Try NOT to Cry

6 years can be an eternity.
That is the time span that separates me and my older brother. As a fat fourth grader I looked up to my brother as an icon. I watched in wonder as he and his friends established for me what it meant to be cool. Upstairs at Eric's, Cloudcuckooland, Green; I dug through my brother's tape collection without him knowing and discovered that there was so much more to life than Dr. Demento. I mimicked everything he did in my own life. Snowboarding, movies, mountain biking, girls... I tried in every way to be my brother. In those early years, he truly was my hero. Now, while in many ways he is still my hero, I am more grateful for the fact that he is my best friend (que music).
On return from my mission, my brother and I discovered we were the same person. Both single at the time, both addicted to video games, both with an affinity for wakeboarding... we loved the same things. My best single life memories were living with Chris in the house on Fir. So with that, Happy birthday Bro, and thanks:
Thanks for the piggyback out of pillar falls when I was fat and slightly asthmatic
Thanks for the Burton hat
Thanks for Mark Kozelek
Thanks for breaking the unbreakable comb
Thanks for the aluminum wakeboarding tower
Thanks for tolerating the ice queen
Thanks for Tony Hawk 1 & 2 marathons
Thanks for the Ophir caves
Thanks for the null modem cable
Thanks for Village Inn
Thanks for Brighton, Snowbird and the Canyons
Thanks for Zagis
Thanks for X-Fire
Thanks for wrecking stomper together
Thanks for Alien Express
Thanks for the Kentucky move
Thanks for the on the way home calls
Thanks for everything else I don't have space on your wife's crazy popular blog to mention
Anyway, Happy birthday dude. And if we ever find ourselves in a remote Utah canyon and decide to hike despite bad weather and you fall and hurt yourself and have crazy flashbacks that you are a frozen monster... I got your back.

-Jeremy (MD)