A personal goal

For anyone that knows me, you know that I am not a goal setter. I never have been. New Year's Resolutions have always seemed silly to me, and only applied to the first few weeks of January before they were tossed aside or forgotten. Well, I suppose I have made some goals in the past, but they were all mundane or petty. I wanted a tablet, so I saved my money and bought one. I wanted to wait until next week to mow the grass. And I'm still waiting. So my 'goals' are more like 'wants'.

I recently turned 32 (or 141, in dog years), and I realized that during the past decade, I really haven't done anything notable. I have found an awesome girlfriend, got a motorcycle endorsement on my license, kept a job for 10 years, and bought a house. With the exception of the motorcycle endorsement, those achievements are nothing more than a byproduct of getting older. In light of this discovery, I am officially setting a goal. A goal that has, for most of my life, been nothing more than a dream. A dream kept far out of reach due mainly to the cost associated with achieving it. A dream shared by many but conquered by only a few.

I dream to fly.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal."

Thank you to Steve Jobs for that pearl of wisdom. One would think, with that mentality, stealing would be somewhat tolerated. Not so, apparently. Stealing is only tolerated if Apple is the thief.

We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

• Triumph of the Nerds (1996)

But don't you dare steal a stolen idea from Apple.

Thank you for everything

I am glad I was lucky enough to be born in America. I can disagree with the government without fear of imprisonment. I can disagree with religion without fear of being stoned to death.

I can have black friends, Chinese friends, straight friends, gay friends, religious friends, atheist friends, and many others without fear of government or religious persecution.

We, as Americans, can afford these luxuries because of the sacrifices of the brave men and women of our Armed Forces. Whether it is a sacrifice of too much time spent away from your loved ones...

Forget the Rolex! Give me a Pebble!

It all started in the 1880's with the development of the motion picture camera. We could stare at a blank wall and watch something that happened in the past. Since then, we have had an obsession with screens. Movie screens, television screens, computer screens, smartphone screens. With the announcement last month about Google's Project Glass, the question now is, what won't have a screen on it?

I'm right, and you're wrong! Nyah, nyah, nyah!

Social media, at its best, is a nice two-way street. One person posts something to their own Facebook wall, to which a friend comments on, and a small conversation will take place through the site. Same thing with Twitter, except the conversation takes place through @ replies and DM's.

Now, I'm assuming that if we are friends on Facebook, then we are friends in real life, or we're family. There is also the possibility that we have something in common that connected us, like a mutual friend or a particular interest. My point, is if we're 'friends' on Facebook, then one of us had to have sent the other a friend request, which was accepted. Twitter and Google+ are slightly different, but that is beside the point.