As you can tell by looking at my home page, I got a few happy birthday greetings this year. And if you dig through my comment history, you'll see it's a few more than I got last year. I'm kind of happy about that. I know I don't get out there every day and wish all of my friends a happy birthday, and a few of you could probably note that I've missed yours. Sorry if I have.

Did I have the happiest possible birthday? Well for a lot of people, if you saw what I did for my birthday, where I spent it, and so on, you would probably say that I did not have a particularily happy birthday. That's OK. In my book it was a good day. Things that needed to get done, some got done. There will always be more that needs to be done, but when that ceases to be the case, I'll probably cease to be as well.

My immediate family (parents, siblings, children) have either moved away from here, or have passed on. About the closest family I have in the area is a niece going to college in the TC area, and I think she went home for the summer. Everyone else is at least a cousin in family depth. At that point, the people I work with are esentially closer to family than almost everyone else, and I spent about half the day in their company.

Did I get anything 'good' for my birthday? Well, the Lexus didn't show up, and I ended up driving into work in my own car. I got to watch the Discovery space shuttle land, granted it was on TV, but I honestly can count the number of times I've seen even that much of the event on both hands. I think I've seen more launches. The best thing I think I got though was the greetings from my friends on MySpace. I gave myself a PS3, but I don't think it compares. Especially as I won't be able to watch or game on it till the cables and stuff come in. On the other hand, the greetings will be there and welcome for some time to come. Thank you.

I was up till about 1:30 or so, then awake at about 5. I was actually 'up' at 6, so I don't know whether I should consider that hour part of my rest, or part of my day. I certainly wouldn't call it sleep. But that's hardly unusual. I understand that some people wake up and Boom they begin their day, and everything goes grand. Not really the case for me. I do spend some time contemplating what I will be doing, but most of the decisions are not made till a bit later.

I should have ridden in to work Friday night, Saturday morning looked like a great morning to ride. And I'm thinking I may be kicking myself again for that, as today looks like another great morning. The prediction I saw before work yesterday was that from about now (7:00 am) to about 10, there would be scattered thunderstorms. Now 'partly sunny' or 'partly cloudy' for the next 24 hours... Oh well.

What was my greatest wish for my birthday? It doesn't happen all at once, but I wish all of my friends the very best. I know that some of you are going through troubles that you thought you had either evaded or that was going to be different this time. Regardless, I really do wish you the very best, along with all my other friends here and elsewhere.

For me there is little difference day to day when I turned 44. Not really expecting all that much when I turn 45, or 50 either. For some people a Birthday is another great opportunity to have a party. I'm not really 'big' on parties, though I'm involved in planning what I consider to be one of the best parties, with some of the very best people to party with. I'm not opposed to drinking, but Anhiser-Bush hasn't been getting wealthy off of sales to me either. (Or Miller, or Daniels, etc.) I am pretty solidly against Smoking, but I do have friends who do smoke, and I'm not interested in trying to force changes upon them. In any case, since I'm not very interested in drinking, the 'parties' that relly upon alcohol, don't hold out much attraction to me. I'm older, and in 2 years I need to get my drivers licence renewed again. If that sounds dull to you, that's OK.

By now you should know that I write on a fairly wide variety of topics. You are welcome to disagree, or not as you wish. I'm not saying that I'm going to be right in my writing. Mostly they are my 'observations' and can very well be wrong. Feel free to speak up. Einstein pointed out that 'Common Sense' is what we learn before we are 3. Something that I may be missing entirely is easily not 'common sense' for me. So let me know when I am dead wrong.

Thank you, and since it's Father's Day, and can not be my birthday any more, in the words of the Mad Hatter, "Happy Unbirthday to you!"