For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been hearing this countdown at least once a day.
It goes something like this: “9 more days until my birthday!”
Or, “you know what happens in 4 days? It’s my birthday!”
And, “it’s…my…birthday…in…two…days!”
(That last one sounds better if you sing it)
Well, the countdown has been leading up to tomorrow, August 8th, which is my wife Anne’s birthday. We look forward to her birthday each year because we always take the family camping for a couple of days…and we don’t have to hear the countdown.
Well, that’s not entirely true…we’ll hear “Only 364 more days until my birthday!” At least once.
So today is the day that we leave for the magnificent and storied Great Outdoors. I won’t have time to write again until next week.
In honor of my wife’s birthday, I offer the following Thought For Today, which perfectly describes our life together:

I have just returned from Chicago.
That’s right, Chicago.
Why?
Because my wife surprised me for my 30th birthday, and took me to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubbies.
Holy.
Crap.
There are many exciting details, but no time to go into them. I’ve got a busy day ahead. I’ll try to update infor later.
In the meantime, we saw Roughy and Mrs. Roughy, as well as Bobby The Mat and Mrs. Bobby The Mat, and you can hear about our evening together at UE.

Today is my step-son Ryan’s 13th birthday.
He is excited because he’s turning 13 on the 31st, which, he pointed out to me, is a palindrome.
Okay, how many 13 year olds do you know of who even know what a palindrome is, much less care enough about it to get excited?
I know 1, and he is awesome.

Well, it looks like the time has come for me to step into the carousel.
While I am entering my 30th year on planet earth, WWDN isn’t even officially 1 year old, although technically I had the old, lame website up at this time last year…craziness.
My “My Yahoo!” page says, “Happy Birthday, TVsWilWheaton!” and when I click it, it takes me to this page. Check out who’s number 3 on the celebrity birthday list! This made me giddy with excitement last year, and it did it again this year. 🙂
Since it’s my birthday, I think I’ll start out the celebration by posting 7 things I’m grateful for on my birthday:

1. In 30 years, I have never had a serious threat to my health, safety or general well-being.
2. Anne.
3. Just for grins one day, I put together a BBS for this site. It’s become one of the most wonderful communities that I’ve ever seen on the Internet…and the people who hang out there rarely talk about me…it’s all about them, and the virtual family that they have become.
4. Batman. This has nothing to do with my birthday, really…I just really like Batman. Especially Dark Knight Returns Batman.
5. Volkswagen. Without VW, I may never have been concieved.
6. I’m not afraid to cry in front of anyone.
7. Even though I kept her up most of last night with my “goddamned snoring,” my wife has made a valiant effort to stay up with me until midnight, to tell me “Happy Birthday.” She’s currently asleep on the floor cuddling the dog.

Finally, I am amazed and grateful that people even give a shit about how I’m doing, and what I’m doing, and take the time to make things like this:

—
Thank you to everyone who sent me this image, and the cool site that posted it, and thank you to the scores of WWDN readers who have sent birthday wishes, especially those of you who have been visiting this lame website since it began.
An extra-special thank you is due to the Monkeys in the Soapbox. You guys RAWK, and you know why.

RENEW!! RENEW!!

Update at 09:27AM:
The kids in Farkistan are even doing a photoshop for my birthday! It just keeps getting better!

Yesterday my little brother got married, and I was the best man in the ceremony.
It was wonderful.
I’m going to keep the details private, because sharing with the entire internet the particulars of a very special family event is just weird.
However, I will say: I have always felt that weddings should reflect the personalities of the bride and groom. Weddings shouldn’t be about forcing the couple into anyone’s particular mold or any one person’s *cough*grandma*cough*’s idea of what a wedding should be. I just hate it that people feel like they must conform to certain ideals, and I was thrilled that Jeremy and Jenn did their wedding their way. It was very unconventional, fun, touching, and memorable.
One really cool thing they did was to welcome to the ceremony people who couldn’t be there, whether they were living or dead, by ringing a bell. Jeremy rang the bell, and welcomed, among other people, my Aunt Val. It breaks my heart that Aunt Val didn’t get to be there in person to see Jeremy and Jenn get married; she always called him “my little boy,” and I know that they each kept large areas of their hearts reserved for each other. I was really glad that she was able to attend in spirit, and I thought that the ringing of the bell was beautiful.
The next time we have an important family gathering, I’m going to ring a bell, and invite Aunt Val to join us.
At the reception I saw lots of people who I don’t see very often, and many of them told me that they’ve been reading my website…which immediately made me feel weird. It’s easier to write what’s on my mind when I don’t think about the people reading it, especially people I know. When I wrote the story about 4th of July recently, my dad told me that he sent it to everyone in the family who was there, and how they remembered it and all that…it’s just strange. Even writing this paragraph now I have had to resist the urge to delete it.
Strange.
Well, tomorrow is my birthday. I turn 30. Then Wednesday is Ryan’s birthday. He turns 13. Holy. Crap.
I have already gotten some AMAZINGLY COOL Birthday presents, but they get their own entry in a few days.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Now go outside!