The first step toward slimmer pants is to stop carrying stuff you don’t need. My wallet contains my preferred credit card, a Visa card from my credit union in case someone doesn’t take American Express, driver license, temple recommend, and a pen. No cash, no receipts, no loyalty cards. I have a small key ring with the keys to the car, the truck, and the office. I’m almost ready to give up the key to the car and the remote key fob thingy.

I also carry a Kershaw Leek clipped to my pocket. If anyone asks me what kind of knife I carry I can say, “I gotta leek.” It’s a great conversation starter. I am in the market for a slimmer one but the Leek is pretty close.

Receipts go into my back pocket when they don’t ask me if I want one, and then into the recycle bin. I can look up transactions on a website if I need to. Cash also goes in the back pocket on the extremely rare occasion that I carry it. Loyalty cards can often be avoided by not shopping at places where they make a big difference or making the cashier look up your account by phone number. No need for a house key since I’m almost always driving and there’s a garage door opener in the car. The mail key I gave to my son so he can pick up for me after school every day.

Now that’s not to say I’m unprepared. You see the real trick is to put all the other stuff somewhere else. I have a man purse–a very manly olive drab one made of ballistic nylon. This thing holds almost everything else I might want to have with me but won’t carry in my pockets. It doesn’t look even slightly feminine. It holds a great many things: A second wallet with some emergency cash, medical and dental cards, lesser-used bank and credit cards, library card, etc.; A second key ring with house keys, the shed key, a mail key, etc.; A multi-tool and a flashlight; Digital camera; Various USB drives and flash memory cards loaded with software and media; Common medicines like excedrin, ibuprofen, and benedryl; Consecrated oil and some hand sanitizer; And a few other oddities like my spectrum analyzer, my square reader, and a tiny sewing kit I picked up at a hotel. I used to keep my e-book reader in there but there’s an app for that. The whole thing stays tucked away in the truck, in the office, or at home so that it’s close by if I need something but not on my person. Running out to get the insurance card is a small price to pay for having less junk in your pocket.

I’m in the process of choosing a new wallet and in the next weeks I will review some of the best options. Traditional leather wallets, especially tri-folds, can be thick without anything in them and enormous when fully loaded. Even the little card case I’ve been using proved to be much thicker than it needed to be. You can slim your pants even further by getting a much slimmer wallet. Stay tuned.

University, such a backward place!
A place where patrons pay dearly to learn,
yet rejoice when excused early or told
not to come at all, or not to read.
And yet ’tis not such a surprise when one
considers the task, sisyphusian,
it is to toil toward graduation
whilst all pow’rs of earth and hell push back.
How oft have I been told that another writ,
thrice signed and copiously copied,
must in some dusty catacomb be laid
ere any writ in return they’ll give me.
Not that alone, but adamantian
chains of courses prerequiring me,
lest in less than the prescribed four years
their gordian labyrinth I penetrate.
Oh woe, that cleverness is rewarded
naught (without a fight) for cleverness gives
answers unexpected and none but those
expected are right when four hundred exams
between three TAs must be graded.
What then shall I have when all this flaus is o’er
and I be thoroughly colleged?
Shall I walk? Shall I sit where old men don robes
of a false priesthood, and young men are made
to where mortar-boards to show how flat
their heads have become?
Oh fat camels who spring through needles eyes,
quench these flaming hoops of academia!

Frog and Toad Are Friends © 1970 Arnold Lobel

Eric once told me he submitted a photo of me to Jones Soda for their label contest. I went digging today and found where you can check it out (and vote for it!). GQ (This photo is also in Eric’s album in the gallery.)

Unfortunately, due to the use of the name GQ in the photo you can be pretty sure it will never be on a bottle of soda. The photo is from Thanksgiving of 2000.

There’s a good chance that I did some sort of blogging as far back as 2002 but I can’t find much evidence in the Wayback Machine.

Let’s set the record straight right here and now, though: I am not what you’d call a “blogger” and I’m certainly not a journalist. This is not one of my hobbies and I don’t think of this site as encapsulating any part of my identity. This is just where I put stuff I think someone else might find useful or interesting, particularly if I spent some amount of time figuring something out or if I think I might go back and refer to it later.

I intend this to be my last and only post that’s actually about blogging. The truth is that I find it icky that it’s trendy now and I just had to make it perfectly clear that I’m not doing it because it’s trendy.

What a way to start my day!