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Wedding Home Stretch

We’ve rounded the final turn and are heading down the home stretch.  A mere 2 and a half weeks until it’s go time.

All of the major pieces are done, and many have been for awhile.  Now is the time for little detail stuff.  That stuff which could be successfully postponed 3 months ago, can’t be procrastinated any longer.  For example, Jess and I decorated 75 candle holders for tables (there will be more than one per table, fyi).  Other things such as fitting for tuxes and Jess getting her makeup and hair choices squared away.  No, I didn’t know women do that, and I’ve been here before… go figure.

Luckily, I put my foot down about one single thing for this wedding.  We are not doing any sort of “wedding favors”.  You know, that stupid shit that people give you when you attend their wedding, that you don’t want to carry around anyway… We’re not doing it.  You know why?  It’s because NOBODY ACTUALLY WANTS THAT CRAP.  You know what happens is you spend 3 weeks and untold hundreds of dollars assembling these little plants, or some stupid little token, or whatever, and 80% of the people either throw it away immediately or just leave it at the reception.  Another 15% put it somewhere in their house, only to lose it and end up throwing it away a year later.  5% may actually find a use for whatever lame ass thing you gave them, but even then, it’s a marginal use.  As I told Jess, I guarantee you, if we have no favors not a single person will leave the wedding saying, “I can’t believe they didn’t give us anything!”  Hell, you’re getting a night out, excellent grub (all you can eat), including a very good cake for dessert, free beer and wine (all you can drink), and chances are this thing will be filled with at least a few of your friends and/or family.   It will be the party of the year.  What, that’s not enough for you!?

Let’s see… what else… We’ve gotten our rings squared away.  Mom has made us some runners for tables.  We’ve tasted cakes and food.   Today we meet with the DJ.  Still gotta get the license, however.

The thing is, as crazy as it has been for me, it’s gotta be 50x crazier for Jess.  She is a whirlwind.  My brain would have long since turned to tapioca had I been the lead on this whole production.  Do me a favor, next time you see her, tell her she’s doing a terrific job and it will all be worth it, and more importantly, it will be over soon.

We are also approaching the stage in which I am going to be careful bordering on paranoid to avoid getting sick.  We’re talking vigorous hand scrubbings,  portable hand sanitizers, avoiding handshakes (in favor of fist bumps if necessary) and stocking up on the Vitamin C.  If the previous last thing I wanted to do was to be sick in Las Vegas, the REAL last thing I want to do is to be sick for the wedding day and/or a week in Hawaii.  I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening.

Let me tell you… Maui is going to be a legitimate vacation.  Not a quick getaway.  No sporting events to attend.  No friends or family to visit.  Nothing but beach lounging (under shade, of course) and tropical drinks.   I see now why people go on honeymoons.  You need that time to relax and recharge.

Ok… I’ve got Maui on my brain and don’t feel like writing any more about what we still have left to do.  Suffice it to say, we’re going to be a little haried until we step onto that plane bound for the garden isle August 18th.

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Weddings and Other Stuff

Woo hoo… a regular blog post.  Hey, I’ve been busy, cut me some slack.

First off, a wedding update.  We were able to clear the final major hurdle in this whole process this week.  We finally have someone to actually marry us.  Which is a big load off the shoulders.  Who knew that judges would be so hard to get a hold of, especially if you don’t have an “in” with one of them.  Luckily, we were able to find retired Judge Richard Grant who had nothing better to do that afternoon and graciously agreed to officiate.  Whew!

From here on in, everything else is minor detail stuff.  The big stuff is all locked in.  We got registered, but I don’t think we beeped enough stuff.  Got a lot of people coming to this thing…  (Macy’s and Bed Bath and Beyond, in case you’re interested).  T-minus 44 days and counting.  (46 days until Maui).

News this past week here in the Valley is that all 7 Round Table Pizza‘s just up and closed one day.  No notice given to even the employees. Normally, this wouldn’t register on my radar, but since three of my top 5 favorite pizzas came from Round Table, I was and still am quite upset about this.  When I was single, I ate Round Table once a week.  Seriously.  Now, I know we have Idaho Pizza Company, which split off from Round Table years ago, and is similar pizza, but its not the same.  I still can’t quite believe I won’t ever have their pepperoni, or King Author Supreme or Montague’s All-Meat Marvel whenever I want.  I am legitimately pissed about this.  I can’t even describe.  Well, next time I’m vacationing anywhere near one, you can bet what I’m going to pick up. *sigh* I do know this… if they keep playing TV commercials for it, I’m gonna be PISSED.

