What does it mean to be 30? Is it and end to something or the beginning of something? Does it actually mean anything, or is it just an arbitrary number that we assign artificial value to?

These and a hundred other questions seem to be racing through my mind tonight as I sit down to reflect on my 20s and look forward to what the next decade of my life will hold.

I'll start by saying this: It's been a fun ride or discovery over the last 10 years but in no way am I sad to see my 20s end.

My quality of life is signifcantly better than it was a decade ago and I no longer feel the pressures of being young. Things like trying to look cool and giving into the peer pressure of folks who don't have my best interests at heart no longer plague me, but instead have been replaced by an entire new, more mature set of insecurities and worries. Important-sounding things like making mortgage payments and wondering whether I'm being a good parent cloud my mind, yet in many ways I'm pretty sure I don't have it together any better now than I did when I was 20.

I find myself deep in the midst of a terrifying journey of "Where do I go next?" that is similar to how I must of felt when I was in college with the entire world full of options at my disposal. Thing is when I was 20 I was alot less concerned about getting it wrong. Shit, I had all the time in the world to figure it out. Now, I know I still have plenty of time to find my way, but I'm more self-aware these days and as time passes faster and faster I want to make sure I don't spend the next 10 years headed toward a dead end.

I know there's things out there just waiting for me to go get them, but I'm either unsure what they are or I'm too afraid that I'll miss out on something great by choosing to go after something good. I've had this same "lost" feeling at times through my twenties, but have always pushed any questions of "am on doing the right thing?" aside in favor of following a linear path.

Lucking into a career in journalism and pushing it for all its worth has been an incredible journey unlike anything I thought I'd ever do, but it has also been a fully frustrating, frequently unfruitful trek.

I always felt I could justify my choice to stay on this career path as the right thing to do because there were plenty of other successes that made me feel like I was moving forward in life.

• I got a job.
• I got married.
• Moved to the beach.
• Had a child.
• Bought a house.

It wasn't always easy to keep it together, but in the past few years I feel like I was really getting the hang of the juggling act of life. When work sucks, you focus on family and home life. When your home life is a wreck, you put your head down and work. In between you try to have some fun and acheieve some personal successes.

• Ran a Marathon: Check.
• Won design awards: Check.
• Made new friends: Check.

It hasn't been the groundbreaking sort of life that someone would write a book about, but we've had a lot of good times -- More good than bad -- and now with Miles in my life I definitely have some great things to be proud of.

But for every one of those things I'm proud of, it seems theres still 2-3 things I'm not so proud of. Despite my best efforts to open my mind, I'm still too selfish in many ways, I get frustrated easily by people who don't give me the attention/respect I deserve, I can be brash and thoughtless when I speak at times and I still often go against the grain just for the sake of being different which occasionally leads to stupid decisions.

These are things I hope to overcome going forward, and as hard as it is to change what you are, I think there's been some pretty positive signs lately that I may actually be on the right track. After only 4 years in Myrtle Beach (LOL, "only" 4 years) I've finally started to connect with people and am beginning to feel as though my insecurities about connecting with others in social and professional settings is fading.

In addition, these same connections -- and some horrendous economic circumstance in the newspaper business --  have opened my eyes to the fact that it's time to reconsider my path. I have often wondered if there are other things I should be doing with my career, but after lots of soul searching I now know that if I'm ever going to be truly successful, now is the time to act.

And as hard as it might be to start a whole new path while still providing for my family, I know that if I wait much longer I may never have the chance to be truly happy and follow my passions. It's kinda sad really, because in some ways I think what I'm doing now is my true passion, but I guess the way business works is that no one is ever going to give you what you deserve so you have to go out and make it happen on your won.

So I guess in conclusion, as I officially enter my 30s (it's now 12:03 a.m. on 4/20) I'd just like to say that I'm grateful for all the amazing experiences of my 20s and feel truly blessed to have been given everything I have today. But, in my next decade I'm not waiting for anybody to give me anything...I'm getting the hell off of this soapboax, out from behind this CPU and taking it myself.

And hopefully, by the time I revisit this post at 40, I'll be able to sit back and laugh at how crazy it was that it took me 30 years to learn the one lesson that turned my life around from one that was just lived to one that is everything I could have ever dreamed of.

After months of preparation by the organizers and a week straight of sweating out the details of my articles and other coverage surrounding the conference, CREATE South if finally here. It's been really exciting to be involved with all these like minded folks this week and I'm really excited to see what all the hoopla is all about.

