I was just 11 years old then: I didn’t care about money in the game and what the players were making, I just wanted to watch the game. I lived and loved the game, and to see folks who were playing where I could only hope to be one of these years complaining about money? It completely took the fun out of the game for me.

And today, with the Clemens/McNamee committee hearing on Capitol Hill, I feel just as sickened about the sport. Whether it really happened or not, which I don’t know what to believe from testimony going back and forth, I can tell you that sports in general make me extremely sad. To have something like this so widespread throughout the game with the Mitchell Report? To have players making millions in a season to the point that if they swing a bat and strike out, they’re essentially getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for it?

The same goes for my feeling of all sports. I understand that its an industry, but there’s so much money involved with this that it just really makes me sad.

The kids who are the inner city youth, struggling to survive and playing the games to stay off of drugs. The kids who found a stick and a rock and play because its something other than sitting at home with video games. The kids who are kicking around a beat up old soccer ball and using trees for goals… The sport lies with these youth and the game is still there.

But somewhere along the way when it grew up, so many folks focused on the business that the fun isn’t there. Or at least not for me. I don’t see it anymore.

Maybe some year I’ll be lucky enough to work for a company that has a softball team or bowling team. I’d honestly like that more than anything. I may not be the best, but I’ll always bring my heart to it. And if Sarah and I ever have kids? They’ll learn that lesson and hopefully they’ll love the game… and the sport.

Last night, Sarah and I watched Iron Chef America, which was Cora v. Stupak in Battle Chocolate. Its a show that I’ve recently become more of a fan of.

This last summer/winter, we watched the series The Next Iron Chef and really liked Chef Michael Symon and his cooking/attitude. There was something about his presence in the kitchen and how the show all came together that we really enjoyed watching each episode. And there have been quite a few that I’ve caught in my spare time. And even though he’s the newest kid on the block, Symon is still my favorite one of the group. Followed by Flay, Batali, Cora, and Morimoto. Don’t get me wrong, I love what Morimoto does, but Flay and Battali have a presence and attitude to them in the kitchen that just makes watching their battles fun. And I love it most when the chefs take some time to talk other than just focusing on the cooking.

And I started thinking about it more after reading an article on MSNBC.com and researching and reading more about the series. Sure, its very scripted to a lot of degree, but the battles themselves are really what these folks have come up with under pressure.

And I have a lot of respect for that. From a guy who takes 20-30 minutes to grill up some chicken on the stovetop to see someone who does that stuff in 10-15 and has it plated with amazing presentation? Or to see some of the spice mixtures and techniques used, it makes me start to think in different ways. I’ve seen the immersion circulator used by Symon and the liquid nitrogen used every other episode it seems. Not to mention the ice cream machines of doom. I mean, who would really want to have lentil ice cream? But still, it was done.

The dishes that come out from the kitchen are fantastic to imagine. Butternut squash chocolate ravioli, beef tartar, miso encrusted whatever…

And it makes me think that maybe one of these years when Sarah’s done with law school and I’ve been working a while that maybe I’ll take weekend classes or something and learn more of the technique to go behind the flavor ideas that I have in my head. She and I would like to open a bed and breakfast one of these years, so what better way to get a head start…

So I was talking with my friend Elayne tonight and I mentioned the whole song download thing–how I have all of my music up for free download on my discography page. Needless to say, she had just registered for the site and afterwards was having problems logging in…

I fixed that, in case anyone else was having that problem. Now, on the sidebar on all pages, there’s an easy link to register or to log-in if you’re not logged in. With me fixing this, the only other thing I have to do webmaster wise really is get my Google Adsense setup so I can get a few extra bucks here and there.

Its all in the little things…

I like hats. I really do. Most of the time, though, I can’t wear them. See, with hair as fluffy and poofy as mine is, if I put a hat on, the hair usually puffs out the side and I look like a mis-placed 1980’s baseball player.

And that depends on what I wear hat-wise.

