Five Days

Well, I remember very well the days when I was saying the wedding was 168 days away. At that time, I was telling myself, "The next thing you know, it's going to be your wedding." But, somehow, that didn't seem true. When there were still 168 days left, it felt like the wedding was never going to come.

Now, there are only five days left, and it feels like yesterday I was saying "168 more days..." Time is a very strange thing. A million yesterdays always feel like they just happened, but tomorrow feels forever away. I wonder what that has to say about us as a species.

Anyway... here I am, the week of my wedding, and because Rachel is such an amazing planner, I have pretty much nothing to do. Today, we actually had to walk around the Waterfront to kill time between our bagel and coffee at Panera before our movie started at noon. We watched a matinee showing of M. Night's "Lady in the Water: A Bedtime Story" It was a very strange but fun movie. Of course, there was the obligatory creepy monster, and the jump out of your seat scenes M. Night does so well, but this had a light hearted nature that the rest of his films did not have. Rach loves M. Night movies, and says that the release of his fifth movie a week before our wedding was really a wedding gift to her from M. Night.

Now, I am printing off the name placards that the guests will find on the tables at the wedding, and then we are done planning the wedding. Everything we need to do is finished. Once this is done, we don't have to do anything other than hang out with family and friends before the wedding. (Oh, but Rach has to get her hair done tomorrow for the "trial run")

So, I guess it's all going pretty well. I'm excited, I can't wait to see all my friends again, and I can't wait to go to Puerto Vallarta and sit by the ocean drinking Mai Tais and Pina Coladas. Oh, what a life...

By the way... what's a Mai Tai?

Happy Birthday to Me!

I wasn't going to post today, because it's my birthday and I didn't want to bring unnecessary attention to that fact, but a lot of you have called me today to wish me a happy birthday. Thanks! I didn't get any of the messages until a few minutes ago... my phone is really sucking now. And, I just got an email from Marisa wishing me a happy birthday. I wrote her the following response, which works well as a post for today.

Here's the email:

Reese-

Thanks for the email. I've had a really great birthday today. Rachel came by and surprised me last night, so she got to spend the night in our new apartment! This morning, we exchanged gifts (she combined my birthday and my wedding gift.) She got me a pair of morrocan clay lap congas... and I copied the book of Psalms into a journal for her. Then we went to Second Cup (my favorite place in Wheeling... a coffee shop downtown). After that we walked around downtown a bit looking at antiques stores, and some lady told me that I got ripped off big time on Rachel's engagement ring (though I don't know she knew what she was talking about.) Rach had to take off for work, and I went into the office for a while. They didn't know it was my birthday in the office, and I'm not really one to advertise, but it seems as though yesterday was Nora's birthday, because we got ice cream cake and sodas and took a few minutes out to celebrate Nora's birthday. So I got to eat some birthday cake on my birthday! I didn't bother to tell them it was my birthday because I didn't want them to feel stupid, which would have been inevitable in those circumstances.

After the office, I worked on my bookshelf. I sanded down all the shelves, and then stained the whole thing with tongue oil. Now, I've ordered myself a Pizza, and I'm going to watch some TV, drink a few beers, and eat too much Pizza.

Thanks for the email... and you should know... I've pretty much decided now that I'm going to copy this and post it as my blog posting for today. Alright! See you soon!

Best-

Joshua

Our New Apartment: Halfway Done...

Well, there are only 12 days left until I am a married man. I am starting to loose sleep now, and I'm not sure how to make the time go by more quickly. I am working pretty hard on some training stuff with WJU hoping to get it all finished up before the wedding so that I don't have to worry about it all over the Honeymoon. But pretty much, I'm just freaking out. I'm anxious, and excited, and basically one big huge ball of energy right now. I can't wait. For those of you who have not yet met Rachel, I'm sorry for you. She's a wonderful, beautiful, incredibly fun person. I tell her all the time: "My favorite thing about you is just how much fun you are. You're so FUN!" And I really believe it. I can't wait to start living life together.

That said, we have begun getting our apartment in order. Here are some photos of the space we'll be living in. Things are changing very quickly, so these pictures are already out of date, but I thought some of you might like to see where we'll be living.

Unfortuantely there is not air conditioning, and it can get quite warm. Last night my friend Damian came over and we tasted some beers and ate good cheese, but it was just so hot in the apartment... I just need to get some fans in there and it'll cool down enough.

Kitchen before we moved our stuff in... notice the old 1930's fridge in the corner, and the beautiful couch that doubles as a chinese torture device...

Kitchen after we moved things around (from a different angle of course.) We now have a full sized fridge and soon we'll have a little convection oven to cook out of!

Living room before we moved out. Again, what a sense of style is present in the dorm furniture. This time, expressed through the pseudo tree trunk that is a coffee table. YUK!

Living room after we moved in. Yes Tim, that's Grandma's couch by the window there. Going to good use again. Don't worry, I'm taking good care of her. I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything while sitting on the couch.

Rachel's closet. I just like the idea of hanging a sheet over the space instead of using the bulky obstructing doors. Now we have to stitch up the top so that it looks gooder.

