23/1/97. What a day.



At brekky, I get greeted by wife and daughter singing "Happy

Birthday" at full volume. Jan then asks Julia "How old is Daddy?"

and Julia gleefully flashes her fingers up the appropriate number

of times (teaching her to count was a bad mistake)(almost as bad as

teaching her to talk). I get two birthday cards - the front cover

of one shows a bloke leaning on his verandah railing, saying "What

a beaut day. Not one chore in sight."  Open the card, and our hero

has fallen through the broken railing onto his face in the dirt.



The other card is minimalist: the cover is a simple green field

with my current age spelled out in huge stone tablets standing in

the grass. Inside is just one word: "Brutal".



I take J^2 and J^3 to daycare, and the first person to poke her

head out of the woodwork yells "Happy birthday, Roy!!" Wonderful, I

think, how many people did my loving wife tell. Memo: lace her tea

with sleepy tabs next year. Walk into the baby unit with J^3, and

there's this bloody great poster on the far wall complete with

frilly ribbons announcing "Happy Birthday Roy" in bright red and

blue. Adele, who started working here only a week ago, comes in

with a lit candle, and sings Happy Birthday to me in Italian. Hmm.

Rewrite memo.



I get to work, and the people there gently help me into my chair.

Then they wheel me out into the front office, where I get to drink

some bubbly stuff and chop up a yummy cream cake done up to look

like a XXXX can. Head buzzing, I stagger off to a fix an

underdocumented (f&%^&$!) autopilot on a cow boat, and eventually

(head buzzing) find 3 terminals that the last tech had unscrewed

and forgotten to retighten. The captain's description of what this

"tech" had done and in what order was very helpful. Without it the

job could have taken a tad (or many tads) longer. Memo: *listen* to

the customer, even if he's talking drivel.



Get home, play with kids, eat tea, then the phone starts. Only

three calls, one from southern sister, two from friends I haven't

seen in 6 or 8 years. Spend 2+ hours on the phone. Hours I could've

spent on my closet sleepers (the sleepers can wait, stupid, they

gotta dry out for a year before you can use them) (shaddup, the

mirror cleaning jig needs work)









Why *this* birthday? It isn't even prime.



--- PPoint 1.88