High speed internet gives me the ability to select and watch movies without having to put on pants. It offers more than that, of course — I use it to check my email, to browse the internet, and perform other online activities — but I did all of those things years ago when I had dial-up internet. I can rent movies from Red Box or Family Video, but those places require pants. If I were to draw a Venn Diagram of the two (“Things high speed internet allows me to do without putting on pants” and “Places to rent movies”),… (read more)

When I arrived in Weatherford at Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) in the fall of 1993, I immediately enrolled in the college’s newspaper class because I had already taken “newspaper class” four times at Redlands Community College and thought that if you were pursuing a degree in journalism and wanted to work on the school’s newspaper that’s what you did. It turns out you don’t get credit for taking the same class over and over again (even if you really like it), and I had simply been paying to work on the newspaper at Redlands. (My professor and friend Kelly… (read more)

I’ve never had more trouble writing a single blog post than I’ve had writing this one. In the dozen or so openings I’ve scrapped so far I’ve compared my relationship with my wife to the ebb and flow of the ocean, two symbiotic fish, and, in one particularly dorky attempt, two celestial bodies orbiting one another. Yes. I tried comparing my marriage to a couple of meteors. According to Susan, she knew the two of us were going to get married the first time our paths crossed in seventh grade. I, on the other hand, still wasn’t sure we were… (read more)

Last week I picked up a book from the library about removing clutter from your life called Clutter Free by Kathi Lipp. It’s been an interesting read. As long time readers of this blog know, I’ve had quite the struggle with accumulating and collecting too many things — although technically, I don’t struggle at all with accumulating the things, it’s figuring out what to do with them, where to put them, and how to part with them that’s really the struggle. Acquiring them is no struggle at all! Clutter Free suggests one reason some people have trouble parting with things… (read more)

Twenty years ago, I gave up on college. By the spring of 1994 I had attended two years of school at Redlands Community College and one year at South Western Oklahoma State University, and still didn’t have enough credits or the right combination of classes for a two year degree. After three years of college I had run out of time and money. I quit school and joined the workforce full time. Me, in college. In the year 2000 (nine years after I had originally started attending college), Susan sat down with copies of my transcripts and ran the numbers.… (read more)