Wedding – Party 3

So, after the wedding, it was time for the party. And what a great party it was. I know Cora has said it, and I will say it again, "Everything went perfectly." There were no last minute snags, or disasters like you hear about. Nope. Here are my top 4 things that didn't go right with the wedding and the reception:

1. I went thru the buffet line first, and had the wonderful grilled vegetables. But, I didn't know there was asparagus underneath the other vegetables. My pee smelt normal all night long. :-(
2. I didn't get to taste the chocolate layer of the cake, but as you can see, we enjoyed our slice quite a lot.
3. My vest was a little snug, and while dancing, I bent down to lift the flower girl, and I popped a button on the vest. Guess I didn't need the chocolate cake after all.
4. The garter was intercepted just before it got to the intended party.

That's it. That's my list.

As maybe you can tell from the videos, the DJ was awesome, the food was great (salmon and prime rib) the centerpieces looked great, and everybody had a great time. And I know that not from them SAYING it, but from me SEEING it.

Here's my best man Tony's speech.

"Never let the details get in the way of a good story." Yeah, but since it's my blog:

• Yes, it was a Commodore 64.
• I wrote the code. I didn't need to hack it.
• There were "weaknesses" in the code that could be exploited if you knew what you were doing. Such as, say, you wrote the code.
• The rats was not one of them.
• But if you fed your soldiers negative amounts of grain, it would subtract that negative amount from your stores, effectively giving you free grain. So, it mattered less what the rats did.

Here's a cake cutting with a twist that I'm certain that you've not seen before:

Cora's brother Craig's girlfriend Kristin's 30th birthday was that day. We figured that we aren't such divas that we can't share our day. It is a party after all. So we planned the birthday cake surprise. We managed to keep is such a surprise that even the camera man had no idea what was going on or where to aim.

Unlike at the wedding I went to last summer [LINK] there was little drama with the bouquet or garter tosses. Well, the girl who caught the bouquet caught it as it rebounded off her nose, and I was aiming the garter at Craig, but it got picked off by a 15 year old at the last instant.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the evening.

Our First Dance. Hear the song HERE	I just love this picture.
The "Sweetheart" table…	My brother Tim and sister Karin
On my knees like a dog.	Never again to be surrounded by so many single women!
Cora dancing with another man.	Taking Gwen for a spin 'round the floor.
Okay, not technically from the reception, but I love this picture and I needed one for this spot nest to Tiffany, so I'm running it anyway. So there.	In the background, my mother mugs a guest. And the gal in the foreground, as I've been told, did have a 'wardrobe malfunction' before the wedding with one of those straps. This is not the only 'wardrobe malfunction' to occur in this little story. Stay tuned.

After the reception, Tony & Maribeth drove us into Seattle and we got these shots by the Space Needle.

Sorry folks, there are no pictures of the wedding night from this point forward, but I will pass along this little shot from the next morning:

And what was Cora doing while I was taking pictures like this, you may ask?

Yup, that's my wife! ;-)

It must have been while you were kissing me…

Yeah, another break as I edit some videos.  Here's a little something that has been rattling around in my brain for a while to start your day off.  Another little oral interpretation.  This time, it's Meat Loaf:

Assuming that has left you feeling a little skeevy, here's the original video.

Yeah, no mine doesn't suck nearly so much, does it?

Wedding - Part 2

I know what you must be thinking, "Stop clowning around, and get to the ceremony already! Gee whiz, you two can drag out a story!" Well, you tell you the truth, even though it happened over a fortnight ago, it is still hard to believe that it actually happened sometimes. Probably because she's in Seattle and I'm in Chicago.

But, I have the ring to remind me. And this:

Part 1 – Perp walk: The gal in the pink is Cassey, the event coordinator.

Part 2 – Sermon: I just can't stop looking at her. Or smiling. Or holding her hand.

Part 3: The "I Do" part: If you could hear the thoughts in my head during this whole section it goes pretty much like: "Kissthebride. Kissthebride. Iwannakissher. Kissher. Gettothekissingalread." But having been warned, Cora's ring did not want to go on, so I did not try to jam it on. And when she took my hand, I resisted every "pull my finger" urge that I had.

The videos were was shot by Callista's husband on Cora's flip camera. Due to YouTube limitations on video length, I had to bust them up into 3 bits so that they broke at reasonable spots, and were still under 10 minutes long. For those of you who are about to say "I can't watch video at work", well, here's some photos.

Scope's Perp Walk	Craig & Callista (2nd time's a charm!)
Tony & Gwen	My new niece & nephew (So serious!)
Reverend Beck Erb & "The Groom"	Guess who I espy with my little eye?

And with that, we were married.

Let the party begin!

And, on a different topic

Taking a quick break from all the wedding stories to bring you a little something different.  Fret not, I will be back to the ceremony soon.

