I’m back from my projects, healthy, happy, and ready to begin 2008!

Well, it’s not really -that- dramatic … but after 20 years of driving I got my first ticket yesterday. It’s -alleged- that I was going 84 in the toll roads of the 91 freeway. (Don’t you think that if you pay up to $10 to drive 10 miles, you should be able to drive as fast as you want?)

The ticket didn’t surprise me in the least … it was a long time coming. What surprised me was that when I started to think how long I’ve been driving, I came up with that magically depressing number: 20. Twenty years, am I really that old? I remember being a kid and hearing my parents say something about “20 years ago” and thinking how old they were. Well… here I am.

In other unrelated news… I love the new MacBook Air … but probably won’t be getting one. I’m actually considering a desktop computer, and less reliance upon a laptop. But I will be getting an iPhone soon … I’m tired of waiting for the next upgrade.

I’m out in Hemet for a few weeks, and I needed a haircut. So I drove around until I found this little place on Florida Avenue that was in the back of a strip mall. I was leery of heading in, it seemed so …. old. But they guy there gave me the best haircut in years, and in talking to him I’d found out that he’d been doing the same thing (men’s haircuts) for nearly 50 years.

I asked the guy (Jim?) if he’d ever counted up how many haircuts he’d done. His calculation (which I think covers a few staff as well) … a whopping 700,000 haircuts.

My point? None. But I think next time I want a haircut (or any other service, really) I’m going to seek out the random small business again instead of going to the typical national chain.