Wet Towels

Nothing sucks worse then a wet towel, trust me, I know. But towels are also great reminders of a very important life lesson... stuff happens. Ok, I guess I should give a little background info. I am lucky enough to be a live-in firefighter. What that means is I'm a volunteer firefighter who lives in the station. We have dorm rooms much like a college, a common living space, a study area, all the major comforts of home really, and fire trucks. Unfortunately, what that means is that all the day to day things people do in their homes (cooking/eating/sleeping/showering) are done at the station as well and all are subject to interruption by an alarm.

Tonight I was taking a shower and thinking about the recent breakup with my girlfriend of two years. Ours has always been a rocky relationship but when it was strong, it was something unstoppable and even when it was bad, she was still my best friend. The last month or so something unknown to us happened and we became completely incompatible with one another. The breakup has been messy at best, and total hell at worst but nevertheless I still think of her often and try to piece together what went wrong. But I digress, while in the middle of shaving we were dispatched an automatic fire alarm in our local area. Cursing at the inconvenience I quickly dried off, threw some clothes on, and got geared up for the run. The alarm was false and we returned without incident. Since I'd gotten grief from the guys for my half shaved face, I couldn't wait to finish my shower. I was still trying to rework the past, understand how we fell apart when I stepped out of the shower for the second time. I grabbed my towel and immediately realized I was screwed. It was cold and way beyond damp and really just kinda gross having just been used 20 minutes prior. So I'm trying to dry off and thinking about how much the whole thing sucks and I remember the quote of a good friend: "the suck is only temporary." Then I realize that life is full of wet towels, my breakup being a big one right now.

I know this whole thing sounds ridiculous and that's fine but it's actually helped me, in its own strange way, to refocus where I'm in my life and stop trying to solve what went wrong in the past. It sucks but it's over now and it's time to look forward to happier times.

Welcome

As it says above, this has been set up to jot down thoughts and ideas for a class being taken through the local library. The objective of the class is incredible, expanding and understanding the latest ways in which people gather and share information. I've always considered myself fairly up to date with technology but I've got to admit, when it comes to RSS feeds, wikis, and podcasting I'm rather lost. The one personal goal I have is to figure out: What is the purpose of Twitter?!?!?

So anyway, that's the story of how this is all beginning. From here I suppose the sky's the limit so we'll see what happens.