About time!

This post should have happened a long, long while ago...but work has been real stupid lately. There is a lot to get to, so I should get started.

1. I have some pretty amazing friends. I have really been blessed with really good friends all of my life. This is something that I don't ever want to take for granted. I love the people that I am surrounded by and they care for me deeply. Hopefully they understand that I feel the same way about them...I should tell them more often how wonderfully great they really are. Also...my friends know how to throw a party! Here is one of the many reasons why I have the greatest friends.

30th birthday time has been something that I have been dreading for a little while now. I remember as a kid thinking about how you are old when you turn 30. This, added on top of my parents expecting me to have done more with my life by the time I turned 30, meant that I was not the most thrilled person when it came to April 18th of 2009. I didn't want to spend my day thinking about how I had just turned thirty years old...and I certainly didn't.

It all started with an open mic at Janine's where I had invited a bunch of people to share something from their childhood. Themes From Your Childhood went really, really well and was really laid back. A couple of good friends had come up from Iowa for the birthday weekend, and one of them got up and performed for the first time in front on an audience. Same thing with my friend Andrew too. He sang and played a song on the guitar for the first time in front of an audience. Happy birthday to me!

We started our day at 11am by going to brunch at Hell's Kitchen (there were probably 15 people in our group), this place in Minneapolis that I had heard had great peanut butter. They did have great peanut butter...and the place looked pretty cool too. I was really creeped out by the pictures hanging in the bathroom. As you moved past them, they morphed from sweet looking children or grandfathers to ghoulish figures. I didn't like it all that much because I am already a little creeped out by bathrooms (mostly dark bathrooms, but bathrooms are scary to me in general). The food was pretty good, but now that I have gone there...I don't know that I ever need to go back.

After brunch a few of us walked over to Gameworks and met some more people there. A friend from one of my past jobs in Minneapolis from about five years ago was there, so that was fun. For those of you who don't know, Gameworks is a Sega owned, video game bar...with bowling. Phew. I think that is it. It is a pretty sweet joint, but I hear it is being put up for rent...anyway, beside the point. Gameworks was awesome. I played a LOT of Time Crisis Four, some Dance Dance Revolution, a jet flying game that you couldn't lose at (I tried crashing into the ground but it would no let me), some CRAZY air hockey that was two vs two and had about 4 pucks going at one time, speed skeeball, and a giant racing game in which all of us could play together at one time. I spent most of my time laughing and playing. It was awesome. I got an engineer hat and a magic growing egg and some candy to share with everyone with the tickets we all won. It was pretty spectacular.

Then, we had to RUN back to the cars and drive to the next location. Keep in mind that all of these activities were all surprises. I had no idea what any of them were. We finally arrived at our destination which was...the Parade Ice Garden, an ice skating facility that the MN Wild (my favorite hockey team) practices at. I was pretty pumped to go skating, but then I saw Andrew and Blake pull my hockey bag and sticks out of Andrew's car. "They won't let you use that during open skating," I said. "Oh," they responded. We entered the building and it was pretty quiet in there. Out in front of us was the freshly cleared ice. Zamboni smooth. "Alright. Go," Andrew says. "WHAT!?! Out there? THE WHOLE THING!!?!" I ran down as quickly as I could and put on my skates. We had the WHOLE rink...all to ourselves. The WILD practice rink! It. Was. Awesome. Pictures were taken, slap shots rang off the glass, penguin slides where done across the Wild logo. Kyle M skated for the first time EVER and was great! We played a game of H-O-R-S-E out there. Gosh. It was amazing.

Then, after that we went to a meat store and bought stuff to grill at a park. We played outside, ate a lot of food, and talked a lot. We watched a deer walk around the park in the middle of the city, which was weird. We ate Zots, which were great and reminded me of being in middle school and buying those delicious candies at the gas station on the way home.

After we finished up our food and made a quick rest stop at a gas station bathroom, we made it back to the house. More people joined us here and Andrew presented the unbelievable cake. It was my favorite dinosaur, the ankylosaurus. As soon as I get some pictures from the birthday, I will post them, but right now I don't actually have any. Here is a picture of the dino though:

The cake looked and tasted amazing. My favorite frosting, rainbow chip, was dyed green and used all over this tastey beast. We all ate cake and had some drinks. They had made a trip to WI and bought my favorite drink (which you can only get in WI), which was given and then told to go outside. Into the backyard which had been tranformed into a dreamland or an Elf village. There was a firepit with a great fire going. There were candles hung from the tree, which made it look like there were little fairies hovering around the tree. It was beautiful. Then we had some sparklers and played with those. Then my friend Joe played and sang a song that he had re-written for me. It was very funny and nice. Then everyone told stories about me. That was really cool. I liked that a lot. We all just sat around and swapped stories. I think even the people who didn't have stories enjoyed that. It was just really, really nice. Amazing friends, I'm telling ya.

2. SCOOTER!

I finally got my scooter! Now I just need to get the license plates and all that and I am golden! I can't wait. I have driven it around the block a few times and it is really nice and sturdy. Very nice. More pictures to come of that and me riding it.

3. NO MORE CRAPPY JOB!!!

Starting in September I will no longer be working here. Thank goodness. It has been two years longer than expected, but I told myself when I started that I would HAVE to leave when we reached order number 3000000. We are currently at 2927793 which meant I didn't have any more time. I had been looking for a new job for a looooong time, but had just recently (within 6 months) started looking at teaching programs overseas. And now, I am going to South Korea to teach English. I need to get my work visa, but after that is done...I am official. The time that I am leaving is set for September, so I have all summer to enjoy. I look forward to the experience and you will for sure be hearing/reading more about this adventure in my life.

4. my beard is gone. sad. I am really sad about this. I had to shave it off for a show that I am doing at the end of May. The show is The Saved By The Bell Show and we basically do an episode of the show on stage. Pretty fun stuff if you liked the show at all. More details on that later too.

Right now...I have to do some more work.

Thanks for reading. Hope you are all doing well.