Tag wedding (16)

official wedding pictures up! and yogurt
Mood: accomplished
Posted on 2010-04-13 10:58:00
Tags: pictures wedding food
Words: 229

Our official wedding pictures are finally up! Thanks again to Eric Hegwer, who did a great job photographing the event. I went a little crazy posting pictures (119 in total) because so many of them were so good, so don't feel obligated to look at all of them :-) If you're interested in a DVD with all 400+ pictures, let me know.

Yesterday I tried Sushi Zushi in the Domain for lunch. They had a wide selection of "real" sushi, but I just went for a Bento Box as I'm very inexperienced (I like California rolls but I've tried very little else). The meal was decent - (the miso soup was particularly good) but some of the stuff in the box was a little too weird to me. And it was fairly pricey - $14. But if you're a big sushi fan, they have a good selection and it's a nice place...

Anyway, on the way there I walked by Yogurt Planet, which is one of those "dispense your own yogurt and add toppings and pay by the ounce" type places. It looked like fun so I got one on my way out. It was amazingly delicious! I had fat-free mango yogurt with fresh blueberry, blackberry, mango and pineapple on top, as well as cookie dough bits and caramel. Seriously, check out the toppings on their site - it will make you hungry!

5 comments

old-school 3D
Mood: ecstatic
Posted on 2010-04-06 15:52:00
Tags: palmpre wedding
Words: 174

We watched Coraline last night - the Blu-Ray disc included a 3D versions, and it came with four pairs of old-school 3D glasses (with red and green lenses), so we gave it a shot. It actually worked reasonably well - it took a little while for my eyes to adjust but you could definitely see the 3D effect! The colors did appear a little weird, though. I'm guessing they did red and green for the lenses instead of red and blue because Coraline's hair is blue. After it was over, looking out of one eye looked very different than the other - our eyes had compensated and now saw the opposite color they had been looking through.

We picked up our wedding album today! The binding is very elegant and the pictures turned out well. I also got a CD of lots of pictures which I'll post in the near future.

I'm going to Palm Developer Day in California! (as kind of a birthday present) Looking forward to meeting people and learning more about WebOS and such.

2 comments

post-honeymoon link friday
Mood: cheerful
Music: Bobby McFerrin - "Wanna Be"
Posted on 2009-08-07 10:15:00
Tags: wedding politics links
Words: 138

If you haven't seen it, here's a time lapse version of our wedding.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale in a neat way. Wow, he's looking old! I will always love him for his song on Square One.

These slides on Netflix's corporate culture are really really impressive.

Wal-Mart goes after the Girl Scouts - as is usual with Wal-Mart, theoretically good for its customers, bad for everyone else.

Rick Sanchez goes after a health care CEO who's against reform.

If you're interested in publishing your own games, TheGameCrafter.com is kinda like CafePress, but for games.

Spot the cyber-security tip that seems a bit out of place...

Speaking of Netflix, now that the Netflix Prize is over, their CEO says there will a Netflix Prize 2 coming soon. Cool! Perhaps I will be sucked back in...

8 comments

An open letter to my phone
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2009-07-16 21:52:00
Tags: rant wedding
Words: 176

Phone:

Hi! How's it going? It's me, your owner. I mention this because it seems like we've lost touch. I was kinda busy today, and got no fewer than 3 phone calls and one text message. Does that ring a bell? I'm guessing no, because I didn't hear about any of these when they happened. The text message I didn't get until hours later! And thank goodness the people calling left a voicemail, otherwise who knows when I would have heard about it?

We've had some good times, you and me, but there's this new phone out called the Palm Pre. Actually, calling it a "phone" doesn't do it justice, but I'm willing to wager it still does such banal things like ringing when it's being called. And today they released an SDK for it which means I can write cool programs and stuff.

So enjoy our time together while it lasts, phone. We're taking this trip to Hawaii soon and I'm thinking the bottom of the ocean might be an appropriate resting place for you...

3 comments

what a weird day
Mood: stressed
Posted on 2009-07-16 16:26:00
Tags: wedding
Words: 47

Still kinda stressed in general, but of the actual stuff we have to do, everything's going fine. We did at least get Sonic drinks, so that's a plus! Later tonight is dinner with the family/dropping off some clothes/maybe buying some tea/picking up a friend at the airport...

