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12/17/06
Got the tree
decorated. Still needs some finishing touches, but it's
actually starting to look a little like Christmas around
here. |
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12/12/06
Got the new bird
feeder up this weekend. It's just outside our new picture
window in the kitchen. It's all geeky I know, but I like
it.
Dec. 9th was the one year anniversery
for closing on our house. I've been
working on a before/after picture page, but it's coming along
slowly. The goal was to have it done for the ninth. That
obviously didn't happen. Stay tuned. It will be up
soon. |
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11/27/06
If anyone deserves the
title of MC for our wedding, it is my father. The old coot
actually printed out pictures from our website to match names
with faces and memorize them before the event.
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11/20/06
BIG NEWS! HUGE
NEWS!
Our
dishes have arrived! We've been receiving boxes
for three days. Dishwasher is running full tilt as we
move the new ones in and the old ones out. But there's even
BIGGER news! We got the blog thing worked
out.
From now on, blog messages, rants, and dialogues
will be found here. Our homepage
(the page you're on) will go back to the simple weekly picture
with short message. |
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11/18/06
So I changed the photo to something else.
Stay tuned for a wedding teaser picture page. We don't have the
official pictures yet, but I do have a
collection of pictures
taken from various participants.
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11/17/06
The
Mrs. wants the wedding picture up for the week. I can update
messages and thoughts, but not the picture. So you ask how
married life is going? There you have it.
It's true
we're not honeymooning at the moment. Saving it for something
in the spring.
In my quest to make cycling harder
(don't ask why), I continued riding the fixie offroad this
week. The first ride destroyed my legs. The second loosened
them up a little and went pretty well considering the
conditions - wet leaves covering wet off-camber roots and
slick rocks. The third ride was a doozy. I decided to do the
Wed. night group ride with it. Here's an email I sent a friend
the next day:
last night was tough. the leaves were stirred up
more, I was pushing harder and I crashed a lot. I bent my
chainring on a log (need a guard for fixie), then dropped my
chain till I bent it back. my cog came loose in the back. not
sure what that's about. I'm afraid I've stripped out the
bolts. think I might bruild a wheel with a Surly disk hub and
do it like yours. no back brake sucks. then why bother with
fixed. it only makes the logs harder. did I mention
I crashed a lot? will still go fixie on road. seems like a
nice place for it.
Why a fixie
to make things harder I don't know. It would have made more
sense to just try riding more. That seems to be the most
difficult thing right now. |
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11/13/06
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It's
official.
We're married!
It
was a great time. Thanks
to everyone.
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the
company.
Rehearsal dinner pictures here
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11/11/06
Today's the big day!. Today I get to
finally ride my fixie!
Yeah yeah I'm getting
married too, but any self respecting cyclist has to throw in
some exciting cycling related thing on their big
day.
I've been meaning to "fix" my bike for a while
now, but didn't have the time. Yesterday while hanging out
with my dad, we took 2 hours and 4 drill bits to put this
together.
You uber geeks out there can ignore the
caliper on the other side. I ran out of time yesterday to
remove it. I'll take care of that before my ride
today.
Should be a great way to work out any
pre-wedding jitters, though I think I'm more nervous about the
ride then the exchanging of vows. |
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11/9/06
The calm before the storm
The past couple of weeks I've been
trying to keep myself on an even keel before the big day. It's
stressful enough knowing it's coming,
hoping all goes well and
everyone's happy. I didn't want to put myself into any extra stress
inducing situations. For the most part I've done a
pretty good job.
But now it's
here. Family and friends are arriving. Things are buzzing. The
stress-o-meter is cranking itself up notch by notch. Luckily
nothing too terrible has
happened. Let's hope it stays that way.
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11/6/06
The
bachelor party was a great success. No one got arrested,
puked or got in any fights.
It really was a blast.
Thanks to Craig for hauling our drunk asses all over
philly. Thanks to Scott for taking the pictures and
thanks to everyone for such a great time. Some
pictures here. |
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11/3/06
Last
March the "Receptacle of Death" made it's debut. Apparently
it's back.
