As mentioned, I’m now fifty; about the only major change from two days ago is that I am no longer in a demographic where TV executives care what I think.

But yesterday was certainly an interesting day. It started out with a birthday kiss from my seven-year-old (how did she know that was exactly what I wanted?), and other gifts - Good Night and Good Luck (fortuitously released the day before) and the PlayStation2-based 24 - The Game. It should be noted there are two problems with this: 1) I don’t yet own a PlayStation, and 2) there’s no bloody way in hades I’ll ever be able to operate a controller with a bazillion buttons, all of which appear to control something. My idea of a video game is Pong. (Or Missile Command, which in my misspent youth I became quite expert at playing. For those of you born well after this game was gathering dust in warehouses, it had this really big trackball…)

The rest of the day was interesting, too; after seeing the Katester off to school, my wife took me out for breakfast to the local grocery store, where she ponied up for a coffee and two donuts (it was my birthday anniversary, after all). Lunch was even better; she took me out to the local elementary school which just happens to have the cutest little redhead in a grade 2 class…while we “enjoyed” nacho dippers, we were entertained by the “Katie and Ashleigh Show,” and I was honored to sit next to the Burpmeister, who serenaded me throughout lunch.

I am forced on pain of death to note here that even though Annie had late office hours, she still supplied a dinner fit for an old man, by bringing home takeout from our favorite Italian restaurant, Al Dente; by the end of that meal, I could feel the cholesterol coursing through my veins bringing her one step closer to that insurance policy…but darn, it was good…

Of course, today I’m “working off” the day by trying to catch up on all the things I let go while sitting around and reading a book (First Man by James R. Hansen, the biography of one of my personal heroes, Professor Neil A. Armstrong). As always, while I enjoy the day away from keyboards, email, and programming, I’m almost always grateful to get back to it.

Now if I can just get the BobEdwards.Info calendar of previous guests filled in for the last few days, and the OTR Digest issues filed and away, and…and…hum, there seems to be a lot I need to catch up on…