Bastille Day. It's my birthday. I'm 45 today...that's middle-aged, and I'm thinking about all the things I'll never be famous for accomplishing as a prodigy --or accomplishing at all. I always wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star, but the devil is dead and Damn Yankees was never anything but fiction.

I'm 45 today...and I'm thinking about all the pretty girls who look at me and see someone like their fathers--and my wife, who looks at me and sees the cute guy she married. Is Jack Nicholson happy?

I'm 45 today...and I'm happy. The birthday celebration is a two-week drive from Reno, Nevada (all praise to Chihuahua Grub for the bitchin' write-up) to Las Vegas...the long way around. We've already been to Pyramid Lake, Gerlach, Cedarville (in the North-East corner of California), Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, Paradise Valley, and, now, Winnemucca. It's a great trip and there should be a lot of new node material when I've digested it all. If you want to see the trip photos, I'm posting them at http://www.monkeyview.net/sighmoan@monkeybrains.net/index.vhtml .