In other personal news, I have somehow slipped in to a vortex of horrible minor personal choices.  Lemme explain.

In recent months, I have had the absolute worst luck in picking minor shit.  For example, at any store where you have more than 1 checkout lane, EVERY SINGLE TIME I end up behind the person who is trying to use 19 coupons, can’t find their checkbook, need 27 different price checks, or some other reason to waste as much of my time as possible.  It is uncanny.  And it seriously is every time.  It’s gotten so bad that I make Jess pick when we are together.  It’s the only way we can get out of the store within this century.

As a corollary to this, is my channel surfing has gone down the toilet.  I’ll be on one channel, and flipping through the DirecTV guide seeing what else is on.  When I pick something and navigate to it, without fail that channel will be on a commercial.  I don’t know how I do it.   It is exceptionally frustrating.  Jess can back me up on this, it has gotten ridiculous.

Boise State and Peak Broadcasting finally announced who would be taking over for the longtime voice of the Broncos Paul J. Schneider.  Bob Behler comes to BSU from UMass, and seems like a well seasoned play by play guy.  I’m sure he’ll do a great job, but I’m still a little off kilter.  I mean, Paul J has been an absolute fixture here for 35 years.  It will take me a long time to get used to hearing someone else calling BSU games.

I’m sorry.  I love Paul J.  I know he wasn’t always the most accurate announcer in the world (to be kind) but dammit he had the voice.  My entire life has been spent listening to him.  I really hope Behler does a great job.  He has some huge shoes to fill.

House has been coming along.  We’re getting fairly settled.  We’ve got fewer work men coming by the house fixing things.  Fewer boxes full of stuff we might need soon.  I’ve been wrestling with our sprinkler system since one of the stations is a pain in my ass.  Half of the station is a marsh complete with standing water, while the other half is drying out and the grass is dying.  So, I’ve been fighting with it trying to get the right amount of water and everything.  I think I’m getting close, but I’ll probably need to get that big station broken into 2 different ones.  Ugh.

One downside to living in a new, fancy subdivision?  Door to door salesmen.  Gaaa…  I haven’t lived in a place where they are so thick like they are at our new place.  Damn.  If it ain’t the security system guy it’s the pest control guy.  The problem is that we’re so used to having various workmen come by the house, I have to answer the door just to be sure.  BANG, I’m caught in their web and I gotta spend the next 10 minutes trying to extricate myself from their elaborate sales-pitch web.  Plus, since we have a regular old window in our front door, I can’t even peep out and neglect to answer the door when I notice its a sales guy.  Well, I guess I could, but even I can’t be that big of a schmuck… of course, it would be pretty funny to walk up to the window, wave at the guy, then walk away from the door.  Maybe next time.

One week.  I can’t wait.

Well, that’s all I got for now.  Happy 4th of July everyone.

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Creeping Civilization

Slowly but surely, everything is starting to come together… and don’t call me Shirley.

In the past week, we’ve had the new refrigerator delivered as well as the washer/dryer.  More importantly, we also got internet access set up.  That all happened last Monday.

We spent the rest of the week, unpacking some boxes, moving still more random crap from the old house, and fighting off exhaustion.  We had to spend the entire week without TV because the builder was going to run more coax cable for our DVR’s for free.  If DirecTV did it, they would charge $75 an hour.  So, that was a no-brainer.  But, with the way schedules worked out, DTV couldn’t come until this past Saturday.

I spent the entire morning hanging around the house while the guy did his thing.  From 9am to 1pm.  But, he finally finished and we were back with TV again.  Hallelujah!

Jess equated living without satellite/cable to living in those days before remote control. We were able to watch DVD’s but that was like having only a single channel.  And, if  ayou wanted something else, you had to physically get up, make a decision as to which DVD to throw in, then make that happen.  Lots of work when all you want to do is  shut down the engines and veg out.

Speaking of TV, supposedly the builder’s cabinet guy is coming out today to install the net A/V cabinet in the living room and finally fill in that ugly hole.  However, nether Jess nor I are all that confident that he’ll show.  We have not hear word one from anyone concerning this.  Even so, old Goldy girl is locked into the bedroom just in case.  I’ll let you know if it actually happens or not.

