How Old am I Again?

This year, I forgot how old I am. This is something you would think might hit me in my seventies, or certainly when I become an octogenarian. But nope. For some reason, and I can't quite pinpoint when I started thinking it, I thought I turned 34 on my birthday this year. This means that possibly when I had my birthday last year, I thought I'd hit 33. This means that I thought I was 33 for the past year! When did I tack an extra year onto my life? What did I do during that missing year?

We were playing Warcraft one night about two weeks after my birthday, and a guildie was asking about us, our age, etc. Chuck rattles off his age, and I say "34."

Chuck looks at me dumbfounded. "You're 33 hon." I stare back at him blankly. He says, "You were born in 1973. You just turned 33 this year."

Rattled, I minimize the game and launch Google and search for "birthday calculator." I find one that has you enter in your date of birth, and it gives you your age, down to the second. I tilt my head as I stare at the numbers. 33. Hmm. I grin sheepishly and say, "Oh...I'm 33."

I suppose it could have been worse. I could have thought I was making 33 when I was really making 36, or 37. Not many people my age get the satisfaction of aging a complete year younger with a snap of the fingers. Kind of a neat feeling, really. But I think I'm going to start eating more brain food just in case. And crack open my "Brain Age" Nintendo DS Lite game a little more often. ;-)

For those of you confused about how old you are, may I introduce you to: The Birthday Calculator

The Lion King

We managed to get some escape time this weekend and trekked down to Tucson. For six months, I have been gazing wantonly at the Lion King tickets tacked to the corkboard in our kitchen. FINALLY, last Saturday, we got to see The Lion King (the Broadway musical based on the movie).

What a captivating show! To begin, the lights extinguished and we sat in the pure darkness of the theatre. Then the theatre door on the left opened, and I remember half-scowling in that direction, thinking, "You got here late, buddy, wait it out until the first scene is over." Suddenly, the door on the right opened. Music began from the faintest congo, spiraling up to an African chorus, and a procession of animals marched in from both directions as the lights in the theatre rose. I felt the goosebumps dotting both my arms and up the back of my neck.

The show was spectacular. I picked up the soundtrack from iTunes last night so I could enjoy hearing it while I'm hacking away code at work. I also got to experience lemon Eegee's -- a slushie that has real lemon pieces in it, and incredibly refreshing. We had just enough time left Sunday afternoon to catch the tram at Sabino Canyon. Unfortunately, the tram only went to two of the usual stops, because the rest of the roads winding into the canyon were destroyed by this past monsoon season. I took a few pictures, and I'll put them into Picasa this week to compare between last November and this past week.

The week before, we hiked the Superstition Mountains, taking the Peralta Trail all the way up to Freemont Saddle, which had a gorgeous view of Weaver's Needle. I'll post pictures from that hike as soon as I get them sized down in Picasa.

Baseball Birthday

Despite the rather insane hours I've put in at work the past few weeks, I did manage to swing getting my birthday (evening) off around 5pm. Leaving at 5pm feels like a half day anymore.

Chuck had a wonderful evening planned -- we got to go see the Diamondbacks play at Chase Field, great seats along foul line! We were about five rows away from catching a foul ball at one point, it was close :)

The most special part of the evening was the special "light show" between 4th and 5th innings. Chuck arranged for the jumbotron (big lighted scoreboard) to display a birthday message that I managed to catch on camera!



Incredibly romantic. Now I'm tasked with spending the next year figuring out how to top that for his birthday. When I complained at work, a friend replied, "Try skywriting."