Happy Birthday To Me

Yes, I just turned 37. It's slightly depressing in the sense that I'm actually heading toward 40. Of course, they say that 40 is the new 30. I wish... At least I have my kids here for my birthday and that's cool. I got to hear Brittany play the alto sax for the first time last night. She is playing in a Christmas program today so she gave me a preview. She's only been playing for about 2 months in her 5th grade band and I'm impressed at how much she is learning. Any time the girls take an interest in music I get excited about it.

We were looking for my old recorder yesterday. The recorder was the first musical instrument I played in school. I'd already been learning piano at age 5 so I picked up the recorder quite easily. Brittany started on the recorder and Paige is playing it now. I couldn't find it, so I'm a little worried about what has happened to it or where I may have put it. I have a couple more places to look.

During our search, we looked through an old keepsakes box that my mom had put together for me. It has some of the literature and books she got while pregnant with me and has some things up through part of junior high. My first 3 yearbooks are in there, too. The girls got a kick out of seeing how I looked then. I was the cutest boy in my classes! HAHA!! Of course, they saw pictures of my first girlfriend and other girls I had childhood crushes on. They also saw my Lex Luthor, too. HAHA!! Oh, the days of youth...

The girls fixed me a chocolate fudge cake with vanilla frosting and decorated it with blue and purple flowers and the words Happy Birthday. They did this all by themselves! I fixed my favorite dinner. We had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and corn. I make the greatest meatloaf. The trick is to keep it simple and not put unusual things in it. I've heard of people putting a layer of ham in it or vegetables and that's just insane. It's not supposed to be the fruitcake of meats. It's supposed to be tasty! Everyone that has tried it likes my meatloaf the best. My mom taught me great!

I got some good news about Christmas vacation the other day. I was planning on picking up the girls on the evening of the 22nd after work, but am now able to pick them up at 10am that day. That will allow us to use daylight for our travel to see my parents. We will get back the following Monday. I always get worried about the extra time due to past actions of the ex. She tends to try to control everything and makes it sound like it's a big deal to add extra time in seeing my girls. She usually turns out to be flexible about it, but tries to flex her supposed power if I ask to pick up the girls a day early or bring them back a day later than usual.

I've seen some good movies lately. We went to see Zathura yesterday and that is a very good family movie. My roommate rented Christmas With The Kranks and that was fun to watch, too. I stayed up late last night to watch The Devil's Rejects. Rob Zombie has been impressive in both of his movies and I like this one even better than the first. Derek also rented Herbie Fully Loaded (fun Disney movie and I love the old ones), Election (I convinced Derek to rent this classic since he'd never seen it before.), and National Lampoons Gold Diggers (horrible movie). I also watched Liar Liar again. I just love that movie.

I've also heard some great CD's lately. I bought The Darkness' One Way Ticket To Hell And Back the day it came out along with INXS' Switch. The Darkness has so many elements of Queen and they are certainly making a serious nod to their musical influences. There are still critics that believe that since the singer uses a lot of falsetto that this is some sort of joke band, but they are serious and rockin'! This is a great CD! INXS put together a very solid effort with their new singer, JD Fortune. He has 3 songwriting credits on the CD and each tune he assisted on is fantastic and very much INXS. The opening track The Devil's Party kicks things off followed by Pretty Vegas. One of the most beautiful melodies is in Afterglow. Hot Girls has a great melody line for JD to sing and kicks into some real sexy rock. The disc ends with God's Top Ten, which is another great song. There are several strong tunes on here and maybe only one or two that would be considered album tracks or filler. I've always liked INXS, but have never been a huge fan. This is a great solid first outing, I hope, with JD. I'm anxious to see if they really gel as a band on the next effor.

The most surprising CD I started listening to this week is one that was put out a year ago by the band Adriangale. Their singer is Jamie Rowe from Christian rockers Guardian. The disc is called Crunch and it does just that. There isn't a weak song on this CD and I'm surprised that it has taken me so long to get around to listening to this CD. It's a newer disc by a band that could have come straight our of the 80's or early 90's. They are unabashedly melodic rock and they are unafraid to play solos. I played this disc for a guy at work and he freaked out that there was a band putting out this strong of an effort in recent years that he hadn't heard of. He started asking if the band was touring and doing shows. I'm not certain of that, yet, but I sure hope they end up on some tour package that hits Des Moines!

Firehouse will be in Des Moines twice this month. They are joining LA Guns and Bad Company's Brian Howe for a New Year's Eve party this year. We are having a New Year's Eve party at the house so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make that show. I also have the girls next weekend so I definitely won't be hitting the Firehouse show at Keysters. This means I could end the year with only 19 concerts. New Year's Eve would be a good oppportunity to see Brian Howe, which I have never done before, and could round the year out at an even 20 concerts, though. I love LA Guns and Firehouse, so this is a tempting show. We'll see...

We lost a family friend last week. An elder in the church I mainly grew up in passed away after some recent health problems. I grew up with his kids and this man and his wife were a great example of a loving marriage. They have been in my prayers.

Derek has been kicking my backside at darts this last week. He won 5 out of 9 one night followed by 2 out of 3 the next. The last two games of those 9 were my wins by SHUTOUT!! I also hit 3 bullseyes for the 4th time. I only needed the first one, but threw the remaining two darts in my hand to accomplish this. The third night, he won the first 3 games quite easily. I went upstairs to watch The Donald fire 2 of his final 4 and then went back downstairs to beat Derek 3 in a row. At least I ended on a roll. Darts has been such great fun and it's great playing with someone on a similar skill level. We rock out to his Sirius radio account and do a lot of kidding around while playing darts so the actual playing is surprising to each of us as we really aren't that good.

Now if I can only get an exercise bike for Christmas and then start getting in shape to do some singing, this will end the year on a fun note and kick off the next year with some hope at another great year! My last time I see the girls in the year 2005 will be a wonderful Christmas at my parents' home, so there is no better way to close out this year and look forward to 2006!