Note: All events are taken from an exact transcript of today’s happenings. Paraphrases and one speculative statement were used, but no embellishments were made.

Step one: You wake up to the sound of gentle rain, softly lulling you back to sleep.

Step two: You arrive at the office and recieve a call from the PR director of the Golden Knights, the Army’s elite parachute squad. ‘Thanks for publishing the picture of one of our boys in the last issue of the magazine,’ he says. ‘Would you like to do a demo jump with us sometime before this weekend’s Air and Water Show?’ You reply in the affirmative and he says he’ll call later in the day to confirm.

Step three: You make hotel arrangements in Tokyo for an next week’s school trip, completing your Beijing-Shanghai-Tokyo triumvirate of travel.

Step four: Your boss takes you to an upscale uplunch then gives you an autographed copy of ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ that reads ‘To Brother Nick Ziegler, in honor of my dad, Fr. Bob, [screenplay writer] Peter Hedges.’ You’ve never even seen the movie.

Step five: You recieve an e-mail from your former roommate offering Cubs-Reds tickets for tomorrow evening just behind home plate. Naturally, you accept.

Step four: You receive confirmation that you’ll be jumping with the Golden Knights tomorrow at 8 a.m. and that you’re ‘allowed to do anything you want, because the colonel said you’re the guy in charge,’ according to the staff sergeant doing the booking. This completes a childhood dream that began when you were four, attending the Dayton Air Show, when you dreamt of being either a Golden Knight paratrooper or a Air Force Thunderbird pilot.

Step six: You leave work to throw in the Windy City Darters finals, where you (speculatively, as of 4:56 p.m.) win the city championship.

And that, my friends, is how to have a Good Day. Updates in the morning.