I thought that I might click through a banner ad I found on a site yesterday.  It was for a company where you could order essays, and I just wanted to see what it was about.

Now, I remember back in college writing that scary admission essay.  Well, low and behold if I was going to college now, I just could buy a college application essay and not bother writing it.  I even found a site that would guarantee that you were accepted - or your money back (a pretty big guarantee if you ask me).

I continued to explore the site and found that you can order a MBA essay.  I was a little surprised that they could offer something at the caliber of a MBA student.  They must have writers that have done their MBA, but there was nowhere on the site that I could find information pertaining to that.

The nice thing about the Internet is that you come across something new each day.  I was feel that I have a better idea of what is out there now in terms of essays online - we never had the option back in our day.  Even if we did, I don’t know if I would have taken advantage of it.

The other day, when I went to buy NBA tickets, I stood in line for almost an hour and when I was just about to the front, the game sold out. That would teach me to wait until the last minute to get the tickets. Actually, it probably wouldn’t because I am a born procrastinator.

I figured that if I wanted to see the games, I needed a new method of purchasing cheap NBA tickets. I knew that I could buy tickets online at any time, but I usually ended up paying more for these and I am a quite thrifty person. Although, I would rather pay a little bit more than to continue missing the games.

I sometimes wish that I could afford to buy NBA tickets for the whole season and then not have to worry about standing in line at all. But, the reality is that I just cannot afford it and I don’t go to even half of the home games. What I really need to do is to stop procrastinating and buy my tickets earlier. And I will…tomorrow.

I ran into a buddy of mine that I went to college with many years ago in a restaurant last night.  In fact, it turns out that he was the restaurant manager.  He had some time that he could sit down and talk so we caught up, but I had to ask him a question:

“What happened to you?”

You see, he was there until the third year and then he just disappeared half way through the term.  No warning and no goodbyes.  Up until yesterday I had wondered what happened, and I was finally able to get some answers.

He told me that he used to order custom written essays from a guy he knew in his dorm.  He paid the guy to write him unique book reports for him because he didn’t have time to write them himself.

Things were going great for him until the college found out that he would buy term papers.  At that point he was promptly expelled from college - and that was how he ended up in the restaurant business.

Finally the mystery was solved.

With so many people getting excited about going to school, you would think that I would have the same sort of fever, right?

Well, not exactly.  You see, I am looking to go to summer school this year, but I won’t be hitting the books, I’ll be hitting the greens.

That’s right, I am going to Golf School.

Specifically, I am going to attend a South Carolina Golf School where I will be able to rub shoulders with some of the pros.  I am hoping that the golf instruction that I receive there will benefit me and lead to a win in the tournament that I entered in August.

So, no books for me, no college exams, and no headaches from studying for me this summer.  Instead I will be enjoying the sun and nature each day of class.  But, there is still a few months before I go to school and I bet it will be the most enjoyable learning experience I ever have.

Sometimes I just feel like such an idiot when it comes to computers.  Though I have had one for a number of years now, sometimes I make mistakes.  While some of my mishaps are simple like changing the screen resolution, others like deleting photographs are not good at all.

I think the first time that I deleted some pictures off of my computer, they were my anniversary photos, and my wife was furious.  I promptly used some photo recovery software to save the day and get those treasured memories back.

But when I deleted most of our company’s books, I had to take things a step further.  Our computer technician suggested that I use some computer data recovery software to get back what I had deleted.

At the time, he set me up with Recovery My Files, a data recovery package that was easy to use.  It worked great then and still works good now.  It is definitely my first solution when it comes to fixing my mistakes – and I have the need to use it often.

There is only one thing to be said about having a wedding in August. It’s hot and muggy and you must plan for this very thing. For instance, when I had my August wedding, I was not really thinking about the fact that my hair could turn to complete frizz in the humidity. Luckily for me, my hairdresser was way ahead of me on that.

Even though it was hot and muggy, our wedding was completely perfect and completely beautiful. I was not allowed to see the diamond wedding ring before the wedding and when I finally got to wear it on my finger, it was absolutely stunning. It was so perfect and it was totally me. But then, Jordan knew that when he picked it out for me. That is just the kind of guy he is.

It was so stunning that I was not sure how he had been able to afford this without my knowing it. We are pretty open with all of our finances. When I questioned him about it, he told me that he had found the best place for wholesale diamond jewelry and with prices like what he bought the ring for, I was sure to be getting a lot of jewelry in the future. This I could live with.

I feel like charities are starting to get a bad name.  I can count on two hand the number of telemarketing calls I get each day about such-and-such charity that needs my money - that I have never heard of.  The result of this is when a familiar charity does call, I am already a cold donator.

I prefer to find a cause to support in a less pressured environment.  For example, this past weekend, I picked up a copy of the RAAS when I was out for coffee and I found an ad for S.A.F.E.  Now, they have been a part of the community for awhile and it is nice to see local charities put their name out there without calling me to do it.

The fact that they are inside with the print advertising means a lot.  Especially when you see an ad for a charity in a trusted magazine - it makes you feel a bit better giving money to them.

I had a really nice young man come to my door the other day, asking me if he could please give me a life insurance quote. Feeling rather relieved that he wasn’t someone trying to sell me a vacuum, I let him come in to chat for awhile. He was very polite, and being new at the job, was very professional.

We sat down to a cup of tea and some fresh baked cookies and I let him have his say on health insurance quotes and why I needed better coverage than I currently had. I am not easily sold on anything, but he did make some very valid points about my current coverage. I knew that this was something that I should look into a little bit deeper.

I figure that he must have really liked my cookies because he then got started on his home insurance quote. I told him that I was glad he had come and that I would need some time to think about it. I suggested that he leave me some reading materials about it all and that he should come back next week. I even promised to bake him a cake.

It has been very interesting so far in terms of the prelude to the American election.  With the candidates squaring off in many different states and debates, I am beginning to form an opinion of who I would like to vote into office.

But it sure hasn’t been easy.  Each one of the candidates have brought their own strengths and weaknesses to the table.  For each of them, I like some, but not all of what they have to offer.

And I think I am not alone.  From the many political websites I have been following and participating on, right now, there sure doesn’t seem to be a clear winner.  Each side says that they have won, they have the best platform, etc.

But from the current numbers, there is no clear future president.  It will be really interesting to see what happens in the coming months - and who the eventual winner will be.  So, I guess I will just have to keep following things and see how everything plays out.

I recently finished my first year of being a full fledged high school English teacher. I am sure that I learned just as much from these students as they learned from me. In fact, I am sure that I learned more. I remember when I assigned them their first essay, just three days into school. I thought I had made some real enemies for sure. I was known as being a tough teacher after that.

I had heard that so many brand new teachers had trouble assigning homework, for fear that the students would not like them. I think I actually went to the other extreme, in order to stay away from that stereotype. In fact, when it came time for parent conferences in November, it was brought to my attention that I had already assigned five research papers to one class.

I was taken aback. I didn’t realize that I had gotten that bad. When we got back to school after the thanksgiving break, I promised that class that they would only have two more term papers for the rest of the year. I think that helped and the students started warming up to me. I started to relax a little bit and I am ready to go back and have a really good year this time.