Adam's Anti-Birthday, 2006

This is the story of Adam's Anti-Birthday Celebration, of his 31st birthday, in January 2006. Though the festivities were on the 20th, the vigil, that's not why it's an Anti-Birthday. The Anti comes from the presents. On a typical birthday, one gets things. Instead, I decided to give things away. Thus, what better things than daisies? They mean hope and innocence, they're on twelvefruits already (look at the address bar), and I like them. Furthermore, giving out pretty, colorful things is about as anti-Stoic as possible, particularly on the grey Chicago campus.

Let's start the story. Here's me. As someone noticed, I've got an unusual shirt. It can't be bought. It's my Harvard freshman crew team jersey, from 1993. You earn one only by being in a boat, or beating a boat.

After getting the flowers together, I handed them out to folks at Calvert House and the statistics department. A few people refused, and one person thought I was suggesting her death (apparently the meaning of daisies in part of China). Nevertheless, most folks were surprised and gladly accepted, chuckling about the idea. A few people, like Minsun, really enjoyed it. A different female noted "Now, I don't have to say that I was the last person to get myself flowers."

Here are some pics from the day and dinner at Seven Ten Lanes. The place has a new name, but kept the Lucky Strike Mai Tai.

Yan and Minsun in the office.	Erica and Enrico, a happy couple.
Yan intensely explains Cantonese numbers to an Italian.	David and Val, young smiling faces.
Two Pennsylvanians, Adam and Clif, complete with similar hairstyling.	Pausing from eating green beans, Shali and Maria.

After dinner, many of us headed to the lanes for that great lower-middle-class American activity, bowling. Since there were mostly statisticians, it was hard to decide who would keep score. David won. His finger was broken.
(No, not in a scorekeeping fight. It was broken already.)
Here are some pictures taken while people were seated in between turns. Wow, I know some very pretty people.

Maria, David, Shali. Scarves are good fashion accessories.	Maria, Shali, Clif, from low to high.
Maria, Adam, Lara. Two Spanish speakers, and one who needs to learn his vocabulary.	Yan and Lara, Adam's Chicago emergency contacts.

On to the actual bowling. Here's a report:
In the first game, Lara lived up to her self-proclaimed nickname with an early strike-spare combo to take the lead. A strike by Adam in the sixth put him in front, but a spare in the eighth and nine in the ninth put Lara up by 14. In the tenth, Adam's first ball knocked down just five, but he got a birthday gift when the 8 pin fell down on the pin reset. Now with a makeable spare, he converted and took nine bonus. Lara, needing six to win, succumbed to the pressure and threw a gutter ball. Luckily for her, that was actually Clif's second ball from his tenth frame (which went strike-strike-zero). Given another chance, Larra again threw a gutter ball. Down to her final roll, her aim went true, knocked down nine, and let her live up to the nickname with a 116-112 victory. Despite Clif's strong close, Maria held him off, 88-86. Bowling for the first time ever, Shali impressively nailed two strikes and a spare. Unfortunately, her standard deviation was very high, and the corresponding blanks led her to just 65.

Adam, the Anti-Birthday Boy.	Maria, salsa queen.	Shali, woman without a birthday.
Clif, sans big red coat.	Lara, the "Champion".	Bring on the League Bowlers!

In between games one and two, there was a halftime show. To explain, Lara has recently become smitten with a gentleman, and he her. This has led to a marked increase in the number of breaks taken for lovesickness while she and I work on our research. I decided to explain this problem by paraphrasing Johhny Cash, "She fell for him like a child, oh, but the fire was wild." So I sung Ring of Fire. This also pleased Clif, since it was karaoke.

No one will ever claim that I should be on American Idol, except perhaps the humor show. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of that, David filmed a movie. I cleaned it up a little, and cut a Quicktime version. It's 37 seconds and about three-quarters of a megabyte, and you can get it here. This has pretty much ruined any political hopes I ever had, since it's no "Let the Eagle Soar." Let's get back to the game report.

In game 2, The Champ! had her bang turn into a question mark with a gutter ball - gutter ball first frame. The highlight of the game was the eighth frame. Maria hit just the 10 pin with the first ball, then just the 7 with the second for an "absolute value". Shali was next. She hit the 10 pin with her first ball, then the 7 with her second, in an impressive display of repetition. At the end, Adam missed a spare which would have closed the door, leaving an opening for Clif. Clif just missed a four pin conversion, seeing one pin remain standing, falling short 104-95. Lara recovered to 79, while Maria and Shali had respectable counts of 77 and 53.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Anti-Birthday. In the end, all we have are memories of a wonderful day. But for a few days, we have flowers too.