It's the day before my 30th birthday, and I'm feeling introspective.
I'm not feeling an overwhelming despair at the loss of my youth, or some pressing need to begin emulating adult behavior. Simply put, after another decade on earth, I want to give you a brief chronology of my life thus far. Lucky you! Here goes:
1977: Born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to piano players. Began freezing my ass off and being a dumb little kid.
1983: Started kindergarten at age 6. I wrote my first love note to a girl. The recipient of the note had to ask the teacher to read it to her - It didn't dawn on me that other kindergartners couldn't read yet. Ditched class for the first time. Loved: the Space Shuttle. Hated: Beets.
1985: First chance to use a computer, an Apple IIe. My 2nd grade teacher had a beehive with a Cruella DeVille-esque gray streak and drove a red Camaro. I don't feel incorrect to say that she was an uber-bitch who probably had to swim in alcohol to forget how miserable her life was. Am I digressing? Loved: attack helicopters. Hated: tonsils.
1990: The seventh grade begins a year-long attempt to fit in with my preppier classmates. This was a failed experiment that left me looking a little like Screech from Saved by the Bell, and probably embarassed my family. Loved: DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Hated: acne.
1991-1996: General downward spiral into juvenile delinquency and self-destructive behavior, interspersed with inexplicable bouts of ROTC and Mormonism. Toward the end, discovered the joys of dial-up BBS, telnet, Novell Netware, phreaking, sneaking, and especially programming. Loved: urban exploration. Hated: getting busted.
1998: After a couple of years working as a pizza delivery man and a milkman (I never got laid doing either!), I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I ended up at the local community college, studying an odd admixture of exercise science and Microsoft Office. The community college was great because I could basically live there - I was in the gym at 6:00 AM, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in the cafeteria, and they paid me $6.00 an hour to surf the net and hand out print jobs at night! Loved: metal. Hated: granola whores.
2000: This year absolutely sucked on so many different levels. I'd like to forget this entire year.
2001: First programming job! Yay! {... ignore these horrible things happening around you... repeat: the sky is NOT falling...}
2003: Met a really nice girl named Lisa, who I began dating under very curious circumstances! Without saying too much, my belief in the beautiful weirdness of life was reaffirmed. Loved: Scotch. Hated: politicians.
2006: This was a good year, if a little stressful. I hated the holidays, loved the rest of it. Paid off debts,chilled out with Lisa, and ate way too many lime popsicles.
2007: Still alive, still not loving beets. Goal: an actual vacation to somewhere I've never been, to do actual vacation things like relax and sight-seeing.
That's it, folks! I've still got birthday weekend to burn, and I'm getting hungry...