Got Net

Just got the internet. Finally. 

After several weeks, the cable company realized that they hadn’t “turned the switch” to my unit. I’m not quite sure of the technicality involved with switch-flipping. However, I am quite sure that it translates into my lack of internet and cable for several weeks. 

I now get to make my case for not paying the service. We’ll see how that goes.

Pondering the Sweet Potato

A few weeks ago, I sat down to a sweet potato at Sonny’s BBQ in Athens.

They’ve got a great cinnamon-butter spread that compliments your spud.

As I was enjoying the burnt-orange tater, I had en epiphany: I need to up the physical fitness ante.

“What does that have to do with sweet potatoes?

Well I have come to the disturbing and gratifying conclusion that I will always eat high southern cuisine. Which translates to high-fat, high-carbs buttered up bliss.

And that means that I’m going to have to step it up another notch to stay fit.

I weighed the options and I can’t give up country fried steak, mashed-potatoes and cream’t corn.

After leaving Sonny’s, I ran 3 miles.

Where have you been?

I haven’t heard from you in a while! Where have you gone?

Okay. I admit, I’ve been the absent one. But I have also been terribly busy with the minor details and major crises associated with the typical collegiate over-achiever…

Anyway, I’m back in the game. Stay tuned for more pics of the day, updates and almost appetizing posts.

Downturn Survival – money saving tips from a college guy

After 5 years of college, I’ve picked up some really interesting ways to save/make a buck here or there.  I’ll let you in on a few in this article. 

SAVING MONEY THE COLLEGE STUDENT WAY : GET CREATIVE

1. Learn to love the Value Menu. Although you can’t survive on Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers alone, a $2.12 lunch is always nice. 99¢ value entrees are a quick way to save $5-10. 
    
2. The One-Light Rule: Pretend its a game and in order to win, you have to keep only ONE light on in your house at a time. If you have roommates, this get challenging (and impossible). At the least, always turn the light off when you leave a room. Power bill = decimated.
    
3. Old Books = New Money: Classical works like the Iliad or Hamlet are used in college classes. Duh, Matt.  Well, this means bookstores might buy your old high-school copy back for a nice little profit for you. I’ve sold numerous books back that I didn’t buy in college. You can call the bookstores and ask them to check the ISBN to see if they want your titles. 
    
4. Plan to Spend: Take half an hour each week and decide on predictable purchases – grocery, haircut, meals and so forth. Then use your student-ness to your advantage; take businesses up on student discounts. For example, Piggly Wiggly in Athens gives a student discount every Monday when you shop. Just takes a little planning, but can save big bucks.
    
5. Thanks anyway Grandma: If you have clothes you don’t wear (that sweater Grams got you) then sell it to a store like Cillie’s Clothing or Plato’s Closet. If they don’t want it, consider putting together a yard sale. If that doesn’t work, two options: re-knit into a sweater for your cat (and try to sell it again at the Yard Sale!) or realistically, give it to GoodWill. 
    
6. Rule at Trivia: Most restaurants that host trivia nights reward the winning teams with comp’d meals or gift certificates that you can use to subtract from your bill. Pick a trivia night, get a good team and start having free dinners once a week.
    
7. Budget Driving: Okay this one is hilarious and one of my favorites. Save gas by coasting down hills. Treat your gas pedal as though it has the black death. You can often see my sliding down the road at a breakneck 9 mph. When you accelerate from a stop, accelerate slowly; if you gun it, you’re just throwing cash away – unless of course you need to beat that egghead next you in an impromptu drag race. 
    
8. Go Downtown: Into the wee hours of the morning as inebriated college students begin to wear thin, so does there concern for money. If you have the guts, occasionally scan the floor below the bar. You’ll likely to find cash. My record take was $68.00 in one evening at 3 different establishments. 
    
9.  Return The Darn Thing: Most products come with a guarantee/return policy. And most companies returns/refunds a painstaking process, hedging their bets that you won’t return a bad product. Stand strong! If a product was not satisfactory, return it.
    
10.  Mark Me Down: Most major grocers will have a mark-down or “door buster” deal section/aisle. Before you fill your cart, be sure to see if anything you need is cheaper in elsewhere.

Love a Good Regret

“I live life with no regrets.”

Bull.

I’ve always been one to respect and even attempt to live by such a cavalier notion. Just think of it: never regretting what’s happened, what went wrong or what you’ve said. But it’s simply impossible.

Even those of you who say you have no regrets must somewhere, deep-down, own a memory that you’d rather not. Guaranteed, you have, at some point, said something that would have gone over better unsaid.

So how do we come about saying that we want to live a life with no regrets?

I have two ideas:

First, we realize that life is here. Its ready for us and we should be ready for it. We should take it by the proverbial horns and live it as earnestly, honestly and zealously as we can. And this would be a philosophy commiserate with having no regrets; in other words, being unafraid of risks and consequences.

But I think that’s different than having no regrets. That’s living life to its cliche fullest. You can live an adventurous, robust life and still suffer from normal human pains. (tip: you will). And as such, you will come across moments that are most undoubtedly, regrettable.

So let’s divorce the concepts: carpe diem and “living with no regrets” are separate ideas. 

The second thought then, is that some might say they regret nothing because even in mistakes and troubling memories, we can find lessons. It takes the grit to make us grow, right?  I associate with that line of thinking.

But again, I don’t think that falls under the auspices of “living with no regrets.”  Just because you’ve made lemonade of your lemons doesn’t mean that given the choice, you would choose the same course.  I can think of countless times that I regret not having told someone something important.   Or missed a deadline.   Or overslept.  Or lied.

These are things I regret.  I have learned valuable lessons from them, but to simply whitewash them as pieces of my past that I don’t “regret” nearly defeats the point of the lesson.

