that’s whacked

my last blog post as a bachelor

Friday, May 4. 2007  –  Category: Musings, Travel

… after a week filled with “last ____ as a single man”, it’s time to add “last blog past as a single man” to the list. i don’t anticipate blogging anything in between now (wedding rehearsal) and tomorrow (wedding day!), so here it is.

…

…

deep and provocative, i know.

i’m pretty exhausted; we’d had a busy week of packing up the kitchen and living room in preparation for our kitchen remodel and (minor) living room remodel (we’re adding recessed lights to the living room and doing some drywall repair on one wall). we got our marriage license yesterday (the county of Alameda apparently sees no reason why Wendy and I should not be wed - though they did for some reason insist on putting “England” as my place of birth instead of “United Kingdom” because (and I quote literally): “people might abbreviate United Kingdom as UK, and UK is not a state in the US.”)

we’ve packed up our bags (mostly) for our honeymoon, practiced our first dance enough times that we’re now sick of it, and i’ve been working on my vows, while checking the weather report for Saturday about every hour or so.

okay, i’m heading out. it’s off to my rehearsal. this will be the last time i leave my house as a bachelor. the next time i come back, i’ll be married. weird.

marsh-ed?

Tuesday, Apr 17. 2007  –  Category: Musings, Pets, Sun, Travel

i’ve always wondered where the origin of the word swamped came from (as in “i’m so swamped with work”). why not marshed? i notice swamped does share some commonality with bogged, as in “i’m bogged down”.

but anyway, i digress.

i’m swamped, bogged, marshed, whatever…

the SCM Migration Project is predictably going slower than we planned. on the plus side, i’m seeing lots of interest from other engineers - but we haven’t been getting the internal resources we’d hoped for, so for now it’s primarily me, richlowe, and kupfer plowing ahead. we’ve picked up a couple guys from ERI that should help.

of course, the other major thing on my plate at the moment is my very-very-upcoming wedding (18 days!!!), so my days are oft filled with wedding errands and such.

so of course, with all this stuff going on in our lives… wendy and i thought it would be best to …. remodel our kitchen. a combination of a decent tax refund, and the realisation that the one-month estimate to remodel our kitchen (during which our house would be a disaster) coincided nicely with the one month of time we would be taking for our honeymoon and vacation. so now we’re rushing about trying to secure contractors, and get permits in the two weeks before we leave.

i feel like our lives our pure chaos right now. on the one hand, it’s hectic, crazy, and i’m getting crappy anxiety-ridden nights of sleep. but on the other hand, i’m really starting to appreciate the small quiet moments… like the 8 minutes i took after the electrician left today during which i just laid out on the sofa/futon with one beagle slumped across my feet and the other splayed out next to me resting her head on my chest. within 45 seconds, both were snoring. those 7 minutes and 15 seconds of blissful peace (i won’t say quiet, since they were filled with the snores of two hound dogs) and doing nothing but vegging felt great.

sweethearts at the bar

Friday, Mar 23. 2007  –  Category: Musings

Wendy and I made a first pass at trying to plan the seating arrangements for our wedding last night…. on the whole, I think it turned out okay.

One problem is that our tables seat 10… and trying to accommodate all the necessary family relatives (”that have to be there”) at the head table brings us up to 12 people at the head table.

My solution was to break Wendy and I off into a sweetheart table (one of those small side tables that only seats 2)

Wendy pointed out we might not have room for a sweetheart table.

My proposal was then for the two of us to just sit at the bar.

worth every penny…

Tuesday, Mar 13. 2007  –  Category: Musings

i’m such a sucker for these things….. and i always get them from geoff or jesse

too bad i can’t cash in. i need to remodel our kitchen.

out yourself!

Wednesday, Jan 10. 2007  –  Category: Musings

snagged from geoff’s blog, apparently this is National Delurking Week

don’t be a terrorist. leave a comment and say “hello”, “hallo”, “hullo”, or even a “ni hao”.

would you? could you?

Tuesday, Dec 26. 2006  –  Category: Musings

goddamn

now that’s just pure motherly instinct. “would you” and “could you” thoughts aside for the moment… could you even physically react that fast?

i’d like to think i could, and i would. but wow. that story just got me on so many levels: sorrow, joy, and awe.

…. i don’t believe in heaven, but if i did - you know she’s there.

i do believe in karma, and that mother just got a lifetime of good karma for her sacrifice.

disabling verizon evdo

Thursday, Dec 21. 2006  –  Category: Musings

I moved offices recently, and noticed some serious deficiency in my cell phone, both in charge and in coverage…. I noticed my battery drained considerably quicker, and would run out around 2pm (despite an overnight charge) when it was normally good for at least a day and a half. And a lot of my calls would cut in and out and then drop.

I flipped it open and watched the signal strength. It would start at 1 bar, after a few seconds, go up to 2 bars, after a few more seconds, go up to 3 bars, and then after about 5 seconds it would go to 4 bars, which usually means pretty high strength. What was peculiar was that I then saw it switch from 1xRTT (older/slower data communications) to EVDO (Verizon’s high speed data), at which point it would drop back down to 0 bars.

After some Googling, I tried disabling EVDO on my phone and that seems to have solved it so far. I’m getting a consistent strong 3/4 bar signal in 1xRTT mode (which is fine, since I don’t use the EVDO data rate anyway). Hopefully this is a good long term solution while I’m stuck in my Verizon contract.

new camera!

Monday, Dec 18. 2006  –  Category: Musings, Pets, Photos

we got a new camera over the weekend… the Nikon D80.

it’s been fun playing with my first DSLR… of course, the first photos i took were of the beagles. i’m particularly happy with this shot of the two dogs sharing a bed.

on saturday night we headed into the city with wendy’s cousin and nephew to have dinner and walk around Union Square and check out the Christmas madness (we BARTed in, not wanting to participate in the Christmas madness occurring on the Bay Bridge), and then on sunday we had a winter bbq (on a gloriously sunny day) with wendy’s family.

both opportunities gave me chances to play with the camera

so far i’m loving it… it’s a wicked camera.

… just… one… more…tivo…referral

Wednesday, Dec 13. 2006  –  Category: Musings

sigh, just as my beloved rio carbon is starting to act a little wonky, i notice Tivo has added the Creative Zen Vision:M to their list of items you can get with Tivo reward points.

what fortuitous timing..

… but damn. i’m one referral away. anyone know anyone who is going to get a Tivo?

68% Canuck!

Sunday, Dec 10. 2006  –  Category: Linkage, Musings

Not bad, eh?
(considering I’m not Canadian and have never lived in Canada)

Must be my hybrid fusion British/American upbringing.