At that age

The signs I'm an adult are everywhere.

The gray hairs. Having a mortgage. Being at the same job for more than 10 years. A baby. I accept and celebrate all of them. I like being an adult. I'm comfortable in my skin.

But, sometimes, things happen that make me think "Wow, I'm at that age now."

For example, last night I was surfing REI.com. The outdoors company has everything and anything I could ever possibly need or want. Armed with a 20 percent off coupon, I was going to make a purchase.

I was getting myself something I really wanted. Something I'd circled in a catalog. A new rain jacket, since my is 15 years old. Some new trail runners, since my North Face ones are threadbare. Or some hiking boots, since my Asolos are almost slick soled now. Maybe a tee shirt. Or a new pocket knife.

After 30 minutes on the site, I realized - I didn't really want anything. And I damn sure didn't need anything. That's when it hit me. I'm at that age where I've got enough — perhaps even too much — stuff.

In the end, I wound up getting two plain white Coolmax shirts that I wear as undershirts. I only bought them because my old ones are grungy from years of use.

And a sippy cup for Paige.

Diving right in

As y'all know newspapering is a dying business. As a result, we newspaper folks are trying all sorts of things to increase our Web traffic. And, frankly, it's also increase our personal profiles so it'll be tougher for the execs to cut us loose and if they do so it'll be easier to find a new job.

So I'm Facebooking. And Twittering at http://twitter.com/scottfaldon