It's Been A Year?

Really? Holy cow does time fly! Ah well, lots of changes have been going on with me, so this will be the first in a series of posts (hopefully) talking about them.

Reflections on Planning a Wedding:

Planning a wedding is a pain in the ass. First of all, everything is expensive.  Like, really expensive.  Every time we went to buy something, I had to adjust what my opinion of "reasonable" was.  It's like that old joke where a $1 pencil costs $5 at Disneyland; flowers only cost so much, but we'll triple that price if the word "wedding" is used!  Awesome!  It's like the worst type of Monopoly every because no matter what you do, it's always uber-expensive.  There's a Catch-22 of getting married during a recession as well.  On the upside, money is tight for businesses so they offer good deals: for example, the location of our wedding, Etiwanda Gardens, normally charged a 20% service fee for weddings.  For us, it was dropped to 10%.  Nice.  On the flip-side, since it was  a recession and my work had reduced my hours, the price cuts weren't as useful as we were still flat-ass broke anyway.  It's still something to keep in mind though.

Second of all is trying to do it all yourself.  Now, everyone (including me!) will offer to help you do whatever you need, but with very few exceptions, no one will.  And part of that is out of necessity.  When you decide to make all your centerpieces one random Friday night, there aren't always too many people who actually can help.  But just as often, you would ask for help and no one would be able to.  And I understand that.  Everyone has busy lives and other schedules they have to meet, but just be prepared for it.  The exception of course should be your Best Man.  My Best Man was like an extension of my being - about as close to a clone as you could get.  He handled shit.  Especially as the wedding neared, if something needed doing, he was there to do it.  Honestly, I'm not sure I could've survived it without him.  And our wedding went smoothly!  So choose wedding party members wisely, my friends.

The last is everyone's family.  Families are families so they add stress without really meaning to.  Daughters are being married away, sons are getting married, in-laws are being introduced, often family members who haven't seen each other in years are meeting.  It's stressful.  You're going to upset someone - probably lots of them.  Just keep in mind that it's your wedding and if they don't like it they can get married themselves.  Do your best not to piss anyone off too much, but don't sacrifice the wedding  you want just to appease someone.

Overall, planning a wedding only reinforced my belief that weddings should last a lifetime.  I mean, who would want to go through that all over again?  Not me, that's for sure.  Planning a wedding takes about 81,000 little details and despite all the online help and everything available, it's still a huge pain in the ass.  My closing suggestions to anyone planning a wedding: Plan early, plan often, and when you procrastinate be ready to triage.

I'll talk about my actual wedding next time.

I was so uber-busy yesterday at work (no, really!) that I forgot to wish a Happy Birthday to my super-awesome fabulous amazingly beautiful fiance Brandy! She turned 26 yesterday, just as I did a month ago.

So a belated blog-wishing happy birthday Brandy!

No Weekend Highs

Well, I know it's Friday, and hopefully this weekend works out better, but last weekend there was no high. It was all low. As you may have read on Brandy's Facebook or MySpace her uncle that helped raise her and was like a father to her died very suddenly of a heart attack on Saturday evening. Everyone was quite shocked by it, and we are all still recovering. Ugh. I suppose that the only (kinda) high of the weekend was my work. On Monday when I told them about it they agreed to give me Bereavement Pay, when, really, they didn't have to. So that was nice. Everything else, not so much. Here's hoping things get better...

Weekend Notes

Another week, another weekend:

The High: Going line dancing Friday night. Have I mentioned that Brandy and I are learning line dancing? Well we are. A local club gives lessons every week, so away we go. And they have $0.50 draft beers, so...
Anyway, we've been going for a few weeks now, enough for me to know about a half dozen dances or so, so I was able to actually go out and dance! It was very enjoyable, I can' t wait to learn more dances so I can go dance to more songs.

Also, on Monday I beat the game BioShock, so I'm pretty pleased about that. That game deserves its own post, but needless to say that if you enjoy first-person shooters (and even if you don't - I don't!) this game is very good, and very, very creepy.

