Obviously, I have had my hair cut in the last 25 years. But that was (almost always) by a “stylist.” I was tired of getting my hair styled, I just wanted it cut. So what did I do? I went to a barbershop.

That’s right, a good, old-fashioned honest to goodness barbershop. No televisions with “The View,” no taking the chair after some lady who just got her highlights done, nobody asking me if I wanted some unisex “product” for my hair. It was an old-fashioned manly barbershop, with modern amenities: Blue jars of Barbicide at every chair, Pinaud-Clubman talcum powder, Kobalt tool chests at every chair, flat screens with the NFL network and free wi-fi.

I took my old-school barbershop experience to a new level too. I got a shave. A REAL shave. I let some guy I had never met come at me with a straight razor — and it was awesome. Hot towel, followed by another hot towel, followed by hot shaving cream, followed by a hot towel, followed by MORE hot shaving creme, followed by me letting some guy named Steve get in my personal space with a straight razor. Then another hot towel when he was done. It was awesome.

The shave is not something I’ll do all the time, definitely not every time I go get a cut. But I am definitely sticking with the barbershop from now on. I highly recommend it.

(Edit: I forgot to mention, I went to The Renaissance Barbershop near Southpoint.)

Exams. Weather change. Wildly fluctuating temperature in the building at school. On the cusp of officially hitting my mid-30s.

Nothing feels good any more – head hurts, knees hurt, throat hurts. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I felt good. Most days, I’m just shooting for not bad at this point.

This is not how the TV shows make it look.

The site has tons of articles on a wide variety of topics from fashion to survival in the wilderness. But the article that I have found most useful so far has been a great read on how to make introductions.

Being in the middle of interview season at law school, I find myself in lots of social situations where I’m left “mingling” with people I don’t know — some of them of substantially higher stature than me. When I’m in a situation like this, I never know what to do.

But the Art of Manliness breaks down a series of situations you’re likely to find yourself in, and explains how to make the introductions less awkward, while giving you an opportunity to be more impressive in your social skills.

“The overarching principle when making introductions is deference and respect. You show chivalrous deference to women by introducing the man to the woman. You show respect for your elders by introducing the younger to the older.  And in a business setting, you show respect to higher-ups by introducing the person of lower rank to the person of higher position.”

Nothing earth-shattering, but a very good rule to live by, and something to think about in your 5 seconds of panic before the situation arises where you need to introduce the Dean of the Law School to your wife.

Read the rest of the article here.

And going in public is no different. One of my favorite things to do is go sit outside at Southpoint and watch people go by. And today at the Cleveland County Fair, I had some of the best people watching of my life.

But why? What is it about seeing someone who is “different” from me in whatever way I am focused on that makes me want to take secret pictures with my phone to send my friends? (And trust me, www.peopleoftheclevelandcountyfair.com would be an instant classic that could rival People of Wal-Mart.)

Even though I enjoy it as much as most people, I am still not sure why we have this voyeuristic tendancy with people we don’t interact with.

But in reality, I’m not good at social media. It takes time to be “good” at it, and I don’t have that extra time. It takes wit to be relevant, and I’m not that witty. It takes, well, being social, and I’m just not that social any more.

If I look at my social media use over the past year, it goes something like this: Twitter gets the most use, because of the ease of use (it is on my phone and takes the least amount of time); Facebook gets Twitter pushed to it, but that’s it — I can’t think of the last time that I did anything native to Facebook on Facebook, other than pushing my Twitter feed there; this blog gets sporadic use, but for the most part averages 3 people a day viewing it (yes, there’d be more if I wrote more, but I’d probably write more if I had more readers — social media’s “chicken or the egg” conundrum); I post occasionally on other people’s blogs, but never see much reciprocation (and that’s ok, because I’m not all that witty on those posts either); and I can’t remember the last time I posted anything on Google Buzz.

The straw that broke the camel’s back in my social media use happened today at lunch, when my wife and I both saw someone that we are “friends” with on Facebook and they didn’t recognize us, or if they did, they didn’t feel the need to speak — but we didn’t feel the need to speak either, which is my point. Facebook friendship is totally meaningless to me now — it’s become invitations to Mafias, Cake Factories and Farms, or an opportunity for people who already bother me to bother me even more.

So, I’m making some changes. First, goodbye Facebook. I’m pulling the plug on the Twitter/Facebook link, and short of someone specifically pointing something out that I need to see on Facebook, I can’t see myself ever returning.

Second, hello Tumblr. I’ve never really checked it out before today, but I like the format, and it’s a nice way to get some quick thoughts out (More like Twitter) without burning 30 minutes of sitting down and writing.

So if you want to keep following me, my new tumblr site is right here. If you use an RSS reader like Google Reader, the URL for my RSS feed is right here. If you’re reading this because you followed a link on Facebook, then you need to either check out the blog directly, or use the RSS feed, because I won’t be posting updates on Facebook anymore.

I will still be updating this blog for longer posts, but most of my stuff will be going through Tumblr for a while.

Later.

• Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith — Not gonna lie… wasn’t nearly as good as I was hoping. The concept was pretty cool at first, but by the end, it just got to be dumb.
• The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson — Was sad when this one was over. Not because the book was that great (it wasn’t) but because it was the last thing by Larsson before he died. This book wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but was still entertaining.
• Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, by John Heileman and Mark Halperin. — This was good. I never know how much to believe when I read books like this (the “unofficial true story” type book), but when it came out, I remember that it seemed to irk both sides equally, which means it was probably pretty true all around. Good read.
• This Present Darkness, by Frank Peretti. Almost too dumb to justify commenting on. I stopped reading, because it was way too hokey and just not good.

And that’s all I’ve made it through on my list. I’m now reading a new addition to the list, Code 2.0 by Larry Lessig. It’s about the internet, regulation, and (at least a little bit) the Constitution. I guess I can’t pretend I’m not a law student all the time.

Anything else I should try to add to the list? Anything good you read this summer?

He’s awesome… and so is Crete… with this much change being thrown his way, he has handled it really well.
For those of you this will mean anything to, Gray has my toes.

So, if you follow my blog on a reader, would you mind updating to the feed on the right? Or, how about just clicking right here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ItsTaftastic. And if you aren’t following me on a reader, you really should consider it. I love Google reader, as it pulls all of your great blogs together for me to read in one place!

Anyways… have a good rest of the weekend.