Had a great time last night kicking off the weekend with the expanded #mbgeekout event last night and managed to get out without drinking too much (unlike a good deal of other folks who look a bit hungover this morning). Despite running a little late to Horry-Georgetown conference center this morning, I got in just in time to drop off a stack of Kicks! and didn't even miss the first keynote.

I will be doing thisnpost throughout the day in a sort of liveblog format, its somewhat to give people an idea of what CREATE is all about, but mostly just to share my impressions and give myself a record of what happened. Here we go...

9:32 a.m. - Finally here and in my chair. Got the iPad out and hooked p successfully to the wi-fi. At least mildly concerned that hgtc is going to be scanning my device. Admiring Paul's very cool Blocky tweets visualization running on the projector on the wall.

9:45 a.m. - Tee Morris (@teemonster) rings a ridiculously loud bell during his social media keynote. The room is now officially awake. Goes on to ask who in the room is following Ashton kutcher...no one raises hand. I know I'm not the only liar out there who is following @aplusk.

10:01 a.m. - Finally caught up to real time. Discussion of Myspace vs. Facebook, and Tee thinks Whirrl has great potential.

10:07 a.m. - After dave's segue announcement, I'm now feeling pressure to come up with an elevator pitch for a project that doesn't even exist yet. To be honest, I just want to find someone with a project who needs a designer/writer.

10:16 a.m. - Mur Lafferty (@mightymur) just dropped the f-bomb like 2 minutes into her keynote. I knew I was going to like her.

10:22 a.m. - Mur: "Vague is the killer of creativity".

10:30 a.m. - Mur says neglecting your family is key to success. So, That's why I'm so successful? Also, great geek moment with lucas trying to photograph me while I was shooting him.

10:44 a.m. - Dave talking on the cultural divide about creative people becoming entrepreneurs and getting out to hustle. Maybe that's the real project I should be learning to do. How to hustle.

10:49 a.m. - Bad News Robot on the microphone. Word.

11:04 a.m. - Lots of great projects and ideas being announced here right now, including home-ec101.com, daves European hospitality documentary, tee's new dark novel, harry's iPhone app, etc.

11:10 a.m. - Overheard older guy talking to organizers in back "I don't know what facebook is, I don't know what Twitter is, I don't know what ..."

11:18 a.m. - "my name is Terry hoffman, and I'm www.terryhoffman.com" and everyone applauds. Reminds me of an AA meeting ... Not that I've ever been to an AA meeting. :)

11:32 a.m. - Visibly shaking after giving my quick reverse pitch about myself. I felt like a moron getting up in front of folks and saying virtually nothing, but I think the success was simply in not being scared to do it.

11:43 a.m. - Zombie book gets massive applause. Everyone loves zombies. Makes me think that if I wanted to start a conference where all we did was haul in a bunch of xboxes and play left 4 dead 2 all day, it'd probably be pretty popular.

11:52 a.m. - Everyone seems completely baffled by what lucas' google buzz speech is on, yet he's a rock star because everyone is buzzing about it.

Lunch - had a great meal from purveyors of pork. Sat out in great weather and hung out with some of the mbgeekout crew before sitting down to chat with Margo millure, a former TSN freelancer about how to market myself to publications as a freelancer. Also ran into Jan Igoe, a former TSN reporter and listened to some awesome tunes by the Yale brothers.

1:16 p.m. - Bounced around to 3 different sessions on self publishing, social gestures and DSLR video before settling into a session with kreg steppe about wordpress. I feel a bit odd here, considering I abandoned wordpress long ago in favor of this squarespace blog, but I like listening to kreg and I'm able to get wi-fi here, unlike in some of the other meeting spaces.

1:34 p.m. - listening to Jeremy Blanton speak on blogging and was very happy to see him touting the hyper-local approach that I love to live by.

1:43 p.m. - Apparently I was the coolest guy at the geek out last night according to the speaker. I tried to throw him off by following up his compliment with a "hard-hitting" journalistic question. Well played Blanton.

1:48 a.m. - Note to self: Check out www.copyblogger.com

1:51 p.m. - find myself speaking for The Sun News as a whole in this q & a session.

2:05 p.m. - Moved on to second set of sessions for afternoon. Sitting in on Graham smith talking about social media art. He went on a facebook trip where he visited 100 of his facebook friends in a week. About 20 people a day. That is crazy. Still, I think I'm in the right place because amongst all this talk of business tools and things, he is very clear that his presentation is solely about art for art's sake.

