The Big Four Oh!

April 7, 2009. The weather is cold, the rain is interspersed with snow and sleet. I am officially forty.

And it's awesome.

I've recently learned that I am not the only child of the eighties who thought I would never be this old. Reagan's hawk posturing (later softened) led me to believe that there was going to be at least a 'limited nuclear exchange' at some point in the near future, and I would be dead before I was thirty-five. If you didn't live through the eighties, read Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, watch Quiet Earth or read the rulebook for Gamma World. In school, we read Benet's By the Waters of Babylon, and The Planet of the Apes was a regular on television. So according to my inner seventeen year-old, every day after thirty-five has been a bonus.

But that's not the best reason to celebrate today. This morning I received a miscellany of comments from friends, organized by the Queen of Science. If an individual's wealth is measured by the friends he has and the company he keeps, then I am rich beyond Gordon Gecko's wildest dreams of avarice. I have the best friends and family in the world, and I married an incredibly wonderful woman. I am both humbled and moved by this gift of love. Thank you, my friends.