0 comments

weekend, life update
Mood: okay
Music: Nine Inch Nails - "The Perfect Drug"
Posted on 2009-07-06 13:08:00
Tags: health wedding links
Words: 222

Thursday I went tubing with some people in New Braunfels. I'm generally not super excited about water activities, but it was fun and relaxing. It was also really, really hot. I didn't fully reapply suntan lotion while floating down the river (not really sure why I didn't, except that I didn't feel like I was burning) , and thus I ended up horribly sunburned on most of my chest, upper legs and feet.

I've been using some aloe lotiony stuff which helped a lot, but even still it's still sensitive and (worst of all) itchy, especially at night. Saturday night I took a Benadryl which successfully knocked me out, and last night I tried to get by with just some cortisone cream. Gave up on that after a while of itching and not sleeping and took the Benadryl, but it didn't work as well...got to sleep after about an hour and didn't sleep well. (neither did djedi, for unrelated reasons)

12 days until our wedding! Everything seems in order and we're keeping up with our todo list but I'm still generally stressed. Picked up honeymoon tickets, etc. today and I'm looking forward to that part :-)

A somewhat rambling but interesting talk by Stephen Fry about America's place in the world.

Propaganda posters for World War III. I think this one is my favorite.

2 comments

pride and prejudice and zombies and "star trek" and wedding and words
Mood: busy
Posted on 2009-05-11 14:03:00
Tags: movies ljbackup wedding books
Words: 377

In reverse order:

- My bad. I posted to Facebook that my epic jury duty recounting was 9500 words long, which sounded more improbable the more I thought about it. Indeed, my word-counting was counting characters instead of words, so after a little tuneup the statistics show it was only 2228 words long (still my longest post ever). In fact, now I know I write an average of 200 words per entry! And over the life of my LJ (including protected posts which don't show up in the public statistics) I've written 204550 words, or around 126 words a day.

- Wedding stuff is going fine. I sent the invitations out today at lunch!

- "Star Trek" movie = good. We saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse, so I had a Romulan Ale before it even started which made it even better. (also, Kirk's Iowa steak with McCoy's baked beans, while arriving extremely late (the waiter took half off the price) was delicious) The new 4K digital projection thingy was incredibly crisp and I really enjoyed the movie. (talking about seeing it again soonish!)

- I have a long history with "Pride and Prejudice". I was forced to read it in 7th grade and hate hate hated it, didn't understand most of it, and got a "D" or something like that on the test. As such, I never had any desire to watch the A&E miniseries even though my mom and sister(s?) loved it, and I generally went on with my life.

For my birthday, djedi got me Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I started reading it, and awesomeness ensued. The first paragraph is:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. Never was this truth more plain than during the recent attacks at Netherfield Park, in which a household of eighteen was slaughtered and consumed by a horde of the living dead.
There was enough zombie happenings to keep me interested throughout the book, and I even got kind of engaged with the non-zombie plot, which is nothing short of remarkable. Also, there are illustrations!

I'd recommend it (my mom and at least one sister want to borrow it) and am eagerly awaiting Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2!

0 comments

post-birthday blues
Mood: stressed
Posted on 2009-04-21 13:01:00
Tags: health rant birthday work wedding politics
Words: 297

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! I had a nice dinner and post-dinner Rock Band session (we're Rock Immortals now!) and caught up a bit with my family. And we're making really good progress on wedding stuff, so that's gotten a lot less stressful. Also, now I'm 27, which is 33, and next year I'll be 28 which is a perfect number! (after that, it's all downhill, I'm sure)

That notwithstanding, things kinda suck right now. Let me run down why, because I'm sure you're all dying to know!

Torture - So when Ex-President Bush said "We don't torture", apparently what he meant was "We don't torture, except when we do". This is not terribly surprising, but it is a little depressing. (we waterboarded one guy 183 times in a month even after he had given up intelligence) I haven't had the heart to read the memos, but I applaud Obama for releasing them.

Work - The last week of work has been the worst week in at least a year. (I wish I had some sort of device where I recorded how work went that day, then I could track the data over time and say definitively how bad last week was!) This week is shaping up to be somewhat better, but it looks like I'm going to be generally stressed for at least another month and a half.

