I can’t be the only one that still sings this song when I count, right?

Talk about a catchy song. It’s probably been over thirty years since I have seen this bit on Sesame Street, and I still sing it in my head as I count.

It has been 16 years since I was playing high school football. I remember it like it was yesterday. Every year when August comes around I miss it. Today I thought I would check and see how my old team is doing. It’s so weird looking at the football team now. New school, field, team name, coach, uniforms, conference, everything has changed. They don’t play any of the teams that we had great rivalries against. It’s just weird.

While I was checking them out, I saw of video of the marching band. I was also a band geek in high school. It brought me to tears when I saw that they were playing the same song that we played when we marched. It was a different version, and they look a hell of a lot better than we were, but it was awesome to see the tradition of The Phantom of the Opera is still alive.

Since my Brother-in-law was actually going to college for a few weeks anyway, now he is getting tons of credit card applications in the mail. I swear the credit card companies get their mailing lists from colleges. My Brother-in-law is about as irresponsible as they come, so we haven’t given him any of the applications. They get shredded along with all the applications we get. I bet we get at least five a week.

I, like a lot of people, got into a little credit card trouble when I was in college. It’s tough to avoid when you have bills, books, and lots of wants when you move out and have a crappy job. I didn’t get too far in debt, but I was farther in debt then I felt comfortable with. You know, I needed my own computer, and those schnazy new Pentiums just broke 100 MHz and you could get hard drives that were over 1 GB, so that set me back $2500. Back then the internet was costing me quite a bit too. AOL was about the only ISP available, and I think it was $20 for 20 hours. I would blow through the 20 hours in a week, and was paying a ton for my extra time online. I was so happy when ISP started offering unlimited time.

So anyway, It took me quite a few years to get my credit cards under control. I have always heard the best way to pay then off is to get a second part time job and send all that money towards it, but I had a feeling I would spend that money on other things, so I went with a loan from the bank. That way I was forced to make the payments, and at a lower interest rate also. After two years my credit cards we paid off. It felt so good.

Some people cut up their cards and never use them after getting out of debt, I use mine more then ever now. I just make sure I pay the balance in full every month, unless I get an interest free deal. I haven’t paid any credit card interest in years. I am not giving those fuckers any more money. Having a balance on my Best Buy card is driving me crazy. I just want to pay it off, but I got 18 months no interest when I bought my TV, so I will probably milk that card out until November.