the_gneech | Meanwhile, Back In the Real World...

Well that was nice! I had so many birthday greetings to respond to, it made me late for work this morning. ;) So thank you, everybody! I've come a long way from that lonely little kid who only had two people show up for his birthday party. ^.^

It's somewhat baffling to try to think of myself as being 38; my concept of self when I was growing up got as far as "early thirties" and stopped ... from this stage forward I have no real expectations because for whatever reason I never thought of myself as being around as a grownup and what that might be like. A few of my classmates (and I expect they know who they are) keep making cracks about how old they are, how they're falling apart, etc., which I find more than a little confusing. I certainly don't feel any older or younger than I did in, say, 1997. In fact, if it weren't for what

smrgol_t_kirin refers to as the "solar collector" on the back of my head, I would assume I was still 27. Given that I almost never see the bald spot myself but only hear reports of it, it might as well not be there anyway. I was carded Friday night ... make of that what you will.

Anyway, we spent the weekend in Tidewater celebrating

lythandra's stepdad's 80th birthday at Smithfield Station, which was very nice and handled the 26+ crowd with impressive ease and aplomb. I'm told the place has '20s and '30s-themed guest rooms, so maybe Laurie and I will have to make a weekend of it sometime to go down there on the sly and go to Portsmouth et al. without getting entangled in family visitation. I also got a double-handful on nice prezzies myself, mostly in the forms of Fry & Laurie, Columbo, and Muppet Show DVDs, and Sam & Max, Season 1. So in those moments when I'm not writing up a storm or slaying orcs in LOTRO, I'll still have plenty of entertainment. ;)

But for now, it's back to work for me, putting all that JavaScript and CSS training to the test. Whee!

Thanks again, all. :)

-The Gneech