#The40 has arrived

Well, it actually arrived a few days ago.

I awoke the day of my fortieth birthday not unlike the day of my thirtieth birthday. It felt no different than any other day, only I was off to Universal Studios with Tifferbee. I corralled Shazam into his carry on, and deposited him at the Wag Hotel, then quickly packed a few things for the one night stay-over. In typical fashion, I forgot not one, but two things: my mouthwash and an extra undershirt for the second day.

What I also neglected to account for was the time it would take to accomplish the above items, and BART to the airport. By the time I got there, I was outside of the forty five minute window to check my luggage without it being tagged as late. This resulted in me having to wait at the Burbank Airport, a sad little place compared to the opulence of SFO, for two hours until the next plane from SF landed.

It was then off to the hotel where Tifferbee quickly met up with me, and we were off to Universal. It was a blisteringly hot day, so I was all shorts, hat, and sunblock. But we accomplished a lot in just the few hours we had. One thing about Universal is that most of the rides are that motion-simulated kind like Star Tours where you have to focus on the screen so that your mind actually believes you are experiencing real forward movement. Poor Tifferbee had to shut her eyes on most of these rides, but hey, overall, we had good times, terrible food, and didn't have to wait in line for hours since it was a weekday. I was thrilled to be able to celebrate this landmark birthday with a good friend, and one who had also been there for my thirtieth. When we were in the hotel at one point, she said, "So what are we going to do for your fiftieth birthday?" I kind of went agog at the thought.

So it came, it went, and I'm on my last day which I took off for good measure as I need to clean the apartment, possibly do some shopping, and, if I can manage it, maybe work out.

I made the mistake of logging onto my work email and seeing the joy that awaits me when I return to the office tomorrow. We are at the tail end of our bonus process, so things are ramping up. For additional fun, I recently made a rather large overpayment error with a new VP that I have been trying to reconcile. My VP, who is all business and doesn't forget such oversights, has had to intervene, so things aren't looking too swell for my performance evaluation despite the fact that there are literally thousands of other transactions I oversee that are executed flawlessly.

What can ya do?

I'm owning it and will be part of the process improvement team, and just hope the matter fades into the recesses of memory sooner as opposed to later.

Other than that, I'm going to enjoy the last bit of my five-day bday weekend.