Journal

Penny and Silviano's Wedding

So we headed down to Kansas City. On our way to the interstate we stopped at Quicktrip to pick up some water and top off the gas tank (3 gallons). We headed west on 80 and then stopped by Best Buy to pick up a new tap adapter for my iPod. And were off south the the Big KC.

Intially we thought the tape adapter might be bad, but we cranked up the volume on both the iPod and the car stereo and listened. It just seemed wierd cause it was so quiet. So we talekd a little, I sang along with the music a little, like I do.

So we lost the final directions that were sent to us on how to get to the chruch from the highway, so we kinda drove around and around finding other churches (Methodist, Episcopal, etc) but no Catholic church. It was a good thing we got there early. So, finally, after a little exploring we found it! But we were still early...so we found some stores to wander around in. Started off in a pet store, then wondered around a K-Mart. Then headed back to the church.

So we parked and went in. It was a fairly big and fairly new church. I think the stone on the front said that it was built in 1997. So the Saint Therese Catholic Church of Kansas City was built nice. I don't know if I like the insides so much...It was nice, but it doesn't seem so Catholicy...at least not like the ones I've been too. Seemed more "really big churhchy" to me. Not a whole lot of stained glass either (which is something I like). On the way out, I noticed that Saint Therese looked really creapy when it was dark on the inside. The face, espicially. But on the outside and night it looked much better. Some of the things about the chapel were...well...just unbalenced, to me. I dunno.

Anyhoo. I assume that it was a full Catholic wedding, cause, well it was long, but I wouldn't know for sure, since I've never been to a Catholic wedding before. So there were lots of standing and sittings, and they were nice enough to say that if we didn't want to kneel, that we didn't have too. There were lots of tie in's between the marriage and raising the kids Catholic and remining Catholic and all that...it was actually really quite a lot of that. It was very pretty though. The lasso (shaped in an infinity loop), the 13 coins (symbolizing Jesus and the 12 apostles), those are kinda cool mexican wdding traditions.

So after the ceremony, we got the gift from the car and headed downstairs. Is it wrong to bring a Buddha candle holder in a Catholic Church? Well they asked for it...so... The basement of the church was pretty expansive and nice. The catering and cake were done by Hy-vee so it was pretty nice. The food was ok, the best thing about it was the chips and salsa. But I guess I can be just a food Zealot sometimes. The music was a blend of mostly Mexician sounds and country with a few others thrown in. The crowd had a few standouts. Lotta older gentleman with big beards and long hair, but that's cool. The cake was acutally pretty good. I had a slice of the wedding cake (white) and a pile (little small pices) of the grooms cake (chocolate).

While going to the bathroom, I chatted a bit with Penny's Uncle (an older gentleman, with a beard, and a little crook in his back) and he told me about how marriage was forever and how him and his wife of 43 years had eloped. It was kinda cool. I told him that I had about a year left before my marriage.

So around 9 something we decided it'd be time to drive home. We had brought clothes, but we didn't change into them. I took of my tie and untucked my shirt and changed my shoes, but after that we headed back the way we came.

After struggling and almost giving up on the tape adapter and the iPod, I finally figured out how to change sides on the tape player and...well...sunddenly it worked great. Yeah I felt like a big gigantic dumbass.

So we drove home and just a little across the Iowa border we stopped for gas at a Shell station. I guess they hadn't heard yet that gas prices were reciding, cause the price for premium was just under $3 a gallon. Oh well...we filled up the tank and drove the rest of the way home.

One thing that this made me realize was that I really am looking forward to getting married to Shannon, and I don't know if I'll be able to hold it together when we are finally up there saying our vows.

what the crap...

So this was between about 4:30 and 6:AM (4:30 shannon woke me up cause I had taken off my mask and was snoring, I put my mask on and fell back a sleep).

So we're in Florida in Disney World on our honeymoon. We start to wonder around and we want to take pictures, but we forgot our camera. So Shannon tells me that we have to go back and get it, so I'm like, all right and whip out the old credit card and we fly back and get the camera. (we sleep over night here in Des Moines)

So we're wandering around and we look at the rides, and we're taking pictures, but we dont actually go back on the rides. Shannon forgot something else, and again we go through the the whole argument and acceptance and heading back to Des Moines.

After the third time, I think I about freaked out on her, cause we haven't spent a night in the hotel in Florida, but then I calm down and she schedules to have a disney magic dinner with the princess from sleeping beauty.

Yeah...the dream was confusing.

I think...and other wedding updates

I think we may have found the photographer. Although we have to still meet with them yet. Tiff offered to let us know if they found a student photographer at GVC, and I've got not problems with that, but that doesn't mean the search has to end...so we'll see how this guy is. But it's the first time I've gotten an email and haven't felt violated.

