I know my clock probably isn't exactly on the right time, but it's currently reading 12:21, and I'm sure it's close enough for me to say that it is officially my 22nd birthday.  This will be the first birthday I can remember when I've done nothing -- and by nothing I mean absolutely nothing -- in relation to the special-ness of the date.  I just toasted my birthday with some excellent rum with some friends who were over for something completely unrelated.  Unfortunately, I was the only person who enjoyed the rum.  'Course, it's spiced rum, so that might have something to do with it, and it's sweet and kinda thick, but I quite enjoy it.  Captain Morgan's Reserve Stock, I believe, or something like that.
 
My 22nd birthday, and the lack of fanfare accompanying it, has led me to wax introspective about the future of birthdays...  It's my 22nd birthday.  It's a little bit special for being the first birthday that isn't really special.  Let's say I can remember back to my 4th birthday.  I can't, but let's say I can.  That was really cool.  I mean, I was four, for cryin' out loud.  No longer "free." (That's how I used to say "three.")  Then five came along, and with it the promise of starting kindergarten.  Six was first grade.  That's a really special thing, since kindergarten isn't really school in the way I've since thought of it.  Seven was second grade.  Hell, anything up to 18 started a new grade, and that was a reason for that birthday to be cool.  I remember being ten, and starting fifth grade.  The last grade of elementary school.  Yay!  Also, it meant I had finished an entire decade of life, and to commemorate the fact we started recording my age using two digits.  Whoah, Nelly!  Eleven started junior high, twelve was the year before I became a teen, thirteen was the year I became a teen, fourteen saw me starting high school, fifteen meant I was old enough to think of myself as a "seasoned" teenager.  Not fourteen, not thirteen, but a whole fifteen!  Besides which, at fifteen-and-a-half I was eligible for a learner's permit.  Sixteen meant I was eligible for a driver's license, and a genuine upperclassman.  Seventeen meant I was a senior, and able to see rated-R movies alone if I so chose.  Eighteen meant I had graduated high school, was moving into college, and was a genuine adult.  Nineteen was my last year of being a teenager, twenty marked two decades, twenty-one meant I was old enough to drink, gamble, and buy firearms, and marked my last year as an undergraduate from college.  And now I'm 22.  I've already graduated, I'm getting a job, I don't see my friends anymore because I live in BFE...  Twenty-two is only special, so far as I can see, in that it isn't special.  And from here on out, the "special" birthdays spread apart.  At twenty-five, my insurance rates will go down.  I suppose every decade is kinda special.  At sixty-five I can celebrate the fact that I've reached retirement age...  What do birthdays mean these days?  I've gotten past the age where people will organize a celebration for me, I suppose.  I went to a surprise party last night for a friend of our's.  'Course, she was turning 21, and that's a pretty special age, but I wonder...  Nobody's ever done anything like that for me.  I've always known in advance about all of my birthday parties and such...  Is the anniversary of my birth really all that important anymore?  We hardly do anything for my parents' birthdays.  We get Dad a new rod and reel, perhaps, and buy Mom some new jewelry or a really good movie, and maybe go out to dinner...  Is this the steady trend to which I can look forward?  In twenty years, will I be sitting watching TV alone on my birthday and look back on my 21st birthday party, to which more than fifty people showed up, as nothing more than an icon of the halcyon days of my youth?  I feel terrible...  We left my Mom alone, eating popcorn and drinking soda while watching a movie, one her birthday so that we could go out and celebrate with Laura Ann, because her birthday was the following night and she wanted to go to College Station where the bars don't close until 2:00 am, so she could get a drink at midnight.  I left my own mother, for goodness's sake, to go out and celebrate with a girl on whom I have a huge crush, but barely talks to me...  I know I become more jaded and cynical as the years go by, but I can't help but wonder...  From here on out, will I come to view the anniversary of my birth as nothing more than another day, or should I start trying to make it as special as it always was in years past?  I think it's too late for this year, but maybe for twenty-three...
 
In other news, I'm thinking of working on my Firehead account and posting some recent projects of mine on it.  I know I said that before, too, but this time I mean it.  (c;  In the three days since turning in my project -- formerly my thesis -- I've managed to write a program that displays every star in every constellation in the sky, and quite a few others besides.  Actually, I think the number of stars in all the constellations number fewer than a thousand, and my program displays 4784 stars.  Right now it's running under Direct3D 9, but I'm going to port it to OpenGL before too much longer.  OpenGL is much easier to download and run programs like that for.  Next step in the program is to get it to center itself on the constellations in order, and perhaps open another window to display data about each constellation in turn.  I'll keep posting updates to my blog as I work on it.
 
That's it.  Everyone wish me a happy birthday.  And the party's been moved to Friday, the 23rd.  'Course, it's not really my party, it's for Melissa, whose birthday is on the 19th, but it's close enough.  You're all welcome to come if you want.