Happy weekend, by friends.

---

A man was driving down the road and ran out of gas. Just at that moment, a bee flew in his window. The bee said, "What seems to be the problem?" "I'm out of gas," the man replied.

The bee told the man to wait right there and flew away. Minutes later, the man watched as an entire swarm of bees flew to his car and into his gas tank. After a few minutes, the bees flew out. "Try it now," said one bee.

The man turned the ignition key and the car started right up. "Wow!" the man exclaimed, "what did you put in my gas tank"?

The bee answered, "Bee Pee".

---

There's been all this talk about "BP" and "taking a serious leak in the Gulf of Mexico" and stuff, and I just had to use this joke my uncle sent me before the whole thing started down there.  Plus, I will now reuse my "AMECO" logo from THIS POST, because I spent WAY TOO LONG on that for just a single use:

Wedding – Part 1

Let me just lay this out here now. I won't be covering the whole wedding in one day. Too many pictures and video and stuff that I haven't even begun to go through yet. If you want to see pictures, I think the Facebook servers are GROANING from the uploads.

Friend me. Even if it's under a fake account to preserve your anonymity. ("Sandy Ann Coda", I'm looking @ you! ;-) )

Or to just see more of my pictures, check out my Flickr page.

---

I woke up the wedding day feeling strangely calm. I tend to be a bit of a worrier, and I was starting to worry myself about how calm I was. I got dressed for the morning, and then met Tony downstairs at the hotel for some breakfast before running out and doing some errands. (Cora and I will see each other before the wedding, but not before a planned "first sight".)

Our first stop was back in Seattle at Pike Place Market. Tony's wife, Maribeth, had gotten a small bag of dried apple slices when we were down there the day before and LOVED them, so he returned to Simply The Best right there by the big brass pig, and picked her up a full sized pound bag. Then we hit up another vendor for some Renier cherries. Never had them before, but man oh man where those suckers good.

After that, Tony & I headed off to do the thing we came to do: Get me checked in at the hotel where Cora & I would spend out honeymoon night. No, we did not stay in the same hotel as all my family out in Renton. While we were there, I realized that we were a block or two from the Jones Soda Company, and that park where the guy couldn't get it up.

From there it was north across the river to Fremont. While there, we saw this bus stop,


As we were on our way to see the Troll, where Tony disproved the old saying:

You can pick your friends.

And you can pick your nose.

But you can't pick your friend's nose.

From here, it's back to the hotel to drop off Maribeth's dried apples, and then take her to the country club so that she can assist there with whatever needs done.

Right around the corner, really, from the country club is the apartment that Cora's mom is moving into. That is where the guys based their operations out of.

You know, it dawned on me, I've mentioned Maribeth a few times, but I'm not sure I've shown you a picture. Bad blogger! Time jumping a little bit, here's a picture of Tony & Maribeth, after the wedding. They drove Cora and me us into the city to our hotel. (Obviously, there is a similar picture out there of Cora and I, but you are going to have to wait.)

Anyway, while the girls were getting ready, and the photographer was with them, the guys just hung out for a while. It was me, Tony, Cora's brother, Craig, his girlfriend, Kristen, Cora's mom, sister, brother-in-law, the ring bearer, and the flower girl.

Eventually, the photographer showed up to get some pictures of us getting ready. The ring bearer was so cute. The instant the tux went on him, he became 'Mr. Serious Young Man'. He was one of the guys. Dressed exactly like all the other guys, not in some kiddie version. Cora has been watching him since he was a baby, so it was very important to me that he felt good about what was going on.

He did.

(Sorry, forgot to take a picture of him at the apartment. Here is a picture of him later in the evening.)

And for equal billing, here's the flower girl, ready to rock-n-roll!

To make sure we ate, Cora's mom & Craig's girlfriend ran off to get us sandwiches from Subway. (Turkey – NO MUSTARD!)

The ring bearer and the flower girl changed back into their street clothes to eat (we aren't that STUPID) and I put a T-Shirt on over top of my shirt/vest/tie combo, since despite the fact that I ordered a spare shirt to go with the tux, they didn't end up having a spare one in the right size.

After all the food and pictures were taken, it was time to head out to the country club. They made me wait in the men's room while they got Cora outside with her back turned. Then they had me cover my eyes while they led me out to her for the big reveal. Okay, it's probably not the best idea in the world to leave me in the men's room for an extended period of time, but this little move KILLED EVERYBODY! (Oh, and I was totally peeking under my hand to see where I was walking, but not peeking at Cora.)

But enough fooling around. It was then time for the big reveal where we saw each other for the first time, and then did all the pre-wedding photos. There are dozens, but I think this is the one you paid your money to see (you did pay the guy at the door, right?)

To borrow a line from Cora: Meet the Scopes

Warning: It will take me until at least Monday to get to the actual ceremony, sorry.