Oh, and I converted a coat closet to a pantry! We don't have a kitchen in our new apartment, but we have a room that we'll be using for the kitchen. We are going to use the bathroom sink for washing dishes and such. (Which means I have to change the faucet and construct a shelf to put dishes and things on...) Because we are going to be using this room for the kitchen, I converted the coat closet into a pantry by knocking out the hanging rod in the middle, and building some shelves inside. It worked out pretty nice and I think it even looks good!

Old Mother Hubbard's Pantry.

Pantry starting to fill up. (Filled with everything we've been getting at these showers. Thanks everyone!)

The guy at Lowe's cut the shelves an inch too short the first time, so we got more boards for free. Then, I took the shelves that were too short and built a bookshelf. (I'll post pictures of that later.)

So, yeah. I'm practicing my hand at being the handyman. Hanging hooks and building a pantry, and building a bookshelf, changing the shower head, and installing a new faucet in the bathroom... I'm sure there'll be more to do, but for the time being, that's pretty much everything.

Sorry it's been so long since I posted... it's pretty busy getting ready for the wedding. To be honest, I shouldn't really be posting now, I just wanted a diversion from the reports that I'm working on. So, this is probably going to be my last post before the wedding... so get ready for a long dry spell. The next time I come back, I'll either be killing time before the ceremonies, or I'll be posting pictures of the Honeymoon.

See you then!!!

First of two amazing Bush Videos

Now this is absolutely brilliant. Put the President on Slow-Mo and he's totally sloshed. One of the presidents press conferences slowed down, by only 2%

Second Bush Video

Who has this kind of time? U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday, performed by GW. Thanks to http://onegoodmove.org and Rx @ http://thepartyparty.com/ I'm kinda starting to feel badly for him.

Bush: Wind it till it breaks.

Bush was forced by the supreme court this week to pull back a bit on his stance that the Geneva Conventions apply to Al Qaeda. I don't know what took so long, but now the President is being forced to say "Ok. We're not allowed to torture terrorists anymore, and if we think someone's a terrorist, we still have to give them a trial."

The strange thing, is that the President is actually saying stuff like that. What has happened in this country that we are at a point where the President has to say "We won't torture terrorists any more?"

I saw a pamphlet calling for the impeachment of the President a few weeks ago, and I thought, "What's going on? Why are we going to do this again? Is impeachment going to be the new fashionable thing to do to a president?" But I'm starting to realize, we have someone in power who is tapping our phone lines, collecting our bank information, holding people prisoner without trial, waging wars without the approval of the UN, falsly reporting intelligence information in order to bolster false claims to support a motive for war, and torturing prisoners in violation of a sixty year old international treaty. I feel like I'm starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, only this is all stuff in the New York Times. I'm not talking about mysteries here, I'm talking stuff that's all over the news, but for some reason isn't a huge deal to the average American. Bill Clinton stained a dress and he was impeached. George Bush started taking lives years ago.

Seriously... what's happening?

Maggie Wraggle Taggle

Tim's Blog reminded me that I had not posted my memorial to Maggie. I wrote it a while ago, and forgot to post it. So, here's the belated memorial:

Mistress Maggie Wraggle Taggle

My Thirteenth birthday present, Friend of small dogs, Sworn enemy of Deer, Sworn enemy of Squirrels, Sworn enemy of Collars, Sworn enemy of nail clippers, Sworn enemy of leaves blowing across the front yard, Sworn enemy of Mrs. Farinacci's big ol' hairy dog, Attacker of windowsills, Conquerer of restraints, Shaker of Ropes, Shaker of Skunks, Burier of food, Explorer of far off reaches of untold ravines, Lover of High Fives, and Obeyer of untold "Be Ashamed"s, took her final breath last Saturday and now lays neath the American Bud in the back yard where she spent more than forty percent of her waking life.

She was a good dog who gave me five on her deathbed. I'll miss that soft blonde afro, I'll miss the compassionate teddy bear that used to sleep by the door waiting for someone, anyone to let her outside.

Good Girl Wrags. Sleep tight.

Entreprenuer

So, I did my very first bit of business as an Entreprenuer this past week. (You could say Entreprenuer... you could say free-lance computer gig... whatever.)

At any rate, my old boss from OHDELA gave me a ring the other day. They needed a hand designing three powerpoint presentations for recruiting sessions and they had to be turned around in about a week. I put together 3 presentations (totalling 66 slides) for them and just sent out the bill. In the end, I worked 17 hours in a coffee shop drinking coffee and eating muffins while I earned cold hard cash... er check...

I downloaded an invoice template from Microsoft and sent out a bill. It was pretty good money, and I think I did a pretty good job. Here are some screen shots from the presentation (As much as I would like to take credit for the graphics... those were given to me. I just laid everything out.)




When all was said and done, I realized that the whole project was done without a single sheet of paper changing hands. If I could only have them electronically deposit the payment into my bank account, it would be completely paperless...

So, yeah. I'm running a new business called "Elek PPT" and my company motto is: I done good.

(P.S. If you want me to do a presentation for you, let me know. Its $45.00 an hour ;)