Thirty-Six.

So, on the eve of my birthday, I find I own a car (thanks, family), have a fantastic gal, and generally am doing all right, all things considered. With that in mind, let's try this blogging thing again. Cause frankly, in 2005 it's hard enough for friends to stay in touch, when you're spread around the world like a thin layer of homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam over a particularly dry and pointy piece of dietary crispbread. Let's make that easier on the ol' extended family, eh?

Yeah, I find blogging and diaries hard. No, it's not that my writing is bad, it's more that it's my day job, and I've never had enough words to do the day job and have anything coherent left over. So here's to Wrytings, Mk.2.

So with that in mind, how far have we come at 36?

Hockey Enforcers rumbles to a dull roar

PRINCE GEORGE, BC-

...After all the hype and hand-wringing, Hockey Enforcers, a gladiator-styled event in which a group of burly hockey players are paid to thrash one another, finally got its world debut in this northern B.C. town.

In the end, the fights that erupted in the stands among highly stoked fans were as fearsome — and unpredictable — as the duels at centre ice. Police were summoned at one point to quell the rowdy fans.

...Some fans said event was a perfect fit for the hockey-mad northern B.C. town, where street brawls are commonplace on a Saturday night, "As soon as there's blood, this crowd will go nuts," said Taki Papadopoulous, 21, a student at the University of Northern British Columbia.

Mr. Papadopoulous and his friend Chris Hebert, 21, sat high in the nose-bleed section and admitted they were reluctant fans. Mr. Papadopoulous said he loves hockey and only bought tickets to Hockey Enforcers because he wanted to see what the fuss was about.

Besides, he added, there's not much else to do on a Saturday night in Prince George.

There never was, son, there never was. Read some Brian Fawcett, when he was growing up there in the 50's, a couple decades before me, a few blocks from our old house. Said the exact same thing. Some day my hometown will manage to stop shooting itself in the foot (and God knows, they tried to shut the event down, knowing that our days as national laughingstock were about to resume) and join the 21st--hell, even the later 20th--century, but not this decade. Though I wouldn't bet against the transformative power of UNBC in the long run.

So yeah, when I consider alternate-history versions of how it could have turned out, sure there are timelines out there where I overcame my scruples and am now pre-positioning myself for a prime Ministerial run in 2015; universes where I'm cheerfully working as an astronomer, an English Professor, or finishing my sixth year in Japan in my office at CLAIR, overlooking the Imperial Palace in Tokyo; but there's also a timeline where I never left the PiG, and I--and probably most of my now-scattered high school buddies--am sitting in those stands, drinking overpriced beer and getting ready to throw the first punch, hoping to feel something after another week in an endless succession of days spent tending the chemical farm or hosing down pulp sludge at Intercon, letting the pulse of the machines beat through me as my hearing dies the death of a billion impacts. And for that alternate Wrye, I promise; per ardua ad astra, pal. To the stars.