The day finally got here. I still have a few hours before I officially turn 45 (I was an afternoon baby and it's not noon yet) but before I left to take the bus to work I got a call from my mother. Though I'm working today, Monday, I have the rest of the week off.

By the time I publish this, I'll be back from my mini trip. I've hinted at a surprise or something special to a lot of people but I haven't gone into details on what I'm doing for my birthday. Such is the slight dilemma I find myself facing.

Tomorrow I head off for a trip; first to San Diego and then across the border to Mexico. Now, the past week there has been a lot about the swine flu virus in Mexico. I've checked the reports and up until this morning everything was confined to Mexico City and small spots in the United States. This morning a health emergency was issued and a travel advisory given.

Part of me, because of all the news, wants to cancel out, but in a city of 10 million having 20 people die and maybe 300 infected is a small number. Also, I'm not going to be in Mexico City, just across the border. While I'm concerned I'm pretty sure I'm going to be OK.

The reason for the trip is a promise I made to myself five years ago. When I turned 40 I had no jo b, just losing it a few months earlier, I had high rent, and all the pain and confusion people feel about the economy now I went through when I was 40. I didn't have much but the little bit of time and money I had I was determined to make the best of it. I ended up having a rather interesting 40th birthday, considering the budget. I promised myself things would get better so when I got to be 45, I was going to do things right.

Soon after that I got a job, the film stuff started looking up and all was looking good for a few years. Then came the scandal of the film company and soon as I recovered from that I got the near death experience. Up until January I wasn't going to do anything special for my birthday, especially after the smacking blow of my car blowing up, but I think it was in February, when I started thinking about the anniversary of my sister's death, I reminded myself what I had accomplished and what I had overcome.

When I thought about it, I wanted to celebrate but the big plan I had when I was 40 about going to Vegas and living it up just didn't sit well with me. I wanted to but spending $1000s for it wasn't in the plans. When I went to Mexico for 1 day in March and I saw all I could do for very little, I was set on going there for my birthday.

I thought about meeting friends, which I really wanted to do, but the more I thought about setting things up, working on how I would get there and a bunch of other things, the plans got complicated. I wanted to have some minor plans, but I wanted stuff to flow. I wanted the ability to do something on the spur of the moment. I decided to postpone meeting a lot of people until July, since I would be in San Diego for the Comicon and would have much more time to see folks.

So I'm going to have a few days in Mexico and who knows what I might do. I do know as soon as my plane lands I'm going to Anthony's Fish Grotto for, what is for me, an expensive meal. I'm celebrating so I'm down for it.

I haven't so much looked back this birthday as I have looked forward. I'm getting a car soon, I actually have money saved and my life, considering, is quite well. At least from where I'm standing right now this is looking to be a pretty good birthday.

This is an odd time to travel to Mexico. I'm just going to be a block and a half from the border, so we're not talking about going deep into the countryside, but there's all the talk about swine flu. I'm sitting in the airport right now, waiting for my plane to come in and the TV has nothing but swine flu. Just before I left the apartment there was discussion about shutting down the border.

I understand wanting to have the public aware and discussing the options, but we're talking about 200 deaths in a country (Mexico) of millions. Even in the concentrated area, Mexico City, has almost 9 million people. Even figuring 2000 infected people, that's a small number for the city and even smaller when compared for the country.

Yet the images of people in masks are compelling.

I'm glad I decided to bring my video camera on the trip. I always like to contrast the news with the real news. I want to see if the streets of Tijuana have mask wearing citizens and fear of the outbreak. I would think not. There were a couple of news stations, like CNN, who were at the same border I will be crossing in a few hours. It will be interesting to see what the real visuals are.

Wow, CNN has people calling in talking about how concerned they are about swine flu. Of course the only people calling are those who are terrified of it. There were even some at work who nervously joked I better not start coughing when I come back to work.

While I have been waiting at the airport, this nice older couple came up to me wanting to know everything about the netbook I have. The wife wanted one for her birthday, she was the tech in the family, and she was hitting me with all sorts of questions about specs, designs and what could be loaded. When she told me she had to re image her hard drive, I knew she was the tech. They've been impressed with the size of the machine.

I have to say I have been impressed with this little guy. (Yeah, I'm writing on it right now) I've gotten on line quickly at the airport, and have been surfing the web as well as writing without a hiccup. It's so small it’s crazy, but not too small. The keyboard isn't hard to get adjusted to, but I'm a two finger typer so that gives me some advantage.

Ah, back to CNN where they found some nice WASP family with swine flu, all of them wearing the masks. Yeah, we don't want to get the public panicked, the news says, yet they continue to show images to frighten the public.

Man, it's 9am and in 4 hours I'm going to be in San Diego having a really good lunch at Anthony's Fish Grotto. I haven't been there in 15 years and frankly, considering the price it will be sometime before I go again. This is my birthday trip and I want to do something unusual. That's why I'm taking the trip and just trying to figure on experiencing some new things.

So we're about halfway to San Diego right now and a big surprise is this flight is testing onboard wi-fi service. It was neat checking up on some emails and surfing the web. I was able to catch up on the news and see Arlen Specter just switched to the Democratic Party, giving them a filibuster majority in the Senate.

The quick answer about the service is its pretty good. About what you would expect from a public link. I wouldn't do EQ2 on it, nor would I watch an episode of HEROES, but for email and general surfing it seems OK. Even though it’s not secure, I was able to get on a defunct bank site pretty well. OK I just hit a rough patch, but a quick refresh cleared things up. I got the glitch on facebook, plus we're over the middle of the desert so having anything work is fascinating.

I finally got the hotel and resting. There’s definitely a difference from the last time I was here, and I don’t just mean because of the masks. First off, at first I didn’t see a lot of people wearing them, but once I got to the hotel there was a lot of mask wearing. The room I have now is smaller than the one I had about two months ago. This room is the size of my apartment, which ain’t bad. So for the next two days I’m just going to relax here, or at least I hope to. I have camera equipment, so I might go out and shoot stuff, but my goal is to just stay in the hotel and rest.

 

 

<< PREVIOUS
NEXT >>

Copyright © Chaotic Fringe LLC. All rights reserved.

Yeah, It's My Birthday - Apr 28, 2009
Home | News | Entertainment | Blog | Podcast | IMVN | Everquest 2 | Links | Photos | V-Blog