A few birthday musings...

So, as I mentioned over the weekend, today is my 28th birthday, and I came to a big decision this morning. You know how people often do the thing where they jokingly don't acknowledge that they've hit 30 years old? They'll say, I'm 29 and holding, or I'm 29 with X years of experience. Well, I don't want to be a follower, so I've decided that I'm going to go into a holding pattern at 28, rather than waiting until 29. Based on past experience, it will be at least 5 years till anyone even questions that anyhow. Heck, it'll probably be that long before people stop saying "Really? You look much younger than 28."

But I digress.

Unfortunately, as of last year, my birthday will be forever linked with the tragic shooting on the Virginia Tech campus, in which 32 people were killed. Today was obviously the first anniversary of that event, and was as such marked with the appropriate ceremonies and opportunities for mourning. I honestly don't have much that can be said about that event, as it's terribly hard to get your head around sense senseless violence, and any efforts to explain that sort of thing have always rung pretty hollow to me. For me, all I can really say is that my thoughts and prayers go out to that community once again, as they continue the healing process.

I do have to move on from that to point out the delicious irony of last night's Phillies victory over the Houston Astros. As you might know, the Astros traded their much maligned closer Brad Lidge to the Phillies this offseason. Lidge has had some well documented struggles since giving up a monster home run to Albert Pujols in the 2005 postseason, but had for the most part started to round back into form last year. However, the Astros traded him, for a number of reasons. In his place, they signed Jose Valverde, who entered the game last night in the 9th with a 3-0 lead, and walked off the mound a 4-3 loser, having gotten only one out. You see, regardless of how Astros management viewed Lidge, Lidge had become a pariah among Astros fans. Well, Houston, it wasn't all his fault!