7:00 this morning, or thereabouts, I officially turned 38 years old.  Normally I’d take this day off work and waste it at home doing nothing but we spent last weekend at the beach, which made me feel guilty about taking this day off.  Also, my son’s having his appendix removed in a couple of weeks, which brings with it a couple more days off of work.  So here I am, close to heading home, and I’m okay with that.  Inevitably after an uneventful day such as Father’s Day or my birthday, I can’t help but think I wasted it.  Not today, though, even if I did forget to send that broken DVR to Directv, which @pgoodness will thankfully do for me later.

I had my free Starbucks coffee today, and the nice ladies at the Dearborn, Michigan location on Michigan Avenue were surprised I didn’t want a latte or whatever the hell you freaks drink.  “Venti Pike” was my order, same as every other day.  I treated myself to a breakfast sandwich as well.  After I leave work in a few minutes I’ll stop at Merchant’s Fine Wine and grab a six-pack of Goose Island Summertime, which is flavorful without aftertaste, which is unusual, pleasant and refreshing.  The Outback Steakhouse disaster from Monday night will be quashed as I grill my own steak and park my ass on the deck for the evening.  Hell, I might even pick up a cigar on the way home for fun.

I’ve gotten a boatload of happy birthday wishes today and am completely overwhelmed by it all.  I’m pretty sure they started while I was fast asleep last night even, and have continued all day long via Facebook and Twitter, with good tidings coming from all corners of the continent it seems.  Social Media is a pretty awesome thing, what with people chatting while 35,000 feet over this great state of mine, to an incredible young boy named Tanner getting a ton of donations so he can live the rest of his life outside of a soulless hospital room. 

So cheers to me, Coop, Cam, Jenn, Barack (!), Satchmo, and everyone else celebrating this fine day.  Be excellent, everyone.

And if you want to give something to me or anyone else whose birthday is today, give to Tanner, here.  You can’t go wrong with that gift.

Many years and two kids ago I wanted to get my private pilot’s license.  There is a flying school at the airport near my house – one of many airports where bombers were made and Rosie the Riveter toiled during World War II.  I’m not completely sure where the fascination began, but the closest I got was sitting in front of my computer monitor virtually flying a flight simulator.  My first virtual flight happened when I was probably 16 or 17 years old; I don’t really remember exactly. 

Strangely, I never flew in a plane until my wife and I flew to Cancun for our honeymoon.  She even bought me a voucher for an exploratory flight for my birthday one year, which I never used, for some unknown reason.  On that first flight I was nervous and excited and learned that the real thing is so much different than what I did on the computer.  The feel, the shakes and rattles, the clunking of the landing gear retracting were all so vivid.  I spent the flight watching wings flex and feeling the occasional bounce of turbulence as it tickled the plane.  On approach I was awed by the feeling of weightlessness as the pilot slowed us for landing.  It was as if we were suspended in air.  It was really incredible and something I wanted to do over and over again.

I still think it would be neat to learn to fly for real, but my life’s different now.  With two boys who like to keep their eyes in the skies as I do, I feel it’s more important for me to be there while they look skyward and ask questions.  They’ve flown a couple of times and there was no fear whatsoever.  M was excited, P was apathetic.  But neither was scared and they both look forward to the day they fly again.  Even now they enjoy the flight simulator as much as I do and play it as often as they can, and we’re all content with what we have, if even a little hopeful for what we don’t. 

“There’s no sensation to compare with this – suspended animation, a state of bliss.  Can’t keep my mind from the circling skies, tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I.”

There’s been a number of things going on in my life, including a holiday season that was grand, albeit too short, a fun trip to warm weather with some wonderful friends/family, and the general survival of yet another cold, snowy winter where I wonder why the blue hell I still live in this state.

My toughest challenge yet is, unfortunately, job-related.  Before the Christmas break I got my annual review and it was less desirable than I thought it would be.  This led to some general panic for my wife and I, and considering it came two days before my holiday break made it that much more… joyous (sarcasm implied and expressed).

However, once I got back to work I learned that reviews like mine may have been the norm and not the exception, which I guess is good.  We still haven’t been through the cuts we’ve been told we’ll be going through this month, but I feel a little less vulnerable than I did a month ago.  Hopefully all goes well.

If not, for that matter, even if it does, I’ve been working to sort of reinvent myself in a way.  I have many interests and I’m trying to find ways to make the most of them should the worst happen.  There are a lot of fine people on social networking sites such as Twitter who have, unbeknownst to them, given me a lot of tools to help myself become more reliant on my own skills and talents to make my life more enjoyable and less stressful as it relates to the work I do.

So while the uncertainty of my near future fills my thoughts much of the day, I feel confident that my professional life is headed in the right direction in the long run regardless of what happens in the next couple of weeks.

And yes, you can follow me on Twitter.