2:18 p.m. - "When I saw the first person, I went to take his pulse and basically sat there holding his hand in silence for 30 seconds." big laughs for that. So he decided instead to start asking each person about their best friend from childhood (one that they made before the advent of Facebook).

2:32 p.m. - Spent the last 15 minutes battling with my iPad app for blogging. Got it now, sitting in social media session talking about everything from myspace to google buzz called "the new stuff in social media".

2:35 p.m. - Was trying to land in his and her social media session by @homesbythomas and @mirelamonte but ended up back with Blanton in blogging for business. Starting to get dirty looks from some folks for jumping in and out of too many sessions. Oh well, it's almost time to sit and chill because when Ken Hawkins from The Digitel starts in 5 min., I'm in that one for the long haul. I'm their no. 1 fan!

2:52 p.m. - Stopped by His and Her social media, which was really nestled way back in a corner. Glad to see they made it after I was following their frantic drive to get here on time through Twitter.

2:55 p.m. - Very excited to hear Ken Hawkins, because he started out as an infographics geek just like myself.

2:58 p.m. - Very interesting talking about the problems of connecting news sites, social media and about a hundred other sub sites which all overlap without actually working together. Don't forget to check out Web Trends Map 4, looks really interesting but too small to read.

3:15 - 4 p.m. - So much going on here that I just need to summarize. Lots of jumping back and forth. Really enjoyed Ken Hawkins presentation, but ran out when @jerryharrison beckoned and offered up free beer. Sat in on Making of MBNiteLife for a bit before running back out to chat with Andre Pope and Ken Hawkins about The Digitel. Phone dead and no wifi in the mbnitelife room so I ran out to get charger and chatted up some folks in the hallway about grand strand tech council, etc. Stopped back by MBnitelife to finish my beer and settled back in to catch the end of Google Buzz presentation. I think I missed the part when he talked about what the he'll the point is. I still don't get it.

4:10 p.m. - Buzz is over. Killing time until final wrap-up presentation by checking out the art in the main room.

4:13 p.m. - walk by a room to tee Morris telling about the way Twitter got hacked: "their password was 'password'"

4:22 p.m. - listening to Don Perry talk. Said he graduated high school in 1987 and started out on the very first Mac. Casey sitting next to me says she was born in 1987. Should be a very cool little impromptu thing on digital art.

4:30 p.m. - Great discussion about the pressures of having to create art and be creative on a deadline in today's rushed society. I think it's tough, but i've never really known a time when I wasn't rushed to be creative.

4:39 p.m. - Pretty embarrassed after talking about how Graham "something"'s art blew my mind, not realizing that he was sitting a few rows behind me. Oops.

4:53 p.m. - Jared Smith (webmaster for read write web) at the mic and everyone all back in the same room. Everyone from charleston talking about bacon and I don't really know what they're talking about. Ready to hear what's next and then move on to what's next for today.

4:55 p.m. - XMPP, SubHub, Collecta, and Status.net being discussed. I've never heard of any of these things. Shows what I know.

5:05 p.m. - Two minutes worth of Farmville talk accompanied by awesome visual representation. Interesting waxing poetic about how much information we share and whether it's a good or bad thing?

5:08 p.m. - Slide says "your blog is still important (and will become more important)". I hope so.

Wrapup - What a great day of geekiness and learning amongst some really great people. There's no way to adequately say everything I felt about today's conference, so I'll leave it at a "5" on my programming survey and call it a day. Will be glad to come back next year.

I was starting to wonder how much revoltutionizing the folks at Adobe were really doing, as the most recent release didn't have a whole lot that I actually used compared to CS3, but this will make it worth the while for sure.

I honestly don't know how it works, but basically, you can use what they call "content aware" fills to mask over parts of images or clone out items and the program uses some sort of amazing algorithm to make it look great without a TON of work that it used to take to clone and heal the portions you wanted to take out.

Check out this demo video, I got from Boy Genius Report:

And if you want to hear what they actually sound like, here's their single "I Own These Streets":

If you like what you hear, visit this site to download it.

I have to bust myself out at least a little bit, because I honestly never really considered the fact that my alma mater might actually win a game in the tournament. I was telling people all day yesterday that I was just excited to be able to watch them lose on national TV for once. Seriously, who would have thought a team with all the issues we've had this season, who was ranked #9 in the MAC tournament would catch fire like they have.

