Evan Agee: Live from Richmond Indiana

While working today I was listening to a song. It’s a song that at one time I listened to very often back when I first got out of high school. I would be driving back and forth each day to Indianapolis for work and during long car rides I got to listen to lots of music. Many mornings and evenings were spent with the stereo blaring my favorite artists from Eric Johnson to Meshuggah and you can bet that everything in-between was just as non-traditional.

Those songs encapsulate that time period. I listen to Eric Johnson’s "Song For Lynette" and I’m back in my old, blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 and I’m driving down 70 towards Richmond. It’s strange that I drove to Indianapolis just as many times as I drove home, but most of what I remember are the trips home. The feeling of being done with work for the day and the excitement of a long car ride combined into a moment of complete happiness. The comfort of an air conditioned car on a 90 degree summer day and the time to enjoy it all on the way home.

Why are things always better looking back? I romantisize that time period of my life so much, mostly because I’m not there anymore. I’ve moved on, I’m married, I don’t live with my parents and I have a job that I don’t dread going to every day… why do I even think about the past? I sure didn’t enjoy it much at the time.

Six long weeks of class are coming to an end and I’m very happy. I’ve been very surprised at how well I’ve done in this class but the time requirement was greater than I remember it being in past classes. Typically I had close to 2 hours of homework 2 nights a week and then a very long 2 hour class meeting 3 nights a week. It was tough.

Tonight is my final and I’m ready for it. Hopefully I get a little more study time before class this evening but even if I don’t I think I’ll do well.

As I’ve mentioned before, Kristen and I are going to be going to Florida in July for a wedding. Kristen’s cousin is getting married and Kristen is going to be a bride’s maid in the wedding. As part of our preparation for the wedding I needed to get a sport coat. The one I had is no where to be found and probably wouldn’t fit anyway considering I bought it in high school. So, we were out and about trying to find a good sport coat, dress shirt and new tie.

First we tried Dillard’s. I’ve always been able to find clothes that I like and that fit well at Dillard’s. It’s a very nice place and typically I enjoy shopping there. So, you can imagine our surprise when the man working there told us that they didn’t have any jackets in a 58, which is the size he thought I needed. This wouldn’t be so bad, but he also didn’t know when (if ever) they would have more of that size in. He even went as far to suggest several other stores in the area that we might try, Elder Beerman and King’s, a small, locally owned formals store. So, we packed up and headed to Elder Beerman.

Having know already that they were having a sale on their formal wear, we were sure that Elder Beerman would be the place for us. We walked into the front door and made our way to the back corner of the store. After browsing through the 4 racks of sport coats we had no luck finding any jackets larger than a 52. We left and went to King’s.

We walked in and I wasn’t exactly impressed with the selection at first. Don’t get me wrong they had a lot of coats, but I was sure that they wouldn’t be stocking anything in my size. We were greeted by a man who was very friendly, and gathered that he was also the owner. He asked us how he could help us and we told him that we were looking for a sport coat. He gave me a once over, sizing me up, and then walked directly to a rack of jackets. He pulled a navy blue jacket with gold buttons of of the rack and looked at it. "That’s the one" he said. I took it and put it on and it fit well, but I was worried that it might be too big. I asked what would happen if I tried one size down and sure enough he was right, the next size down wasn’t quite big enough.

We chose the first jacket he pulled off the rack and being so pleased with the quality service decided to buy the tie there as well. He was very knowledgable and after we told him what color my shirt was going to be he picked a tie that complemented the jacket and the shirt both.

Yet another example of what makes locally-owned small businesses so great. Support your local small businesses!

I’m currently working on something for this website that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. It’s a look at my history as a website designer, how I got started as well as examples of very early and intermediate websites that I developed. It’s very exciting for me to see that I have fairly decent copies of most of the websites that I’ve created. It is my plan to get it finished pretty soon, so I’ll make sure that I make its presence known once it is finished.