Turning 30

For someone who gets a bit self conscious about birthdays, I’ve ended up having a pretty extravagant and prolonged 30th birthday celebration spanning three weekends.  On the weekend of my actual birthday, Jen secretly arranged tickets for the two of us to fly to Melbourne.  I was planning on spendying my 30th birthday working a regular day in the office.  Instead I came home Thursday night and found a set of plane tickets and a packed bag waiting for me.

The long weekend in Melbourne was terrific.There we treated ourselves to some lavish dinners at Vue De Monde and Rockpool, went to the Melbourne Cricket Ground where 85,000 people saw Hawthorn play Collingwood and spent a lazy Sunday exploring Melbourne’s museums and cafes.

This weekend, I invited some friends to have a degustation dinner at Urbane.  We had some pre-dinner beers, matching wines to go with the seven courses and some whisky at Malt Bar afterwards so it was pretty loose affair by the end of the night.  But a lot of fun and worth every penny.  You only turn thirty once, right?

It feels like a big milestone but despite the rapid onset of grey hairs (!) and few extra wrinkles, I’m pretty happy with my lot.  I have an amazing supportive wife, great friends and a simple (mostly) hassle free life.  Looking at the decade ahead, its fun to think about what the future might hold.  A mortgage, a nice car, maybe an Edo or Jenni Junior?  I know we have our plans but if 2012 has taught me anything, its that things don’t always go down the way you would expect or might hope.  For Jen and I, its been a rather tumultuous year for our professional careers and while I think we’ve weathered the storm, it certainly changed our plans on more than one occasion.

Whatever happens, I’d still like to experience or learn something new each year.  Last year there was fishing.  This year driving.  In the coming months, I’d like to take up golf.  I also hope that the next ten years treats the ol’ Brunei crew as generously as it has been to me.  Whether you’re partying in London, exploring new pastures in Canada, holidaying in the Maldives or touring with your band in South East Asia, it pleases me greatly that everyone seems to be living it up.

Here’s to the next decade being a good ‘un and whatever happens, I look forward to blogging about it on the 3D FatWeb Holodeck Blogbot 3000 and marvelling over how young we looked back then and laugh at the strangely outdated things we thought were cool in 2012.