{"id":145,"date":"2009-03-12T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billythekid.autoboxmedia.com\/site\/2009\/03\/happy-birthday\/"},"modified":"2009-03-12T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T18:58:00","slug":"happy-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/2009\/03\/12\/happy-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

A surprise birthday party can be a huge undertaking, and a substantial amount of work depending on how many friends the person has. <\/p>\n

A person\u2019s FIFTIETH birthday should essentially be the birthday that puts all other birthdays to shame. Not that there should be any shame in birthdays. Scratch that. Bad analogy hee hee.<\/p>\n

My friend John Maksym has been a dear friend to me for a number of years now. John sings, writes and plays guitar in a band called Breaching Vista and is one of those guys who just gets out in the world and gets things done, y\u2019know? In fact, he is the person who booked my very first solo show in Kitchener Ontario, where I ended up living for two years. <\/p>\n

I should be clear that the main purpose for this leg of shows was to end up at my Canadian Music Week show in Toronto at the Rivoli. I figured \u201cHey, I\u2019m gonna be in the area\u2026let\u2019s play some shows!\u201d Long story short, I put out the call and within no time at all, I had ten shows. This is a testament to the collective of indie musicians in this country. No joke.<\/p>\n

Booking my way back in time from the Toronto showcase landed me in Kitchener for (surprise surprise) John\u2019s mom\u2019s 50th birthday! There\u2019s something about John\u2019s family that seems to attract the touring musician (I blame the food. Okay, and the hospitality. Okay they\u2019re all great to hang out with, too!) It should be duly noted that for all the hospitality June has extended to me and my various musical groups, being ASKED to play her surprise birthday was both an honor and a privilege.
The day commenced as such: Coffee! There\u2019s a certain chain that is all over Ontario. I\u2019m won\u2019t mention any names but I think you know who I\u2019m talking about. While this isn\u2019t necessarily the best coffee in the world, it certainly brought back a ton of memories a.k.a. The Two Years I Lived In Ontario and Drank A Substantial Amount of Tim Horton\u2019s Coffee.<\/p>\n

Step two: Pick up birthday supplies! Picking up birthday supplies is a very fun endeavor. Anyone who doesn\u2019t think this is fun is obviously not capable of fun. It is the funnest thing. We got huge custom balloon bundles for both Charlotte and June, as was a dual birthday, as well as streamers, birthday girl pins, banners\u2026a whole bunch of awesome. We also picked up The World\u2019s Coolest Cake from The World\u2019s Coolest Cake place. See: photo.<\/p>\n

Then it was off to decorate the venue, load in the PA and wait for the birthday girls to arrive!<\/p>\n

I just hope my 50th birthday is half as fun as June\u2019s\u2026she spent the whole night dancing her heart out to her son\u2019s band and I gotta say, it was one of my favourite shows I\u2019ve ever been a part of. Thanks guys!!!<\/p>\n

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333159025186291810\"<\/a>
\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333158853061888946\"<\/a>
\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333159347924040290\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A surprise birthday party can be a huge undertaking, and a substantial amount of work depending on how many friends the person has. A person\u2019s FIFTIETH birthday should essentially be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billypettinger.com\/billythekid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}