Birthday reflections

Well just in time for March, your Arbiter has reached his twenty-seventh birthday. I spent my actually birthday in the throws of the Flu. To say I felt like I got hit by a truck would imply the impact was brief, but very painful. I felt like I got hit by a Truck, drug underneath the wheel well and pulled across a stretch of 30 some odd miles of Arizona highway…


The following Saturday I felt better enough (I was still coughing up a storm) to have a bunch of friends over to watch “Dark Side of the Rainbow.” For those that do not know, this is the bizarre phenomena that if one plays the movie “The Wizard of Oz” muted with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album on a CD player, the two Sync up in such a way that you end up with a rather convincing music video.

For the most part it is bullshit. The Wizard of Oz is three times as long as the Dark Side of the Moon, and being something of a media buff, I can see glaring holes in the theory. That said, there is a lot of times in the experience, particularly in pure instrumental moments where it does become quite beautiful, and OCCASIONALLY the lips sync to the lyrics. It was great fun, even for an over-analyzed coincidence.

Turning 27 has led me to examine my life, I figure get it out there in advance of the big 3-0. no serious internal reflection, don’t worry. I prefer to marvel at what I have beheld in the world. From 1983 to 2010 we went from the Apple LISA to the iPad, the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Wii, the Pinto to the Prius… wait that was a bad example.

The point was I was born in an era where I did not just witness quantum leaps forward in such a short time, I LIVED them. I was born to an era where Computers always existed in my house, humanity in space was semi common, and rock and roll was mainstream. The idea of these things being novel to my parents is just as bizarre to me as the concept of the Internet, Cellular Phones, and hybrid cars being “typical” things for my son.

Eventually some one is going to be saying “I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities....” That is the path that human beings have set themselves on, and it blows my fucking mind.

My best guess is that I got another 43 years left on this rock, and I am NOT marking down the days. I plan on making good each one I have left. So as a toast to everyone, Here’s to another ROCKING year!