I must have been still reeling from the big surprise party, because yesterday I forgot to mention who was the biggest hero of the weekend: this douchebag drove ten hours on a motorcycle each way from Rochester just to be here for my party.

Think about that. Ten hours each way. Can you think of anything for which you'd sit on a motorcycle for twenty hours? I mean, anything? I'm racking my brain and I've got nothing. Maybe if I were being awarded the Nobel prize in "Blowjob Receiving" or something, but still - twenty hours? Absurd.

(Warning: things are about to get a mite gay in here.)

I've had a lot of luck in my life the past 29 years and 362 days. I have a great family, terrific friends, a great group of guys in my band, a few hilarious internet stalkers who hate said band for some batshit insane reason - I'm not sure what's happened the last few years, but it's like some sort joy bomb went off in my life. Even the bad days are just a pleasure to live. But with all that, I don't know what I did to deserve a friend like Joe Welsh.

This guy has had my back since some asshole named "Nudge" decided it would be fun to turn all the popular kids against me in 8th grade science class. He's was there (Joe, not Nudge) for every humiliation and triumph of my adolescence. He's been there for the trials and victories of adulthood. And sure, he has his flaws (he's a terribly inconsistent blogger and his farts smell like the inside of a fat person) but he's just always there. Even when we spent time on coasts 3000 miles away, I knew he was there.

And this weekend, he did it again. He rode ten hours to come to downtown Boston, chat with my mom, eat some room-temperature nachos and cheese sticks, sleep on a crappy spare bed at my house and then got back on his bike to drive another ten hours home. Just because it was my birthday.

Words escape me. Thanks, buddy.