The Big Three Oh

Tonight, I am 29, and tomorrow morning, December 1st, I will turn 30. Hot damn! That decade just flew by! The whole decade thing is not that big of a deal to me because I feel like we count things by tens only for neurological convenience… not to mention that no other animal gives a damn about the number ten.

But still…

When you reach a decade mark in your life, you can’t help but reflect on previous decades and measure expectations for the coming one. Rather than write a sappy, rambling essay about life and what my place in it is, I just wanted to sum up my three decades so far with one (run-on) sentence each and then spell out some goals on the record with the hopes that I might actually follow through on them:

Age 0-9: I was a standout wiseass in school, got in trouble quite a bit, and eventually learned to treat formalized education like a beneficial experience.

Age 10-19: My family moved from Pacific Palisades, CA to Seattle, WA, I grew to love the Northwest, and I drank my way through high school and into the University of Washington School of Business.

Age 20-29: My career focus landed decisively in advertising, design, and the creative arts, at one point I was one signature away from a nice early retirement, and now I have a great job that I love.

And that’s that.

I don’t really have any spectacular promises to make for the next ten years, but I have a few things I want to do:

• Buy a house in the South of France. Nice would be nice. A buddy and I decided in college that we’d go in on a summer home there. My target age was 34. Time to make good.
• Get married. (Note to self: requires girlfriend)
• Start thinking in seven figures. We’re on the verge of another, slightly more sane, tech boom, and I plan on doing a good amount of the booming.
• Make various unspecified health improvements. I treat my body like a temple, but only the sort of temple you’re allowed to throw concerts in occasionally.
• Drink a lot more water. That’s an easy one. Anyone know if this is really worth it? I’ve always thought the whole “8 tall glasses of water per day” campaign was a bit of a scam.
• Dive the top ten dives in the world. I’ve already done one in Kona, Hawaii and it was the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen — television, movies, and all other things included. I’ll take nine more of those please.

And finally, I hope that the next time one of these decade marks passes, my country will be a bit more popular around the world again. Or else, I’ll be writing you from Cascadia. :)

Congratulations Boston

Congratulations Boston on your well-deserved World Series victory tonight. It’s been 86 years and you deserve every ounce of credit for the most amazing comeback in baseball history.

Coming into the Series, one would have thought Boston’s toughest task would be getting by the Cardinals. Instead, it turned out to be getting through the 7th inning of tonight’s game when someone inexplicably let the lead singer of Creed on the field to sing God Bless America.

Such a shame to have to share the spotlight with Scott Stapp.

I smell another curse…

The Curse is (Almost) Lifted

I grew up on baseball. From watching games, to collecting cards, to little league, to high school ball, and then back to just watching games, baseball has been a common fixture in my life since I was six years old. In 1986, when I was 12, I had my first major formative baseball moment in the form of the 1986 World Series.

Living in Los Angeles at the time, I had just endured a brutal American League Championship Series with Boston’s Dave Henderson homering off Donnie Moore to eliminate our beloved California Angels and advance the Red Sox to the World Series. The homer was such a powerful event that it not only crushed the Angels but it also led to the eventually suicide of the pitcher who threw the pitch.

Furious at the Red Sox for beating the Angels, I adopted their World Series opponent, the New York Mets, as my favorite team of the moment. I watched the entire Series thinking Boston was going to win. They played a great Series and had the Mets down to their final out in the 10th inning of Game 6.

And then I was introduced to the Curse.
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