This past holiday weekend, we FINALLY got the rest of the stuff out of the old house.  It is completely empty.  It was cleaned last Thursday and we’ve got the carpet cleaners coming this Thursday.  Should be all ready for the renter to move in June 1.

Of course, we still have the storage unit to deal with, and not to mention the garage FULL of boxes.  *sigh*

One other thing we crossed off this past week is we got Jess her new lawn mower.  She was quite excited, so while I cooked up steaks and mashers, she was mowing the lawn with her new “personal pace” Toro mower.

On the wedding front, we have made progress there.  We have gotten the invites all bought and everything.  A friend of Jess’ is going to address them since apparently she has good handwriting.  Fine by me, means I don’t have to do it.

We also got registered yesterday.  We’re not totally done, but we spent about 5 hours at Macy’s and Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Macy’s wasn’t that much fun, because we spent the time trying to figure out what the hell we wanted… specifically in terms of design type stuff.  Towels and sheets and that sorta thing.  That was NOT fun.  Making all those decisions was tough.  But, I suppose we can always return stuff, right?  Not to mention that all that crap is wicked expensive.  We both felt way guilty scanning some of that stuff.  But, as Jess said, nobody says they gotta buy it, right?

Bed, Bath & Beyond was a lot more fun.  That was picking out all of the cooking stuff I want.  That was the stuff I really care about.  Spoons and spatulas and pans and whatnot.  Good times.

We still have to register for more stuff… I don’t think we have enough on there to give our guests the variety to choose from.   The paperwork we got from Macy’s told us that for the number of people we’re inviting, we should have upwards of 250 items at various price points on our register.  Gaaa!  When we left Macy’s we 48 items.  Needless to say, we have some work left.

Scoreboard time…  Old house empty.  Storage unit still full.  Kitchen stuff mostly unpacked at new house.  Most everything else still partially or mostly in boxes.  We officially have TOO MUCH CRAP.  Hopefully cabinets done today.  Re-grouting still needs to happen on the master shower.  Some other various little fixes need to happen too.  We still haven’t met the “community director” lady to get our pool keys and whatnot.  We also got to buy a bunch of stuff for the house, area rugs and runners, water softener, shelving for the garage, a garage fridge/freezer, decorations for walls, blah blah blah blah.  It is never ending.  Wedding wise, locale and time is set. Menu is finalized.  Photographer is locked in.  Invites are done and ready to be sent. Dresses and Tuxes are done.  Honeymoon is all squared away. Registering is well on its way.  Flower meeting this week. Cake decisions still gotta happen.  We still need an officiant (yikes).  Working on decoration stuff now.  Excuse me, I need a nap…

We just keep plugging away.  Maybe someday we can actually get the place whipped into some sort of shape and put together a decent wedding…

Stay tuned.

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New Wedding Site

Howdy everyone. I know I’ve been super lax about blogging lately but I do have at least a little something to show for it. Couple little somethings, actually.

If you would like to see the website I have been crunching away on for all those hours the past couple weeks, you can go here: http://www.limelightnetworks.com/

I didn’t design it, I just took the design mock up and actually created all of the html and javascript to make it actually work. Turned out well, I guess. Supposedly, the client is getting a lot of positive reviews, so that’s a good thing.

But, more importantly, I was able to spare a few hours to crank out our wedding site which eventually will be chock full of tasty info about the impending nuptials. Really, what I needed to do was get this up in order to coincide with our sending out of the Save the Date dealies. More on those later.

To view the Wedding Site, just go here: http://wedding.jasonhaberman.com

Like I said, there will be more content (and probably some edits and refining of current content) once I get a little more time. I have another website or two that are in the queue at the moment, so I gotta move on to those for a little bit. Mark and Dad, I haven’t forgotten you.

The funny thing about being a web developer, is you wouldn’t believe how many people out there “need a website”.  Like I said, I have a few sites in the hopper, but I am approached all the time.  We are refinancing the house, and when Jess filled in the occupation box for me, the mortgage lady told her, “Web developer huh?  Well, I need to talk to him…”.  Yeah, get in line lady.

Good thing I still enjoy it.

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Wedding Plan Setback or Back Where We Started

Well, in the midst of my working 70 hour weeks recently, we’ve had what some might construe a setback in our wedding plans.

For a number of reasons, we will no longer be married in St. John’s cathedral here in Boise.

