Ben Benner’s Blog

Technically speaking (my modus operandi) I turned 30 last night at about 11:15 or so, give or take a few minutes. I am of course adjusting for Central timezone vs Eastern.

It was 30 years ago somewhere around 12:10-12:15 (I forget the exact) in the morning that I was born to Graciela Dominguez (Now Graciela Underwood) and Thomas J. Benner.

A couple of years back my father sent me an strangely thick envelope, it contained the receipt for my birth. The charges for all of the various bits of hospital equipment, room charges, diapers ($4 back in 1978), and a few other odds and ends. The total was somewhere between $3,500 and $3,800 (I am sorry to report my memory isn’t quite as sharp as a few years ago, course I also didn’t try to commit the number to memory).

I found a few inflation calculators online and ran $3,800 through them to see how much I would have cost in today’s day and age, purely on an inflationary basis. It would appear that it is between $12,000 and $13,000. I find it interesting that three different calculators all produced three different results. I can only surmise that they are using different inflation staticists for each year.

Regardless, having the hospital bill sent to you some twenty-odd years after the fact is kinda weird. After receiving the envelop, I jokingly asked my father if I was expected to pay him back. I forget what his repsonse was, but since we didn’t setup a payment plan, I am guessing he declined.

But that brings me to the next thing. I received a package from my mother recently. The contents of which filled in several holes what I knew to be the story of the day of my birth and some backstory on my parent’s early years of marriage.

It also contained some family tree information.

I have to say that I was quite touched to have my mother be able to recollect in a fair amount of detail the events leading up to my birth. For instance, my parents had gone bowling before I was born. My mom did not start giving birth at the bowling alley, though that would have been quite a story and a sign of things to come.

She did however manage to bowl the same score three times in a row, while not a high score, it is worthy of a league patch. And there apparently was a write-up in the Lansing State Journal about it, next time I am in Lansing I will need to hit up the library and see if they have the microfiche available.

I knew that when I was born that I was sick and had to stay in a “special box with lights” for the first few days of my life. This apparently was because I was jaundice(d) and apparently the lights in the “box” helped me get some vitamins that I needed.

I am pretty sure that my parents and wife will agree that the box with the lights probably has had a profound effect on me, as it has granted me the ability to fall asleep with the lights (and tv on). Course it may or may not have anything to do with me being solar powered.

I woke up early today and headed into the office. I have been here for about 20 minutes, I caught up on a the few emails that came in over night and have been writing this post, which I now must wrap up. As of about 4pm yesterday this went from being a normal week with a couple of birthdays thrown in there, into a week with a tight deadline and a couple of birthdays.

Jeremy’s birthday is on Friday, I forget his exact age, but I know he is OLD(er than me). I regularly forget that Jeremy is a few years older than me, to that effect I can never tell whether that is because I still act older than I should or if it is just Jeremy’s youthful spirit.

Meh, could be both.

Back to the grind.

Laterz