The previous owners of our
house had a mouse problem. Mostly I thought because of
the attic gap. To
cure their problem, they baited various places downstairs with
poison. Mice come along, eat the poison and die. Then
another mouse comes along, either eats the dead mouse or the
poison and dies as well. Pretty soon you have a pile of stinky
dead mice. That's where the receptacle comes in. Some of the
places baited or where the mice went to die are deep within
the walls. Where there's an access point - like this
receptacle - you can smell the dead. It's not too bad. You
have to bend down and really take a whiff. Though in the
summer when it got hot, you didn't have to try too
hard.
So now it's that time of year when mice go
searching for cover. Sure enough they got in. I've heard them
twice downstairs. The first was in the wall next to the couch.
The second, you guessed it. At the receptacle. So on top of
making last minute preparations for our wedding next weekend,
I'm on a mouse hunt. I got traps. They're set. Come and get
it.
This also means it's probably time to cut out
the receptacle and clean what's behind it. Last year we
found thirteen dead mice in our walls and ceilings. We
found six once in a single spot. I wonder what this will
bring?
On a happier note - bachelor party tomorrow
night. Should be interesting to say the least.
Yeah. I
know I shouldn't be talking about mice and stuff
like that a week before our wedding, but the wedding stuff is
going real smooth so far. No issues or anything really to talk
about there.
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10/29/06
RSVPs are rolling in. We're up to 35
steak and cakes and 11
chickens. I think we've got most
things figured out for the big
show, though I still need to
get my suit altered.
Busy weekend this weekend.
Started friday night with
gaming at Fran's house. He and a
bunch of his friends are
into serious board games - crazy
stuff you've never heard of.
We've been once before and
Jen really likes it.
Finished Saturday with an 06 Hop Wallop and
a few episodes
of Lost. Jen and I are Lost junkies. Without
TV we have to
get our fix through Netflix. Right now we're
about half-way
through season two.
Got up this
morning and did a ride at French Creek. It was
windy, but
not as cold as it seemed. I'm still pushing the
bigger
gear on my bike and certainly felt it at French Creek.
Felt
the rocks too as I'm also running rigid. The fat 2.3 up
front really helps. Makes it almost bearable at Miller's
Point.
After the ride I spent a few hours on the
tractor running
cirlces in the yard. I think I sucked up
more biomatter today
then I have all year with the leaves
and everything else
blowing around the yard.
There
are bachelor party plans brewing in the mist for next weekend.
So far I've been kept out of the ideas and planning.
I
think it recently changed, but can't be sure. Whatever
happens,
I'm sure it will be an adventure.
I think
that's it. I'm exhausted and badly need a shower. |
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Saturday I got up and started with car
stuff. My car had a headlamp out and Jen
had a bad brake
light. Took nearly two hours to get that all straightened out.
After
that I started and finished one of our home projects.
There was a gap between
the
garage attic and the basement ceiling that let cold air
and mice run rampent
through our basement. All
gone now. I can finally sleep at night.
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10/26/06
Jay
sent me this today. Jeff suggested if we'd had
prayer flags, our weekend
would have gone better. I say if we made basecamp the Dunkin
Donuts in Gorham, our weekend would have
gone better.
I added some pictures I got
from Jeff. They're a little different then what I had. Nicer
camera - nicer pictures. |
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10/24/06
Randomness Rules
So
(almost) everytime I relate the story of this weekend , someone says
something like "'Someone' was really looking out for you
guys."
Maybe I'm a little bitter about it, but if
"someone" was looking out for us wouldn't/couldn't they have knocked
down another tree?
I'm an antagonist. I like to ask lots of
questions, and the question that comes to mind goes something like
this: if no one had any hand in
this at all, was it simply
dumb luck that this tree fell in our direction, then on top of that
nearly missed us without a scratch? I realize it
wasn't so
random that a tree fell. The wind was blowing really hard and the
trees were full of heavy wet snow, but the amount of
randomness
in this one incident is
confounding.
