A Memorable Day and a Very Humbling Week

When I was a kid, my birthday was one of my favorite days of the year... right up there with Christmas and the first day of summer.

Now that I'm in my mid 40's, it has sort of lost its luster.  Outside of looking forward to having dinner with my best friend whose birthday comes the day before mine, there's only one other reason it remains relevant.  My Birthday PC.

However this year was different.

My friend who teaches next door to me brought balloons and a huge bag of jalapeño and cheese popcorn before school.  A few minutes later my best friend called and told me to stop by her school during my prep period.  She ordered one of my favorite morning treats... an egg and chorizo breakfast burrito from La Victoria Taqueria.

When I got back to school, I walked through the office to tell the secretary I was back.  That's when she showed me the Edible Arrangements that had just been delivered.  It was sent by my other best friend who just moved to Portland.  I was still full from the burrito, so I decided to hold off on eating it and brought it to the staff lounge to share with my colleagues at lunch.

I had planned on snacking on the fruit for lunch, but a few of my other friends surprised me with pizza, salad, and cupcakes.  By the time I was finished, I was stuffed.

A few of my students also found out that it was my birthday.  I received a few thoughtful notes and cards.  Plus my 4th period class made a poster and signed it.  One of my 6th period students is a younger sibling to a former student who is in the 10th grade.  She and her friend painted this poster for me:

You can't see it, but they also wrote two really nice notes on the back.  There's absolutely nothing better (not even my '56 Robinson or a twelve ounce juicy cut of rib eye) than being thanked by a former student.  I seriously have the greatest job in the world.

After school, three more former students stopped by and delivered a card along with a bunch of gifts.  We hung out and they talked about their first three weeks of high school.  It was really nice to catch up with them.

I wrapped up my special day by going out to dinner with another friend and then coming home knowing I have a three day weekend ahead of me.

Talk about a birthday to remember.  I am truly blessed to have such wonderful family members, friends, colleagues, and students who took a run of the mill birthday and turned it into one of the most memorable days in recent years.  I know that most of them don't read my blog, but if by chance any of them do...

Thank you!

And before I forget, here are the two items I added to my Birthday PC this past year...

There was a brief period where I went through a comic book phase last year.  That's when I decided to start collecting some of the more popular Marvel titles from my birth month.  The goal is to one day hang them up in these special frames I purchased from Michaels awhile back.  Unfortunately, I just don't have the wall space at the moment.

I also picked up these two autographs last summer:

How do these guys fit into my Birthday PC?

Well Carty was one of nine players who hit a home run on the day I was born.  And Stottlemyre was one of five guys who pitched a shutout that day.  My goal is to eventually own autographs of all fourteen of these players, as well as the three players who collected four hits that day.

I'll close things out with a preview of the birthday present I purchased for myself:

A few weeks ago I found a few packs of this product laying around, so I opened them up and was absolutely blown away by it.  Obviously designed for kids, the cards feature all of the top MLB stars with colorful cartoon backgrounds.  The card backs are even better than the fronts.  If you've never seen these before, you can check out the review I wrote over on A Pack To Be Named Later.

I enjoyed the product so much, I found a box over on eBay for $11 shipped.  If you're interested, the seller still have a bunch of boxes remaining.  I submitted an offer of $3.10 and he accepted.

Anyways... I'll be busting this box either today or tomorrow and will share my results in a future post.

Until then...

My thoughts are with all of you who have been affected (or know someone who was affected) by Hurricane Harvey.  Living here in the Bay Area, I've dealt with a few large earthquakes... but nothing even close to what I saw on television this past week.  Seeing the devastation caused by this natural disaster was truly humbling.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!