The Low: So, technically, this happenned Monday, but it was kinda on the weekend as well, so I'm including it. Lakers Center Andrew Bynum is out with an injured knee for 2-3 months. He got hurt over the weekend. You may remember that something similar happened last year, and Bynum didn't return until the beginning of this season. You may also rememeber that a large resaon we lost in the NBA Finals was because he was hurt. So he heals slowly, may not be back until April/May, and we can't win in the Finals without him. Yeah, we're screwed. I'm a little frustrated because, once again, the injury bug may keep us from winning a title. I'm beginning to switch to "Not Boston" mode again. *Sigh*

Weekend Highs & Lows

Well, following the spirit of a local rock radio station I thought I would tell everyone what my weekend highs and lows were each Monday. Theoretically, this will keep me posting at least once a week. We'll see. Anyway, for this past weekend:

The High: Double Experience Weekend on City of Heroes!! City of Heroes is a MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game, for the uninitiated). Think of it like World of Warcraft meets comic books. You create a hero, with special powers and the like, and then go stop bad guys. The more bad guys you stop, the more powerful your hero becomes. In any case, you gained double the experience points this weekend while playing, which means lots-o-fun!!!

And while that High may sound kinda lame (and it is, even by my standards), it's because of...

The Low: I was sick all weekend. Yeah. There's nothing better than spending half your weekend feeling like you don't even have any energy to enjoy Double Experince Weekend. Ick. I blame Brandy.

Other highlights include: Re-vamping my Facebook (I have a whole list of reasons why Facebook is better than MySpace, but that's a post for another day); Line Dancing with Brandy Friday night (yeah, we're learning to Line Dance, there's another post I need to write about!); and watching the Lakers kick all kinds of Spur ass.

Engaged!

You may have heard that Brandy and I got engaged (Brandy and I both changed our MySpace status to relfect this) earlier this week. I couldn't be happier about it - I am truly blessed to have someone as wonderful as her in my life. I could tell you all about how it happened, but Brandy did a superb job of it herself here with pictures here. Go ahead and go read it and then come back for my thoughts. I'll wait. *sigh* Fine; too lazy to go click the link? I'll copy and paste it: My uncle called me a few weeks ago to invite me down for the day so John requested it off work. Little did I know my uncle was in on the whole thing. Anyways, we have breakfast with my uncle and hang out for most of the day. As we were leaving John didn't drive to the freeway, instead he went to PCH. We ended up at a restaraunt called Captain Jacks (which is right on a canal) and he explained that he had some extra money and wanted to treat me to a nice dinner. As we were sitting there at the end of dinner, John told me that he had something else planned right after. Next thing I know we're walking out the back door to the canal where a gondola is pulling up. We get in and start our journey around the canals looking at all the beautiful houses and the stars. Under the 2nd bridge we start kissing and he pulls away and tells me he wants to break tradition for a moment and he tells me how much he loves me and then gets down on one knee and pulls out the ring and asks me to marry him. It was so romantic! Once the gondola ride is over, we leave the restaraunt and start heading down PCH. We get no more than a few blocks away and he pulls into this nice bed and breakfast. We walk up to the door (they hid the key under the mat for us so we didn't have to check in once we got there) and we walk into the room. There were candles everywhere and rose petals on the bed and some wine and fruit on the table. It was absolutely beautiful! We stayed the night there and finally made it home this morning to spread the good news.I hope you all are as excited for us as I am! So, some thoughts from my point of view: First, it was really hard to not show Brandy how excited I was about this. I mean, when you get engaged it's a life-altering moment, and I knew it was coming, but couldn't show how excited I was! It's like being a kid (or me) on Christmas Eve, but not being allowed to be bouncing off the walls. Especially the day of, I was counting down the mintues until the moment arrived. Of course, Brandy attempted to thwart my plans (unknowingly). She mentioned our overnight stay in Huntington Beach and of course I packed a bag for the night for us. I did this without her knowing, so of course I had to pick shirts and hope that she didn't want to wear them the day before we went (and that they matched whatever shoes she wore that day, etc.). So of course I pick the one shirt she wants to wear the day before we go! FAIL! One picture Brandy hasn't posted, but should, is her steak from our dinner together. Sucker was 30 ounces! Go ahead and look at what FOUR POUNDS of steak looks like. It was huge. I had assumed, once we got on the gondola, that Brandy would be expecting the proposal. So I was (pleasantly!) surprised when I got down on one knee and heard a shocked gasp from her! It's been pretty windy in southern california the last few days, and I was particularly worried about the wind and temperature for an evening gondola ride, but it was quite calm winded and warm with clear skies. All in all, a perfect evening. Anyway, it's nearly two days later and Brandy and I are still both pretty giddy about the whole thing. I am so completely in love with her and could not be happier about the way everything worked out. I am super excited to start preparing for a wedding, and of course being able to spend the rest of my life with someone as wondeful and amazing as Brandy!

Winter's Arrival!

I called in my first "Snow Day" from work last week, and was reminded just how much I dislike snow.

