DArk Birthday

Happy birthday to my bud, Don, who turns 21 today. Err, I mean 31. I mean, 29. Yeah, that’s it… 29.

We’ve been friends since our eighth-grade year, which is more years ago than I care to remember. We grew older (if not necessarily “up”) together, played a lot of basketball, spent many nights driving around aimlessly in our late teens, put together some great videos over the years (choreographing some of the best amateur fight scenes you’ll ever see – all in the name of “education”), were each other’s best men at our weddings, and have seen each other go from questionably-dressed middle-schoolers (don’t deny the shorts… you know which ones I’m talking about) to questionably-dressed fathers over the course of… geez, more than half our lives. He’s the best friend anybody could ask for, a great guy, an honest man, and a devoted father and husband. I said it when he got married, and I still mean it today: if there were one person in the world I’d want to be, it’s Don Ark. *sniff*

If you haven’t had a chance to, get to know him, his wife Fiona, his son Jadon, and his twin girls, Natalie and Vanessa at his blog, which is listed to the right. Or see him in action with his family at his Flickr site.

By the way, Don, you share your birthday with the hottest woman on the planet (besides my wife), Angelina Jolie. She’s 33.

These people also share your birthday: former Angel Darin Erstad (33); former ER doc Noah Wyle (36); actor Scott Wolf (39) of Party of Five; former NBA player Xavier “X-Man” McDaniel (44); rocker El Debarge (46), who is partying “All Night Long”; actor Parker Stevenson (55) of The Hardy Boys, Baywatch, and does anybody remember the show Probe?; singer/actress Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas (63); and Dr. Ruth Westheimer (79).

As far as historical events go (beyond your birth), the 19th Amendment was passed on this day in, appropriately enough, 1919. If you don’t know what it is, go find out. It was kinda important.

Also, the Battle of Midway began today in 1942, Miracle on 34th Street premiered in 1947, and Martha Stewart was indicted on this date in 2003.
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Oh… I was just reading this and realized that if there were one other person I’d want to be (besides Don), it would be Brad Pitt. Damn, he looks good. =)