Scream If It's Your Birthday!!!!

Those tonsils belong to my buddy Alex, and yeah, it's his birthday.

The story of how Alex and I met is quite romantic. Alex was best friends with my buddy Mike in summer camp for years. When I got accepted to Syracuse back in '96, Mike told me I should become friends with Alex who also was going to Syracuse. For some reason or another Alex and I didn't get each other's contact information (this is pre-facebook so it was only moderately easy to get in contact with friends of friends).

Well, it was move in day at SU and my parents and I were in Schine Auditorium signing me up for cable television. I of course had to have cable since I was a communications major. After filling out the form, the cable guy read back my details. As soon as he read my name, some punk next to me said: "You're Ben August? You know Mike Aidekman, right?" That punk, wearing the baggiest jeans I've ever seen, was Alex. Since then we've been best friends. It's been twelve years. Holy crap, it's been twelve years!!!!

Happy birthday, Alex.