No Phone Challenge Was a Success

My last post here was my 400th.  Congratulations go out to me for having a blog for four years.  I also crossed the 30,000 page view mark, so that's neat.  Most of my hits come from a post I did about your iPhone not being able to connect to the 4G network.  Get paid for any of this yet?

No.

Anyway when I last left you, I was planning on doing the no phone challenge.  I did it!  I only used my phone when my wife called me during her lunch break, used Siri to text my wife to let her know I was on my way to pick her up from work, and at the end of the day, my good friend Sean texted me some interesting life happenings, so I had to respond to that.  So how did it go?  Pretty good, actually.  I watched Netflix, which is pretty unusual.  The hardest part was when the kids were napping, I couldn't just fiddle with my phone while watching TV.  I wanted to look up when someone died, but couldn't.  After the kids went to bed for the night, my wife was going on with her business reading Facebook, and all I could do was twiddle my thumbs and dream about going to bed.  Other than that, I didn't miss much.  I thought about it a lot in the morning, but as the day progressed, the less I cared about my phone.  Even in the next couple days, I found myself caring less about what was happening on Twitter or Words with Friends or anything else, really.  But by today, Sunday, I'm fully regressed back to addict.  But if I had to, I could go without my phone.  It would be okay.

It wasn't freeing, like some people have said it would fell like.  I just made me focus on other things.  I suggest you unplug sometime.  It's a little weird, but not life-changing, unless you're addicted to your phone worse than I was.  I don't know.  It wasn't that cool, but I'm glad I did it.  

No Phone Challenge is Tomorrow

I've changed the Hand Picked Song to your right to fit the theme of this week's posts.

Tomorrow is the day.  Tomorrow I will be going phoneless for the entire day.  I'll leave it on, you know, for actual phone calls, because those are allowed during this no-phone challenge.  I have kids and a wife who will be at work so I'll need to be able to use my phone to call or receive phone calls.  Other than that, no iPhone, no iPad, no laptop, even.  I discussed the plan with my wife and she said that the PS3 should be okay because it's just watching Netflix anyway.  I could go super caveman and say no TV or any screens all day, but that's just crazy.  Maybe next week.

So we'll see how it goes, but tomorrow I'll be digitally off the radar.  Have a good day.  

The No-Phone Challenge

The other night, I was brushing my teeth before bed and checking Twitter while I did so.  As I scrolled along, my phone battery died.  I thought to myself, this sucks, I can't wait to plug my phone in so I can use it again.  Then I thought, what if I didn't plug my phone back in?  What if I went an entire day without the use of my phone?  Wouldn't that be a fun experience?

I'm addicted to my phone.  I freely admit it.  I look at it constantly.  It's sort of sad, really, but there's just so much entertainment on the thing, I can't put it down.  It's an addiction.  I might try the no phone for an entire day, but that day ain't today.  As soon as I got to bed that night, I plugged my phone in and continued on like normal.  It wont' be tomorrow, either because I need to use it tomorrow.  But soon, I think I will do it.  I don't know what extent I'll cut myself off at, like, I can still use the computer or no?  Use any electronic device like the PS3?  I don't know.  I'll have to decide on the extent, but I think that if I went at it hardcore, it might make for an interesting blog post, something that hasn't been written in a good long while.

Maybe next week.  I'll let you when I do it by writing about it the next day...or perhaps during.  We'll see.

Goodbye! 

Renting vs Buying Your Home

Dude who lives upstairs, I hope you read this.  You're really loud, and if you had any sense of your surroundings, you would realize you live above people.  You can't just drop heavy shit on the floor.  You can slide your feet when you walk, not stomp and shake my windows.  It's not that hard to live with common courtesy.  You, the reader, may be wondering why I don't go up there, knock on his door and ask him to cool it, but I'd rather bitch about it than do anything.  I'm not a confrontational person, and I don't want to make him feel bad or whatever for doing something that really isn't that big of a deal, like living in an apartment.  It's okay, but it's annoying when I get startled when this dude drops something on his floor.  If it was really affecting my quality of life more than just being annoyed, then I might say something.  I've lived in this apartment for four years, and I've had a few different neighbors live above us, and I've never really noticed them.  That's how I know it's not the apartment, it's the occupant.

Honestly, living in an apartment isn't bad.  I like that when something breaks, I just have to make a phone call to get it fixed instead of a run to Home Depot.  Sure, I don't really have a yard to play in with my kids, but they're too young for that anyway.  I also don't have to mow my lawn, because the landscapers come on over weekly to do that.  Renters insurance is like, $8 a month.  I don't know what homeowners insurance is like, but that's pretty cheap to me.  I like renting.  I believe someday I will move into a house, but I don't know when.  It's a lot of work, man.  Someday though.  I want to buy a house just so I can play my drums.

I'm afraid of buying a house in a location I won't like.  I mean, I'm sure we would get used to whatever our surrounding are, but here in Nashville, there are some neighborhoods next to other neighborhoods that I wouldn't want to live.  We also don't have any money.  Buying a house seems like such a commitment that I'm scared of.  I'm stuck in this apartment lease on a year by year basis, I'd hate to be tied to a house for 30 years.  That's the rest of my life, yo.  And I'll have to spring for a new hot water heater at a moments notice.  No thanks.

