You, dear reader, have not been forgotten. But my free time sure has. Never have I been as busy as I am these days, with something going on nearly all the time. Such was my wearing out this past Friday night that I slipped under at 12:30 AM and didn’t really surface until 1 PM on Saturday, numb and groggy. Man, I know this amount of umph is going to be required in order to move forward, but it’s taking its toll.

So, I’ll bring you a fairly short post, with something more substantive at the end of 2017, once I emerge from graduate school. On that front, I’ll admit I’m getting a bit more nervous. Made an 86 on week two’s major project in my current class, COM 613: Constructing Messages and Audiences. Man oh man, the requirements are stepping up and I’m kind of slow in catching up. We have a major project due every other week though, and I’ve just submitted the most current, a presentation. Not sure what to expect, but trying to remain calm and rest in the fact that I’m doing the best I know how. Will that be good enough? Who knows.

What was good was my birthday retreat, (Annual? well I don’t know about all that but for the second year in a row at least). This time to Myrtle Beach. The hotel property, the Patricia Grand, was just ok I suppose, but it was difficult to find places at that time as everyone had the same idea of going for and end-of-summer hurrah. And we were due to get yucky weather in the lee of a tropical storm, but it held off till Monday and the sun shone pleasantly nearly the entire time. The main issues were that breakfast was a bit plain, the housekeeper had a big attitude problem and never came back because we weren’t immediately ready for her, and it is built such that the halls are open-air, meaning all the ambient noise comes in as one is atempting to sleep. But, we managed. A bit of amusement occurred in the form of a woman from Indiana who felt the need to approach as we walked along the ocean and proclaim this as “the greatest thing ever!” We’re guessing that was her first ever beach trip.

I went with my girlfriend, just as we had to Wrightsville the prior year, but this time my cousin and his wife also accompanied us. A couple of dinners, college football (for us) and shopping (for them) made for fun minglings. She also got me a nice duffel bag to replace the UNC bag I’d had for only 2 weeks before it acquired a mysterious hole! This thing is on wheels, and is a different shade of blue but one that will allow for easy retrieval from a train or plane compartment. I love travel-related stuff.

And of course these days, I never travel anywhere without my trusty iPhone. That’s right, we’ve just passed the four (4!) year mark of my having this thing, and the amount of stuff I can now do with it continues to increase and impress the heck out of me. Even when on the way to our hotel, her phone suddenly stopped working and I had to quickly pinch hit with GPS directions. Also thanks to apps like TuneIn, I can listen to just about as many sporting events as one who has a satellite radio these days. (Bummed that my darn Panthers lost again, already exceeding last season’s total). Then there’s the usual: books, movies, NPR, and on and on. Finally, I can record my presentations for class on an app like Bossjock and upload them to SoundCloud, as per requirements. This may well be the only accessible way of doing so. So tech continue to lead us onward and upward.

And now my final note: on the Life Coach whom I also found via that phone and its ability to search local ads for my queries. We had our first official session this Monday, after which I lost my debit card, deactivated it, and seconds later had a neighbor knock on my door having retrieved it. That debacle taught me I should have pressed the “Lock” button on my banking app to hold purchases, thus giving myself time to see if the card could be located. Anyhow back to the session: it went well. She concurs with my “long” goal of trying to get into NPR, and we will start to fashion some kind of plan to at least start me down that road. She also worked with me on physical body language: posture, the amount of space I take up, the kinds of things blind folks don’t often ponder but unfortunately to our peril. People do not consciously decide not to hire on the basis of such things, but I imagine the underlying biases formed there are extremely hard to overcome. So the more I can know going in, the merrier right?

And that’s about all I’ve got for now. Busy busy bee, when’s my next I need another vacation now. What’s happenin’ on your end?