Happy Birthday

Today is my 41st Birthday (I like Mounds candy bars for anyone thinking about getting me a gift). When you are a kid, the whole world can stop while you take time to celebrate. As an adult it generally means that you are just one year older and nobody but your immediate family really cares. That being said, I have already received several congratulatory e-mails and phone calls from friends. Now if we could only figure out a way to send someone Mounds bars through the phone or e-mail, my morning would be complete.

Every year I see my birthday approaching and wonder how I am going to spend it. My Dad thinks I go a bit overboard and says I am building unrealistic expectations in my children as to how birthdays should be spent. I just want one day a year to stand above the rest as truly "special" (besides Christmas).

One year for my birthday I rented a little 4-seater plane and flew down to Moab, Utah for a day of mountain biking. Since I don't have a pilot's license, it was quite the adventure. One of the guys I invited to ride was a pilot but he still let me fly most of the way. I took us off but was more than happy to let him land. The only unfortunate part of the trip was that one of the guys with us fell off his bike and broke his collar bone. It makes a great story though.

When my wife turned 30, she cashed in all my frequent flyer miles and took the family to Hawaii. That was a fun trip as we got to do the tourist thing all over Oahu. On the actual birthday, we had a fabulous Luau and ate like Samoans (they don't eat until they are full, they eat until they fall down).

Yesterday I logged onto my frequent flyer mileage account and looked into getting a ticket to Hawaii. With the downturn in the economy I actually could have taken a non-stop from Salt Lake to Honolulu in the morning, spent the day in Hawaii, and then flown back during the night. The only catch was that I needed to pay a rapid redemption fee of $150. When I was a Platinum frequent flyer member the airlines would waive the fee. I could think of better ways to spend frequent flyer miles and $150 and so I decided against it.

Tomorrow a big company is looking at some software I wrote over the past year. There could be a paycheck in it for me and so I want the demo to go flawlessly. So instead of doing anything exotic on my birthday today, I am going to spend the next several hours in front of the computer sprucing things up a bit. I guess I have to be a grown-up every once and awhile.