It’s My Birthday

Yeah, it’s my birthday again.

I’ve survived another lap around the Sun, mostly in spite of myself and due to the grace of God.  I almost didn’t bother with a birthday post, because I mostly think of my birthday as just another day, but, it’s sort of gotten to be a tradition with me to make this post every year, so, here I am.  Honestly, it seems kind of impossible to me that I’ve survived this long, but, according to the actuarial tables, I can still expect quite a few more years on this crazy planet. Which is a good thing because, in spite of being statistically middle-aged, I come from fairly long-lived stock and there are so many things still undone in my life.

I can’t say that it’s been the easiest year, but, then again, it sure hasn’t been the hardest year I’ve ever had, either.  I still work too much and need to take more vacation, which I will starting next week, actually.  I still haven’t done as much photography as I’d like, or written as much. Neither here nor on Diary of a Network Geek, which is my other, “original”, blog.  In fact, I barely keep up with my regular Friday posts!  And, my flashes sat so long on the shelf with batteries in them that I almost lost them to corrosion!  I’m already making plans to fix that this coming year and I hope to share the results with you, or at least links to it, here.  I don’t know about the writing, though.  It takes so much uninterrupted time to write and I never seem to have that any more.  Maybe when I retire I’ll finally get around to writing the great American science-fiction novel.
As always, my relationship with my wife, Sharon, makes everything else I do have more meaning, though I wouldn’t say that I live only for her.  And, while she’s managed to work on her general health and fitness, I haven’t yet.  That’s something else that needs to change, at least according to my cardiologist!

One of those two domains I mentioned last year, FindMyDecorator.com and FindMyPhotographer.com, is up and running.  So, if you’re a photographer trying to make the transition from amateur to professional, at least sign up for a free account on FindMyPhotographer.com and see if we can’t help drive some traffic your direction.  I have invested in a teach-yourself WordPress programming and development course that I’m slowly working through, so I plan to improve the design and functionality over there this coming year.  And, of course, I plan to help my darling wife get her site, The Organizing Decorator, up to snuff, too.  (In fact, toward that end, I’m gifting myself an annual subscription to Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom this year!  It’ll improve my photos and it comes with training so I can make the most of it!)

And, of course, my birthday wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention all the other famous people who had the good luck to be born on this particular day. Famous people like Frank “Chairman of the Board” Sinatra, Jennifer Connelly, Bob Barker, Gustave Flaubert, who is the author of Madame Bovary, the painter Edvard Munch, and Wells Fargo founder, Henry Wells. Not to mention, Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Tim Hauser of Manhattan Transfer, Dickey Betts of the Allman Bros, jazz musician Grover Washington Jr, and former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch.
All heady company to be sure, but for whatever reason, it tickles me the most that I share a birthday with Frank Sinatra. I guess it’s because he was such a unique and original character who really fought against and beat some long odds to become an amazingly famous, generally well thought of personality. I can only hope to do the same, one day.
Also, I think it’s interesting to note that on this day in 1896 Marconi first demoed radio and, again on this day, in 1901 made his first Trans-Atlantic transmission. (Though, of course, all right-thinking people know that Tesla was really responsible for those first advances in radio.)
And I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the computer mouse made its debut just four days before my birth! How crazy is that? The mouse, which makes graphic interfaces so practical and easy to use, is actually four days older than I am!

This coming year, my wife and I are going to try an experiment to see if it improves our life; the Five Minute Journal.  If you haven’t heard of this, it’s pretty simple.  Every day, this journal asks you to list things that you’re grateful for and a few other positive prompts in the morning.  And, at night, it asks you to think about what would have made the day better.  Everyone who’s done it says that it really helps them be more positive, which both my wife and I would like to be.  Hopefully, next year I’ll be telling you what a success it was!
And, I think I’m going to start a Five Year Journal, too.  It would only be a few more sentences each day and it may be the start of a longer, more interesting journaling adventure for me, which I hope will help me take a longer view of my everyday life.  (And, yes, it’s also inspired by Samuel Pepys, the most famous diarist of all.)  And, I hope, that all that prompted journaling will help me jump-start my writing in other places, too.  Only time will tell!

So, in any case, there it is.  Things are going pretty okay.  We’re a bit deeper in debt than we’d like but we can still manage to pay our bills comfortably and still have a little fun.  I have high hopes for the coming year as both my wife and I get our health in better order and we start really living more intentionally.  Not just me, but both of us.  I really think this is going to be a good year.
You know, after forty-seven of them, you’d think I’d gotten the hang of living sooner than this, wouldn’t you?  Well, according to my father, the first fifty are really just getting you ready for the best parts.  I hope he’s right!

Thanks for hanging out with me on this ride so far and I look forward to the coming year!