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So I’m sitting at a stoplight this morning when I realize there’s a blue new style Mustang in my rear-view mirror. They’re striking, I admit, and was considering getting one after multiple years of admiration, right up until the point that I realized Ford’s reliability sucks huge donkey nuts.

Then, what should catch my eye in my left mirror, but a red one of the exact same model?

Then, across the intersection, I spy a yellow one!

Yellow never belongs on a car, sorry. At any rate, I felt like I was smack in the middle of some sort of Crayola-sponsored event. About two streets later, I also saw a black one.. of an earlier model year.

Which of course created a great printing joke I couldn’t pass up.

- Pete!

This is a really sore memory for me.. I don’t even recall which birthday it was, but I remember I was living back on Lemon Circle so it was definitely in my teens. I was given a birthday gift by my brother Robert. It was a fuzzy poster of a knight on a dragon that he had colored in with markers. It was an odd sort of gift (to his credit, I’m very difficult to buy for) …but that wasn’t really important. It was the first birthday gift he had ever given me (or any of my brothers, for that matter, that I can recall) and I treated it with the same disdain that I had for anyone who showed me any kind of family attention back then. I made some sort of confused expression and my lack of enthusiasm for the gift was quite apparent. A little bit later, in an attempt to salvage the gift, I began to fill in his coloring job with some shading and whatnot. He saw me doing this, and to this day I don’t know how he felt about it.. I don’t think he ever did give me another gift.

Anyhow… If you ever read this, Robert, I’m sorry for my thoughtlessness.

- Pete

So I’m 30 today. I was thinking that I didn’t particularly feel all that different from before, but actually, that’s not true. I’ve made some progress and it’s all good. I know I was going to blog about my memories here, but this birthday reminded me of something I don’t have memories of — my prior birthdays. I was raised Jehovah’s Witness, and as such, we didn’t make a very big deal out of holidays and birthdays. Even though I’m no longer a Witness, I just never did get the hang of having big birthday bashes. I really can’t think of any memories of mine that happened on my birthday.

As for progress.. Time for a little 30th birthday bragging (kinda!)

On my 28th birthday, I was married and worked at an Ohio Walmart for chump change, and drove an Oldsmobile around in some pretty miserable snowy weather.

At my 29th, I was separated, driving the same “couch on wheels” Olds around sunny southern California, making good money doing tech support for a fantastic company.

Now, as I turn 30, I’m a fully divorced, single SoCal citizen, making serious bank doing my favorite thing (programming) at that same fantastic company.. and I’ve upgraded that car a bit.

‘Til next year.

- Pete!