seanosaur

I keep changing my mind on this dog thing. It’s not that I don’t want a dog any longer. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I want a dog ASAP. I know it sounds like I’m rushing into it and I haven’t thought it through but I have, many times. I think I need to take a step back, though, and see what’s best for me.

I found a shelter that has a number of Beagle puppies and I was considering adopting one this weekend. Then, I started to think. This dog might not be spayed/neutered. It’s most likely not house trained.

I think I just decided that I’m going to wait until the Beagle Rescue process is complete.

Last night I came to a conclusion.

I’m getting a dog.

A beagle, to be exact.  I think a beagle would fit my personality in a perfect way.  Full of energy, curious, friendly, stubborn (at times), the list goes on.  I’ve never cared for a dog by myself but I know I can handle the responsibilities.  I just worry that a dog will tear up everything in sight if given the chance.  I would hate having to crate him/her every weekday while I’m at work but I don’t think I have any other choice.

Houston has a Beagle and Hound Rescue center that could be getting a visit from me very soon.  If everything goes according to plan today at the leasing office, I could have a new friend in the coming days!  I’ll keep everyone (all 4 of you) updated on what happens next.

I live my life in a controlled state of chaos. Whether it’s intentional or not is still up for debate. My apartment looks like Taz stayed the weekend. My car is typically spotless. I still have boxes that haven’t been unpacked in nearly a year. I like to plan out and cook my meals for the week on Sunday, which brings me to my point.

I’ve come to the realization that I need to find people/friends that live a more healthy lifestyle. While I was cooking last night, I was thinking about how nice it is to have some order in my life. I have the ability to be spontaneous but I prefer to know exactly what I put in my body, always. The majority of my friends, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. They eat whatever is in front of them. If I pick a healthy place to eat out, it gets vetoed. I don’t care what they do, but I refuse to let it affect the way my life is lived. I need a change.

Now, I’m not implying that I should just drop my friends and get an entire new set. Maybe I just need to add a few that can actually have a good influence on the way I live. I like to run, I enjoy exercising, going for a bike ride, and doing things outdoors. My friends, not so much. Again, what they do won’t change our friendships, but I also won’t let myself be alienated just because I prefer to live an active lifestyle.

I’m making this a goal for 2013: make friends that actually enjoy being healthy and in shape.

I now have comments! I’ve spent the morning slaving away at getting comments set up (ok, it took 15 minutes) on my site and now it is done! Disqus makes life simple for me and I thank them for that. This means that even if you’re not on tumblr, you can communicate with me. I’m sure there’s not many of you on my main blog but my Music and Let’s Talk Longhorns pages get a good number of hits.

If there’s ever an age when you become too old for Spring Break festivities, it’s 25.

I went to the beach this weekend and here was my Saturday:

9:00 - 9:30 AM - Run 3 miles on the beach

11:00 AM - 1:00 PM - Be a part of the St. Patrick’s Day parade and enjoy it a little too much

1:30 PM - 5:30 PM - Fall asleep in a lawn chair on the patio and bake the left side of my body

5:31 PM - 7:00 PM - Rotate myself 180° in an attempt to even out my crispiness

7:15 PM - 8:00 PM - Eat dinner then fall asleep in the chair watching Storage Wars

8:30 PM - Start driving back to Houston

The play-by-play that you just read is pathetic. I know, I lived it. I’m now an old man.

When did I devolve from party animal to…this? I have a feeling it was when I got a full-time job. I just don’t have the luxury of going out every night and drinking away my paycheck and then waking up at 5 AM and doing my job.

Want to know what the silver lining in all this is? I’m perfectly happy where I am right now. I’ve come to decide that those days won’t be missed.

All in all, it really was a fun weekend. It was exactly what I needed; decompression. Work isn’t necessarily stressing me out, but it’s nice to be able to go somewhere and just listen to the waves, stare out into the horizon, and just let my mind wander.

In case anyone, like I recently did, was debating between Spotify and Rdio, I can declare a winner for you.

Spotify wins, hands down.

I originally had Spotify - mostly due to brand recognition - when they first launched in the States. I was impressed. Before this, I was burning through $$$ in iTunes, buying up all kinds of music. This new service brought a new luxury to my life. I could just stream the music (for $10/mo) instead of paying for each album.

When I started at my current job in 2012, I wasn’t able to install the Spotify app onto my computer and was forced to eat up either data or precious phone space with my music. I found Rdio and their web interface solved my problem, so I switched. For the same price, I had the same song library (eventually) and could listen to it at work without killing my phone or hiking my phone bill.

Then, they started updating the app. It’s gotten worse and worse, by the day. If you have monster playlists, it takes ages to startup. It makes it difficult to share the song that’s currently playing. It constantly freezes, crashes, and repeats the same songs over and over until I’m forced to kill the app. All in all, it’s not worth the trouble, even for the same price as Spotify.

Now that our office is WiFi-enabled, my phone bill can stay lean and I can just go back to using my phone.

This has been a brief review of Spotify and Rdio, side-by-side. Spotify wins.

My job comes with certain benefits. Benefits I didn’t know existed until I became an employee of this company. In the past year, I have set a new lifetime goal. I want to step foot on every continent, minus Antarctica. I enjoy cold weather, but having the temperature constantly hovering around 0° F does not sound too fun.

Back to my point. Travel. I want to see the world, and I mean that. I hear a lot of people say they want to see the world, but very few follow through. I could write an entire book about other people but this is my site.

I’ve been thinking about where I would like to travel first and I’ve come up with a Top 5 list:

1. Florence/Siena/Rome, Italy. In that order, one week, same trip.

2. Barcelona, Spain

3. Beijing, China

4. Sydney, Australia

5. Rio de Janiero, Brazil

Those are my Top 5 intercontinental destinations, now for my Top 5 North American cities:

1. Washington, DC

2. New York City, NY

3. Toronto, ON, Canada

4. Portland, Oregon

5. Hawaii

Got any better ideas? Please, share them with me.