Go Shorty, It's My Birthday...

That's right, today is my birthday. Another year gone by, another to look forward to. Usually my wife is all about making "the day of" special (and she did), but she made the day before special to. The day before, she told me what my present was going to be: a new wireless keyboard and mouse. Okay, I'm admitting I'm a geek, but I've been wanting one of these things for a long time. I got one @ work and I love it, so I had to have one for the house.

So Jen and I hop into the car and cruise on down to Circuit City and CompUSA. CompUSA had a better selection. I really liked the Logitech's media controls on the top of the board (especially the volume control that was a spinning knob rather than + and - buttons) and the rechargable docking station for the mouse. Unfortunately, I also had to have the tilt wheel feature only found on Microsoft mice. So I went with this one:

And I absolutely love it! Buttons for everything: Media (including volume, mute, play/pause, stop, prev and next track), Web, Mail, Messenger, Calculator, and 5 customizable buttons. I've only done the first 3 so far (1. Dreamweaver, 2. Flash, 3. Photoshop; I'm thinking about making one Opera just to see what my sites look like in that browser). One of the best features is having mouse controls on the left side of the keyboard. Without leaving the keyboard, my left hand can control back and forward in my browser along with scrolling up/down AND left/right with the tilt-wheel technology!

The mouse has 5 buttons: left/right click, the scroll wheel toggles between open windows (which, again, has the up/down and left/right scroll) and back and forward buttons for web browsing.

Have I sold you yet? Really that's not my intention of this post. This one is to reflect on my last year and the year to come. I've noticed that I no longer feel a part of the college scene - which is both good and bad. I love the college scene. Hanging out @ the 3p, the freedom of living on your own and (for me) having the parents supporting me. I didn't like class, but I liked being around people in class. I hated group projects, but I usually liked the group. The freedom of being young, being stupid and living off Dr. Pepper, pizza and cereal.

Now I'm a husband and (almost) a dad. I've got to worry about getting a good job that I like, a mortgage, car payments, keeping food on the table, and taking care of my wife. But I am finding joys in life after college. I do get to have a kid! I do get to have a job that I like (granted someone will give it to me). I get to make desicions, like starting my own business when no one will give me a job.

In my last post, I said that I had joined The FaceBook. In doing so, I find that most of the people on there are people younger than I. I have found 3 or 4 people from my high school (granted Elk City wasn't the technology capital of the West) and a few from my classes @ OK State. While I am friends with people younger than myself, I do feel old and out of touch with these groups. Does this mean that I am old? Or that I am a part of places that I am too old for? Should I join more adult forums? If so, where? Even the OK State Forums seem a little immature sometimes.

I have been reading a couple web designer blogs (told you I was a geek). These seem more my speed now, but where do my old friends fit in? I don't want to lose them, but I seem more "technologically connected" than most of them. And being "technologically connected" is my preferred method of contact. How does this all work out? Well, right now, not very well. You can't really carry on a solid relatioship over email. I have incorperated webcam chats with my buddy, E.J. What's great is that we can even add audio and I never have to touch my wonderful keyboard -- just like video phone.

So my resolution for my 23rd year on this planet is to be more connected to people -- my friends (even the younger ones), the designers whom I admire, and random people. I plan to leave more comments on people's sites and blogs. I really enjoy all the comments and notes that I've been getting lately and I believe that the only way to perpetuate is to recipricate. So beware of the stray emails, messages, and comments that may be flying your way.

Speaking of technologically connected -

I love my wife - I really really do. She is so cute. She loves that I love computers and it's so cute that she wants to be just like me. I downloaded the Mozilla suite on my computer (Firefox, Thunderbird (the email client), and the Sunbird Project (a calendar)). She saw me using Thunderbird and she wanted it for her laptop, "because she wanted to use what I use" (I had already downloaded Firefox onto her computer, although I hear Safari is just as safe). I recently switched back to Outlook 2003 (but still keeping FF), b/c I really didn't like Thunderbird's interface and the three didn't integrate well. Now Jen wants Outlook and refuses to use Thunderbird b/c I don't use it anymore. Microsoft doesn't make Outlook for Macs, but makes a similar-yet-just-different-enough client called Entrourage. And Jen refuses that too. She loves that I love this stuff and really tries to learn it b/c of me, but sometimes she just doesn't understand. But that's why I love her - she's so cute!