And now it’s sooner still

Better late than never to make a birthday post, but I’ll do this in a photo and video mix.

It all started with a surprise opportunity to catch the Canucks game at GM Place against the Calgary Flames last Wednesday. Thanks to the day job, we were able to sit in the Visions Lounge, all the way up in the 400 level. Cool seats, 4-0 win over the Flames, and Rebecca got to meet a lot of awesome folks that I work with.

Thursday, found us at the Matthew Good show at The Centre downtown. Absolutely amazing. Matt put on one hell of a performance. He snapped this picture from the stage during the performance, and you can almost see Rebecca and I in the back.

Friday was a good night for us to settle in on the couch to get caught up on our (downloaded) TV viewing, but Saturday was a heck of a gathering at our place for my birthday.

So much food, and thanks to John, David, Pam, Keira, Corinna, Adam, Jenny, Sean, James, Tanya, Bourton, Jennie, Amber, and Dan for coming over. I feel like there are names I’m forgetting, but you were more than awesome to come by if I have.

Corinna and Adam have officially made us apart of the Sock Monkey Army, but I call it a new addition to the family, Montalban Esplendido.

Sunday we had a family celebration out in Surrey, and I got this wicked new messenger bag from my mother-in-law. She also got me the third cake of the weekend, which was outstanding as well.

Sunday was the Vancouver Podcast Meetup at Steamworks in Gastown. Mark Blevis was visiting on business, and a few of us gathered to hang out for the night. Of course Rebecca was there, but so was John and Dave. I’ll make a longer post about the meetup later, but Mark graciously bought me a round in celebration of my birthday.

My mom sent me the above video yesterday. It’s a very traditional song to hear on your birthday, at least in my family.

This last picture has no relevance to the wonderful dinner that Rebecca and I had at Hapa Izakaya last night, but it is entertaining to me. We’re also embarrassed that we’ve waited this long to try that place out. The food is just as awesome as the feeling you get when you walk in the front door of the place and all the wait staff and cooks yell hello to you in various phrases of Japanese that I half recognize and half have no clue what they’re saying.

And then we had another small gather of folks over last night to eat the extra cake that was leftover from the weekend. It was hardly leftover though. The chocolate cake from Capers was pretty fantastic, as was the red wine from Golden Beaver. Good times, great people.

Also, all the Facebook well wishers has been amazing. If there is one thing that site is always good for, it’s coordinating gatherings and keeping track of everyone’s birthday.

None of this would have been half as good as it was without Rebecca helping to pull it all off. I have to say that I’ve been pretty lucky to have a great birthday (week) if it wasn’t for her. And in all actuality, it won’t be completely over until tonight when we get to see They Might Be Giants at The Commodore. My fifth or sixth time seeing them, and I can’t wait to share the experience with Rebecca.

With that, here’s the TMBG song, “Older”. Seems fitting.