That's right folks, I am now 29 for the first time.  I will continue to turn 29 every year for the rest of my life.  I plan to stay young.  All I need to do is every year, just get Superman to fly backwards around the earth fast enough to reverse time.  Never mind that I'd have to re-live that year for eternity.   It's a good plan.  I just need to find Superman and convince him its a good idea.  I should be able to talk him into it based upon my interactions with my roommate.  They're both boy scouts.  Wish me luck. Hehe.

It was a good birthday.  My parents, my younger sister, and my brother in law traveled up to visit over this past weekend.  We went out to eat at Manny's Mexican Seafood place. I got to wear a big, pink sombrero and enjoyed a free fried ice cream. Afterwards, enjoyed a relaxing night in front of the fire and then hung out in the hot tub at their hotel.  Let me say, that's a new level of uncomfortably awkward...swim suit in front of family members, including the sister that's not quite comfortable with my transition.  It went pretty well though.  I decided to wear the one piece to avoid totally freaking out my sister.

On Saturday, we had gone to the Leinenkugels Brewery.  My sister had wanted a tour and to do some tasting.  While there, we were looking through their gift shop, and I came across a selection of pancake mixes.  I decided to invite my family over for breakfast on Sunday, despite breakfast being offered at the hotel.  It was great!  I finally got to serve my family at my dining room table.  We made both blueberry and apple spice pancakes.  They were delicious, especially the apple spice.  I think more than any gift, having my family up to visit and being able to make breakfast and enjoy it with them was the best thing I could have gotten.

After breakfast, my family headed for home.  I took a nice nap on the couch, and then afterwards went down the street to another birthday celebration for a good friend of mine, Laurentia.  She's professor at the University of Wisconsin - Stout.  My friend Lyle made an incredible french onion soup for all of us.  It was drenched in gooey cheese and was so full of flavor.  The stuff is like Lembas bread, one small bowl was enough to fill a grown man's stomach.   I really enjoyed my weekend.  It was a lot of fun spending time with friends.

My week has been nice too.  I took Monday and Tuesday off of work in order to work on personal projects.  My friend Addison came up from Madison in order to get things moving on Genderverse.org.  If you head over to visit it at some point, you'll see that we've made a lot of progress.  We're not quite ready to launch the site yet, but we're almost there.  I'd say by the start of next week we'll be ready.  I'm excited to finally see us get to the point of being able to use the site.  Now the intimidating part of creating content approaches.  It'll be a challenge, but it'll be good.  I recently realized that it's been 8 years now since my initial research, and I really need to get back into the swing of things there.  Research time will be a great experience.

This week has been saturated with Super Heroes like a sumo wrestler's daiper after a big match.  I've been reading the giant pile of comics I have sitting on my floor trying to catch up.  On top of that, I received the first season of Justice League Unlimited from Netflix.  It's been fun so far.  I have to say, reading a year's worth of Wonder Woman comics is really enjoyable.  You get the whole story in a nice block.  I've now caught up with those as well as the new Batgirl series.  I just began reading the Blackest Night series from issue 1.  Justice League Unlimited is a lot of fun too.  I really can't get enough.

Speaking of super heroes.  For my birthday, Chris got me a coffee table book called "DC Comics Covergirls".  Let me tell ya...*growl*...thems some sexy ladies in there.  Chris certainly knows my taste.  I've enjoyed paging through it so far...for the articles of course.  Yes I know...they're not real. Stop destroying my dreams!

Continuing with the super hero theme, remember me talking about picking up metal working as a hobby a few months back?  Well, I'm finally making some headway there.  I finally bought a set of hammers.  I still need a few things before I can truly get started, but those were important.  I need to get a small anvil like object yet as well as some practice materials.  It's looking to be fun though.

Also on the hobby front, I finally went to fencing last week.  It's the first time I went to fencing in like...8 months I think.  I had said before that I wasn't sure that I'd go to fencing again, but I'm glad I did.  The guys in the group assessed my skill level and told me that I know my stuff.  They had me put on my gear and play.  I haven't gotten to free fight in a long time.  I don't think I've actually gotten to at all come to think of it...not in the style I fight now.  I had plenty of bouts with the olympic style sabre fencing I learned on, but that was probably 8 years ago.  So it's been a long time.

This experience was really uplifting and an incredible amount of fun.  I no longer feel discouraged.  In fact, they told me that if I wanted to, I could teach the basics to my roommates.  I was told I knew my stuff well enough to teach others!  How cool is that?!! I'm definitely going back.  I've since purchased breast protection and neck protection.  I'm just waiting for the shipment to arrive.  Yay physical activity!

Completely switching gears...I'm finally starting to feel sick of being single again.  It's taken a year and a half almost.  I think I'm ready to start looking again.  I think that's a good sign.  Chris and I are likely  heading to the twin cities this weekend, and who knows what may happen.  Most likely I'll see many a cute lady, but will be too shy to say anything.  I guess I'll have to get out of my comfort zone and stop being so shy.  Wish me luck.

A quick last note before I sign off, I recently walked into a tattoo shop to see how much they cost.  I'm considering getting a tattoo of the Wonder Woman symbol with rainbow banners on my right wrist.  I've thought about a tattoo before, but I think I'm more serious about it now.  I'm not sure just yet when I'll get it done, but I think I want to.

Lastly...everyone's favorite...the question of the blog:  Do you have or have you thought about getting a tattoo?  What is it of?