For me, I may have a lot of hats and caps, but I don’t wear many of them. Often, I’m found with either an old black Adidas cap with the 3 leaf logo in red–even though I only have one pair of Adidas and they’re green and I never wear them, a blue Sea World logo cap that’s their “swoosh” style logo, or a black old school UCF cap. I really need to get a new UCF cap or two before leaving this campus, but I’m in no rush. I’ve also got a tan floppy-hat like what you see fishermen wearing. And a black beanie too for cold weather days.

But those aren’t what I’m known for. Nosirree. Usually, folks see me with my black wool 504 Kangol. And if there ever was a cap to own, folks, that would be the cap to own. Made famous by folks from Mike Garrigan to Samuel Jackson, when you see that little kangaroo on the back, you know its a Kangol.

And the thing is? I’m stuck up about them too. I used to see a lot of folks with imitation ones, ones that look exactly like a real Kangol, but you can tell the difference because the fakes have the kangaroo and everything, but the “O” on the back is filled in, not just an “O.” If that makes sense, I guess?

Sure, its a $40 hat, but its a thing of quality. I have two of them, exactly identical, and I’ve had them for about 5 years almost, and they’re still in great shape. A little worn around the brim of the one I wear more often, but it fits to your head, blocks the sun perfectly, and looks sharp. If I ever were to buy another hat or cap, it’d have to be a Kangol.

They just look and feel right…

There’s a line in one of Athenaeum’s songs, appropriately titled “Haircut,” that goes “If you fuck it up then you’re gonna get a haircut too.” Sadly, when you’re wife is the one who’s cutting your hair, that line doesn’t apply.

So tonight, I got a haircut. First haircut I’ve had in a while. If you’re a friend of mine on Facebook, you’ve probably seen my album of past cuts and styles that I’ve gone with, but for those new to me, they’ve mostly seen my promo shoots with my friend Karen Z. Needless to say, if it’s a hairstyle, I’ve done it.

Today, I was just going to go with a regular trim. From that, though, Sarah asked me then for the 1/8″ blade cover for the razor. I thought she just wanted to trim the back bottom edge. Believe me, my hair looked pretty darn good at that point. However, we weren’t clear in our communication, I guess. She thought it would be a bit longer than it actually was. And when she started doing the back and it ended up short, well, I said “Fuck it, let’s just do it all.” I almost went with a faux-hawk for a bit, but I figured I’d just shave it all off and start anew. My hair grows back fast enough…

Picture is after the jump…

Continue reading the post…

I’ve thought about this one on and off…

I send a lot of text messages and use my cell phone for a lot of things. Heck, I’ve even figured out how to post to this blog here from my cell phone if I wanted to. Scary, you know?

Needless to say, because I send a lot of text messages, I use the T9 predictive text input on my Samsung m510 and I’m fairly fast at getting long complex messages out. I have a spare AIM screen name that forwards right to my cell phone too, which my friends get if they need to reach me (and if you don’t have it and need it, drop me an AIM to my regular screen name). So all in all, I’m fairly accessible and conversive, even when I’m on the go.

The T9 input is really simple and easy to use. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s a simple explanation of how it works. Let’s say you have the word “STOLE.” If you’re doing a regular input on it, you’d type in 7777-8-666-555-33. Why? Because when you type each button, you have to cycle through to the letter that you’re selecting. Now, with the T9 input–or other predictive texts–you’d simply type in 7-8-6-5-3. You save typing in 8 extra key pushes to get the same word. And if you happen to have multiple words with the same keystroke pattern–like “STOKE” as well–you just cycle through the options which your phone shows you. I know this is common place to most folks with cells, but bear with me on this one.

I noticed a while back that certain words have the same keystrokes, and not only that, but they’re correlated…

Think about it:
Good - Home: 4-6-6-3
Love - Loud: 4-6-8-3

The two best examples I could think of. Needless to say, I think that there’s nothing wrong with that… I mean, “home” is “good,” and when you “love” something, you want to shout it out “loud.”

And after those cheesy lines, I’ve got nothing… Enjoy your Saturdays, folks… :)

I’m the world’s worst English major without a doubt. Uncontested.

From time and time again, I try to find words to express all of these thoughts that I have, and I get a bit pretentious in how I think about things. I can acknowledge that and I well know it, and if that’s my downfall, then so be it. But as a whole, I wish I wrote more.

