HIya,

Hope you had a nice weekend. Today I turned 27. Do I feel any different? No, not really. Do I feel old? A little. If you had asked me in high school what I'd be doing at 27, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. 27 just seemed so old when you're 16. Like it was close to retirement or something. But I'm not. I still have a good 40 or so years to go before retirement. Maybe 30 if I'm really really lucky. Actually, if I'm really really really lucky, I'd win the lotto, and I'd be retired even sooner.

The weird thing, is that except for my new place, not much has changed. I'm still at the same job, doing pretty much the same thing. Do I feel like I'm stuck in a rut? Indeed. Like my friend Sheryl sang to me, a change would do me good. But then again, do I have to make a change every year so I don't feel this way? What about people that have been at their jobs for X amount of years? Is this feeling something that I'll grow out of? Am I just suffering from long term ADD? Perhaps. In the past few weeks, I've kicked around pursuing many different careers, ranging from being a part-time car test driver to going back to school for teaching. I'm still searching... Hopefully I'll find something soon. Over the weekend, I got a chance to get some books to aid in my quest (thanks Elizabeth). I need to find my new "cheese" cause I think it's been moved.

Anyway, back to our normal programme...

So I'm starting to dislike shopping on the weekends, especially now during the holidays. I know, I know, I'm not very holiday spirited. I made a trip out to Costco (again) to return the humidifier that I bought from them. You wouldn't believe how busy it was. There were seriously no parking spots anywhere to be found. As usual, people "made up" spots and pretty much parked wherever they wanted to. People were circling around the parking lot like buzzards around a dying animal. I ended up following a couple back to their Caddy, inspected what they bought from afar, and took their parking space once they left. Normally, I would have just left and come back during the weekday, but I was hoping that everyone was buying, and not returning stuff. Once I got into the place, everything was groovy. I was next in line. But let me tell you, the carts full of stuff rolling out of the exit was continuous. And the carts were completely full. I'm just glad I wasn't buying stuff. I'm sure other places were quite busy as well.

This evening, I got my first try at Korean food. It was quite tasty. My mom took me to a restaurant that served Korean and Japanese food. How was I supposed to know that you're supposed to mix the stuff that they give you for be bim bop together in the bowl? I kept the rice separate, and was kind of picking at the vegetables. Luckily, the server dude hooked me up with the info and told me to mix the rice, sauce and vegetables together in the pot. Let this be a lesson... The Sushi was damn good too. The oddest thing of the night was the music that was played on the speakers at the restaurant. It wasn't that stereotypical stringed instrument crap that they have at most Chinese restaurant. Their audio source was tuned to the teen pop station. I heard Britney, M2M, 'NSYNC, and a whole other host of trl artist. Very funny, yet disturbing, because the same songs are on a teen pop cd that I made once.

I've also made kind of a pre-New Year's resolution. I'm going to try and simplify my life. I'm going to actively try to retuce my dependence on material goods, and try to reduce the clutter in my life. As I write this to you, I'm sitting among piles and piles of paper and old stuff that needs to be cleaned up. I think I know what I'll be doing this week during vacation...

-Kirk