kaolin fire presents :: photo gallery

My 24th Birthday Party (balloons galore!)

Hmm. Where to start? Well, today (I suppose it's yesterday by now, it's 2:15 am as I put up the pictures and type this up, but yesterday was) the 27th, was my 24th birthday. Hmm. I wonder if my 27th'll be extra-special. Just thought of that. Huh. Anyway.

It seems like it's been my birthday for the last few weeks. I suppose it's partially that Amy's been really excited about it and partially... I suppose I've been doing christmas shopping and that's just like baking -- cook some for everyone else but you have to snack while you do it. And things have just been going very well lately.

My birthday usually revolves around Thanksgiving, and while I managed to miss it by almost a week, it still sorta started there. Amy and I drove up to see my parents around noon on the Thursday. We were supposed to be there at 1:30 or so but didn't make it until 3. Traffic was ergly. At one point we passed a dead raccoon (no obvious cause of death -- no blood, mangled intestines, or anything like that; but it was very dead. flies and even maggots, maybe bloating) -- and I hopped out of the car (Amy was driving), took a couple shots of it, and hopped back in. Traffic was slow.

We made it and Amy was incredibly excited about the food -- she took the smorgasboard picture. And we chowed and talked and I (as per tradition) fixed the problems with both Max and Jill's computers. Silly little computers.

When we got back to my place (or perhaps it was later the next day or something) the sky was just absolutely beautiful, so those two shots get snuck in there.

Just two days before my birthday I decide I'm going to try to throw a party. Now, I've never been good at throwing parties, and two days' notice surely is not much, but I invite about twenty or thirty people -- everyone I can think of, and then a little more (people I don't expect to show or don't think are in the area. It's a balloon party (whatever that means). And I figured at worst we could watch a movie around 9 as things wound down or whatever. Things were supposed to start around 6 or 7.

A couple days before my birthday, Amy gave me some miniatures for my 3rd ed. dnd campaign. My first real miniatures! :heh:

And then she gave me a cute shirt the night before... "For a good prime, call 555-2357!"... Hmm. I just noticed the exclamation mark. 5552357 factorial by definition is NOT a prime. I'm sure they didn't mean that. Just an observation.

Around 1pm (how's that for timing? (time of birth)) I begin my birthday preparations: clean house, find balloons, yadda. Amy calls (well, emails, same difference) asking if she should pick anything up from the store on the way home. (a couple twelve packs, some chips, salsa...) [she gets home around 5]

Mack calls around 3 and begins a wonderful lecture on law (he's studying to be a lawyer and I'm deathly curious and a bit lazy, ...) -- giving me a broad overview of federal/state, criminal/, common law/statutes... :) Quite good stuff. Around 4 richard comes over, and he hangs around for a bit while I get off the phone with Mack. He stays for just a bit, fills two balloons and pops both of them trying to write on them with a marker (I was thinking I'd get everyone to write their name on a balloon and see if anything came of it).

Amy comes home and I set out chips and dip and such.

Kevin arrives -- he had trouble finding balloons, but he brought two punch balloons. They work just fine (a little dangerous for the later balloon fights, but...). He gave me some trance cds! =)

Oy. This is much longer than I planned. Sorry if you're getting bored... I suppose that's what the pictures are for. These things take a while to write. It's been 15 minutes. My throat is a bit scratchy -- I guess I haven't mentioned yet that I've been phlegmy sick for about three weeks now. Lovely, neh?

Okay, lessee: more people show in some order... Cathy calls and we chat for a bit. She really needs to come visit. ;) :) Ilya arrives. He hands me certain doom [Ravenloft for 3rd ed]. James and Nikki arrive, Ben and Colette (I hope I'm spelling that right) arrive with a bouquet of floating balloons of intriguing shapes, Brandon arrives. James, Nikki, and Brandon leave, James and Brandon coming back at 9 for the movie (Brandon was their ride out, Nikki wasn't too interested in the proceedings, James escorted her, Brandon had piano practice). There were a couple balloon fights, but we were too busy with the balloons to worry about taking pictures of them. Though they were quite beautiful. Sorry.

Dave and Gregory call to wish me a happy birthday and I chat a bit with both of them. (Thanks guys!) [by far the most birthday wishes I've gotten in a long, long time, if ever...]

Max and Jill show with Cake in tow, and we do the cake thing, with the happy birthdaying and the blowing out of candles and all that goodness. They head out before it gets too late. It's a decent drive to and from Sacramento.

Rafael comes home loaded with gorgeous balloons, and some weird card to 3d motorcycle model thingies that I need to go and look at. Donovan arrives (he overslept, or accidentally slept, or something like that -- getting used to a 3am-3pm work schedule). Brandon and James come back and we watch the world's worst (well, it's up there at least) scifi dvd "Spaceman". Kevin grooves to the sound effects and I gift him with the dvd for christmas (I'd gotten it for someone, I just had no idea WHO until I saw his reactions).

Amy went to bed and everyone left while Raf and I watched the *other* DVD I had (which had looked worse than Spaceman by the box). And it... was pretty damned good. 1984ish, dark, makes you think, reasonable acting, pretty effects, nice directing. It was pretty damned good. "Zone 39" -- I was planning on giving it to someone for christmas but I may just keep it. Or get another copy to give to someone to spread the infection.

And I suppose that's about it. Then I cleaned up and wrote this. la la la! Now it's 2:41am.

Okay, well, 2:59am, minor update: I think I just figured out why the balloons struck such a chord with me. Back in the day I used to wake up (Max would do all the stringing up and such at around 3am) to rooms full of streamers and balloons and such, and that always brought me much joy. Also, I found a balloon with Colette's name on it -- I was spelling it right. Cool. =)

And Ben just sent me more pictures! Yay! [2pm]