My problem with writing is that I have a severe perfectionist complex and with that, comes the hatred of editing. Like many folks who toil over what comes from their fingers and keys or pen and paper, I don’t want to go back over it and rewrite it, so I take extra care in the time that I put into writing it in the first place so that I don’t have to revise and edit it. This is why working for a newspaper would never work for me–if an editor gave me back a piece and told me to revise it? I’d tell them to do something that I believe is anatomically impossible. Or if it is, I haven’t tried and have no desire to.

With this comes a problem with picking up the thoughts in my mind from the beginning. I try to start off with various prompts and I have books upon books of them that I keep buying because when I read them in the store, something about them really inspires me and makes me feel “Hmmm, I could write about that.” Then, I get home and they sit on my shelf. I just don’t feel a connection to pick them up and read them, which I should, but I don’t. I’ll flip through them and I’ll like a few of them and others I’ll think “Man, that’s a lame prompt.” I think mainly my issue is that there are things that I want to write about, but I don’t want to write about. Stories that I want to tell, but I don’t want to be known. And because you interject so much of your own life into what you’re writing, I don’t want someone to read one of my stories and go “So is that really what’s in his life?” Yes, I know, Stephen King’s real life isn’t filled with rabid dogs, demonic clowns, and possessed cars, so that means that if I write about cheating, lieing, divorce, and murder it’s not necessarily in my life. But sometimes we unintentionally write characters that might show something we’re not trying to show. I don’t think I’m hiding any secrets from myself, but I think I stifle these voices so I don’t write something and then hurt myself with it later. If that makes sense?

I’ve been trying to be good about writing as a whole, though. I had read an article a while back called “10 Reasons to Write and Publish Every Day,” which I really liked as a whole, but whenever I re-read it at times like now, I feel like it’s a cheerleader for a game that I’m sitting and watching from the sidelines and waiting for the pretty girls to leave the field because they’re just inane and pointless to the overall game. But, then again, the crowd does help folks get in to it.

See, the problem I have mostly with writing, is that I’ll read a site like McSweeney’s that has these wonderfully written vignettes that seem so absurd and have such a strong voice or I’ll hear songs like some of the new Seven Mary Three songs from day&nightdriving and I know I can do that. And as much as imitation is the highest form of flattery, and imitation in art helps you understand how to do that, I get stuck in my own little ways. I edit things together in fashions that stifles what I’m trying to accomplish, or I write something so contrived and pretentious that I see right through it.

And I’m my own worst critic, like any writer out there. I had done a freewrite the other day that I posted on my MySpace bulletins like a lot of my other freewrites. If you saw it, it was called “feeling like creation…” You can find it if you’re on my friendslist on the bulletin board, otherwise, I’ve got it saved around here if you want a copy, shoot me an e-mail. Needless to say, I received a few very very nice comments from friends about how they liked it. Nothing about why they liked it. And last night when I was re-reading it and working on a paradigm shift on it. Okay, not as much a paradigm shift, but a format shift from prose poetry to lyrical poetry. I consider my freewrites to be prose poetry often. Even still, I couldn’t pull out certain things from it, and when I did, it just didn’t flow right on the paper. Granted, it was about 3am at the time (and like Rob Thomas says, I was feeling lonely), so maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Maybe I should have come back and edited it later.

I had started writing something just before that this morning (around 2:30am) that I’m calling “Grow” for the time being, and looking at it now, 6 hours later, and putting guitar chords to it? I feel like I did something right for a change. And its because I tried to edit, and I didn’t accept the first draft. Oh sure, it was only a word or two here or there, and I rewrote the verses to make them read better and flow better, but it was enough. Revision is like cooking steak: you can do a little (rare), flip some things around and smoothen it out (done), keep the same ideas and completely redo it (well done), or trash it and start over (throw it to the dog and grab a new one and another cold beer from the fridge).

We’ll see how the day progresses. Sometimes, no matter how much I worry and think about writing as the process? It just turns out right in the end.

So, friends, what’s your brew of choice?

