Today the lady of my life is another year older.

Happy birthday hon!

Let's go out to breakfast! 

I just found out that today is the birthday of my old friend Mike.  Mike and I met in college some 20 years ago.  I was a CIS major and he majored in math.  Here's a picture of Mike from a get together we both recently attended where we talked about (among other things) cameras and photography.  Years ago I encouraged Mike to pursue a degree in computer science, and recently I've been encouraging him to move up to a DSLR camera.

He's a good guy, and I hope he has a great birthday.

Happy Day, Mike! 

Please join me in wishing one of my best friends, James Burke, a pleasant birthday.  I met James about 22 years ago in college and haven't regretted a single day of knowing him since.

This past Saturday we attended a birthday gathering in honor of James turning 40.  We had a good time socializing and watching game 3 of the world series.  It was great to see all my friends again, especially James, who was as charming and witty as I remember him always being.

Happy Day James!  Don't work too hard.

Please join me in wishing one of my best friends, Maggie Burke, a pleasant birthday.  I've known Maggie a long time, and I value her wisdom and insight, and enjoy her company.  Hope you have a great day Maggie!

BTW: I *have* been reading your blog btw, just not leaving comments.  Always a pleasure to hear your thoughts.

Just wanted to take a brief moment here to wish my friend, Tom King, a Happy Birthday!  Please join me in wishing Tom a pleasant day.  This is one of those special birthdays, a real milestone, because my good friend Tom is turning 39... again!  Congratulations buddy!

Happy Day my friend, happy day.

Please join me in wishing my wonderful sister Donna a Happy Birthday to-day!  My big sister has always been there for me when I needed her, even when I didn't know it.  You're the best, Donna, I hope you have a great birthday.  Love you!

Please join me in wishing my awesome kid Happy Birthday to-day!  Lynnea turned 10 this morning--she's entering that middle ground where big girls turn into teenagers.  But she's still my angel and always will be.

Happy Birthday, Lynnea!  Mom and Dad think you're the best!

Life has been a little hectic for me, and while I've had time to take part in interesting discussions on articles I posted over a year ago (weird) I haven't had much time to post any new articles.  So here's what's goin' on, reduced to a bullet list, just so I can get the shite out there:

• Went to see the oral surgeon on Tuesday, no real surprises there, it was just a consult, they wanted me to know what to expect and to talk to me.  Had to read some scary consent forms where they tell you everything that could possibly go wrong during your procedure... we might break your jaw, we might puncture your sinuses, we might damage teeth you were planning on keeping, you might have a heart attack from the anaesthesia, you  might die, the world might end.  Great stuff to read if you are a person with an anxiety disorder triggered by medical situations.  Thanks guys.
   
• I go in for my impressions at the dentist this afternoon.  Probably have to have the surgery in about 3 weeks.
   
• Celebrated Easter with Patty's family on Saturday, and with my family on Sunday.  Plus we had a little egg hunt for Lynnea at our house Sunday morning.  Total of 3 egg hunts, and I hid somewhere between 85 and 145 eggs over the weekend (I had help on the last hunt.)
   
• Atheist's don't believe in jinxes, but lately it's hard to shake the idea of misfortune following me around.  During Saturday's get together, I noticed that the dog of one of my sisters-in-law, who had been brought to the gathering, was acting funny--labored breathing, strange movements.  I told my sister-in-law about it, and she took the dog to a vet during the celebration and was informed that the animal needed to be put to sleep.  Happy Easter kids, the dog is dying.  They had the dog put down that same day and a lot of the kids were crying about it.
   
• Continuing the jinx thread, I was on the phone with a friend yesterday afternoon and we were discussing all the things that had been going on in my life when suddenly I heard a loud bang on my cellphone.  My friend had been rear ended by another driver and terminated the conversation with "my back is hurting, I can't talk now".  Later in the evening I heard back that after a trip to the hospital my friend was okay, but he didn't yet know how bad the damage to his car is.  We joked that I should try to capitalize on this Hurleyesque bad luck of mine, have people pay me to stay away from them, or pay me to hang around with folks they don't like until the meteorite hits them.
   
• I've been seeing my Mom each weekend and helping her to get things taken care of now that Dad is gone.  Mom runs a small business out of her house and depends entirely on an ancient Windows-98 box to do her work, and the box is acting pretty spotty lately.  A few weeks before Dad passed away he had purchased a new computer, and so now I am trying to repurpose that box so that when my Mom is ready, she can switch to the new box and run her business on that.  Unfortunately the new box comes with Vista which my Dad hated, and after spending a couple of hours trying to use the box I can see why.  Microsoft completely changed the standard windows interface, all the control keys are different, and no functions are where they used to be.  They also decided (apparently) that menus are overrated, so the standard office suite doesn't have menus anymore... yeah you heard that right.  Everything is now reorganized on a new fat toolbar with tabs on it so that you can switch between toolbars.  Microsoft calls it "the ribbon", I call it "thumbing your nose at everybody who already learned how to use your shitty applications".  Vista does not come with a "classic mode" option like XP did... they really expect you to relearn where everything is.  I refuse to subject my 68-year-old mother to this nonsense.  So I backed up Dad's files, packed up his computer and all his peripherals and disks, brought it to a computer shop and told them to wipe it, and then install XP home edition and Office 2000, and get all the drivers to make sure the peripherals work.  In the end, my Mom will be happier for it.  And having a chance to check out Vista I am now quite certain that I won't be upgrading to it.
   
• Had a little birthday party for Pat at home last week, a little cake and song, and a couple gifts (taking our economic situation into consideration of course).  Pat got the movie "Eragon" which was -eh-.  It's basically Star Wars... AGAIN, and progresses far too quickly.  I kept saying "these guys forgot the montages" while watching it.  But the dragon was pretty, and it was still fun to watch.
   
• Oh, and I am saddened to report that Kurt Vonnegut passed away.  Thanks for the stories Kurt, we'll miss you.

Guess that's about it.  Gotta get to work!  See ya later.