Lately, I have been questioning my decision to major in photography.  I still love it, but I don’t believe I’m as “creative” behind a lens as needed to make it as a professional photographer.  My goal when I went back to school was to finish out my 30 years at Baltimore County 911 and retire, then use my education to pursue a second career as a photographer.  Lately, I have been thinking a lot about trying to change career paths before my time at Baltimore County is complete.  At this point, it would be foolish to give up the 8 years of seniority I have there and start over, but there are plenty of other opportunities in the county I could go after with the right training and education.  On top of that, I’m not really happy where I am right now.  I will continue to work as hard as I can to move up the “chain of command” and advance my career at 911, but at this point, I think it is in my best interest to see what other opportunities are out there for me.

This brings me to my current dilemma.  I am about 5 classes away from completing my AA in Digital Photography at CCBC.  After looking at the General Studies major at Harford, I am close to, or finished, the requirements for an AA degree already.  I have about 80 credits between the two institutions, and there are only 62 required for graduation.  Plus, the cost of going to Harford over CCBC is significantly less ($83/credit hour vs about $120) .   The question is, where do I go from here?  I will probably transfer to Towson University to work on my bachelors, but I don’t know what I would major in.  In my spare time, I have been reading and studying meteorology, and I really enjoy it.  Towson does offer a minor in it, so I would probably go after that, just for my own personal enrichment and knowledge.  I started school as an accounting/business administration major, so I could always get back into something along those lines.

I have too much time and money invested in photography already, so I will obviously continue to work with that as a hobby or side job at some point.  There is no way I would throw all that away.  Hopefully, once I am re-accepted at Harford and have a chance to talk to an academic adviser and see where I stand, I will be better prepared to make an informed decision.  So, it looks like I will probably be studying at Harford Community College again beginning in the Fall.  The only question left is, then what?

Now that’s out of the way, here is my new “Facebook Terms of Service and Privacy Policy”:

I, Travis Galliher, will no longer check Facebook everyday, or read every post that comes onto my news feed.  I have created a list, called “The Short List”, which is now my primary news feed.  This is the only feed I will read on a regular basis.  Of the 352 “Friends” I currently have on Facebook, only 12 people are on “The Short List”.  If you are wondering if you are on this list, you’re not.  Immediate family and a couple very close friends are it.  It’s nothing personal or not an indication that you and I are no longer friends in the real world, it’s just the easiest way to simplify things.  Also, I will not post to Facebook nearly as often, maybe once or twice a week.  I will continue to occasionally post pictures of Carolina, and will post if there is something I want to share with everyone.  Many times, it may be just a link to one of our blogs.  I wanted to turn comments off, but Facebook no longer has this feature.

Why didn’t I just delete my Facebook account?  Facebook is the only way I currently communicate with a few people, especially my friends and family who are out of town, and I didn’t not want to sever that completely.  Facebook also does have some useful tools besides the whole “status updates” thing.  Their messenger and events services are quite useful, and I will continue to check and reply to those on a regular basis.

Please understand, this a decision I made for me, not against anybody.  If it was targeted at only a couple people, I would have just hidden their posts, un-friended then, or blocked them.  I have no problem doing that.  This is being done for my own well-being, and to cut down on my time spent reading post after post of negativity, drama, and BS, just to make sure I don’t miss an occasional post of importance.

How will you contact me?  Easy.  If you insist on contacting me via social media, you can follow me on Twitter, my handle is @HillbillyTrav, and I have a Google+ account that is checked almost daily.  You can look me up on Skype (I’m not on often, but once in a while), and Google Talk.  I still use that old thing called e-mail, and my address is HillbillyTrav@gmail.com, and you can always call, text, iMessage, FaceTime, or even Voxer me.  If you don’t have my phone number, feel free to email me and I will give it to you.  I also plan on updating our blogs more often.  Trav’s Tidbits (where you are now) is at www.TravisGalliher.com, and The Galliher Family at www.GalliherFamily.com.  Also, Chrissie has no intention on leaving or reducing her presence on Facebook, so if you post something important on there, chances are I will hear about it from her.

I hope you all understand why I am doing this.  Between work, watching Carolina on my own 4-5 days a week,  and taking 2 college classes, I need to cut some of the stress and BS from my life, and Facebook seems like the logical place to start.  This may only be temporary, but we’ll see.  I’ll be talking to y’all soon.  Have a great week.

Trav