Ok, let's be honest: It's not that surprising. It's also not entirely true. I've started another blog over at wordpress. (I never update that one either, so don't feel offended.) Anyway, if you're interested, it's at http://foodgeekblogthing.wordpress.com.

Ok, so in regards to my last blog entry: Steady paycheck has been achieved. I've been working for a company called Source Interlink Media Services since July. I distribute magazines at the airport. (Coincidentally, it's the company that supplies the Waldenbooks in the area with magazines.) In any case, my job frequently involves pushing carts laden with 600+ pounds of magazines great distances, so as you can imagine I'm shedding pounds like crazy.

I'm planning on going back to school this spring at BW (pending my acceptance, of course.)

Oh yeah, and I'm going to be an uncle. (Which is awesome.)

Hopefully more updates to follow (in hopefully fewer than seven months.)

I know it's been a really long time since I've blogged.  To those of you who like my blogs, I apologize.  To those of you who don't...why are you even reading this?  Anyway...I digress.

In my last blog I said that I had left Waldenbooks and taken a job at Skoda Minott & Co. on the east side.  I had high hopes that the temporary job would turn out to be permanent.

To make a kind of long story very short, it didn't.

Not having a steady job over the past month and a half has worked out, though, because I've actually had an uncharacteristically large number of gigs lately.  As the Skoda job was winding down, I was doing 1776 at Tri-C, followed by Honk! at Holy Name, followed by The Mikado (I was actually in that one, not in the pit) at Tri-C, then the spring choir concert at Forge (a stage band consisting of myself and a few of my favorite people to work with -- this is probably one of the funnest gigs I have all year).  I've been the busiest unemployed guy I know over the past month and a half.

This last gig brings me to the point of this blog.  But first, a little back story:

When I was in high school, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.  From the first day I walked in to Valley Forge, I knew that I wanted to go into music education and be a band director.  In the four years of high school and my first year and a half of college, there was not a doubt in my mind.

Every now and then I'd have a friend who was changing majors, and I'd think "Gosh, I'm really glad I've got my future figured out.  None of that silly major-changing for me."

Then I woke up one morning, and realized that I wasn't so sure that I wanted to be a music teacher any more.  I knew I loved music, and that it would always be a part of my life, but I didn't want to do it as a career.  So I graduated from Tri-C with my associate's degree, and I've been wandering ever since.

Periodically, someone would ask me what I wanted to do with my life.  One of the interview questions at Skoda was "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  And I honestly had no idea. 

I've spent the past three years being lost.  I don't mean to sound negative when I say that.  I knew I was lost, and I was ok with it.  I was looking around to see what was good, to see what I liked.

Over the past month and a half, when I was so busy with gigs, I kept saying to people "This is fun, I wish I could make a living doing this."  (I know, I know.  It's right there.  I didn't see it.)

So fast forward to the spring choir concert:  The seniors were doing their slide show/presentation thing.  Pretty standard stuff, baby and senior pictures of everyone, quotes about time.  One quote in particular caught my attention: "When we are doing what we love, time does not matter to us.  For that moment time does not exist, and we are free."

Immediately I thought "What the hell have I been doing for the past three years?"  Everything fell in to place and made perfect sense. 

So to make a long story....well, it's still long.  To summarize:  I'm going back into music education.  I recognize now that those three years I spent wandering were necessary.  I needed to find my way.

So yeah.  I'm very excited.  But first things first, step one is a steady paycheck  I'll keep you apprised.  (Really this time.)

For those of you who don't know, I've been working at Waldenbooks for the past (almost) three and a half years.  As is evidenced in my blog, there have been many ups and downs over the years, but the pros have always outweighed the cons for me, so I've stayed.

Last Tuesday, I had an interview with a company on the East Side called Skoda Minotti and Co.  Apparently they really liked me, because they offered me the job, and I accepted.  My last day at Waldenbooks is this Saturday.

It still feels really weird to say that.  Regardless of what changes have happened in my life over the past few years, Waldenbooks has been one thing that was constant.  It's kind of scary, just because Waldenbooks is familiar to me, but I'm really excited about this.

Anyway, a lot of things influenced my decision, but the biggies were the money, the hours, and the fact that I am freaking tired of selling things.  Retail has me completely burned out.

