In a little over two hours, it will be my birthday. Forty-nine years old, or NOT-YET-FIFTY as I prefer to think of it. A time for retrospection and introspection, but not any inspections I hope!
"Ya say its yer birthday, well happy birthday to you!"
I was born on September 30th, 1955, the day that James Dean died. I was born in Da Bronx, Nu Yawk and lived there until I was thirty. My earliest memories are of those streets. It was always cold in the winter, the boiler in our building would often fail at the worst possible time. My family would bring mattresses in to the kitchen and we would use our gas stove for heat, praying that the pilot light wouldn't go out during the night. It would be sweltering hot in the summer and we would run under the spray from open fire hydrants, dodging cars. But, man, those days were fun! There was stick ball and Johnny-on-the-pony. We would skate the glides ripped from the legs of school chairs across boards drawn on the streets. If you had a pink Spaldine ball and maybe a broomstick bat, you had a game. A broken skate and a wooden milk crate would make a race car. Games spilled from the streets into alleys strewn with broken glass. What did we care? We were young and going to live forever!
I am always amazed and grateful that I didn't die on those streets, or in a jungle in Southeast Asia. Both were real possibilities.
I was terrified by Khruschev's speech ("We will bury you!) at the UN and I remember air raid drills in grade school. (If the Russians had dropped a nuclear bomb on our city, my classmates and I would have been safe behind our wooden desks.) I remember John F. Kennedy standing up to him.
Then there were the Yankees. I lived on 167th Street and Walton Avenue. The House That Ruth Built was walking distance away. In 1961, we watched with awe as Mickey (the Mick) Mantle and Roger (Rajah the Rapper) Maris fought for the Home Run crown. Roger won it and never got the credit he deserved. But Mickey...ah, he was one of us! I can't explain why we felt this way, but we did.
I never forgave the Dodgers and Giants for leaving Nu Yawk, but I also remember as a kid when the immortal Sandy Koufax refused to pitch in a World Series game that was played on Yom Kippur. Bless you, Sandy.
I am fortunate, one might even say blessed with good fortune. I have two wonderful kids, (koop sends a shout-out to Jon and Lauren!,) an amazing collection of friends from all around the world and what might well be the greatest job I could hope for. As Sales Manager for Stardock, I get to work with the biggest and coolest companies in the world. I tell the gang at the Widget Factory (my pet name for Stardock) that we get paid to do what most people would get fired for doing at work!
I am happy, most of the time. I call it "the redeeming quality of my idiocy." I figure a world that can have someone like me in it, must be a wonderful place.
Some of my closest friends are skinners and let me tell you, they are the most wonderful people in the world. I must take a moment to say "Hi and thanks" to those wonderful folks who bring beauty and life to our 'Puters. They make my life bright and shiny. A birthday blog wouldn't be complete without a toast to them:
So, here's to Alexandrie and Treetog, who showed me beauty and taught me about community. To BoXXi, my friend. To MikeB and Mark the Hippy and Ian the Voo-ish, who can always be counted on for a !Quote. To Essorant. To Pas the Ever Humble. To TSF, who is like a brother to me. To Adni, who always has a kind word. To Mormegil, you are an icon of mine! To the Morphium and to Kevin "Grayhaze" Purcell. There are so many more.
To the wonderful games team, who make magic real. To GreenReaper and PJPowell, who were never to busy to help a N00b like me. To _Martin_, from across the sea. To AJCrowley, for turning me on to Neil Gaiman.
To all the developers at Stardock, but especially to WBlinds, with whom I work most closely. To KarmaGirl and Frogboy, for taking a chance on an old sales guy. To Nakor, for....well, for being you. Always dependable, always there when needed. To Furan, for teaching me. To AlexG, for my dreidel and for so much, much more. To KimK, for making my day so many times. To T-man, the amazing.
To the Admins on all the boards, but especially to Paxx and Jafo. Jafo, by the way, is older than me. Much, much older. Someone get him a chair.
To all my fiends, uh I mean FRIENDS, really, on JoeUser. What a great bunch.
To The Usual Suspects on IRC #Stardock, who never fail to make me feel at home.
Eh, I know that I have left some names off. When you get old, memory is the second thing to go. I forget what the first thing is.
Good night and thank you all! "