ring out the old

A major component of my voluntary submission to caffeine addiction is the readily available supply of free coffee at work. Rather than use the Styrofoam cups at the office, I chose to bring in my own coffee mug from home. I went through a process of choosing the right mug. It had to be one that would not be mistaken for anyone else's and I had to be willing to accept the fact that it would eventually get lost or broken.

The breakage came a little sooner than I expected. On Christmas Eve, my mug slipped out of my hand and broke. As you can see, I had chosen a mug with my name on it that I had received as a gift many years ago.



The broken cup meant I had to go through the selection process all over again. I had amassed surprisingly large collection of mugs during my non-coffee days. The ones that I saved have some degree of sentimental value for me. A cup from the Discovery Channel has an unusual elephant-shaped handle. I kept a souvenir from a listening party for a Bruce Springsteen live album because it reminds me of one of the first "cool" things I got to do in my radio career.



A George Mason University Alumni Association mug would be easy to identify as mine but I wouldn't want to break it. A huge cup from the short-lived Marvel Mania store at Universal City Walk is too big to be practical.



The newest addition to my collection goes nicely with one of the oldest. While enrolled in the FBI Citizens Academy, I got a mug from the Office of Counterintelligence at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I keep it next to a mug I got from the FBI when I worked in the D.C. area at WAVA.



The mug I ultimately chose is kind of boring. It has a lot of aphorisms on it and I honestly haven't bothered to read any of them. I suppose I should do so before the thousand words break into a thousand pieces.