Happy B-day, Ace!

Dear Ace, I realize I'm late. Aunt Melinda had a bit of a bad day on your birthday. But I thought I'd celebrate anyway with a blast from the past. One year ago yesterday, I wrote this. I've updated it to show you how far we've come.

I'd like to officially welcome Andrew "Ace" Spiehler IV aka Spiehler of Borg to planet earth. Ace, your parents and all of their nerdy friends have waited a very long time for you, so coming early was a great surprise. (Just don't do it again, young man, or you'll be going to your alcove with no nutritional supplements!) I can't wait to meet you, but it'll probably be a while before that happens what with my being on the other side of the country and all. (Unfortunately, my transwarp drive is on the fritz. Damn Janeway!) So, I'll just give you a few sage pieces of advice from someone older than both of your parental units.

No, we haven’t met yet, but it has been awesome to watch you grow up in pictures. Anyway, I’m the one who sent you the bestest present ever, an autographed copy of “It All Began with a Bean” by Katie McKy. I think you’ll get a lot of laughs out of that one once you understand what a fart is.

1. Always comply with directives issued by your parental units. They may seem irrelevant and inefficient at times, not to mention a bit dorky, but they have your best interests at heart and wouldn't steer you wrong.

One year later and your parental units are still a bit dorky and definitely inefficient, but they’re pretty relevant if you give them a fair shot.

2. When your maternal unit insists on doing embarassing things to you in public, just remember that you'll get your chance for revenge when you're about 16 or so. (Trust me. I know your maternal unit and embarassment awaits.)

See. I warned you. You may not realize this yet, but there’s a picture of you pooping available on the internet for millions of people to see. You can forget working in the public eye. Or not getting a weird poop-related nickname in high school. Don’t worry. Just 15 years to go before you get your revenge.

3. Yes, your parental units' friends are really weird and would definitely not make efficient drones, however, if you observe closely, you'll see they know many things worth assimilating.

This is still true. Your parental units and their friends are quite good at frying things. Fried Snickers bars, cookies, ice cream, and even pickles are far from irrelevant. Just make sure your parental units or their nerdy friends do the frying until you’re ready for your own cube.

4. Always share your recreational equipment, known as toys to the unassimilated, with your friends and your parental units' friends. Yes, I realize that we were supposed to leave the maturation chamber a long time ago, but sometimes even adult drones require fun.

Still good advice. We haven’t quite become the efficient adult drones you’d expect at our ages.

5. Emotions are often inefficient, but they are never irrelevant. Never miss a chance to feel.

Also, now that you’re picking up on humor, never miss a chance to make your parental units laugh so hard that milk squirts out of their noses. That’s a very efficient way to get embarassing pictures that you can post on your blog as revenge for the poop face picture.

6. Flux = vA Your paternal unit can probably tell you what this means. Your maternal unit will explain why it's funny.

Just to remind your parental units, since they didn’t get it the first time. Flux = vA is the equation for measuring the rate of expulsion of a fluid, where v is the fluid’s velocity and A is the size of the aperture. Get it? It’s still very funny.

Welcome to the collective, Spiehler of Borg. Your distinctiveness is a very welcome addition to our own.

And it has been.