Happy Birthday Omar!

[nianfong]

for your birthday, I give you this hot hula dancer from hawaii:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1 ... 8497952171

[shawnsegler]

Word. Happy day, Baji Bomber!

[bruce]

[Michael]

Hope you're having a great year, Omar!

[cerebus]

Happy B-Day Old Fart!

[internalenthusiast]

happy Bday, omar.

[ashe]

O-sensei! Hai!

[count]

Happy Birthday Omar!

[cdobe]

Happy Birthday!

Did you marry your girl already ?

CD

[bailewen]

Thanks guys.

Yeah. I'm living the married life. No wedding, just a city hall affair. We're keeping it on the lowdown....other than that now it's online and people in 50 nations no about it. We moved into a new flat. Smaller than before but nicer and a short walk from work and now only about 20 minutes from the park where I train (instead of 45). Most siginificantly, it's like 5 minutes walk from the inlaws. lol.

The new pad has a dedicated "kung fu room". O now have my weapons on the walls and no furniture but a metal filing cabinet and an old wooden desk that's kind of small in the corner. No breakables either. I can even practice spear in here. Gotta slow down on the "flowers" but there's plenty of room to do the basic lan-na-za. When I have a little extra time I am gonna put up a big 1.5x2 meter mirror on one wall.

Thanks for the dancer Fong. Thanks for the support Ashe and thanks for the reminder that I am getting old everyone else. ... meh.

They say that next year I am supposed to understand what the hell I am supposed to be doing on this planet. It's a confucian saying, 四十不惑，"when I was 40 I stopped being confused". We'll see. Heck, by traditional Chinese standards I am forty as they start counting you age the way we do centuries. When you are born you are 1. So move to China and age a year when you get off the plane!

[bailewen]

p.s. Because of the international date line, my B-day was actually yesterday. lol

[Steve James]

Belated wishes for many more years.

[shawnsegler]

They say that next year I am supposed to understand what the hell I am supposed to be doing on this planet. It's a confucian saying, 四十不惑，"when I was 40 I stopped being confused". We'll see. Heck, by traditional Chinese standards I am forty as they start counting you age the way we do centuries. When you are born you are 1. So move to China and age a year when you get off the plane!

See, when I hit 40 I got super confused. I feel much more in tune with what's really going on than in any other time in my life and it's woken me up to the fact that life is pretty fucking confusing. Only now I have so much experience that I can't kind of pretend that it's not and concentrate on other things.

They say ignorance is bliss and on a certain note that's absolute truth.

S

[Steve James]

They say ignorance is bliss and on a certain note that's absolute truth.

And, you really never know what you've got 'till it's gone.
But, you'll be glad the ignorance is gone. When you're twenty, you resent people 40 telling you anything. You can't tell someone 1/2 your age that they've had 1/2 a life. It's why, in some cultures, people actually listen to what their elders have to say Of course, senility can kick in at some point. Yet, I always think of the old person at the family gatherings who just listen while the younger ones tell her their "problems." They've seen it all, in terms of human problems, or at least heard of it. When I was 20, there was stuff I never dreamed of --but you could never have told me.

[bailewen]

Well that actually works pretty well since the root of the character 惑 is not really "confused". It's more like "mislead" or "deluded". I was translating fairly loosely. Maybe I like "At 40 my mind was clear" better or "At 40 I stopped being deluded".