This Sunday we're going to another wedding show. This one is at least inside. We'll probably meet up with Tiff and crew and make a go of it.

I went into work early, and got out early and picked up Shannon from work (her car is getting it's dent fixed, went in yesterday) and we ordered our Cake today. Dual tier (no silly columns), base of ivory, with pink flowers and some green vines. We also got a sheet cake too :) Yeah, we went the way expensive route...Actually we were going to see if a bakery/resturant over near us (La Mie, yes the La Mie) did that sort of thing...they don't. So Hy-Vee it was! Anyhoo, cake is cake. The pictures looked nice. I tried to convince Shannon that we needed a pirate ship cake (they had one on display), but it was a no go. Gotta keep with the theme of the wedding.

Photographers...

What is it about the work that hired photographers do that makes them think they can charge for their work over and over and over?

I sent out a bunch of emails yesterday to photography places to ask for prices and give them our (mostly my) requirements for wedding pictures. Here is the list:

1. Wedding Date: Saturday, September 23, 2006
2. General Time: Around Noon to 4 or 5 (4 or 5 hours of service).
3. Most photographs will be live shots (about an hour will be posed).
4. The negatives/digital images, we must have copies of.
5. Use of our photographs for your promotional purposes must be with our permission.

First two are just informational.

The third one is more about wanting to present reality, as opposed to a posed reality. Not that a posed reality can't look nice, but usually it looks...well...posed. The pictures that have the biggest effect on me are usually the ones that are live, action shots. I know that when we talked to the owners of Candle Lit Way they pretty much wanted to get the photographer out of the way so we can go on, but I don't really agree. I want the live shots, the unexpected faces, the honest tears of joy, the excitment. Not just, "smile for the picture".

The fifth, this is about a couple of things. Protecting our image (even if they are technically good photos, we may not like them, or want them published) and the fact that I believe that we, since we are paying for, own the work, so it would need to be used with our permission

The fourth...Ahh the big scam from photographers.

When I develop a website or an application for a website, they pay me for my time, efforts and intelligence. Every time someone hits thier website, I don't expect a small surchage for past design. When I do my work at work, IHS owns what I write. All of what I write, and I, if I left or got fired from that job the next day, wouldn't own any of it. Is it my creation, absolutly, but it's no longer mine.

So what about taking photographs for pay, makes it worth duplicating the cost to produce the picture over and over? Are the pictures artistic or art? I would certainly hope so. But when I buy photographs as art, I pay for the picture (which includes the time and effort and artistic quality. I don't have to pay for the photographer's time before hand.

I think that if a photographer wants me to pay for each image and not give me the negatives, then they shouldn't charge me up front. We should be able to go through the images they have, pick what we want and pay for those, and if they don't have many images they want, well, then they get the short end of the stick.

Or, if they want to be paid upfront for their efforts in photography and image correction skills, then they shouldn't charge a per picture end price, if we want to develop with them, then we can, but we also have the option to go somewhere else.

So far, the photographers I have liked are not working yet (they have a thing on their wabsite that tells you not to contact them until October), or charge way to damn much, or don't allow us to own the negatives/digital images. So far there is one relatively promising one, but their image selection on their website is kinda...well...not the best. The images they have there are good, there's just not a whole lot of 'em.

Registering at the BB&B

So we headed to Bed Bath and Beyond today, and did a little registering. It was kinda fun. We chose a china pattern that we liked (moon stone) and got a few more kitchen and house stuff added to our registry list.

We had heard that it did take a while to get going at the triple B, and it does. They talked about registering, and the process of picking things out and other things. And also took us through china and silverware patterns. We did have some trouble scanning things from time to time, and the battery died on our scanner but it all worked out. Apprently the devices are wireless (the second one they gave us had an IP address on it). That is kinda neat. Prevents you from data loss if the devise dies.

So if you wanna buy us stuff from Bed Bath and Beyond, feel free to do so.

food for wedding

So we're gonna go for snacky type food for the wedding and we had the idea of having food to match the color scheme of the wedding.

So the scheme is Pink (like a mellow pink) and Ivory.

So we've come up with:

Peeled and Cored apples (white)
White and Pink M&Ms
Cream cheese dip for appls (dyed pink?)
White Chesses with crackers

So if you got any ideas, just lemme know.

So this week...

On Wednesday, We headed over to Kohl's to buy me some shoes, since mine are worn out. So I got new walking shoes, made by New Balance, of course, since my feet are so wide. They're very simple, but they fee a bit more comfortable then my older ones. So because of this, my current walking shoes have been demoted to lawn mowing shoes and my stained green lawn mowing shoes have been demoted to trash, which is probably a good thing, caue they're falling apart.

