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My birthday was a little over a month ago, and to celebrate I had the 40th birthday party I didn't have when I was 40. For those of you who are wondering "where the hell was my invitation?", it was a rather limited affair that was just a few people I work/worked with having fondue and ice cream cake from Ring Mountain around our new table and not bringing me presents. At least those were the instructions. I guess I could claim it was people who have worked with me since the Unity days or just after (e.g. about 10 years ago), but given how the last Unity joke I saw went over on Facebook, I'll just stay away from that as a descriptor. Even with the limited group, Pooteewheet and I ran out of nice silverware and china. We did manage to create two kinds of vegan fondue, which was something of an experiment given the rule many vegans insisted upon on the internets, "don't use vegan cheese!" We ended up using nuts for one and nutritional yeast for the other. Both were very good.

• Ming and family gave me a very cool black geocaching jacket with the official geocaching logo on it. I'll be the coolest guy covered in ticks.
• Klund and family gave me a dinosaur geobug. I believe Eli provided the dinosaur. I have yet to place it, because it's cold outside. I need to remember to take its picture and come up with some sort of goal. Perhaps I could ask each person who finds it to work toward the extinction of some species. That would be unique.
• My inlaws gave me a gift card to Best Buy. I used it to buy a replacement cord for the Wii which Luna ate shortly after we got her and which caused no end of Rock Band II and related Wii issues the night of the party. And I bought a Wii game called Mad World which is definitely something Eryn is not allowed near because there's constant swearing and smack talk, profanity laden theme music, and violent death by chainsaw, street sign, and spikes.
• My parents gave me a gift card to Surdyk's. We tried to get over there after our anniversary dinner, but failed. Soon, however, I'll have another two bottles of scotch I won't be able to drink because I'm not managing to even bike five hours, let alone any multiples of five, which is my new rule around drinking scotch. They also bought me a cool coffee table book about beer.
• Eryn and Pooteewheet bought me some Marvin the Martian collectibles, one made of porcelin and gold that someday I can sell to Cash 4 Gold if I lose my job, and one made out of metal. They're on display in the Marvin cookie jar and bank display case.
• Kyle bought me scotch. It's subject to the five hour rule, so I have yet to try it. But it's the first bottle I'll tackle once I've biked enough. Sank, who wants the game in the next bullet, is a scotch drinker, so I may have to bike five hours before I go to drop off the game.
• Mean Mr. Mustard and family gave me back the game I gave him for his birthday last year claiming it's just not his thing. Fortunately, Sank wants it and I was able to send Mr. Mustard a nice write up from BoardGameGeek where a guy mentioned his father smiled for the first time since his partner died when he got his copy of the Menorah game. I went with a completely different path for his gift this year based on that feedback, so if he doesn't like this birthday present (currently on back order) he has no one to blame but himself. Really - it's almost like I had nothing to do with it. He and his family did get me a Penzy's Hot Chocolate set as well, part of which is almost gone.
• She Says sent me a picture of her father and a friend or uncle with their bicycles. Black and white. Pooteewheet framed it for me and it's hanging from a prominent spot in our living room.

Thank you to everyone!