It almost makes me mad that I didn't follow them closer this season. Then again, it's tough to keep up on Athens happenings living all the way down south. Anyway, I can only imagine how great it is for the team and the kids at OU right now, because I remember how excited I would get just to win a game in the MAC tourney when I was at school working concessions at the convo for every game and watching guys like Steve Esterkamp, Patrick Flomo and Brandon Hunter play.

Anyways, enough of my perspective, but I just want to say that if by chance we pull a double-miracle and Tennessee chokes on Saturday, I will definitely be sporting my green on the off chance we end up facing Ohio St. next weekend. Then again, I'm surely getting ahead of myself. Here's some of the great OU propaganda I've seen today.

OU Alum Matt Lauer's Chest Bump

USA Today Front Page

Crazy Court Street video

The Post (student newspaper) front page

The main event Friday night was a concert at House of Blues, REO Speedwagon and Edwin McCain, of which the whole family attended together (sans Miles, of course). I had been excited to visit with everyone, but not so much about the show.

I like Edwin McCain just fine, but his music has never been something to get EXCITED about...it's just kinda there. Great for weddings and high school slow dances, not so great for rocking out at a concert.

REO Speedwagon on the other hand, I had no idea about. I had to do research and look them up on YouTube just to figure out if I knew any of their music. And I did, but they were mostly just keyboard-heavy 80s ballads that I also COULD NOT get excited about.

But by hanging with a group who was really into the music and having a few drinks along the way, I was able to have a good time, and neither act was quite as unexciting as I had imagined. It also didn't hurt that we got the "crash the barricade" tickets where you get food beforehand and easy access to the show -- not to mention that the older crowd was a little more managable than your average group of rude concertgoers.

Saturday, I got the family down to our house since they hadn't seen the new place yet and we hunkered down to watch the Buckeyes play in the Big 10 tourney semis. After getting held up for a couple OTs and what ended up being a great game, we were able to get out of the house and headed down to Ocean Boulevard for the city's inagural St. Patty's Day celebration.

Now I've lived in MB almost 4 years, but I haven't spent much time down on the boulevard since like the first month I was here, so it was interesting to see the "only in Myrtle Beach" type sights of the St. Patty's Day Festival. But despite the somewhat crazy crowd, the city's setup was actually quite nice, with a large stage sitting at the site of the former MB Pavilion and the street blocked off leading back from there to Plyler Park.

They had plenty of green beer and good food (at least it smelled good) and a few added attractions for kids. Miles had a great time hanging out and watching the bagpipe band playing and it was a good chance for the fam to get down and see the beach for a bit.

We also got a chance to see some of the entertainment, including the end of the Blue Dogs, a charleston-based bluegrass band and Jonas Sees in Color, a bunch of pop rockers that I had been listening to a lot after their PR folks sent a CD for me to review in the paper. After seeing them live -- and enjoying both their original songs and their covers of the Beatles and Queen -- I'm even more into them than I was at first listen, and I think they are probably headed for big things.

Afterward, we headed up to Sea Captain's House for dinner to celebrate my Aunt Sherri's birthday. This is a sort of Myrtle Beach institution when it comes to good seafood, but I had never been there, so it was nice to finally try it.

The atmosphere is real old school, but it was suprisingly not as packed as I imagined and we were set off in our own room and got pretty good service throughout. It was a bit pricey (as expected), but I thuroughly enjoyed my Blackened Tuna Steak with Pineapple Salsa and it appeared everyone else was more than satisfied with their meals as well. (SIDE NOTE: I also was brave enough to try oysters for the first time, and much like I expected their bland taste and somewhat runny texture are pretty disgusting.)

To wrap up a great couple days, I spent the better part of Sunday digging around in the garden, clearing out a flower bed and enjoying the nice weather. And to celebrate the time change, I decided to head out for a late evening run and put in my first 6-miler in a long time as darkness feel around 8 p.m.! Yea for more sun!

Who knows what this week will bring, but I have a feeling it's going to be alot better than the past few. After a lot of thinking about what to do with my life, I feel like I have a much better idea of how to get where I want to go. Now I just need to get out and start making it happen and remember that regardless of if its not the easiest route, things will work out as long as I keep my head up, keep working and maintain my focus.

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach (March 9)

I had heard the first single "Stylo" once or twice, but hadn't really gotten into it yet and now I came across this track "Superfast Jellyfish" today on Okayplayer.com. It looks like the album is a guest-packed affair, but I hope it manages to be a complete disc as opposed to a bunch of mashed-together tracks like Handsome Boy Modeling School and N.A.S.A. have done. I love the list of artists, but I just worry that often these things lose continuity and thus memorability when they slam too many people on there.

