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40

I turned forty yesterday. I'm officially middle aged, although it's doubtful I'll actually make it to 80. It pretty much felt like any other day except that I couldn't believe I've got so much time left to burn. Dang. I'm going to have to come up with some new life goals. I've already chewed through being in a band, surfing in Huntington Beach, CA. and Hawaii, diving with sharks and get my advanced certification in the Great Barrier Reef, get married, ride a motorcycle across America, make a movie, see the great wall of China, go over to Cathy Zielske's house ( twice), travel Europe, and oh yeah... consistently and obliviously be an ass. Hey, you find something you're good at and stick with it right?



Maybe some new life goals could be losing fifty pounds and eating healthy, getting debt free and learning a second language... Who am I kidding, I'm an American.

I've heard a lot of people mention how short life is, how fast the last 10 years have gone, etc. I was busy thinking how - if this is half my life I've got so much left to finish off. I've got another 25+ years of working before I can retire and so on. It's true the last few years have zipped by so I wonder if they accelerate as you get older.



Maybe you just start loosing your memory, remembering only 2-3 months of each year and gradually less as you start to fall into an elderly state compiling decades into a few amusing stories which make them seem short. Who knows.



So to make a long story short, Connie wanted to have a bunch of people over, maybe play some music in my ( still not quite finished ) studio and connect with friends. Picking and choosing who to invite, who we couldn't fit in, etc. was burdensome and I anted something simple and quite so we grabbed a couple we're friends with went to the House on the Rock in lovely Greenfield, Wisconsin.



The House on the Rock is a truly bizzare collection of things that you never knew existed or there was even more than one of in the world. I've been there several times , see something new consistently and best axplain it by saying it's like Captain Nemo's garage sale.



Above is a whole room of instruments rigged to play songs all by themselves through compressed air powering robotics, servos and who knows what manner of vodoo. I won't even try to describe everything that's there. I'll just recommend it to anyone living within a days trip of the Wisconsin Dells. Having a few beers, bongs or pain pills and spending the day gawking at the freakshow might just be enough to push someone mentally balanced over the coherent edge and hey, I respect that.



Has anyone actually seen it to comment on it? Has anyone turned 40 and want to comment on that? Any advice? Surprisingly I've gotten more snide comments from older folk saying 40 is nothing. I guess I hang with an older crowd...



Speaking of older crowds. It turns out five other friends, all guys and all within 1-2 years of each other all have birthdays in February. I guess May 1968-69 really was a summer of love.



I ended up going to a good friend of mines birthday party who admittedly copied my idea and had a bunch of people over for an official rock star reunion night of musical reminiscing. I'll post pictures.



I also got a bonafied, full time, 401k, wear a button up shirt and like it - job. More on that in a couple days.

Thanks for reading!

wes

posted by wes @ 7:59 PM