Then I ask
another question. Why was "someone" watching
over us? Why didn't "someone" watch over the last kid
that disappeared or the
last loved one that died in a car
accident? Is the watching of whom, where and when that
random?
Which would you prefer?
My last question
is have I somehow jinxed myself by questioning all
this?
Wedding Notes: We're registered at Macy's
Video: Cell Talker
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10/22/06
Had
an interesting weekend in the White Mountains of New Hampshire
this weekend. Read about it here.
It's
late. I'm tired and getting yelled at to come to
bed. |
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10/22/06
Got
my new pack already to go for this weekends
adventure. For those of you playing the "at home"
version, you can keep track of how wet I'm getting here and more specifically here. We leave Philly tomorrow am
around 4:30. Hopefully hit the Great Gulf trail by 1pm and
setup camp by 4 or 5 at the junction of the Great Gulf and the
Wamsutta. Eat some food, then get to bed. The original plan
was to get up way early and make a summit attempt by or before
noon, but considering the weather, we might sleep in a little
and try a little later. The general rule of thumb is to get up
and down before afternoon weather sets in. Since the weather
from the afternoon before looks like it's going to be hanging
around a bit, we might wait.
Either way the goal is
the summit of Mt. Washington on Sat. It's not likely to be
pretty or even really visible, but it will be cool
none-the-less. I made an attempt in March a few years back, but
was turned back by weather. The same thing might happen this
time. You simply have to accept you'll get there when you get
there. Pushing beyond your limits on this mountain just isn't
worth it.
Three years ago this month I made a trip to
the Adirondacks with the
same guys that's doing this trip. We made it to the top of Mt.
Marcy on that one. Maybe we'll get lucky.
I got this
pack two years ago for winter camping, since I tend to take a
whole lot more in winter. I'm taking it this time because I
needed room to take a second pack with me. On summit day, I'm
going to use a smaller lighter pack. Hiking into base camp and
out should be fine with this bohemeth on my back. It weighed
in at 41lbs. The pack itself weighs six. There's two liters of
water in there too. Not bad for a fall jaunt in the rain in
the White Mts.
Be back Monday. Maybe I'll get some
pictures and write up together then. |
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10/17/06
I updated the links page. I've been
reading a whole bunch of other peoples blogs. This one in particular. I love what he says and how he
says it. Jen started working on our new blog setup. Still having
issues, but we are working on it. Probably doesn't matter to most,
but it has
lots of potential.
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10/16/06
With our wedding being only four weeks away
and the nature of female Praying Mantes, you'd think I'd have
some smart-ass comment about this one. Nope. All I can say is
if you think it's gross try eating Enchiladas
with Tomatillo sauce while editing the photo. Mmmm
tasty! This guy (or girl) was on our front step Friday
after the first frost.
Still working on the new site
format. Technical difficulties abound. We'll get it worked out
and hopefully both Jen and I can start leaving you tasty
little treats.
Be sure to check out the photos and
write up for this past weekends Ghouls & Fools
ride. A kickass time was had by most. Also this weeks educational link. It's amazing what
helpful/humerous stuff you'll find on the
net.
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So Jen and I have
been doing this Arthur Murray
Dance thing for about a month and a half. I've got to tell
you, it's hard. Mentally demanding. There's a crap load
of stuff you have to know and constantly figure out. I sit
there at the classes looking around the room at all these
middle aged, pot bellied, man-boob men and envy them. I don't
know how long they've been doing it, but they're smooth - real
smooth. Their haggard old babes look like flowers dancing
about the room. It's crazy. I bust my ass and rack my brain
trying to pull together the few dinky moves we've learned, but
it just doesn't happen. On what foot do I lead the
turn? Which direction does the turn go? Am I still on the
beat? Did I move my foot with my toe or my heel?
Meanwhile these older couples are gliding about the floor
around us.
Apparently we're on track and ready to move
to the next level. Not only does it get harder, but also more
expensive. For the older folks, I would think plastic surgery
would be cheaper. Fortunately dancing is more
fun.
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