Thanks for All The (Birthday) Fishes!

Today is my 42nd birthday.  I decided years ago that 42 was my favorite number.  Mostly because I like to be unique and who chooses a number in the 40's to be their favorite??  Most people choose 7 – but how dull is that?!   42 is all around, if you keep an eye open for it.  I think there are a lot of geeks who participate in the production of today's pop culture that have read and absorbed Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy.    For those of you who have not read those books and are thinking, "huh?":  In the first book, near the middle to end of it, the number 42 is revealed to be the answer to the ultimate question of "Life, The Universe, and Everything" by a supercomputer named Deep Thought, specially built to come up with the answer to the ultimate question by highly intelligent beings. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and double check the answer, which, as I've already let out of the bag, is 42. Unfortunately, no one thought to ask Deep Thought what the "ultimate" question was, so they aren't happy to hear that the answer is 42.  They ask Deep Thought was the question was and he says that he can't come up with it, but he can help build another computer that can.  They build this computer (the planet Earth) and it takes 10 million years for it to compute the question, but seconds before it finishes its computations, it gets destroyed to make way for the construction of a planetary superhighway.    The above snippet is, of course, only a small part of the story, and is also only what my increasingly aged mind can recall of the story, as it's been a while since I read the book.    My regular readers know that I've always seemed to be easily distracted (those darned chickens, you know) so the lights were on, but you couldn't be guaranteed that anyone was home, you know?  But since the day I turned 40, I mean down to the minute, those lights started flickering a lot – in fact I think one of the bulbs went out completely.    However, my main point is that today is my birthday and as of this moment, I've had a very nice day.  I slept in, mostly due to the fact that I'm fighting a sinus infection and mom hasn't been waking me up to walk since I've been sick.  We dosed Oscar up with her meds and she was a sweety to deal with and I went to work.  I made my usual stop by McD's for some iced tea, but since it is my b-day, I allowed myself to get sweet tea.  uhh…, sweet tea...mmmm....   I got to work, and there was a spread set out on my desk of cookies, donuts, a fruit tray with some yummy dip, and cheese and crackers.  And for dinner, Mom, BK (regular reader Becky), and I went out to Western Ribeye.  I am nothing if not a carnivore, but the incredibly good steak at WR is almost secondary to the salad bar.  See it's just your usual salad bar, but at the end of it, there are two things that I could fill myself up on... 1) a mondo wheel of cheese - although looking at the mondo wheel of cheese, it seems smaller in real life than it is in my memories.  Sort of depressing.  But I carved off quite a hunk and chowed it all down.  ummm.... cheese!  oh, and 2) the tub-o-apple butter along with the butter and bread.  In retrospect, I could (and should) have did like Mom and BK and just had the salad bar, but the prospect of a good hunk of beef had been what got me through the week, so I couldn't resist.  I suppose I could have taken the steak to go.  I'll have to consider that next time.   So now here I am, home, stuffed with beef and cheese, and happy.  I'm trying to post this, but my computer isn't cooperating, so I'm going to have to go to bed and post in the morning.  Don't let the posting date fool you, though, this is my O-fficial birthday posting and we're off to a good year, I can tell.  By this time next year, I will hopefully have my new iPhone, a new vehicle of some sort, and will have just got back from a trip with Mom and the Sibs to England.  Good things all.