-30-

In the world of journalism that age-old symbol, - 30 -, is universally known to mean you've reached the end of the story. It's what reporters out in the field would put at the bottom of their copy so that when editors received it they knew where the story was intended to close rather than where it might have been accidentally cut off during the transmission. (Oh, those dark ages before the advent of the Interweb and sat phones.)

In the months leading up to my 30th birthday, which will be tomorrow, 30 and -30- have at times felt almost synonymous. Chalk it up to my tendency to overanalyze everything just a bit. (Perhaps that - and a few beers; as Dan says, "it helps motivate" - explains last week's Buckley post that I'm pretty sure no one got.) But now that the big three-oh is a few hours away, I don't feel any anxiety at all. Even with the increasing numbers of gray hairs I keep finding in my beard and on my head.

That said, no other birthday has ever brought me that touch of concern. Sixteen was all about the excitement of getting to drive. Twenty one, from what little I recall, started with 23 shots and damn near could've been -30-. Now here's 30, staring me dead in the face and, after some initial fretting, I'm all the more ready for what's to come in the next decade. Rather than an ending, this is shaping up both at home and at work as a time of new beginnings.

I just hope I'm having as much fun when I hit 40.