Rick Wasmund will be in attendance

I forgot to mention that I recently confirmed that Rick Wasmund is going to be at the 30th birthday party (on September 27th!)! Apparently he has some sort of barbecue with a high-power magazine editor early in the day, so it's not clear when he's showing up. Whenever it happens, though, I encourage all the gentlemen to hold onto your dates because there's something women find weirdly irresistible about this man.

I don't really get it either. Perhaps it's the amazing Wasmund's Single Malt Whisky polo shirt he's wearing?

As anyone who was at the Wasmund's tasting at our house last spring can tell you, this is going to be fun. Best of all, it's impossible to not know where the party is when the Magical Mystery Whisky Wagon is parked out front!

26th birthday revisited!

Today we're celebrating Brucetravis's birthday with a trip out to the country. We'll visit Copper Fox Distillery in Sperryville, VA, for a little private tour and then we're heading to Front Royal to tube down the Shenandoah River (made famous with the line "Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River..." in John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads"). Should be an insane time.

It's not unlike my 26th birthday, when Katherine and I made a similar trip. We drove out to Sperryville and checked out the now-closed Cooter's Garage, a wild tourist trap of Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia. In the age of Urban Outfitters and ironic t-shirts and kidults, I was glad to see some shirts with honest-to-goshness Confederate flags on the roof of the General Lee. Then we drove up the mountains and headed along Skyline Drive for a few miles, checking out the Shenandoah Valley scenery. Dropping down into Front Royal at the end of the Shenandoah National Park, it was off to Markham (I think) to pick some apples. Very nice, although September 27th tends to be a little late in the season around here.

Why doesn't everyone go to the country for their birthday?!

Old dudes love me!

The Wasmund and I were visiting a potential new account for happy hour last night and ended up sitting next to a delightful older gentleman. He was kind enough to point us the right direction on the menu (to the happy hour specials!) and we got to talking about Wasmund's Single Malt Whisky.

For some reason, The Wasmund told our new friend (whose name is Neil) how old he is and Neil asked if I was the same age. Now, I won't tell you how old RW is (hint: between 48 and 50, but not 48.5 or 49.5), but it's jarringly older than me. RW told him I was just a spring chicken, which isn't entirely true, but is relatively accurate considering the circumstances.

Finally, I told Neil I was 29 (after he initially guessed 40, then 35 after my visible dismay). He said, "Oh, you look older because you've lost your hair. But, you've still got a young bod!" It's true, he told me I had a "young bod" and that I'm "in great shape." I guess it's too bad that people don't judge age by body-type more often, so that those flabby dudes in college would be mistaken for 40-year-olds, instead of us bald dudes.

B2S!

I've been working on my abbreviations, in the hopes that it fends off the post-30th-birthday senility. So, in case you're not keeping up with trends, "B2S" means "Built to Slaughter" (which I am) or, in this instance, "Back to School" (which I also am). Being 29 in business school is nice because I'm just about the average age. But, people tend to think I'm older, or at least more settled down, because they always ask about my kids.

Yeah, people assume I have kids.

I had one class today and have three tomorrow. Today was mostly about making small talk to find out what people did for the summer. So far I think I've talked to one person whose job was anywhere near as interesting as mine, but I can't tell you what he did because it's top secret information at the company. Zing! My job's not top secret, though: I learned everything I could about Copper Fox Distillery and tried to sell more Wasmund's Single Malt Whisky than I drank. An amazing experience and I wish everyone could spend a summer doing exactly what they wanted.

In other news, today is Brucetravis's birthday (speaking of other people who are Built to Slaughter). He's 33 and celebrated by sending me a list of hundreds of words that start with "th". No, "thenerd" and "theloser" and "thefattestcyclistinthemidatlantic" didn't make the list, even though they're appropriate to for the birthday boy. Happy birthday!

(In case you've never met Brucetravis, here's a picture of him with his twin brother.)