The Day New Year's Eve Really Started To Mean Something

So once upon a time somebody decides arbitrarily (or maybe not so arbitrarily) that the planets current location in its orbit around the Sun is the beginning of its next orbit, and that day is called January 1st, the first day of the New Year. All these centuries later, as if we're passing "Go" and collecting another $200 we're supposed to celebrate it. I did for a while, until I realized that a drunk December 31st is just like a drunk (month/day here) only riskier because everyone else is out being stupid, too.

So New Year's Eve just became another night quietly spent, especially once I became a husband and father. Have some drinks, have them at home, relax...

Until 31 December 2003, when the fetus inside my 38-weeks pregnant wife failed a non-stress test/bio-physical profile. She was already transitioning into labor, so the doctors helped her along with some additional hormones and at 10pm EXACTLY my oldest daughter came into the world.

So for five years now, I've finally been given a reason to celebrate December 31st. That reason is a bright, artistic, athletic girl, who is an amazing singer (her whole life is a musical, to hear her tell-no, sing - it), a wonderful improvisational dancer, and a great soccer player. Oh, and she's hard-headed, knows what she wants, and is not afraid to ask for it or just go get it for herself.

Happy Birthday, my dear.

Love,

Dad

My Best Birthday Present Ever

...was my oldest son, L. He was born 20 November. I was born 21 November. So that makes it my birthday today.

40 years old. I love the whole "Oh my GOD, 40! How does it feel to be 40?"

It feels awesome. Really and truly. I'm happy to be 40. The alternative, never making it this far, is not so happy. I don't worry about getting old. I worry about ceasing to get old...

Anyway, so a decent day today, pretty low key, cleaning the house for a party tomorrow. We got L his first musical instrument for his birthday - an acoustic guitar. Then my wife got me my first musical instrument for my birthday - another acoustic guitar.

I call it my first instrument, though technically it isn't. I gave some kid $50 when I was in high school to take his beat up electric guitar off his hands and then bought a really cheap amp. I was into "speedmetal" or death metal or whatever back then, and I think I fancied myself becoming the next Kirk Hammett if I didn't get into college. Anyway, Kirk Hammett I wasn't, I bought a guitar book, tried it for a week, broke a string, then it sat around until I sold it to a friend who was serious about playing. He took up playing, and a couple of years later we got together with a couple of other friends and formed a punk band, with me screaming. Lots of fun. Dunno' what that's got to do with my birthday...oh yeah, I got a guitar again. I think taking it on now that I'm older and wiser, and with a partner, I'll show more promise. Really, I just want to be able to play some chords and pick out some dirty old sailor songs. Maybe a Clash tune now and then.

A birthday isn't a birthday without cake. And if you want a good cake, you have to start with a good cake mix. Here's my Birthday Cake Mix:



This was a hard mix to make, for a few reasons. First, picking songs was a challenge. They have many more good songs - I particularly like their cover of the Sabbath song "War Pigs" - a very good take, but I also didn't want to pick songs that were their big hits, covers or had a lot of air time on commercial radio. Then I wanted to limit the number of songs - to approximately the baking time of a cake. Well, I guess I did. Some dense bundt cakes can bake for 45 minutes or so. Then I had to deal with incorrect song titles on the songs I found posted by various imeem users - well, not deal with as much as put up with. It annoys me. Get it right. Look at the album, look at the song number, read it and spell it correctly. Cases in point:

Song 1 is "Commissioning a Symphony in C" - found as commissioning the symfony in C. And the album is "Comfort Eagle" not "Album".

Oh, and song 13 is called "Nugget", not "Shut the F*** Up" but obviously the person who posted it can only remember songs by the dirty words in them. Whatever.

Some great songs in there, too; some of the more personally significant:

Comfort Eagle - The line "We're building a religion..." just like Cthulhu is...

Carbon Monoxide - their music is very "car heavy" but this is different, talking about, of course, the pollution they create. "I wish I was in that Mercedes Benz, sealed away from my sins..."

Guitar - great song about breaking up and moving on, the syncopation of the vocals is what makes the song for me. Probably my all-time favorite Cake song.

Alpha-Beta Parking Lot - when I hear this song, I am back living in San Diego, it's 10 years ago, and I have a specific Alpha-Beta (grocery store) parking lot in mind, and it's sunset. Not watching anyone leave me, though...I was (and still am!) happily married...I just loved the imagery created.

Italian Leather Sofa - "She's got a black dress, and healthy breasts that bounce...on his Italian leather sofa." Hmm heh heh heh...boobies.

Nugget - not for the profanity in the chorus, but the imagery of "sharpened knives through Chicken McNuggets". Spent 18 months of my life I'll never get back cooking those goddam things. I'd have much rather shoved them up the ass of my managers...either right out of the freezer or the fryer, depending on my mood.

So I did get some music in this week - "Songs so cheesy I had to put them on my iPod" will be back next week.

Okay, 34 more minutes of my birthday, and 34 more minutes to get this post in. G'nite.

To My Son, Upon Reaching The Age of Nine Years

Now you sleep in your bed, waiting for your early wake up, breakfast in bed and presents before leaving for school on your ninth birthday. But as it is already after the hour of 2:00 am on November 20th in Bahrain, the country you were born in, you are already nine.

What an amazing person you are. Bright, energetic, funny, a natural at math, writing and singing. A mind hungry to learn about the world around you and the sciences that make it work, and a voracious appetite for boyish silliness. A caring and loving big brother and a fine young gentleman. I could never have foretold the joy you have brought me.

There was a boy born in India nearly 150 years ago, who grew up to be a great author. He wrote great stories, poems and books, for grown-ups and children. He wrote of men, women, children, animals, wars and adventures. He wrote of bravery, honor, decency and commitment. There are some today who think he was warlike, prejudiced and imperialist; maybe he was, but he was also wise. I would like to pass some of that wisdom to you:

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

Happy Birthday, son.

Love,

Dad