summer planning

i decided that i needed to do more planning of upcoming summer events. it means finding out when certain festivals will be this month, like the county fair, lumberjack days, and canadian days. doing my best to avoid any scheduling conflicts, might mean attending some events a little earlier than normal. i like how it doesn't take long to print an online article and look at when it is, what weekend. or in the case of seeing some museums when i go to st. louis, finding out their hours of operation. trying to do things one at a time, and in order. later events, like in the fall, can wait for now unless i need event tickets and those might sell out early.
   i retired another item today, this time one of my backpacks. mine had 2 big holes in it that kept growing and some of the strands kept catching in the zipper, so i had to cut them off and needed to find scissors of course. now i am using the star wars backpack again, it had been used for some of my packs of pictures. bought it at a secondhand store my first year here, and wanted it for getting around san francisco for my vacation. told my boss about this earlier today, as it stood out in my memories of the vacation. i was at  a park near haight-asbury, the hippie section of town, where somebody said they liked it and i said 'thank you' and kept moving. in the same park, somebody else asked me if i wanted herb. i said no, figuing he meant marijuana or weed. still a good story to tell. and this isn't just any star wars bag either, as it's one from episode 1, where ewan mcgregor was obi-wan. i have had an obi-wan picture up in my office for a while to remind me of a former boss and mentor, who was given the nickname by me.
   also notable was hearing from a former coworker from my time in suburban chicago. we played phone tag for a while, but finally spoke. it was about various subjects, though i had to admit how my time there now feels like a distant memory. it's been more than six years since i've lived there and much has changed in my life since then. doing things now i wasn't doing then, like writing, comedy, and online dating. i still like visiting once a year, as there are some positive memories of being there. we must hold onto the positive as much as we can, and try to find it as much as possible since it is there if one looks for it.