It was 4:00am and I was at work sitting at my desk. I had been at the office since 2:00pm Friday afternoon, and was doing my best to keep my eyes open. I should've been out of there four hours earlier, but we recently upgraded to a new printing press, which for some reason completely confounded our press guys, which is why it was four hours and they still hadn't started printing out Saturday morning's paper. At this rate, the newspaper was going tobeat me home, so I finally gave up, sent an e-mail to my bosses explaining why I took off before press ran, and went outside.

It was 5 below zero out and my car was completely frozen over. On top of that, this guy in a shady looking Cutlass Sierra kept driving by slowly, so I had to stop chipping the ice off my windshield every few minutes to give him the stink-eye and make sure he didn't try anything.

I finally had my car completely de-iced. I plugged my iPod on to some Herbie Hancock, pulled out of the parking lot, and drove directly into a state police DWI checkpoint. I love these things because the cops always give me a weird look when I give them my drivers license (I've lived in New Mexico for almost two years now, but my license is still New York). I hand the guy my license and he gives me an even weirder look then usual. He makes me get out of the car and do a field sobriety test (oh I WISH I was drunk). Finally, he lets me back into the car and hands me my license through the window.

"Happy Birthday, Mr. Hogan," he says as he passes it to me.

That's when I remembered that I had been 24 for four hours.

Well how 'bout that.