Belated Spring Cleaning

My apartment was a disaster.  I own entirely too much crap.  Anyway, I decided to start cleaning things up a bit.  The true motivation coming from the fact that I have some friends stopping over this weekend, and I was freaking out about how dirty everything was. 

Throughout this cleaning process (I've spread it over a few days), I've discovered something.  I feel better.  By simply picking up all the crap laying around on the floor, on other things, on top of things on other things, it has improved my mood considerably.  This is a nice little bonus.  Will it last?  I doubt it.  I have a tendency to let things pile up.  However, the hard part is almost over.  It shouldn't be too difficult to keep things tidy once the major clean up is complete.

So, moral of the story, a clean house is the path to a clear mind.  Or, whatever.  I'm sure there's some 10,000 year old saying that basically says the same thing.

Now, if I could just get my ass in shape, we might be getting somewhere...

If wishes were whiskers...

Let me preface this post with an apology.  The content of this post may not be centered on a particular topic, and it may not even "stay the course" with regard to subject matter.  For that, I am sorry.

You know a band I've never seen live?  The Decemberists.  Why hasn't this been an option?

So, I've been doing some math lately.  Some cost of living expenses, if you will.  Should I move?  If so, where?  Find a home to rent in Greensburg.  Get a place in Indy.  Can I afford to buy?  Do I want to buy?  If I did live in Indy, could I afford to drive to Greensburg everyday to go to work?  I suppose, technically speaking, the answer to all of these question is ultimately yes.  Does this mean that any of these options would be a wise decision?  I don't know.  This really doesn't help at all. 

Somehow, tonight, this all led me to the following question:  What's the true cost of living? Sure, it's a cheesy question.  I'm not even entirely sure what it is asking.  I don't think it has anything to do with money, that's for sure.  Can I even comprehend such a question?  I guess in a way, I'm asking, how does one put a price on happiness?  Have you ever thought about what truly makes you happy?  I don't think I have.  Is this weird?  How have I lived this long of my life without considering this basic question?  Why am I an engineer?  Why do I live in Greensburg?  Honestly, I don't have an answer, and I'm not sure I'm OK with this anymore.  Is what I'm doing now what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?

OK, so admittedly, some of this might have to do with the numerous beers I've ingested this evening.  But these things have been boiling under the surface for a while now.  A group of us went out for drinks after work today to celebrate the departure of one of our own.  Even though it was a sad occasion, we had a great time.  Matt is off to St. Louis.  And why not, he's got friends there.  And, as he put's it, "I'm young, and I'm single, so why not?"

It was great talking to the guys (and girls) that I haven't seen as much of lately.  It was easy to get back into the swing of things.  Of course, these relationships were built from the five, almost six, years I worked with these people.

Alright.  Just as I feared.  This post is a complete mess.  This post is long.  This post should not have been posted.  But I took the time to write it, so why not?

Why not?

Thursday, the day before Friday.

I came across a pretty cool gift idea the other day.  It's a USB flash drive that uses a facsimile of an old cassette tape for a case.  The idea is that you make a mix-tape with it.  You can check it out here.  It even includes a liner notes area for the track list and what-have-you. 

This web site linked to another one (here) that was just a collection of high resolution photographs of various old cassette tapes.  I spent a while looking through them finding the various ones I used when I was younger.  See the sweet example at the top of the post...

Here's a few interesting dates regarding various music formats.  All this information was collected through Wikipedia, so, whatever.

• Vinyl Records - 1888
• 8-track Tapes - 1963
• Cassette Tapes - 1964
• Compact Discs - 1982
• Mini-discs - 1992
• First Commercially Available MP3 Player - 1997
• Best Commercially Available MP3 Player (iPod) - 2001

My something is here!

Some of you may remember a post I made a little while ago about a mystery gift.  Well, it finally arrived. 

No, not the camera or the T-shirt.  It's the sunglasses!  They are too cool.  They even have padding around your eyes.  I suppose they're intended for motorcycle riding.  I don't have one thanks to the Sturgis incident.  I guess I'll just keep them in my car to be used by whomever.  My sunglasses are prescription.  I can't lose them. 

You can see these rad sunglasses in more detail here and here.