Wow.

Here I was all planning to write up a long-winded journal entry about some things I was thinking about on the morning of my birthday, but I ended up not having time to do it before going to class and picking up Alexander. He's been here for about a day and a half now, and it's just been this incredible intellectual whirlwind. Everything from higher-order logic to talking Lego Mindstorms robots, an amazing hodgepodge of "Oh yeah, and you can do this and this and this..."

I feel like I've been taken by the hand by someone I've known and trusted for years, and who is now guiding me through a beautiful garden, pointing out interesting sights and whispering cultivation tips.

Words are crashingly bad at capturing how this feels. I wish I could let you all into my head right now. I have never had this many brain cells firing for such an extended period of time before. Cocaine can't be this good.

If any of you have ever concluded that internet friendships are useless drama-laden time drags, here is six years worth of evidence that net.friends really can influence your life for the unmitigatedly positive.

And I'm sure that some of you are going to think there's sex involved, and I'm going to have to laugh and say no, you poor deluded wankers, I'm just happy, and that is all.