I keep thinking about two things I'd like to do, but I can't seem to find the time or the proper resources for them: 

1. Golf.  I used to play golf in high school, and it's a pretty enjoyable thing as long as it's not taken seriously.  The problem, however, is that it's a fairly social game, and most courses don't allow groups of less than four.  I only know about two people who I'd be willing to play golf with, and those people are usually difficult to schedule things with.  Plus, one plus two doesn't add up to four, so some schmuck will have to be inserted into our group to make it a foursome.  And I really hate that.
2. A band.  I also used to be in a band in high school, but I don't really want to repeat that.  I'd like to do things completely differently and simply get together with some people who have similar musical tastes and abilities.  I have no interest in performing, just playing, experimenting, and creating.  In my opinion, this all starts with a drummer, and I don't know anyone who plays the drums well enough to live up to my standards.  Same with bass.  Oh, and keyboard/piano.  Come to think of it, I don't know many people who are musically capable enough to play without looking at the notes.  I don't believe my abilities are anything out of this world, but I've played with enough "musicians" to understand what's good and what's not.  For several years now, I've been patiently waiting for some people to come along and totally blow my mind.  Still waiting.

#psychology

I enjoy hiking, and I enjoy hiking alone.  I think I figured out why:  Walking through the woods is one of the very few times I have no distractions.  I'm not at work.  I'm not near a computer.  I don't have my cell phone on.  I'm not in my house, where I might feel compelled to clean or fix things.  I'm not driving.  I'm not visiting or talking to people.  It's just me and the woods.  How much simpler can life get? #psychology

One of the jobs I have increasingly more and more respect for is the job of headline writer.  It seems like a relatively unimportant task in the grand scheme of things, but in reality, a good news headline will grab your attention and make you want to read more.  But it's not just about writing good headlines.  A good (in my opinion) headline writer uses language and phrases that would be otherwise irrelevant and unimportant to bring life and enjoyment to a simple news article. 

For example, this article is about the theft of prosthetic limbs from a business in Iowa.  The headline could be "Police looking for help in finding stolen limbs".  It's simple and states the purpose of the article.  But no.  This headline writer went above and beyond, writing "Police need a hand to find stolen limbs".  The casual reader will quickly glance past the article, not noticing the subtle pun.  And that's what makes it great.  A simple headline that states the purpose of the article, but with a twist to make it funny and interesting to the more-than-casual reader. 

Then there's the headline of the decade from kottke:  A story about people in South Korea crossing the Han River on a tightrope, titled "Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo".  Instead of saying something like "People Cross a Tightrope Over the Han River", this headline writer stepped out of his shell and hit one out of the park.  To compete on a level like that, you need to be on an entirely different playing field mentally. 

A few more examples I've been collecting:  Russian fishermen catch squeaking alien and eat it, Pakistan: 11 die in kite festival, Indonesia to try to plug mud volcano with concrete balls, Rape victim turns out to be toilet-clogging fudge thief, Eagle carrying deer head crashes into power lines, causes outages, Woman sues after slipping on vomit at Wal-Mart. #entertainment

Most search engines employ a few different options, or search operators, to make searching easier and more relevant.  Google has a bunch, the most useful of which are site:, which searches for results only from a specific site, and cache:, which shows Google's cached snapshot of the page.  The other search operator I use all the time is one that's a little more universal:  The minus symbol.  This simple character removes certain entries from search results.  For example, if I search for hikes in new jersey, some of the results point to a site called trails.com, which is essentially a useless landing site that charges money for any type of relevant information.  To remove those results, I repeat the search as hikes in new jersey -trails.com.  I'm also not a fan of Amazon links in my results sometimes because I'm not looking to buy anything, so I can search for hikes in new jersey -trails.com -amazon.com.  This simple operator makes search results incredibly more relevant. #technology