Monday, March 03, 2008

30

Today was my 30th birthday. I was born on March 3, 1978, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

This will not be a long and possibly maudlin retrospective, as I am too busy currently preparing for my PhD Qualifying exams which will happen in two weeks (March 18). These are a decidely non-trivial landmark in my academic career, and preparing for them has consumed a great deal of my time lately. Don't expect a sudden upsurge in activity around here in late March, either, as I'll still be pretty busy with lots of other PhD-type stuff.

Rather than blather on about my life or whatnot, I'll make two unrelated observations:

1. On my father's 30th birthday, he had completed his PhD several years earlier, was married, and had two children (I was the second). I have acheived none of those things (though, to be honest, I have no intention of achieving that last one, much as I appreciate that my parents did).

2. According to XKCD (which is never wrong about anything, evar!), the minimum age of a person I can date is now 22. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader determining the significance, if any, of this fact.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy birthday Martin!

Hopefully you at least made time for beer & cake. I'll have one right now in your honour.

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday, dude. We shall drink a pint about that on Friday. And, good luck with your exam. We'll drink about that too.

King Aardvark said...

Happy birthday, bud!

I should probably let you get back to your studying. (Quiet, everyone, Old Man Brummell has got to study for his quals.)

TheBrummell said...

Quiet, everyone, Old Man Brummell has got to study for his quals

Yeah, I knew that had to happen sooner or later.

Yes, Vazrick, we will bend elbows this friday, and again in future.

TheBrummell said...

This came in my email inbox last night, didn't see it until today.

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
The Illuminati are watching
Everything that you do
Fnord!


I signed up to Steve Jackson Games' forums years ago, seems the Illuminati never forget.

FNORD!

Chris Harrison said...

I thought you were like ~25 dude.

Happy 30th! How old's Carlo?

TheBrummell said...

I thought you were like ~25 dude.

Nope, I just act immature.

I'm not the oldest PhD student I know, but I'm well above average.

Carlo, for example, is further along in his PhD than I am in mine, and is younger than I. You'll have to ask him directly about his age.

Steph said...

As great a guide as half your age plus seven might seem, guidelines like that are lame. Regardless of who you date (but specifically those younger), you should follow the campsite rule: leave them in better shape than you found them.

Happy late birthday, may you only date people with whom the above caveat applies.

xoSH

Carlo said...

By Bateson's unrecognized contributions to the field, I'm sorry, I totally forgot to wish you a happy B-day. So:

Happy Birthday!

I've been crazy frickin' sick. Sorry. We'll celebrate sometime in the near future...

And I'll be 27 this year. I'm still not married and don't have my Ph.D. yet. And if I don't get better soon, I never shall.