After Kohl's we went shopping at Target and just bought tons of stuff. Including presents for Shannon's friend Penny's Wedding. By the end of the night of shopping there I was actually surprised at how much we spent. Oh well, we're stocked up for a while and Shannon's happy so, I guess that's what matters. We did this at the Merle Hay Road Target.

We then headed over to the Super Target on 100th, to register there for our wedding. We spent about two hours wandering around the store, and well, there were a few things (like a Sony PSP) that Shannon wouldn't let me register for, but there are others that were pretty nice, so, if you wanna buy us stuff at target, go right ahead.

We then headed home.

Thursday after work, I headed to a bar with my boss and two of my co-workers (Brandon and Deb), I had a couple of beers and proctor picked up the tab, which was nice of him :)

I got home and after eating, we headed out to Hy-Vee in Windsor Heights, to stock up, but not too much. Then we cleaned up some of the mistakes we had made in our wedding registry.

Today I'm gonna finish writing the export stuff for Benefits, and then at 1 I have a meeting with HR from Iowa Health Des Moines. After that I'm gonna head home, so I hope it doesn't take too long...but it'll make for a short day and a slightly longer weekend.

Bridal Show (at Jordan Creek)

So it seems to me, that weddings are becoming more and more about putting on a show and a party and less about the vows and starting a life together.

Oh well, what can you expect?

Anyhoo, I saw a few neat things there, I saw a chocolate fountain and that was kinda cool (although I think the chocolate was a bit too thick. Shannond did get a few ideas about her dress and we did collect some names of photographers and etc. So I guess that's not bad. Shannon also regisiterd to win a bunch of stuff. I tried to stay away from her when she did that, cause I've only ever won something once (and I didn't really want that).

There were lots of mothers and brides to be...probably some other people. We sat down to watch this bridal fashion show, and on the row that I was on there was like 30 or 40 women and 4 guys (including me).

There was one booth that was giving out samples of some pork thing (to try to get you to have your rehersal dinner/reception catered by them) and you'd think they'd want to put their best foot forward, but when it came down to it, it was really...well...the sauce was good, the meet was fairly tough. Certainly not something I'd serve to people.

There are other bridal shows coming up...I don't particularly want to go, but, it's not like I was totally bored out of my mind (it wasn't fun, but, it could've been worse, I guess). Maybe if we get the last details taken care of by then, I won't have to. Or maybe Shannon can go with Tiff, or her sister or mom could come up... But if she wants me to go, I will.

Now that's just about a perfect day.

So I woke up early, eventually we got ready and headed out to IHS Adventureland Day at the park. We wandered around the park, rode the rides that Shannon wanted to go on and then headed to the Palace Theater to eat dinner. We eventually met up with my boss, Proctor, his mother, and Michelle. The food was...well...food, technically. We waited for the prizes to be read off (yeah I didn't win anything), and after chating with the people there and the HR people that stopped by (Sara (VP), Kayleene, BJ), we headed out.

We got home, and I called Nathan, and they were about 40 miles away from Des Moines. So Shannon took a nap and I went to the store to pickups some milk and juice. A little bit after I got back, they arrived. Nathan, Jenny, Taylor (their daughter), and Truffle and Colby (their dogs). So we planted a bar in the back to tie the dogs too and let them play. It was nice. I showed them my house, we chatted for a long time. Eventually we headed to Dahls to pick up some fresh fruit and tomatoes for Taylor to snack on. Taylor went down for a nap, and when she woke up we headed down to Chef's Kitchen to have dinner. I had the Jack Daniels New York Steak, Shannon had Chicken Kiev (I think), Nathan had Apple Jack Pork Chop and Jenny had a steak. Taylor had some pasta. My food was just as good as the last time I remembered. It was nice.

We headed back to my house, after snagging a few cookies from the cookie jar. We went to the back yard and played with the dogs. They eventually headed home.

Oh...and I did one more thing. I asked Nathan to be my best man. This was actually a pretty hard decision for me, but I did make it.

After they left, we headed over to Brandon's and went to kind of a sort of "band's reunited" BBQ (although by the time we got there there wasn't much BBQing going on, just mostly drinking). So of the Mediocre Superheroes, there was Brandon (lead vocals, guitar), ED (backing vocals, Trombone), Jason (saxaphone), Bobby C (Drums), and straight from Japan, Taka (trombone). Also there was Ed's Girlfriend and his dog, Jimmy (old roomate and sometimes roadie), John (frind of Jimmy and Bob) and Val. It was nice, catching up, telling old stories. Taka seems to be doing well which is good :) I was a very nice evening. At around 11:30, we headed home to bed.

On the way home, I told Shannon that it was just about the pefect day (other then me getting a little sun burnt). Adventureland (fun), Nate and Jenny visiting (fun), and catching up and reminiscing with old friends.