It doesn’t matter if you know that 2 + 2 = 4 if you can’t remember why.  (you’ll never make it algebra).  The lesson is only as important as the mistake – the regret.

Therefore, live life with regrets! Relish in life’s mistakes and subsequent lessons.

Let me be clear: I don’t advocate watering down life.  I’ve already said that past regrets are separate from future risks (although we do well to keep those lessons in mind…)  And I further do not mean to continually mope around, harassing yourself over how dumb, mean or risky you’ve been. 

In order to learn from mistakes, we must know the mistakes.  If we live with no regrets, we’re bound to blur out those important moments when we figured out how to get back up.

Life is Jenga

If you typically stray away from cliche, kitchy metaphors for life, you probably shouldn’t read any further. 

But then again, you might find this a little less trite. (assuming that’s your qualm to begin with…)

Life is Jenga. Life is Jenga?

It starts as a mess. But there are people there who, with lots of patience and care, slowly build you up. Block by block. Layer by layer – you’re eventually molded into a single unit. 

Once they’ve completed completing you, they let you stand on your own. 

And then the game begins. 

The challenges start out simple. A loose block here, getting a poor grade there. But as time passes and more challenges come your way, things start to get wobbly. 

Eventually, it gets very wobbly. You’ve lost most of your basic blocks. And on top that, literally, you’ve got new pressures piling up. 

All the while, you are simply trying to get by. Nevermind keeping it all together – you’re just trying not to fall over. But the blocks are continually pulled away.

And then it happens. Someone decides to test you. They slowly, methodically and downright maliciously extract the final block – the proverbial final straw. And you crumble. Pieces fall everywhere.

But the great thing about Jenga is that you can always rebuild. Moreover, every time you’re rebuilt, it takes the challenges longer and longer to topple you. Each time, you figure out how to make it one layer higher – one step further.

Obama’s Power Grab

Moe Lane, over at RedState put this piece together today and it is quite a doozy. It’s short.
 

Obama’s Power Grab on signing statements.
I am backed up by a recognized scholar of constitutional law on this one, by the way.
Moe Lane
Friday, March 13th at 9:00AM EDT 

President Obama’s decision to use signing statements to modify Congressional legislation directly attacks the ‘checks and balances’ to our government set up by the Founders. He is attempting to ‘accumulate more power in the Presidency’, using the claim that he ‘can basically change what Congress passed’ when it comes to legislation; Obama thinks that he has the right to indicate that he can ‘choose to interpret it this way, or that way’, depending on whether he agrees ‘with this part or that part’. In short, he wants to ‘make laws as he’s going along’, and ‘that’s not part of his power’.

Hey, if you don’t believe me, listen to this guy. He’s pretty vehement on the subject:

(H/T: Hot Air)

Just do it fast, before YouTube takes it down for whatever the excuse is this week.

You’ll notice that Obama’s flat rejection of the practice above varies from what was being put in print at various parts of the campaign: the Washington Post reported that Obama would continue to use the practice, only not anything like that awful George W Bush (I believe that a similar distinction was made at the time on FISA, Iraq, and detainee policy). This was not really covered during the campaign, mostly because it wasn’t helpful for Obama to explain why he was contradicting himself on this, but now we’re in the actual Presidency, and it looks like signing statements are fine after all.

I’m not entirely certain that I agree, by the way: I understand the central point of why Presidents use them, but I don’t quite trust ad hoc workarounds that are totally at the discretion of the executive. It’s not so much any individual use that worries, so much as the precedent itself. It’s also pretty hard to track, unlike actual legislation. That being said, this issue does remind us yet again that Jim Geraghty’s quip that “All statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.” remains true. Say what you like about former President Bush, but he has the virtue of consistency. We’re not yet a hundred days into this administration, and it’s looking unlikely that the same will ever be said of his successor…

Moe Lane

No Better Night

Since you probably aren’t in Athens GA at this moment, let me tell about things right now.
Should you care and care you should. 

A 1947 Ford pick-up didn’t just turn onto Broad Street from College Avenue – it opted for a slow glide in a different direction. A young woman in a red hair wrap, arms quite embracing the brown rusty bed, seemed pleased with her mode. 

We’re measuring temperature here with smug grins – no degrees tonight. 

The only noise above the occasional passing car is a faint bluegrass note from Starbucks on the corner. The waning gibbous moon has somehow let enough night through that the dark has slowly curled up to the tree line and buildings on North Campus. 

Children will never find a more perfect hide and go seek arena than North Campus right now; the lampposts serve as longitudinal boundaries with Broad and Old College as the top and bottom. If I was 10 years younger or in the company of 10 friends, I would be there and not here. 

A delicate balance of coffee, Five Star Day and Five Guys let into the breeze, a comfortable Athenian tang. 

It is as if I should expect at any moment, Michael Stipe or Duke Ellington to pass me by, smile and go on whistling. 

If John McCain and Barack Obama got ice cream flavors, Ben and Jerry’s will surely debut a new flavor in honor of this night.

Caesar Ugastus has never been prouder to rule over his city. His stature is boastful, pleased and ready. If his tail were to begin to wag I wouldn’t think a thing of it. I’d smile. 

Empty nights in Athens are the fullest.

Outrageous.

 

When I Leave Athens

Last week I found out that I will enter the active duty Air Force on 21 June.

I typically would have trumpeted that over the blogosphere in a flash. However, with Mike’s passing I didn’t want to draw attention away from remembering his life.

But if there is one thing Mike would want for us these days, its to move on and live life to its fullest.

So, I am.

I will be leaving Georgia for training on 21 June.  I’ll be in TX for 6 months before I head to my permanent duty station.

I’ll post a lot more about this transition, but I wanted to go ahead and let y’all know that it is quite official – and I’m terribly excited!