I was thinking about this a bit yesterday. I was talking with a friend about tea and tea parties and in doing so, I mentioned that I have a whole shelf of tea that Sarah and I never really drink. Seriously. We’ll go to Teavanna and get a cup made for us, or we’ll buy a few ounces of loose tea, and then we’ll never really drink it. And especially now that I’m sick, I should be drinking more of it. Its good tasting and good on the throat.

Mostly when I drink tea, I find myself leaning towards something in the black or the red realms when I’m having a hot tea. I like a lot of rooibos blends, as well as the occasional yerba maté based latte. When I’m having a black tea, I’m all about having a good Earl Grey or Chai. Matter of fact, if you were to open my pantry right now, you’d find about 3 different varieties of rooibos, Earl Grey, and chai all in there. Those three I lean towards the most. There’s something that’s smooth and well done about all of them. Occasionally I’ll have a green tea, but only if it’s at a real oriental restaurant or some sort of pre-made infused blend. For cold teas, well, I’ll usually get one of the fruit pre-blended ones from Nestea or Lipton that’s already bottled and good to go. And even though I was born out in Utah and raised in the South to the point that I know and love my sweet tea? Well, I’ve been weaning myself off of that teat. I already eat enough biscuits and gravy to make up for that one…

Coffee is a different story. I used to get the McDonald’s large coffees when I met up with the SHARC–that’s Spring Hill Amateur Radio Club–group when I was 17 years old, and I’d add to that 6 packets of sugar (not sweetener, sugar) and 3 half and halfs. I didn’t like coffee, I liked sweet mud. As I got older and lazier, I stopped adding stuff to my coffee and started drinking it black. I learned slowly that you could tell the difference in brews with black coffees and that there was something etherally beautiful about the wisps that crossed the surface of coffee remaining in my cup as I withdrew it from my lips and swallowed its bitter darkness. I drank it and watched those wisps across my coffee, transfixed by the simplicity and the beauty of it. Try it sometime. You’ll see what I mean.

Though, if I’m not drinking a black regular coffee and I’m at a Starbucks, Natura’s, or Push Play or some other establishment of the sorts? Well, it varies on what I’m in the mood for. On campus, I always get myself a soy chai latte from the library’s Java City, but it can be anything from a hot tea at Natura or Push Play, to a Maté Latte at Natura, to a Green Tea Chai Latte at Push Play, or if I’m at Starbucks, I could always get my regular: Quint Venti Sugar Free Vanilla Latte, Half Whole, Half Soy. It has a bit of a burnt taste to it, but the vanilla flavor and the caffeine shine through and make it beautiful to me. And even when I appear burnt out beyond all anything and I have one of those? You wouldn’t be able to tell. There’s so much caffeine in the drink that my body has no clue what to do with it, so it doesn’t wake me up any more than a can of Surge.

And on that note, I think its time to check my mail because I’ve heard rumors of the pre-release order of Day & Night Driving being mailed already, and it’d be nice to have a clean new 7M3 shirt to wear to campus today.

That, and my chai is done steeping…

Today, more than ever, I wish was the end of my week. While I only have tomorrow to go, I wish I didn’t even have that, quite honestly.

I usually don’t feel this way about my weeks come a Wednesday because I’m usually very easy going and quiet about things. I’ll have my times that I’m counting down to this or to that, but for me to be in the middle of a week and say “That’s it, stop this merry-go-round and let me out of here” is a rarity. That line is from “Karma,” if you’re wondering why I linked it.

Needless to say, last night midway through my test, I noticed that my nose’s congestion was thorough and doing me in. Add to that the fact that all day I was either too hot or too cold, never in-between like I am when I wear my long sleeve shirts like yesterday. And then when I got home, everything in me just clicked on, and the delerium from the fever kept me up till around 3am, clodding away at my homework ever so slowly in revising and editing for my group’s paper due on Thursday. And I’m not even fully happy with the job I did on that.

This morning was more of the same congestion and general cold feeling. I’m happy that after some Vitamin C and Zinc and taking some Theraflu Daytime Warming Burst that I feel a bit more coherent, but even using the word “coherent” feels off.

And for me, my week is less than half over. Well, its split in the middle, but when I consider in that I have a test today and tomorrow a class, test, and team meeting? It feels far from over. I’m seeing that light at the end of this long tunnel.

