And now I'm 26...

Being up here, with no friends yet (really), and new at work...I was not expecting much excitement for my birthday. I was wrong though. Yesterday was probably one of my coolest birthdays recently. Honestly, the last birthday I really have fond memories of was when I turned 23 and I hired a magician, rented a bouncing castle, and had a grand ole' time.

On birthday-eve I went to dinner at Dressler's with two of the IBM contractors and they were kind enough to pick up my tab considering the occasion. We shared some thai calamari that was outrageous, and I had mahi mahi as my entree. It was quite tasty.

Yesterday I seriously got 30 or so e-mails from people and phone calls from those close to me. When I got to work my boss had a card on my desk and a bag a of Chik-fil-a biscuits. I didn't expect that force feeding breakfast on people would have been hard, but it was. I guess it has something to do with the fact that a good number of people I work with are transplants to NC or contractors that are all from up north. Apparently they don't eat chicken for breakfast up there.

Two of the IBM contractors got me a nice card and some wine, then for lunch lots of us went to eeZ. When Mom and I came apartment hunting I filled out a card and won a free lunch for 15, and it was very convenient that we got to do it on my birthday. I ended up having 14 people, one of which was a friend I have met that lives right there in BV. The lunch was done by a financial planner who uses this as a way
to meet new clients. I had mentioned to him that it was my birthday and he was kind enough to bring a cake. So, we all enjoyed some fantastic food during lunch and had a really nice time away from the office.

Some of my old peeps from Cola had a meeting in Gastonia yesterday and were able to stick around to have dinner and drinks with me last night. Seeing Seena, Jason, and Paul was fantastic! I love those guys. We had dinner at Brixx and it just so happened that some Avenue A Razorfish people were gathering there that night. So, I felt uber cool when I knew people that were there.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing on the sofa and responding to people on facebook and such. It was such a great day. I feel like I am really fitting in at work, and this week have actually started doing stuff to work on the project, so that is really nice. I just hope I don't start drowning in it all.

I hate that I didn't get any photos yesterday. That would have been a smart thing to do. I did put up pics of fishing with dad though.

I best go...