I am already bald and not 40…what more can I ask for?

September 1, 2011: My 39th birthday turned out to be a success. I am already bald and I am not 40…what more can I ask for? I received enough birthday greeting to outnumber the average number of junk mail I get every day in my hotmail account and spent plenty of hours on Skype with family and friends.

It is amazing how technology can make you not feel so far away. Those computer geniuses down in Silicon Valley even help me enjoy a piece of cake in Germany that I was able to blow out over Skype…sort of blow it. With my virtual cake and the piece my friend gave me here in Montevideo, I was able to rack up an ample amount of wishes today…I just now hope that at least 1 of the 4 comes true.

I hate looking forward to being a year older but next year will be my 40th birthday. It concerns me because I hear people at this age are susceptible to having a mid-life crisis. Worse case scenario…I guess in my case, a mid-life crisis means coming home and getting a job – it doesn’t sound all that bad - laughing.

38 years…takes a lickin and keeps on tickin!

August 31st, 2010: It’s my Birthday…38 years and growing older by the second. It seems that the older I get the more random the places hair seems to grow - not to forget mentioning that my eyebrows has seemed to get its second wind growing at astronomical rates while my head hair has come to a slow turtle like crawl. Never taking an anatomy class in my life, I just can’t seem to get a grip on what it is doing. My back needs a painful tweezing every few months now with an underlying mental fear that it will be mowable sooner than later, needing to make that awkward request at the barber to take a little off my back when I go in for my next hair cut.

My karma has seemed to come back to me. Yesterday two blokes from England took me out for an early birthday and treated me to my first real beer in 16+ months – wow, it was good!

Today, two women that work at my hostel surprised me and got me a cake and sang me “Happy Birthday” – the cake was much too small for them to come out in a bikini and it was much too cold even if they wanted to. After me making an unmentionable wish I was told to get a photo of me biting the cake – thinking that this is a tradition here in Peru…I leaned into the cake with my teeth sunk into the cake, patiently waiting for the photo…surprising me as she pressed the cake into my bearded face creating my very first bearded cake…she had me.

I wonder on where I will be next year for my birthday? Last year I was in Quito, Ecuador and this year in Cusco, Peru. Hmmm…so many roads to choose from to really know anything - much too many roads. Ahhh….growing older. Whatever happens this upcoming year…it hope it continues to be an adventure each and every single breath – may the waters of adventure never go stagnant!