The New Old Sam
My Brother Andres wrote in his blog last week about how he has changed a lot of his habits. It got me thinking about my habits, and what changes I have made in my life lately. Some for the better, some for the worse. So after some thinking, I figured I need to get Sam into a better place... maybe some regression to a better previous self, maybe some forward planning and plotting based on past mistakes, and then some just regular growing up.

Roadtripping
Well this is the same, but different. Yes I still like to travel and drive a lot, but the purpose is different. Friday I drove to Grand Rapids for a regional National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) Conference. It was a good learning and professional experience. Then dinner at San Chez (I have written about my fav Tapas Bistro before) with the Albion group and then I rolled to Kalamazoo. A quick meeting with the guys, and then a beer at the Ground Round and I hit the road home.

My Car
Well for the last couple of weeks I have had some trouble with my wheels. When I got my new tires 2 months ago the shop failed to mention to me that one rim had developed a crack and would leak air. So for the past couple weeks I have been having to stop and pump my tire often. Discount Tire has agreed to fix the problem they missed, and I could order some new rims from them super cheap. Well Friday after all my driving my tire finally died... it won't take air anymore. What does this have to do with the new me... I was more conservative with my new rim selection. Instead of 17 inch, I went with 16 inch... and instead of a bling rim I decided on a solid brand with proven performance.

My 17 Pinzettis... got them from Andres and they served me well...

In my future... 16 inch Enkei MM2, at least a little more conservative.

Files
This weekend was originally going to be a trip to Chicago. But because I was behind on work I canceled the trip and bumped it to this coming weekend. Good thing to, cause that popped tire would not have been fun to deal with in Chicago. I spent all day Saturday working on organizing my life again. My fraternity Brothers in college will attest that I was the most organized person they knew. I filed and sorted everything, and my room was always spotless. Somewhere since then I fell behind on everything, starting throwing things in piles, and just losing track of everything. Well I changed all that this weekend... I bought file folders, hanging files, and relabeled everything. I am finally organized!

I had piles of stuff everywhere in my apartment!

Consulting Files, Taxes, Bank Statements... everything nice and organized!

So there you have it folks. The New Sam is here... some good things from the past brought back, and some new changes looking toward the future. My dad will be happy to know that I am creating a more strict budget now, and already have documents for my 2005 Tax Return together in a folder.

Well lets see how long this works for me...