my jaw aches. usually it feels like this if i haven’t been wearing my nightguard for a while – i grind my teeth in my sleep – but since i’ve been wearing it i don’t know why it’s just starting to bother me now. usually when it does bother me it’s in the morning when i first wake up, not at the end of the day. this is probably going to mean bad news when i go to the dentist in a month or so.

i went home to mom and dad’s today. i didn’t have any plans in particular for labor day, and since i had wanted to clean up some more of my stuff in my bedroom there i figured today was as good a day as any to do so, especially since it was supposed to rain off and on all day. nobody was home when i got there, but soon after i arrived mom and dad returned from a wine festival. i ended up going through a bunch of old books in my bedroom and sorting them into ones that i really wanted to keep, ones that i didn’t care if we got rid of, and ones that amazon.com was offering to give me store credit for (mostly old textbooks, but a few dvds as well, and if they really want to give me $130 for these 5 books and a few dvds then who am i to say no?). i figured that the ones that i didn’t care about, if i really wanted to read them again, i’d just get them on my kindle and that it’d be much easier and simpler to manage them on there if i ever decided i wanted to re-read any of those books rather than have the physical books take up space and have to figure out what to do with everything just in case i wanted to read them at some time.

i also organized a bunch of old stuff, tossed out a bunch of old class notes (really, why would i think i’d need my old class notes from 10 years ago? why? the only ones i decided to keep for now were from my history of rock and roll class, and my class on the history of espionage.), and took these photo albums i have and put the pictures in these plastic containers thinking that not only do these containers take up less space, but i can label the contents much easier, and they’re a bit more protected in these containers as well. i plan to eventually scan in these photos, and i want to order prints of digital pictures i have that i don’t have physical copies of. eventually.

i felt a mix of emotions while going through my old stuff. nothing i really need to write about here now, though.

i also brought my bicycle from home back to my apartment. i’d like to go cycling around town, and i thought about joining the capital bikeshare program – you pay anywhere from $5 for 24 hours to $75 for a full year, and you get unlimited 30-minute bicycle rentals from their automated rental kiosks during your membership duration, with additional 30-minute periods starting at $1.50. i still might at some point, but for now at least i have a bicycle i can use. i just need to get an air pump of my own and a bicycle lock.

this will hold me over until i can get a new bike… the one i have is a mountain bike hand-me-down from one of my dad’s coworkers, and it’s an ok bike but it could really use a tune-up and new handlebar grips and a new bicycle seat, and it also needs a headlamp. i stopped in to this bicycle shop in town to see what they had that i could use to fix up my bike, and conveniently the next day they had a groupon deal where you could pay $20 for $40 of bike maintenance, or pay $80 for $200 towards a new bike. well, i would want to get the full tune-up since i don’t know when this bike was last given a good going-over, and the full tune-up with cable replacement and everything would be $250 (-$40 groupon + $20 paid = $230 total out of pocket). the cheapest new bike i saw they had was $390 (-$200 groupon + $80 paid = $270 out of pocket). so, i could either get this bike all fixed up and still have to pay for replacement handlebar grips and a new seat and so on, or for $40 more than the full tune-up i could have an entirely new bike. only catch is that i have to buy it before the end of the year.

ok, it’s raining like crazy, my laundry just finished, and it’s time for me to try to get some sleep.