New computer is new

I'm a computer guy.

Some guys are car guys. They love cars. Even if they don't have a 'pimp' car, they know car stats and car stuff and they make psuedo-obscene monkey noises when an awesome car rolls by. For some guys, it's boats. Or guns. Or tools. Or whatever thing it is.

Very Good Day

This is my third attempt to write a blog for this week.

The first attempt was a boring and dismal failure, talking about the death of my old computer and getting a new one. Big news in my life, but not really the stuff folk want to read about. I was kinda proud of it, too. It had links to the computer's specs and it talked about how annoying (humiliating) it is for me as an an IT professional, (after a fashion. If you squint real hard at my job) to know nothing about Windows 7 - not even enough to know which version I would need for what I do.

Boring. I still wanted to write about it and I still might, if I can find a way to make it remotely interesting to the rest of you.

The second was about responsibility. A bit philosophical, but boring.

Instead, I'll tell you about my Very Good Day and my Very Good News.

The Very Good News is that by the time I get this posted, I will have been dating (officially) my girl for six months. Yay us! Truth to tell, I never thought I would write something like that every again. But, there it is. Just goes to show that things can work out way more awesome than I think they can.

And before you go hide under your desk from my flood of words, I'm not going to give you a 'how we met' story. Seriously overrated, writing those down. Especially since this one is a lot of me banging my head on my desk saying "Bad me. No treat. Cannot has girl."

When, in reality, I could have. And do.

No. It is today that was very good.

2011

This post brought to you a week late by computer failure, utter exhaustion and insane amounts of work.

I am thirty years old.

It's odd how much that surprises me. It's almost like I didn't expect I would make it this far - that somehow, reality would somehow stop and I wouldn't turn thirty. I can't even claim I didn't see it coming because eighteen months ago, I was pretty worried about turning thirty.

Why (w)angst over it? Because I'm supposed to! Didn't you know? Thirty is the beginning of 'middle age' and soon that slow, inevitable decline into decrepitude will begin. The fun, good part of life is ending!

Or, so I'm told.

Yeah. I call bullshit.

I once wrote about the new year being an arbitrary starting over point; most age milestones are the same thing. I often call it 'magic number theory' - the idea, propagated by popular culture and social conventions, that having lived a specific amount of time automatically confers necessary knowledge, wisdom and skills.

It's especially apparently supposed to be a bit like leveling up in a video/computer/role-playing game. There will be a cool sound effect, some lights, maybe some sparkles and - boom! - you just suddenly know and understand. When you hit the magic number, you suddenly grok life.

(Of course, when you hit this arbitrary benchmark and you don't suddenly get new knowledge, wisdom and skill, you can't very well admit to everyone else you didn't get your level up, now can you? After all, they obviously did. It is most imperative and important that you pretend, because no one should know you don't have it all figured out yet. But only for a little while, because surely next year will be the magic number!)

Just for the record - thirty is not my magic number.