So what does this mean for you?  Wacky customer stories may well be a thing of the past.  I don't shop much, but I may have to start to get enough customer exposure to keep my blog interesting.

Oh, and wacky customer story of the day:  There are these black wire racks up near the cash/wrap that we put promotional items and booklights and stuff on.  There was a little girl (maybe seven or eight) yesterday who wasn't watching where she was going as she walked out of the store, and she walked (full speed walking, not super fast, but a good pace) right into the side of the rack.  I immediately found something interesting on the floor to look at, because it was all I could do not to fall over laughing.

Any of you who know me know that I have little to no sympathy for people who don't watch where they're walking.  Anyway...

Oh, and the music search is broken, so just to let you know, I'm listening to "Overkill" by Colin Hay.

I'm not talking about his acting (because that's not a question that even needs to be asked.  Of course he's a talented actor.)  I'm talking about his music.

As a matter of preface:  I'm not a huge rap fan (I like some rap, but I wouldn't call myself a huge fan.)  In some ways I've just discovered him as a musician in the past couple of months.

It all started at the mall, where they play "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It" at least once (usually more) per day.  And I'm standing behind the counter, sorting some paperwork or something, and I find myself singing and dancing (only dancing a little, not like 'spastic white guy dance break' dancing, just sort of nodding along) with the chorus.  And I think "Hmm, this is pretty good."  Now I look forward to Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It every day I'm at work.

And aside from the fact that he's talented, I really respect his style.  There was a funny clip about Will Smith's music on Family Guy.  Not that I mind profanity in rap (I like some of Eminem's stuff, for example), but it's cool because he's doing something that most of the artists in his genre aren't.

So yeah, props to Will Smith (I don't think I could be any whiter.)

I pulled out my practice pad and actually played for a little while today.  I haven't done that in months.  Unfortunately I've misplaced my copies of Stick Control, Rudimental Primer, and Intermediate Snare Drum Studies (to all you non-percussionists, those are pretty important--I'm going to have to replace them eventually.)

So I pretty much just went through some fundamental-type stuff, which worked out, because I'm rusty as all get out.

So apparently one of my roommates tripped a circuit breaker, and as a result all the power in her room and all the outlets in my room are dead.  We're waiting to hear back from the landlord.  The breakers are in a locked room in the basement.

In the meantime, this blog is brought to you from my kitchen table.  There is something very nice about sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by windows and sunlight, while exploring the intertubes.  Almost makes me wish I had a laptop (that isn't 15 years old.)

I sat here, drinking coffee and writing for about an hour and a half yesterday morning.  I hope not to jinx it, but I've actually been writing every day (whether in my blog or just in a notebook) since Saturday.  I'm sure I've mentioned before that I love to write, I'm just not very good at it.

So I think this is a good thing.  I didn't resolve to write every day (because we've seen that's a recipe for disaster), it just sort of happened.  I'm going to try to keep it up. 

Anyway, this coffee is awesome.  It's Market District Columbian from Giant Eagle (the very first coffee I ever blogged about!!)  I've pretty much stopped using my coffee pot in favor of french press or Alton Brown's manual drip method.

Manual drip is great because it gives you control over just about every aspect of the brewing process.  It's best if you grind your own beans.  You put the grounds (2 tablespoons per six ounces of water) in a coffee filter in a funnel and put the funnel over the mouth of a thermal carafe.  Boil the water (I use a large pyrex measuring cup in the microwave.)  After the water has boiled, remove from the heat and wait for the bubbles to stop, then count to ten.  Pour over the grounds.  You'll have to refill the funnel several times.  Close the carafe.  Enjoy.

The flavor of the coffee is influenced by several things:  the beans, the grind, the water temperature, and the brewing time.  By grinding your own beans, you control the freshness and the fineness of the grind.  The manual drip method optimizes the brewing time and water temperature. 

In an autodrip pot, all you have control over is the beans.

I'm in the process of desiging and auto-manual-drip pot.  I know that sounds stupid, but I think it's possible to get all the benefits of a manual drip with all the convenience of an auto drip.

Later.

Instead, I spent $230 on a new muffler, tailpipe, and exhaust pipe.  The upside is that now my car is nice and quiet again.  The downside is that the happiness I get from that fact is going to have to sustain me in lieu of food for the next week or so.

Not really, but you get the idea.

Car repairs are frustratingly expensive.