Last week a friend of Brandy's needed to run to Las Vegas real quick to deal with some issues. (A quick note, Las Vegas may seem far to everyone, but remember that it's only about a 3-4 hour drive from our apartment, so it's not like it's that far. It's about an hour more than going to San Diego.) Looking at the weather I decided to go with just in case there were some problems getting back home (I didn't want Brandy driving through the snow by herself.). So Tuesday evening we trucked up there without any problems.

Wednesday morning came and we started taking care of business. It was cold outside, but I wasn't too worried about it. Until about mid-afternoon, as we were getting ready to leave - when it started snowing. By 4pm they had closed the I-15 at Primm and (of course) Victorville. So we were snowed in. In Vegas. Now sure, there are worse places to be snowed in at. But being in Vegas, with no money, no change of clothes, and having to call off work, well, that sucks.

The passes didn't open again until Thursday afternoon - and the mountains were still icy!! I thought Brandy was going to have a heart attack a few times! We didn't get home until late Thursday night so were able to work on Friday, but, damn, that was unpleasant.

Moral of the story: Winter sucks. But I'm sure The Reva will be telling us all about that pretty soon.

EPIC FAIL!!

Yeah, yeah, I know, I promised more frequent posting. *sigh*

Really, I'm waiting for Brandy to update a little first. And in my defense, I have a post regarding the newest Star Wars movie that was 3/4 written before I went on vacation (a month ago) that I never finished. Now it just seems dated to post it. But I will... eventually.

In other news, Brandy uploaded some pictures from Cancun to her MySpace. I'm still tirelessly working, banging my head against a wall regarding the election, spitting in disgust anytime the words "Boston" and "sports team" are mentioned, and eagerly anticipating the NBA season.

In an ideal world, I'll have more on these things soon. I won't promise, because we all know how that would turn out.

Happy Birthday Reva!!

This is kinda like a card, but a day late, but hey, at least I'm updating right?

Anyway, wonderful birthday wishes to The Reva and my wonderful darling Brandy.

The Post That Never Was

Actually, this could be a whole series of posts.

I meant to talk about the Lakers roller-coaster season long before I actually did; I was going to chime in my two cents on the presidential primaries back in January, I've got oodles of games to mini-review; and of course plenty of OOTS and PVP to talk about.

But this post is about something else entirely.

I take you back to October; as some may remember, it wasn't an awesome time for me. My grandmother had just passed away, my house had been sans renters for months (I know, the more things change, the more they stay the same...), and life was pretty bleh. Brandy wasn't in tons better shape, with a close family friend passing away around the same time and work was driving her nearly insane (again, see above). All in all, not a fabulous time for either of us.

So Brandy decided that we needed an awesome weekend to, you know, make up for things and keep ourselves from bieng in a rut of sorts. She had intended to surprise me, but wasn't too subtle about finding out what time I would be off work, so I knew something was going on.

(In her defense, I sometimes had been getting off work early, depending on how the rest of the week was working out for me, but didn't that day. I should also note that I was only slightly better at surprising her last Christmas, but I digress)

I came home from work on a Friday afternoon - shortly after Brandy and I had been together for six months - to find an envelope taped to my bathroom mirror. It was a note from Brandy telling me to pack a small bag, wear something slightly nice, and meet me at her place. I was surprised by the direction, and couldn't help but smile, glad that Brandy had thought ahead enough to place the note in a location that I would see it.

So, showered and cleaned, I drove over to her place. Arriving at her door, I knocked. No response. I knocked again. No response. So I used my key to her apartment and let myself in.

"But wait!" I hear readers yell. "If you had a key, why did you knock?" Well, I figured that if Brandy had planned something for me I didn't want to surprise her by just bargin in. Knocking gave her a chance to prepare herself.

So in I went, entering into the unknown, bag in hand, and I see a pair of big eyes staring back at me as I walk in the door. "Well hello," I said. Eager to see me, I received a quick reply of:

"Meow."

Brandy was nowhere to be found, and I was left alone in her apartment with her cat! Doing my best Gil Grisom impersonation I began looking for clues. I began by, in fact, making sure she wasn't there. Confirming that, I made a bee-line to her bathroom, hoping to find something there, as there had been at my house. And lo, my detective skills paid off! I found another envelope, with instructions to meet Brandy at a specified address, along with directions. With another lonely meow from the cat to send me off, I was on my way, eagerly awaiting what would come next.

I soon (ok, not exactly "soon," since I had to take the 91 freeway, during rush hour, which always causes problems, but for the sake of the story we'll say soon) I found myself at the address - the Mariott Hotel in Riverside! Finding Brandy, she explained how she felt we needed a "weekend away," (I agreed) and though this wasn't exactly far away, it was indeed away. Expecting an enjoyable weekend, off we went to the elevator.

