It is a cellular peptide cake...

...with mint frosting. If you aren't a trekie, that's from a Star Trek Next-Gen episode, but today, for my birthday, I ACTUALLY got a cellular peptide cake with mint frosting (or at least as close as you can get). But let's back up...

What a wonderful weekend - and after such a busy week! Just to summarize the week, there was softball, golf and salsa band practice, along with some very full days of work including a 3-day conference where I was on the phone most of the time (and presented a couple of times).

So I was very glad to see Friday roll around. Erin was working Friday night, but I met some friends at Rookies for the show going on there, made it until about 10:30 and was just too tired to continue. Right when I got home it started storming hard, so I was glad I went when I did.

Saturday, after stopping off at Caribou for some coffee, I headed down to Central Park in downtown Rochester, to set up the IBM tent/table for Rochester's 11th annual PrideFest. This was the first year I'd worked at the IBM table - "work" is probably too strong a word, sit and talk to people and hand out pens and candy is what we do. It was a beautiful day in the park and I got to see and catch up with a lot of people I don't see otherwise in my daily routine. There were 7 of us taking turns manning the IBM table so I had a chance to walk around and see what else was going on, including the table my financial advisor Zac Saiki had, where he had sumo-suit wrestling set up - well you just have to look at the picture. Saturday evening both Erin and I were tired enough that we went to bed by 9:00.



Which brings us to Sunday, July 13th, 2008 - the day Paul turns 34. After a wonderful night's sleep, I woke up around 7:30am to another beautiful weather day. After a relaxed bit of reading and taking a shower, I headed over to Menards to get some replacement parts for my grill (which is old and needed a new burner and some new brickettes) and then over to Caribou Coffee - which is a normal stop for me most mornings anyway, but today I got a free drink of my choice because it was my birthday - so I had an out-of-season Ho Ho Mocha and it was wonderful.

At 11:00am, I headed over to Whistle Binkies and met up with friends Jeff and Amber and some other people from the softball team. The reason this was significant though was because Amber and I share a birthday - not just the date, but the year, and even the hour (I was born at 11:05am and Amber was born at 11:08am, July 13th, 1974). So it was appropriate that we met up about 11...we all had lunch, had a couple of drinks (Amber and I decided a "scooby snack" was in order) and just laughed and talked for a few hours. Thank you Robin for once again capturing these moments on film...well on flash memory anyway :)

A quick stop at Target and then it was home to get ready for the REST of the birthday day - Erin and I invited some friends over for dinner, cake, and drinks that evening, and of course with Erin, dinner is always a feast. I installed the new grill parts, while Erin and cousin Andy prepared food for most of the afternoon, and we all got done by 5:30 in time for people to start arriving. The menu was either grilled chicken or brats, milk bread rolls, fruit salad in a watermelon bowl (I should have gotten a picture) and of course my very own cellular peptide cake with mint frosting. It's really white cake which is then soaked in condensed and evaporated milk and butter cream frosting with creme de menthe. Erin drew counselor Deanna Troi from Star Trek on the cake wishing me a happy birthday (he embellished a little bit :) - if you are wondering why, watch "Phantasms", which is the 6th episode of season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Overall it was a wonderful evening of food, cake, and great company. After everyone left I noticed a message from my mom, who sang me happy birthday over voicemail - thanks mom!

As year 34 starts, I realize how truly blessed I am to have so many wonderful people in my life - friends and family.

Miscellany

Just FYI, I think I've actually had enough of the presidential campaign already. For music - well Debbie Gibson is still a recurring theme although I've been back to listening to the salsa band music again now that we have some stuff coming up. Reading - after about 4 years I'm actually finishing the Star Wars: New Jedi Order series that I never finished because I was so disgusted with the way they were doing the story arc (killing off main characters, destroying planets...) but the last two books aren't bad.

Construction updates - the path next to my house is done and all the sod is back in place. This week I'm going to have rain gutters put on the house. 50th Ave is moving right along - I didn't get a picture, but they've cleared the entire swath of trees where the road will be. The (likely) harder task of reshaping the land and building the bridge is next. But I'm fairly confident they'll be done by September as planned.