This has sort of been building ever since we thought that was what we might want to do. We had plans and hoped they would all work out. However, the Catholic Church has ways of making even the best intentions fall short.

We started off exploring the idea, and began all the paperwork to get my previous marriage “annulled” in the eyes of the church. They certainly don’t make things easy, as we had to wait for weeks and weeks to get cleared.

One of the main reasons we wanted to get married at that particular church was for the priest there. Fr. John Legerski. I’ve really liked him, and he has been sort of a family friend to Jess’ family. Well, Jess was speaking with him when he dropped a bit of a bombshell on us. The diocese is switching up all the priests in June, so he most likely won’t even be there to perform the service. Well, that sucks. Something one would think he might mention at the beginning of the whole process, no? Who knows who would be the priest there, or if we would even like him.

As far as times for the service on Saturday the 16th of August we had two options, neither of which were what we wanted. Either 2pm or 7pm. Well, 2 is way too early, and 7:00 is pushing the limits on when the reception was to start. Apparently, there was zero flexibility in those times. Not to mention, the near 200 people guest list would either be too big for the small chapel there, and look rather paltry in the main church.

Throughout this whole process they have succeeded in making this great celebratory event feel more like a burden to them. Damn near like we weren’t wanted. We have had to pull and prod to get any information or anything. Just disappointing.

I guess what really sealed our decision was the cumulation of the above factors combined with the fact that neither Jess nor I are practicing parishioners. We got to thinking that we might have been making this choice for incorrect reasons. Namely, it would make all of the parents happy. It was perhaps a bit hypocritical of us to try and go this way. Frankly, the church route just didn’t feel like “Us”. And after some discussion, we finally reached our decision. It appears that we aren’t the only ones… we fit squarely in the “younger” category of this story.

That being said, we’re back at square one. We’re probably 95% sure the service will be in the upper level of the Linen Building where we originally thought it would be. Personally, I think this is a great place, specifically because it is such a great space, plus there is no transportation back and forth… nobody has to be in charge of moving gifts or making sure everyone knows where to go.

So, now you’re up to date. Hope we didn’t get anyone’s hopes up for a big church wedding. Who knew that this was such a stressful deal when you are actually included in the decision making process?

Those who know me and my story will get that comment.

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Groomsmen

This past week, I went about the process of informing my groomsmen to be that they were, in fact, groomsmen. What follows is my email and good old George’s response.

For the record, I would just like to say that I love bein’ a guy. Reason 9,486: Life is so much simpler. I see Jess sparing with her chosen bridesmaids, spending hours upon hours looking at dresses for them and knowing that at least one, or perhaps all of them won’t like it. Me? I just fire off an email and within 2 hours, all 3 responded and we’re good to go. That’s it. They get a tux and I guarantee that not a one of them will complain about the cut, or the color, or anything. They get it, they put it on, they return it to the rental joint. Bing, bang, boom. No muss no fuss.

The emails…

Continue reading “Groomsmen”

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August 16th, OK?

Apparently, I seriously dropped the ball. Who knew that my devoted readers keep on top of things, but obviously you all do. It’s not like we were keeping it a secret or anything and we’ve told anyone who asked. It just slipped my mind to put it on my blog. So, without further ado…

The big day is scheduled for Saturday, August 16th 2008.

We have been engaged for two full months as of this Friday. Presently, we have just about everything nailed down. Date, locale (for reception at least), caterer, photographer, DJ, cake, colors, dress, tuxes, honeymoon, you name it. I believe the only semi-major type thing left to do is flowers.

Yes, I’ll take full credit for getting all of this done. I’ve really been busting my ass, making decisions and calling all over town coordinating everything. I will say it has been kinda tough dragging Jess through this whole process…

Oh… Hi baby, didn’t see you there… a-hem… whoops… um… I mean… er… well, see… ahh… the thing is… uh…

Just kidding. She has actually been super efficient in nailing all this down. She jumped into the deep end and has done an amazing job. If it was up to me, we’d be nowhere. Getting married at the local Moose Lodge or something officiated by Reverend Skeeter, local pastor and tractor mechanic.

So, there ya go. You’re all up to date now. For the record, you’ll notice that I’ve added a new category to the right navigation called “Wedding”. This can be your conduit for all things wedding related here on my blog. Right now, this will be the only post in there, but stay tuned. More will be coming to feed you people’s voracious appetite for wedding details.