HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Well here I am.... 30 years old! Hard to believe that my twenties are over. In fact, I was a little sad when I announced "This is the last minute of my Twenties" at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday.

Truth be told, things aren't that different. Do I feel older? Aside from all the old jokes from my much younger co-workers, No, feel about the same as I did when I was 21.

Wow, maybe it's time for my midlife crisis. Where are the 20 year old girls to get me through this?

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES C'MON
Despite the fact it isn't for a couple days, I went out with some friends to celebrate my birthday last night. The turnout was hampered by breaking news, which stressed out some of my night-shift co-workers, but I still appreciated the sentiment from the people who did come out. They even gave me a XBOX Game in addition to the many drinks that I had, so it wasn't a huge loss that not everyone showed. It was all right and I had a good time. So thanks to Jake, the bartender/lifestyles guy, Jon, Daniel, Ian, Emily and Dan for a good time.

I've been kind of social lately, since a bunch of us had to work on Easter, we went to dinner at Logan's, which Candy, one of the new news copy editors (or newsies) has declared her favorite place in Anderson. Other than that it was a quiet holiday in the Electric City.

On another note, it seems that one of my blogging peeps thinks I'm such a bad blogger that it's a bad thing that I have to "guilt" her into updating. I don't know. Am I a bad blogger? Maybe I should stop reading about my friends so then I won't feel like a slacker and forced to make fun of other blogging slackers? Maybe I'll drink a Cherry Limeade like the one's you can buy at Sonic. So many choices, so little time before all the hockey games tonight.

If there isn't anything better in sports than a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs, I don't know what it is. I can't wait for all of them.

THE LAST DAYS OF MY 20s
So here I am, almost a week away from another birthday (Side note: I turn 5x6 this year, a little math quiz for my journalism buddies) and I don't I feel like I'm a grown up just yet. I don't know if I will ever really be grown up, no matter how old I turn, and who knows if I'll ever decide what I want to be when I grow up.

(Another Side note: If this were a musical, I would burst into song at this point singing "I won't grow up" from Peter Pan or something, but it's not -- thank god, I don't have the bandwidth to post mp3s, so back to the original train of thought. What was it again?)

A lot of people set 6x5 to be some sort of magical number where the lightbulb clicks on and you have all wisdom of someone whose lived many years. When I was shorter, not any younger mind you, because I didn't grow up, 3x10 was such a old age. How they let those people wander the streets when they should be in nursing homes was beyond me. (Yet another side note: I seem to be filled with sidenotes today. Just ignore them, my mind is wandering, I'm getting OLD!) Maybe I should invest in a Lifecall in case I fall and can't get up.

Anyways, things are going fine here. The Masters is over, but the Boss is still embedded with the PGA Tour. I'm going on vacation soon (Is it May 12 yet?) and people will have weddings (some sooner and others later) and the population of the newspaper family will soon grow by one. April is half over and it feels like this year has just begun. Hope you paid your taxes. They are due today ( Wow, that was kind of grown up of me. Uh oh)

A

WILL THE SUN EVER COME BACK?
One of the selling points to living here is "we have all four seasons." I never expected too see them all happen in one week in April.

It stated raining here on Sunday, and it started to get colder too. It's been so cold here at night, that I had to turn the heater back on, and it kept raining. And raining. And raining. I was thinking that may have to destroy my furniture, gather two of everything and build an ark. OK, so I'm exagerating. At least it hasn't snowed like it did in some places, but sheesh it's been cold outside and cloudy for I don't know how long.

The good news is right now it's not raining. But it's cloudy, so it just might decide to still rain. And the forecast for this weekend.Highs in the 70s. Just my luck. Sun comes back and I'll be inside working :(

UPDATE: The clouds are starting to break and I see blue sky out the window. ... but I still have to work today.
UPDATE No. 2: (5:15 p.m.) I'm at work and was told that the unidentified object in the sky when I arrived at the office was not a terror attack from the Gallactic Empire, but indeed the Sun. I'm looking into this, because you can't be too sure. The Empire did blow up Alderaan. Yes I know I'm a geek.

A DAY AWAY...

It's been a hectic week, and it really hasn't even started. My friend Jack (you can read the first note I wrote to his son below) was wounded in a friendly fire incident in Iraq over the weekend. I've been sick to my stomach about it. From what I've heard, though, his injuries, while severe, are not life-threatening and he should will recover from his injuries in due time. Please keep Jack and his family in your thoughts

With that on my mind, I wanted to get away from life and be somewhere where I was just an unknown. Fortunately, I got to do that.

I went to Asheville, N.C. to see one of my favorite bands, Nickel Creek, play on Tuesday night. It was a great show, and the band members are super nice. In fact, I spent about 30 minutes after the show chatting with Sara, Sean and Chris, which made the trip even better. It also gave me a chance to explore Asheville, even though it would have been a lot better to go with some more people.

The place they played, The Orange Peel, is downtown, so I spent about a good hour just walking around in the rain and watching people. I tired unsuccessfully to find a thai restaurant there, and not finding one I tried to eat at Doc Chey's Noodle House. No luck there -- the wait was too long. I crossed the street and tried to eat at Barley's Taproom (good pizza there), but again it was packed. So I just meandered down the street and went to the Orange Peel, which used to be a social club/dance hall in the old days. I heard it was even a skating rink. The good news was there was plenty of room for people to crowd around the stage. The bad news was you had to stand.

As I said show was great. It was better than the one that I saw in Asheville a couple of years ago. There was no opening act, so they just came out and played for about two hours with two encores, including a cool little acoustic set at the end. They played many of my favorites and mixed in several new songs, including a song off Sean's new solo CD, but didn't play When You Come Back Down or Speak, which is their current single.

Still it was a good escape... maybe I should do more of that.

MY LAPTOP BATTERY DIED...

I started writing this entry on my laptop, but since I have no adapter for it yet, it is slowly losing power. Maybe I should have bought a new battery too...

Anyways to be continued on my desktop....

I forgot that I never finished this... still no adapter... laptop still dead :(

WHAT'S GOING ON? NOT MUCH
It's been an eventful few weeks for me. I went to Darlington, went through a rough stretch at work and finally got some time off to visit the family and see the NASCAR races in Texas and I had to say goodbye to a good friend.

Marcus has left the the paper for a more beautiful place, Charleston. Why ever he'd more to the beach instead of here I'll never know :). Still Marcus is a good guy and I wish him the best of luck down there.In fact I'll probably visit him soon. It's hard to be in the office and have him being gone. I went in to the office on Tuesday to work on a special section and went over to lifestyles to tell him my Britney Spears story -- I saw her, but didn't get to interview her -- and realized he wasn't there. I was kinda sad for a second, but I know he's rolling on the floor right now because I was 10 feet from his woman and her posse and he wasn't.

Now on to the last few weeks. Darlington was a good experience. I like the track, even if the media relations staff is less than helpful there. I dubbed it "The track too tough to cover," a play on the track's motto. It makes me appreciate what I do at Texas and Indianapolis, which are considered two of the best media relations staffs in the business.

Texas was good too. My cousins Joy and Amanda came from Houston and Austin and my sister, Robyn, surprised us by coming to Dallas straight from a business trip from India. It was the first time the family had gotten together since Christmas and it was great to see everyone. The trip home was fine, even if the lady sitting next to me kept jabbing me in the ribs and American Airlines broke my suitcase.

Well, that's all that's happening here in South Carolina.

TO PARAPHRASE MR. T "I PITY APRIL FOOLS"
I'm quitting this blog it's bored me...













Just kidding, April Fools.

More to come later...