On the brighter side, it was a beautiful day today and I actually just walked around while I was waiting for my car to get fixed.  It got me thinking about the fact that I used to walk everywhere (or at least to the bus stop), and now the furthest I walk is from the main store to the inline at work.

I think I'm going to try to walk more.  You know, when the weather gets nice again.  Hopefully this resolution will survive longer than my "I'm going to ride my bike every day" thing.

Later.

Seriously?  Shorts weather in January? 

Not that I'm complaining, it's just weird.  I wanted to go ride my bike instead of going to work today.

The funny thing is that I've said more than once in response to someone remarking about how cold it is:  "Yeah, well it's Cleveland, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 60 and sunny tomorrow."

Well, as it turns out, I was wrong.  I knew it was coming, and it still suprised me.

If the weather holds out, I think I'll ride my bike tomorrow.

One of my gifts this past Christmas was a thermos (the small, narrow kind, I think they call it a "briefcase bottle") from my roommates.  This was very exciting for me because, as some of you may know, drinking coffee borders on being a religious experience for me.  Furthermore, I'd been eyeing just such a thermos for the past year or so, because the line at Starbucks goes right past the cart thing with all the Starbucks-related merchandise on it.  Anyway, I kept putting off buying it because it wasn't a necessity.

So I was getting ready for work this morning and thinking about how nice it would be to take some coffee to work so that I wouldn't have to go down to Starbucks and spend money.  Normally I would have thought something like "If only I had a thermos of some sort," but this time I did.

So I set about brewing a thermos of coffee using the manual drip method (or the "really, awesomely good method" as it should be more commonly known.)  I creamed and sweetened the coffee in the thermos, sealed it up, and continued getting ready for work.

But what to drink it out of when I got there?  I could use the cap, but the cap is pretty small, and also I'm not a construction worker.  So I took one of my coffee mugs with me, and in so doing, discovered something amazing.

Sundays aren't awful for me, but this is the ninth or tenth in a row that I've worked.  I love my job, but if I had a choice between working Sundays and not working Sundays, of course I would not work Sundays.

That said, I had an awesome morning.  Even with employees getting sick and me searching for replacements, it was all around a great day.  I can't attribute it all to this, but I noticed something pretty cool:  There is something inherently relaxing and enjoyable about drinking coffee (or your hot morning beverage of choice) out of a mug rather than a paper "to go" cup.

It makes sense when you think about it.  Typically, when you're drinking from one of your own mugs, you're at home.  It's kind of like taking a little bit of home to work with you.  I'm pretty sure it would work with any cup, whether or not you drink hot beverages. 

So anyway, give it a shot and let me know how it works for you.

As for the problems that kept cropping up, the really cool thing is that eventually they all solved themselves with little or no intervention on my part.  I love it when that happens.  One employee was willing to come in early to relieve the ill one, then that employee ended up needing to leave, but another employee who came in for her schedule wanted the hours and worked his shift.  Huzzah.

To quote Mr. A-Z: "A La la la la la life is wonderful."

Later

...because it doesn't have opposable thumbs.

I was at dinner at a friend's house the other night, and one of the other people who were there was trying in vain to open the refrigerator using only a tub of margarine. (Her other hand was full as well.)

So the holidays are over, and now there's the lull between Christmas and Easter.  (Unless you count my birthday as a holiday, which you don't, or unless you count Valentine's Day, which I don't. At least not when I'm single.)  Things have calmed down at work, and it looks like I might not actually lose all of my vacation time this year. (Just most of it.)

But in general, life is pretty good.  I got a couple of new CDs for Christmas, a group called the Mathematicians.  Check them out.  Very weird and different, but cool.

I found out that Susan Weber and Monet's Orbit's CD made the top ten local cd releases for 2007.  (Trees, former teacher, current friend, and frequent commenter is the drummer for SWAMO.)  Check them out.

And my favorite book, John Dies at the End, is up for best book of 2007 at critters.org (open source writing workshop site thing.)  If you've read it and you love it as much as I do, go vote here.  If you haven't read it, read it.  You can do so for free at johndiesattheend.com.  It's awesome.

On a more personal note, I just joined a blog group called Mentis Exculta.  Their description is "The rantings and ravings of madmen."  It seemed right.

It's been over a year, and I still have no cool sign out phrase for my blog.  I'll have to work on that.