Plastic Beach Tracklist:

Ludacris - Battle of the Sexes (March 9)

Ever since "What's Your Fantasy?" I've basically been under the impression the Mr. Chris Bridges can do no wrong when it comes to making music. This will be his 7th album, and while not every album has been a classic, there's always at least a few tracks that stand out and keep mehooked on Luda. I like the single,"How Low" as it brings out Luda's faster cadence and booms throughout, but honestly I'm a bit sick of hearing it already. Looking through the album's tracklist, I worry a little about the cast of contributors being a little too ghetto and a little too pop, but I know my man always brings it in nearly every verse even when stuck on a track with a bunch of suckers (ex. Justin Bieber...)

Battle of the Sexes Tracklist

1. "Intro"

2. "How Low"

3. "My Chick Bad" feat. Nicki Minaj

4. "Everybody Drunk" feat. Lil Scrappy

5. "I Do It All Night"

6. "Sex Room" feat. Trey Songz

7. "I Know You Got a Man" feat. Flo Rida

8. "Hey Ho" feat. Lil' Kim and Lil' Fate

9. "Party No Mo'" feat. Gucci Mane

10. "B.O.T.S. Radio" feat. I-20

11. "Can't Live With You" feat. Monica

12. "Feelin' So Sexy"

13. "Tell Me a Secret" feat. Ne-Yo

14. "My Chick Bad (Remix)" feat. Diamond, Trina, and Eve (Rap-Up)

There are moments in a person's life when you must make a decision that you know is going to effect the outcome of basically everything else you do beyond that point and will likely change the course of your life on the whole.

I've spent the majority of my adult life trying to avoid these moments.

It's not that I hate change so much, but I tend to be so over-analytical when it comes to figuring out my own life that choosing often leaves me wondering what I am missing out on by passing up another oppurtunity. Even if I'm sure that what I'm doing is right, a big part of me wonders "would I still have been able to make it work for me even if I chose the wrong path?"

It's something that is hardwired into me that it often leaves me unhappy and keeps me up at night worrying about what I should be doing with my life. No matter what I've done, what I've acheieved, I always no I could be doing more ... and doing it better.

In certain cases this attitude helps me excel. It pushes me to work hard and acheieve as much as I can. In other ways it just makes me lazy. After all, why try to acheieve when I know I'm never going to accomplish everything I want to do? Why not just give up now and play some Xbox...

It's a strange and often complicated dichotomy which can be my fatal flaw in many situations, social, professional, and otherwise.

I get so caught up in this mix of personal perfectionism that I often forget that if I could just muster the confidence to act like I've got it all together, then no one else would even notice all the things that are "wrong."

If I could just hide all my insecurities behind a wall of arrogance or an air of entitlement or a false sense of fulfillment like a lot of people do then maybe I'd fit right in with the crowd and making connections wouldn't be such an uphill battle. However after years of being pushed aside by people who'd rather run right over someone like me -- who wears their insecurities on their sleeve -- than stop to care how they feel for a single second, it's hard to make the effort to put up that front and act like I'm someone I'm not.

I'm just me, and I always have been. I'm not sugar-coated or tailor-made for any situation. I'm just a guy who wants to make things look nice and one who needs provide for his family. I just want to be able to go out and do the BEST work I can do, come home and chill out, play video games, listen to some tunes and have a beer.

But now it seems I've reached the perfect storm of situations that will put all of what I am to the test. Not only do I need to make a life-altering decision about where to go with my career, but in doing so I likely also need to put aside some of the base parts of who I am for the greater good of myself and my family.

I need to be a man, put aside all the insecurity and doubt about whether I'm doing the right thing and just trust that I'm smart enough to make a solid plan for my future if I just put my mind to it.

This may not mean taking any drastic action or changing my lifestyle greatly in the short term, but what it does mean is that I need to start THINKING differently about where to go from here.

• I need to start making the connections I've been ignoring for all these years.
• I need to start putting others' needs before my own and learning to be happy with it.
• I need to stop letting people make me feel like I'm less important than them.
• I need to find a way to sell myself and define what exactly it is that I can do that makes so special.
• I need to set the foundation for the life I will be building for the next 10 (...or 20...or 30) years.

Even in typing this list it seems like a lot to choke down in just a few days, but one thing is for sure: If I don't start now it's not going to get any easier to change these things down the road.