Even still, I feel sick and weak and that doesn’t make me happy… I think today will be a day of needed and deserved rest… or as much as I can humanly accomplish of that sort with a test to take…

Life really is in all of the small things, and we forget it all too often.

Yesterday, I had a completely random IM when I got back to my computer from someone who had listened to my music over on myspace and their message was simple: “You shouldn’t say that you’re not a vocalist. I like your singing and songs. Keep it up.”

It was a complete random act of kindness from a complete stranger. How often do we encounter that? How many times in the course of a day can we sit down and really truely honestly thank someone for being so selfless in their nature?

The person who held the door for us as we entered that building. The person who said “bless you” when you last sneezed. The person who waved to you to go ahead and turn and let you pull your car ahead of them and get into traffic.

Do we think about these moments after they happened? Usually, we just let them slide.

I believe that everything that happens in this world comes back around to us. If we’re nice, nice things happen to us in return. Not the commercialized “My Name Is Earl” karma crap–althought I do like the show–but in true honest good nature of human-kind a la Anne Frank and things working out for the better part in the end when you believe they will. Don’t believe me?

I used to work for UCF Housing. Two years ago, one night around 3 in the morning, I found a sleeve for someone’s student ID, with no form of identification in it, and inside there was a $100 bill. Just sitting there, on the ground, in the middle of the community. The only person who knew it was there was me, and I could have very easily pocketed it. Instead, I picked it up, brought it back into the office, e-mailed my supervisor, placed it in a sealed envelope, and slid it under his door. The only people who knew how much was in that envelope were me, my co-worker, and my boss. Noone came to claim it, so it was donated to Hurricane Katrina victims.

And what did I get out of it? A few weeks later I had gotten off the bus by Sarah’s old apartment and was walking down the road in the middle of Orlando. On the side of the road, I saw a familiar looking color of paper. It was a $50 bill, folded in the same fashion as the $100 bill I had found a few weeks prior.

It wasn’t a one-for-one payback, but that’s not how it works. Because knowing that I did what I felt was right was all I needed. And that’s all we need to do. Sometimes, if its not too far out of your way, it doesn’t hurt at all to pay that little extra compliment.

Kindness… Its what builds up just another average day of saving the universe…

This morning starts off a week about how well I can work it in so many ways. And networking is just working yourself to the fullest of your extent. For me, I’m faced with 4 tests, one that I’ve lined up for every day from now until Thursday, a group paper due on Thursday too, and a group meeting on Thursday in one of my classes. Its one thing after another each and every day this week. And to top it all off, this morning is another career fair on campus, so I’ll be donning my superhero outfit (shirt, tie, khakis, sweater) and rocking it better than Mr. Roger’s in his ‘hood. Its something that has to be done.

Just like how last night at 11pm at night, I brewed a pot of coffee. Three cups later around 3am, I found my way to bed. Same thing this morning at 7:15am when my alarm went off, and when I finally dragged myself out of bed 15 minutes later, there was another pot of coffee waiting for me. Three cups later this morning, I’ll find myself in the shower and mentally set to do battle with my day’s dragons.

Our world is like that. There are no breaks, no rest for the weary, no sleep for the wicked, and no bellys to rub except for the cat laying on his back in my lap. Yes, Wooster is draped across my arms, begging for a belly scratching.

We all need to lay back and have a belly scratching from time to time, but its all about the world sufficing that need and giving us that rub. He’s looking around waiting for his, and I just want to lay back and get one of my own.

I’ve got a few weeks till I get my break, though. Through the goodness of friends in my 7M3 family, I’ll be seeing the band’s Orlando shows on February 22nd and 23rd. And if you’re in Orlando, you might want to pick up their newest album, Day & Nightdriving from Park Ave CDs here in town. See, I got this e-mail the other day, and it mentions a nice little special about mid-way or so down where if you buy the CD, you get a free ticket to their House of Blues show on February 23rd. And with the opening act being Big 10-4, it’ll definitely be a good show. Or at least in my book.

I’d better get back to studying for ethics. That, and I’ve got a belly sitting in my face that I have to rub.