As we entered the elevator I noticed a small sign which read "Enter room key to access 10th floor." "I wonder what's on the 10th floor..." I mused aloud. "You'll see..." Brandy responded, quite to my surprise, as she put a room key into the slot. I was quite excited by the time we entered and saw a "romantic suite," complete with candles (electric), rose petals, a huge bed and our own hot tub!! On the counter were some chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne, and Brandy's laptop playing romantic music.

Needless to say, we had quite the relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Of course, this is all long hand for me to say: Brandy is wonderful to me, and I am lucky, grateful and oh-so-happy to have her. Everyone should be so blessed.

The Big Reveal

I can't believe that it's been a year since I graduated (more than that, actually).

Damn.

If someone had told me how my life would work out between then and now I would've mocked them; although if somone had told me about how my life would work out post-high school I wouldn't have believed them either. Still, I'm amazed at how my life has worked out.

I expected to get a job as a geologist; instead I work as a geophysicist. I expected my stay at home with my parents to be temporary; it's been slightly longer than that. I would never have expected that Candace would break up with me; nor that I would try an online dating servie, let alone fall madly in love with someone from such a service! At this point, though, I shouldn't be surprised by such things. God has proven to me over and over that nothing works out like I expect it to. So be it; I have faith that things will work out in the end.

Nonetheless, this summer will prove to be one of changes for me. So let's start listing them: My parents are - finally - moving out to North Carolina. As for me, I am leaving my employment at GEOVision to take a job as a Staff Geologist at CHJ, Inc. As such, I will be moving out to Colton, CA which, for those who don't know, is basically between Riverside and Redlands on the I-215.

Whew. So there you have it folks; the big news I've been waiting to tell everyone. If you want my new address, let me know and I will send it to you; additionally, if you want a birthday/Christmas card from me, get me your contact info and I will ensure that you receive one.

Great Weekend Fun (Update)

Sorry for the lack of updates of late, being out of town for work tends to exhaust me, leaving me little time for updates. That said, I leave again to be out of town all week on Monday, so prepare yourselves for another week with scant contact from me.

In the meantime, though, I was home this weekend, and what a wonderful weekend it was! I simply cannot fully express how much I enjoyed this weekend. I only wish I could say what made it so great; really I didn't do anything but hang out with the new girlfriend Brandy. But that was really (really) fun. I did take my first trip to a Dave & Buster's restaurant. Now, I had seen commercials for this place, but had never been and I must say, I really really want to like it there. I mean, where else could I sit, drink beer and play video games all at the same time? Without looking like a hermit by sitting at home? But the choices of video games was... subpar at best. No good fighting games, no good "classic" games. Anyone remember that old, 80s X-Men game? Man, if that were there, I would be in heaven. So, I guess the best way to sum it up would be that I like the concept, if not the execution.

So two things need to occur for this weekend to slide into my Best-Weekend-Ever spot: First, my parents (and dogs!) need to like Brandy, whom they are meeting this evening for dinner; Second, the Lakers need to beat the Suns. If these things happen, this will definitely be solidified as Best-Weekend-Ever. I wouldn't bet on it, though. I have high hopes for the first criteria, the second, not so much.

UPDATE: As expected, dinner with the family was good, the Lakers less so. So Labor Day maintains its spot as Best-Weekend-Ever, with this past one coming in a damn close second. How close? Well, my German Shepard didn't even bark at Brandy. That's how good.

Out of Towning

Sorry for the lack of updates this week folks, but I was in the field all week, and even now am out of town for work. I'm up in Goleta, near Santa Barbara. It's really (really) pretty, but there's nothing around. It's gonna be a long trip, and I can't wait to get home.

Soooo... in other news, I suppose I might as well share my wonderful news of the week: I met someone last weekend (Holy Saturday, actually) and am just crazy about her. Her name is Brandy, and while we met online, she is most definately not one of those crazy ones that you can meet. She is wonderful, and my heart is filled to overflowing with happiness every time I see her, which hasn't been much I regret to say, having been in the field and out of town all week. She hasn't met my parents yet (or the dogs, for that matter) so wish us luck on that, as she will be just as soon as I get back into town.

Oh yeah: our first date was bowling. Of course I lost, but I had a great time. Of course I had dinner in Perris (not to be confused with dinner in Paris) with her and had a great time as well, so I wonder if it's possible to go out and not have a great time with her.

I'm sore and tired from work, but I will try to keep everyone updated on life. Someone let me know if the world ends while I'm away, God knows I won't notice.