Teeth - As I mentioned, my filled tooth still hurts, and my mom and djedi convinced me to see the dentist again. And they took an X-ray and it looks like I need yet another root canal, to the tune of $1200 out of pocket. I'm going to get a second opinion, which means more work and stress and time away from work, which means more work stress. Argh.

1 comment

we got rings!
Mood: happy
Music: Civ 4 music
Posted on 2009-03-08 14:08:00
Tags: wedding
Words: 87

So yesterday we decided to knock a big thing off of the wedding list - rings. We went up to Lakeline Mall and thought we'd check out a jewelry store. Our first sign we were a bit over our heads: there are like 11 jewelry stores there! Anyway, we gamely went around to 6 of them and eventually settled on a nice titanium ring from Helzberg Diamonds - it was cheaper than I expected and very lightweight, which is good since we both type all day. Here's a picture:

15 comments

progress marches on
Mood: thoughtful
Music: "World of Goo" soundtrack
Posted on 2009-02-06 13:41:00
Tags: essay gay wedding
Words: 170

At some point during this whole wedding process, it struck me (more poignantly than usual) we've come a long long way.

When I first started dating in 2000, I was heavily closeted, out to very very few people. My nightly phone calls to djedi I wandered around the Will Rice quad (because I didn't want roommates overhearing), and when people asked who I was talking to I would have to be awkwardly mysterious. Anti-sodomy laws were still on the books in Texas and some other states (way to go Legislature!)

Since then, anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. Gays can now marry in two states, have a civil union in five others, and be domestic partners in four others (source). I am now fully out (non-protected post FTW!) to my family, friends, coworkers, and anyone I meet on the street. And we're planning our holy union.

This is why I'm not nostalgic for the "good old days". We've made progress and it only gets better from here!

1 comment

kinda down
Mood: blah
Posted on 2009-01-28 09:47:00
Tags: whereslunch weight wedding
Words: 137

I was in a fairly crappy mood yesterday, seemingly the result of two things:
- whereslunch.org is honestly pretty much done. I should tweak up the design a little bit, I guess, and try to promote it somehow, but neither of these are very exciting or appealing.
- this wedding crap is already starting to get to me, which is a terrible sign given how far there is still to go. Hopefully we can figure out a date this week (the new target month is July, it seems) but there's so much crap to do and blah blah blah whine whine whine.

Anyway. The good news is that despite being absolutely terrible yesterday, my weight dipped down a bit. Of course this means I'll be good today and will gain a lot tomorrow and then be depressed about it.

5 comments

attention world
Mood: confused
Posted on 2009-01-26 20:27:00
Tags: wedding
Words: 46

Is starting planning now for a May wedding totally crazy and unreasonable? Because we've mentioned it in casual whatever a few times now (not asking about the date) and apparently everyone else thinks so.

(if it is, that's fine, but it would be nice to know...)

20 comments

hello married people/people who know about weddings
Mood: thoughtful
Posted on 2009-01-26 14:39:00
Tags: wedding
Words: 77

So I'm doing some initial research into where we could have a reception, by which I mean I googled "austin reception" and got a long list of places, like 300! and this crazy place that looks like a castle!

Anyhow, anyone know a reception location that you've actually been to in Austin? A list of like a billion unverified places is really not that helpful, but real places that actually do host wedding receptions would be awesome.

23 comments

getting back in the lj habit
Mood: chipper
Posted on 2008-12-01 11:36:00
Tags: health wedding links
Words: 361

Thanksgiving was nice with djedi's family. We went to the mall on Friday and didn't buy much but got a lot of ideas for people. Apparently we're in a recession that started last December, but you wouldn't know it looking at all the people that were there. I managed to screw up my shoulder something fierce, but staying dosed on Advil helps a lot, and indeed it was feeling much better this morning.

As I mentioned angrily before, I need a root canal. I decided to switch to the better dental insurance at work since apparently my teeth are fairly crappy, genetically speaking or something. The new plan takes effect Jan 1 and I'm trying to decide whether to put off the procedure until then. The tooth has only hurt a little since I went in and got a cleaning, and I have some antibiotics in my back pocket that I can take for 5 days (and they'll be effective for 10), so I could wait until it hurts a lot and take those. The downside is that if it doesn't work, I'll know mid December which will both be too late to schedule something before the holidays and Christmas will be filled with tooth pain.

