I must confess that I’ve always taken a special, nerdy pleasure from the fact that my birthday happens to coincide with the day that bills become law. However, this year was even better than usual. In addition to my personal festivities, Mark Warner held a small happy hour event at a bar no more than two blocks from my house. The only way I can describe it is that it was a political version of a birthday party, sans cake. I ran into numerous friends that I had not seen recently, while also making the acquaintance of a few notables, such as delegate Massie and a challenger for the school board seat in my district. All in all, a fantastic time was had.

Without a doubt however, the best part was when I went up to Governor Warner after the speech, and let him know I just turned 21. He was the first candidate that I ever volunteered for, and the third candidate I ever donated money to (behind Obama and Webb). Time and again, he has symbolized the coming wave of principled governance that I hope will assert itself in response to the absurdity (from both sides of the aisle) that has plagued our federal government in the past decade or so. Not surprisingly, Warner is also one of the most formative contemporary politicians over my opinion of how an official should act. So with this in mind, you can imagine my geek-filled flattery when he went to buy my first (legal) alcoholic beverage. As the bartender reached into the fridge to get out a beer, the crowd realized what was going on, and began to sing happy birthday to me. Some random guy who lives downtown also has this event on video, which I can’t decide my feelings on.

While it was a token gesture, I still appreciated it deeply. And for the record, the beer was perfectly chilled.