Anyway, that's all I suppose.  I got retweeted by CM Punk today, so that's pretty awesome.  I need to go vacuum now.  Have a nice day.

Adding Classmates on Facebook

A high school classmate of mine posted a picture to their Facebook page today, and it caused me to fall down a Facebook rabbit hole that's known as "where are they now."  As I browsed through this well-connected classmate's friends list, I noticed a few familiar faces and names, some that I hadn't thought about in 10 years, and some not so familiar faces.  Some must have been form other classes above and below me that I didn't know well.  For those of you reading this that didn't go to my high school, it was rather small, every graduating class had around 100 people in it.  I think ours had 111, if I'm not mistaken.  Anyway, it's somewhere around that number.

Like I said, I was browsing around and came across a name of a person (I'm not naming any names at all in this post, by the way) that I'd forgotten about, and like I said above, hadn't thought about in years.  She had pictures of kids, and I have kids, and I wondered if after all these years, we could reconnect on Facebook and perhaps relate to each other at this stage of life.  But the more I thought about it, adding friends on Facebook is a two-way street, and if she wanted to add me as a friend, she probably would have done so already in the past 4 years.  But then again, even in four years, a lot changes.  I'm a very different person than I was in high school, and I'm also a very different person than I was four years ago.  I just felt that sending a friend request would come across as awkward.  I mean, it's not like we were the best of friends throughout out school years.  In fact, those of you who are very close to me might pick up on the clues I'm laying down, I would venture to guess this girl very much disliked me throughout school, from the fourth grade until graduation.  But like I said, I'm a different person now that I used to be, maybe we could have a nice conversation?

But no, I didn't send the request.  I think at this point of Facebook, or all social networking in general, most of us are past the point of adding any friends.  Anyone we add now are new people we meet along our lives' journeys, or if we're new to Facebook.  If you're new to Facebook, I'm glad you finally got that rock off the top of you that you've been living under for so long.  We've reached the limit of networking with the people from our past.  We've gotten to the point where if you're not already in as a friend, there's a good reason, and that's because you're not actually friends, never were and never will be.  The people that are already in there, and have been there for years, I have no problem being connected to those folks.  Some of them, if we weren't already friends, at this point, I don't think I would send a request, but I'm also certainly not going to be deleting anyone anytime soon.

I'm open to reconnecting to the people from my past, like old classmates.  I just feel weird sending friend requests to classmates in 2013.  They've missed the boat, and they don't get to see 10,000 pictures of my kids like everyone else does.  Poor them.

-BJP

Passing Out on Couches

Somehow, it's now been 20 full days since I last wrote a post.  I guess when you write one per day for an entire week, if you're me, it feels like I've written enough for a while?  I don't know how that happened, but it happened, and I'm sorry.

Anyway, let's talk about falling asleep.  I don't know why, but I've been falling asleep on couches in the evenings.  I don't mean to, I didn't even realize I was all that tired, but there I go, drifting off... And it ain't even about lack of sleep because of the kids.  These kids sleep amazingly.  I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it has to do with my insanely healthy lifestyle.  My dad used to fall asleep on couches.  I'm more and more like him everyday, I suppose.

So now I wanted to write a post, but I'm tired, so I'm going to stop now.  Thanks for reading.  Be sure to like my page on Facebook.  Follow me on Twitter.  Buy all the merch at Zazzle.  Donate to the cause.  Take care, grow out your hair.  Have a nice day. 

Daddy Problems

Remember what life was like before kids?  I do.  I remember clearly.  I remember being able to do stuff (if I had the money, that is) whenever I/we wanted.  I enjoy going to Triple A baseball games.  I would love to be able to just go with my wife, buy a few beers, get in late, sleep in and not take care of kids.  Please please don't take this the wrong way.  I love my kids.  There are people who would love to be in the position I'm in, with a family and the family life.  I don't want to bitch about having a pretty amazing life right now.  It's just that sometimes, I miss the freedom of not having kids.  Is that so bad?

I was thinking this as I cooked breakfast this morning, what it would be like if I didn't have kids?  Why didn't I take advantage of the time before I had these little kids.  How many times did I choose to not do stuff when I could have, and now I would love to but can't?  Then I looked into the living room and saw Miles sitting in his bouncy seat snoozing and Evie sitting on her knees watching Curious George on the TV and realized that even if I can't go out and do stuff like other adults I know, I have these amazing kids that are truely a blessing.  I'll take the trade off.  Even now, as I'm writing this post, I had to put Evie down for her nap, as she carried her stuffed Mickey Mouse that's almost the same size as she is, we laid her down and covered her up.  Such a cutie and a sweetie. How could I wish for a life without her?  And Miles is right now laying on the floor by himself, eating the back of his hand, bending back and almost rolling over...at eight weeks old.  So proud of this little guy.  He's getting so big.  He's so good, he only cries when he's supposed to cry, like when hes' hungry or wet or uncomfortably positioned...How could I wish for a life with out him?

So maybe I can't go the the baseball game tonight?  Is that the end of the world?  No, it's not.  Life without my kids?  That would be the end of my world.

With that being said, anyone wanna babysit?  There's this baseball game I want to take my wife to...