A good birthday
My birthday’s over. It was a pretty good one. Started off with arriving home from San Francisco at midnight. I finally got home around 1AM.
We woke up early around 7:30 to get ready for the big day. My wife and son hopped on the bed ad made me open cards. I’d have rather slept in but we have a fairly predictable routine for my birthday and I knew it was coming. We got dressed and headed for Wimberely for their big market days. We love going down to look at funky antiques and finding cool little knick-knacks for the house. We spent about 4 hours there walking from booth to booth. We came away with a couple of neat fruit crate labels and a new-to-her antique pitcher for my wife.
After that, the thing I really look forward to: The Saltlick for lunch. I gorged on much dead animals. Brisket, ribs, sausage, tater salad, bread, beans, etc. All you can eat. I only get down there one or twice a year so I really look forward to it.
After we hit our protein high we drove over to Buda to hit Cabela’s. I was thinking of treating myself to a new shotgun for my birthday. We got to the gun department there and I realized that wasn’t happening. It appears everyone and their brother was there buying guns today. They had a whole extra table set out for doing background checks. I can only assume the rush is due to the election last month. Democrats now control the White House and both branches of Congress. A gun ban of some sort is inevitable. All I ended up with was some new socks. 🙂
As we headed back home towards Austin my mother mentioned that she needed a part for her new camera so we stopped by Precision Camera. Bad idea. It happened to be manufacturer demo day. The place was a mad house. Vendors trying to hawk their wares. My wife bought me my birthday present while we were there. A brand new Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO (how’s that for a mouthfull?)lens for my D70. It’s the newest lens from Tamron. An unbelievable 18-270mm zoom with image stabilization. I’ve finally reached the point where my lens is now worth more than my camera’s body. And I like it. The picture to the left is the first pic I took with it and makes a pretty good computer background if you ask me. The lens has macro capabilities and can focus down to 12″ at full zoom.
We stopped at the house and dropped off my mother then went for the last errand of our long day. Also the most important. Since we were first married my wife and I have always, always, gotten our Christmas tree on my birthday. We were tired and really didn’t feel like going out again but I insisted. In the 18 Christmases we’ve spent together we’ve only missed this day once. We were in Orlando at Disney that year so it was excusable. We went to the tree lot and the first tree my wife grabbed was perfect. A nice 7′ Frasier Fir. We loaded it into the Range Rover and took it home. It fits perfectly in the family room.
A little bit of Amy’s ice cream for dessert and the day drew to a close. Not a bad day at all. My wife really likes to spoil me on my birthday. So much so that it makes me feel guilty every year. It’s not like I’ve realy done anything to deserve it. Only get another year older. But I like her spoiling me anyways. 🙂