Good evening. Well, I figured life would be much better if I simply sat here and typed it into Blogger directly, rather than tying to monkey around with Word or Notepad, only to have to manually put in the html. But wait, I think I still have to do that. Is it just me, or have the formats of just about everything we use online -- the online services -- completely changed. And I ask you, why? This has become more like Youtube, where I've got my account ID with a drop-down menu. And I ask you, why? And what's up with asking me for my cell phone number as a "security" measure? I won't give that out, and if it means no more Youtube and no more Blogger and anything else I use, so be it. And I ask you, is it just me? Of if I want to use propper grammar, is it just I? Well, I just previewed this. No spaces. Nothing. Later.

Oh no.  I hit the wrong button and lost it all.

Two months and counting

Good evening.

I was just sitting here, and a thought popped into my head. Yes, I know. It happens every once in a while. I am now less than 2 months away from 30.

I know what you're thinking. "Oh no! Here he goes on another nostalgia story again!"

But no. Actually, I was thinking about a professor way back when I was a freshman in college. He put the question to all of us. "Where do you want to be when you're 30 years old."

30? No way! That's old. Here I was, an immortal, cocky, yet shy 18 year old fresh up from his screwed up summer tourist home town. I was eating at the roach coaches that attracted the Rutgers crowd of hungover beer guzzlers. If I think really hard, I can taste the fat and the potatoes and the positively lousy ranch dressing. But it's what we ate -- Brian, Gordon, Nick, Don, Luke and of course Jeff. We were immortal. We'd beat off the grim reaper (beat off as in scare away), and then chase the culinary suicide with cigarettes and ice cream in preparation for another night of beer drinking. What the hell was I thinking? What the hell were WE thinking?

It seemed that 30 was so far over the horizon back then. After all, it was almost half a lifetime away. I was 18; 30 was 12 years away. OK. 2/3 of a lifetime away.

The only consequences of what we did, that I could foresee, was a hangover, and maybe a good case of gas -- or diarrhea. We didn't stop to think about what we would actually be like at 30.

But going back to the original question. Where DID I want to be when I turned 30? Maybe I couldn't see beyond my next exam. Maybe I couldn't see beyond the next weekend beer bash. Maybe I couldn't see beyond the summer. Either way, the very concept of 30 was as distant and foreign to me as Depends, walkers, bifocals, stress incontinence and uncontrollable flatulence. OK, so 4 out of 5 ain't bad!

Frankly, or maybe strangely, I envision my 30th birthday to be a lot like my 21st. I don't think I'll be conned into believing the story of the ancient bottle of Grand Marnier again. But when I was 18 I thought I'd be writing for a newspaper, or maybe an on-air newscaster by the time I was 30. I never thought of teaching back when I was a freshman. The career of educator came to me, and I decided to grasp it with both hands.

One of the assignments I was given back in elementary school was to write down how I envisioned the year 2000. Since 2000 was probably about 6 or 7 years away, it was fun to fantasize. But I didn't consider my life at 30 as fantasy. Damn! Where DID I want to be at 30.

I somehow felt as though I was driving on a dark road without headlights. I didn't know where I was going. I was gong to let the road take me there. I didn't have a game plan. I didn't have a plan for turning 30. Hell, I hadn't even turned 21 at that point. I had just turned 18!

But does anybody have a plan for turning 30? Sure, it's just a number. It's not a significant one like 65. You get Medicare at 65. You can get Social Security at 62. You can join AARP at...............wait................I might be getting offers already!

Perhaps the best response I could have given was that I wanted to enjoy where I was at 30, and maybe in looking back FROM 30, I could see that I made the right decisions, and that the road to retirement now looks a lot brighter than the road to 30 seemed back in college.

I looked forward to turning 18. I looked forward to turning 21. And now, I'll look forward to my 10th anniversary high school reunion with pride. Gee. I remember a blog entry from several years ago, where I mentioned some of the bullies who called me "retarded". But this wasn't going to be a walk down memory lane.

30 is fast approaching, and it seems to be coming faster each and every day.

Bring it on!

Have a great evening!

Yes, Tom, this is a pain!

Good evening, or as the little man in the online bingo game says, "Heah we go!" Is "Bingo" supposed to be capitalized? OK. So Blogger made some changes. I hear Facebook now has a timeline format. I've seen my brother's Facebook. I can't even begin to try to navigate MySpace anymore. But MySpace is dead, I'm afraid. Something has to come along that gives us what we wanted in MySpace and Facebook, with security and ease of navigation. Oh yes, and the ability to keep the format we choose. Then I'll use that social network. But man! Everything talks to everything else, so you're standing on a stage with everything exposed to the world. Get naked! All I can say is that some guy is getting a real rush out of making the changes he makes simply because he can. And believe me, they aren't changes any of the users seem to want. Well, it's getting near summer. The weather has been warm, and we've gotten more rain than we got last year. My lawn is still weed haven, but weeds are green. I noticed some morning glories popping up with flowers in the rose garden. I didn't plan for any morning glories in the rose garden. I love morning glories. So I'll leave them to grow up the side of the garage. Did you spot the hidden "N" bomb? I'd like to type more, but it's 10:00. I have to be in early tomorrow. More is coming. I just wanted to test this thing. Have a great evening.

Oh. No formatting. Lovely! Sorry. I'll insert the HTML next entry.

It's 90 degrees out, and I'm ready for summer.

I sit here and shake my fucking head! Sorry. No matter what I do, I can't make it skip a line between paragraphs. Doesn't work. Good evening. Yeah, that's how I begin my blog entries. I feel bad that I haven't written anything in this blog since December, although I think it's safe to say that Myspace, as a social network, has died. Everyone I know has either moved to or created a Facebook account. While I have FB, I have deactivated it for several reasons. Yes, I'm one of those "old people" who resists Facebook. I'll post this in my Blogger blog in its entirety. So, it's 90 degrees out. I broke down yesterday and turned on the A/C. It's on now. This computer room generally runs hot because of my old steam-powered putersaurus, plus the battery backup generates a bit of heat. The APC unit is as big as a desktop tower, but it has bailed us out more times than I can count during power outages. In the week following FCATs, it's time to get back to the normal routine. I think it's getting near the time I take in my guitar as part of the lesson. Yes, I already have, but there's always one day when a few classes gather together, and we make a campfire out of it. It only sets off the smoke alarms, but it's fun. With just over 5 weeks of school left, things are beginning to wind down. Progress reports are this week, and I've got lesson plans coming out of my pores. I'm really not too sure whether or not this still works, so I'll post it. Then I'll look over some emails I've sent, and I'll try for another entry in a day or 2. Just don't hold your breath too long. Have a great evening.