Happy birthday, Double Down!

Man, this is kind of freaking me out. I had no idea anyone knew it was my birthday. Is 2muchcoffeeman hiding behind my couch? Did my mom call you?

What's funny about me turning 30 is when I met both BYH and Ragu last summer, they both confessed they thought I'd be much older, much more grizzled and gray. Apparently I type older. Which means I probably could have snuck into the SportsJournalists.com bar when I was 16 as long as I had a decent fake ID.

Thanks so much to all of you. (Even you shockey.)

I was thinking earlier this week about penning a 2,000-word post that was something of a lament to all the things I wish I'd done before I turned tres zero, but the more I thought about it, the more lame that seemed. In the end, I've been a pretty lucky guy and I've done a lot of cool things and been befriended by a lot of very cool people. Many of them on this site. Many are friendships I will treasure until I am gray and grizzled. Even if I never know them beyond their screen names.

So, since I'm a little embarrassed to have an entire thread started about me, here is what I'm doing: As Mr. jgmacg so cryptically alluded to, in my next thirty years, I'd like to do less looking down and more looking forward while walking the great tightrope of life. These are just a few of the things I'd like to do in my next 30. Hopes, goals, dreams of the waking. Cheesy, I'm certain. But me. Please leave some of your own below:

-I want to be a father.

-I want to be a better father than my dad was, even though he's a good man who set the bar high (except on the golf course). Someday, I'd like my own unborn son to be an even better father to his son than I was to him.

-I want to learn to play the guitar. Not like Clapton or Hendrix, but just enough to strum that sumbtich while sitting around an Alberta campfire singing funny songs with my Irish family. And maybe if that goes well, I'll branch out to coffee shops with open mic nights.

-I want to write for a magazine. Even if it's just as a freelancer. I want to slip into Barnes and Noble on a Thursday and see my byline on glossy pages and buy five copies and just sit and look at them.

-I want to stand on a beach in New Zealand and see the curve of the earth.

-I want to live in NYC, and explore some of its many mysteries, even if my stay is only temporary. I want to ride the subway to Queens and catch a Mets game and then zip down to Brooklyn for pizza. I want to listen to jazz and read the Sunday New York Times in full.

-I want to shoot par. I want to go driver, four iron, then 15-footer for eagle. I want to make a damn eagle. I've lipped out too many for one lifetime.

-I want to cast a line with the perfect arc and catch a fish, then let him go. My mom has spent a lifetime in waders, plucking rainbow trout out of clear mountain waters, and I've never gone with her. That will change.

-I want see my own son catch a pass over the middle and hold my breath until he pops up after a tackle. I want to see my daughter score a goal by whipping a shot behind her head and then I want to see her hold her lacrosse stick in the air with a cocky grin on her face. I want to see both of them born. I want to see them fall in love. I want to be there when they get their hearts broken. I want to teach them all I know and learn from them too.

-I want to teach. I want to hand out copies of The Things They Carried and explain to a group of bugeyed sophomores why I think it's one of the best books ever written.

-I want to see a Bears-Packers game in Lambeau. And a cricket match between India and Pakistan. A soccer match between Manchester United and the Arsenal. Another Sox-Yankees game in Yankee Stadium. I want to see Federer on Centre Court.

-I want to see some of my friends, the ones who I've spent countless hours with in pubs and restaurants discussing our journalism dreams, kick ass and get published and get on a masthead somewhere. And I want to be happy for them, even if it doesn't happen for me.

-I want to write a pilot. Or a screenplay. Or even a just a spec script. Something that forces me to take a chance.

-I want to be a good husband. Faithful, respectful, honest and understanding. I want to tell my wife all the time that I love her, even when things get rough, which they kind of are right now (but we're working on it).

-I want to share a lot of laughs and a lot of pints with people on this board, all of whom, in their own way, make this a wonderful place.


Your turn.

Anything you want to do in your next 30. Or 20. Or 10. Or tomorrow.

 

Nah, dude ... the AI that runs the fallout shelter keeps track of these things. (And you should have seen what it ordered and shipped to me last week for my Four-Zero moment.)

 

Honestly, and I'm not trying to get all slurpy-sappy here, but that post above is one of the top five ever to come across on this board.

DD, that was awesome stuff.

 

DD scores again. You're supposed to get the presents on your birthday, not give us gems like this.

 

Now, now, gang. While I run and put my head in the freezer before it baloons to the size of Barry Bonds' mug on rhinoceros growth hormone from all this birthday flattery, you get busy whipping out your own lists.

 

Just can't pull the trigger. :-\

 

'Scuse me while I whip this out.

 

True story.
I'm past 40, but I ordered a guitar today on e-bay.
Retailed for 149$, it said, but I got it and its case for under 50.
Brand new.
I want to learn, too.
Happy Birthday, DD

 

Ain't nothing wrong with a little dreaming, dools, big or small. You don't have to share the big stuff, but it feels cathartic to tap down one or two and see where it leads ya. As Twain said "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

You've got to dream it before you can live it.

Atta boy, Blitz.

 

That's not what I meant. I meant that I just couldn't pull off the fun with the quote function involving you telling people to whip something out.

 

Well now. My Dead Poets Society-esq call to arms certainly seems nerdy when viewed in the context of penis humor. Curses.