Rice football is 9-3 and hopefully I'm gonna see them in the Texas Bowl! (which is in Houston)

We finally got around to asking the rector at our church a few weeks ago if we could have our commitment ceremony there or have him officiate. We heard back last night - nope and nope. (because of the rules for the diocese) He was very nice in the email and I understand that rules are rules and I'm really not surprised, I guess, but I am disappointed. Honestly, we're lucky that we live in an age where we can just be a couple most of the time, but it makes the times when that's not the case more jarring. We'll have to find somewhere else to have the ceremony, and someone to officiate...blah.

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex - sounds kinda sketchy. I didn't realize the Pentagon used military analysts to push favorable media coverage of the war, etc.

2 comments

life recap
Mood: busy
Posted on 2008-11-17 09:51:00
Tags: 23andme math wedding worldofwarcraft genetics
Words: 504

World of Warcraft:
The second expansion to WoW, called "Wrath of the Lich King" (or WotLK) released Wednesday midnight. (the late midnight, not the early midnight) So we planned to get it then at our local Gamestop (the Arboretum one). We had heard that there was going to be a big party beforehand, including Blizzard developers and a costume contest and whatnot. So I guess we should have seen this coming, but when we arrived at 10:20 there was a long line. A very long line.

We assumed it was like other midnight release events we had been to - get in a short line to pay and get your receipt validated (sticker or highlighter squiggle or whatever), then wait in a longer line to get the game (that would only start moving at midnight). We walked by the tent where there was some music and stuff, and decided to wait in line to pay first before enjoying the festivities.

It turns out, there was only one very long line, and that was the line to pay. So we gamely got in the back and waited in the cold (djedi ran in to Barnes & Noble and got me a hot chocolate and himself a tea :-) ). And waited. And waited. Every fifteen minutes or so we'd move up like four or five paces. I wish I was exaggerating. wildrice13 and later destroyerj joined us so that was kinda fun, but midnight came and went and we were still in line. At this point the smart thing to do probably would have been to give up and come back the next morning (especially since I had to get up early to take destroyerj and skimmerduk to the airport) but that never occurred to me. Finally at 2:20 we got our copies and left. They only had two registers going for what must have been 500 people. Booo gamestop!


Having said that, the game is good and I got it to install on linux with the usual tweaking.

Math talk:
My math circle talk is Saturday, and it's coming along OK. I finished sketching out the talk and worked on my slides last night, although I then changed part of the talk to make a bit more sense. New theme: graph theory in computer science, with parts about register allocation and Huffman encoding. Still need to actually do the rest of the slides, then make up a worksheet, then practice it. I did get to pick out what sort of cookies would be served, though, so that's a plus :-)

Game night:
Sorry to those who I told we'd be hosting a game night this week, but between talk preparation stuff and djedi work crunch time we can't do it this week. Hopefully soon, though.

23andMe:
I think I'm going to take the plunge and get my DNA analyzed soon, maybe after the talk. Should be fun and exciting!

Wedding/Commitment ceremony planning:
We're actually starting to move forward on this - investigating locations, etc. More stress to come, I'm sure.

5 comments

Public service announcements
Mood: excited
Posted on 2007-01-29 08:55:00
Tags: wedding
Words: 185

(or, "If everyone knew these things I think the world would be a slightly better place")

1) Some airports these days have cell phone lots, which is a convenient place to wait in one's car for the person you're picking up to call you. This way you don't have to circle the airport endlessly if you get there early (wasting gas and clogging up traffic), nor pay for parking. BWI has one, as does IAH in Houston. A short article with a comparison of some cell phone lots.

2) There is a one-time tax credit available this year (for overpayment of that federal excise tax that's been on your phone bill for forever). You don't have to itemize or provide receipts, just take the IRS standard amount. Info from the IRS site - don't miss out on an easy $30!

The wedding this weekend went well - it was a lot of work and I was totally exhausted by the end of it, but no major mishaps or anything like that. I have pictures that I'll put up before the end of the century.

Also, I'm engaged!

22 comments

This backup was done by LJBackup.