The Pre-Wedding: Part 3

The Rehearsal – Well, we got there.

For those of you reading this that are unfamiliar with the Fairwood Country Club (about 95% reading this, I would guess), let me tell you, it's stunning.

They had the tent up on the patio, with a little archway looking down one of the fairways. A fabulous spot. But I only had eyes for my fiancée. She looked divine in her little black, white, and red (our colors) sundress. I introduced her to the minister who would be doing the ceremony. Reverend Becky has been a friend of mine since early days in college, and I'd thought of having her marry me perform my wedding ceremony 2 decades ago. Then I introduced Becky to the on site event coordinator, Cassey. Becky had never worked with an on site event coordinator before, but was glad to give up some of the traffic cop duties to a third person.

After 2 quick run-throughs, (we had to make sure we practiced the kissing part, gee-whiz) the rehearsal was over and it was time to head back to the hotel for the rehearsal dinner. Since most everyone was from out of town, we invited all the guests to come as sort of a "pre-reception".

Now, you may remember from my LAST POST, how we ditched about a 13 people who were unfamiliar with Seattle and left them with instructions on how to get back. Well, after almost getting on the wrong bus, which would have taken them to the right town but NOT to their vehicles, they called us as we entered the hotel. Driving in their cars and lost. When asked where they were, they didn't know. When asked what they saw out the window, they replied seriously, with "Starbucks". Oh, THAT narrows it down a little. You are in Seattle and you are near a Starbucks! Eventually, they found a gas station, got directions, and made it back safely.

For the dinner, we had a bit of a potluck with pizza, pasta salad, and sausage rolls and plenty of beverages.

After everyone had eaten a little, but before they left, I had to make a little speech. I mean, I am the de facto host of this shindig, I should say a few words, right? (Note blogger names have been changed to protect the innocent guilty.)

I just want to way "Thank you" all for coming. I know many of you came a long way for this weekend, and Cora and I really appreciate it.

What you may not know is that you are at a historic spot for Cora and I. 441 days ago, that's 63 weeks for you trying to do the math), I checked into this very hotel on my first visit out to meet Cora. Give or take an hour or so.

And what a visit that was. I told the gal on the plane sitting next to me that I was flying 2000 miles for a first date. She couldn't believe it. After landing @ Sea-Tac, I walked through the security exit to see Cora sitting there with her nose in a book. Our first kiss was right then and there. Later that day, I met Gwen when we picked her up from school. She did the slowest walk ever from the school to the car. It was so cute. After that, I met Cora's mom, June and later, Callista & her husband when we met them out for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

Heck of a first date.

While I didn't know then that I would end up back here doing this 441 days later, I did know something interesting was starting. And I think Cora did, too. As Callista would later remark, "Cora shared her dessert; Cora NEVER shares her dessert."

So please, raise your glass with me… To new beginnings, may they never end.

After things wound down, I went up to my hotel room for the evening and crashed around 10:00 – 10:30 and slept like a baby (woke up crying every two hours, and soiled myself) awaiting the big day to come.

Next up: Trolls and a Pretty Princess

The Pre-Wedding: Part 2

Friday – Friday was a busy, busy day. Cora and I led a group of 23 members of my family, plus Tony and his wife into downtown Seattle.

Yes, we're insane.

Trying to herd the cats to get them out of the hotel was almost impossible. We knew that there would be no way to drive and park downtown, so we opted to drive to the park & ride, and take the bus into town. Now, for some of these folks, this may well have been the first time that they were on a city bus. So, as the doddled thru the parking lot, the bus we needed showed up. It was comedy classics as 25 people filled up the bus. I was toward the back of the bus, and when we finally exited at the stop in Seattle, I had to explain to my 21 year old cousin from Indiana, "No, that wasn't a really ugly woman, that's called a 'utilikilt' and that was a guy." Guess dudes don't wear skirts in southern Indiana.

Our first stop, after a 30 minute bathroom break, was Pike Place Market. And this is where things started to unravel. Some people just took off. Others decided to meet at a certain spot in 20 minutes. Well 20 minutes isn't nearly long enough to see much of anything, but they all picked that time without asking us that knew.

At the designated time, we thought we had everybody, so we headed to the gum wall for some pictures. I told them that they were going to see something that they had never seen before. Some where amazed. Others wished they hadn't seen it for the first time. And that's where we realized the group was down 2 people. In retrospect, we should have just given them phone directions on where to see the gum wall, and then where to head, but I didn't. It was Tony & Maribeth, and they would have been more than fine on their own the rest of the day. But, I went back and found them. Which stalled the rest of the group at the gum wall. After we got everybody rounded up, we headed down hill to Pioneer Square for lunch. We busted up into smaller groups, because no place was going to be able to handle 25. That was the best move of the day.

Cora and I split from the herd and walked to this quaint little sandwich shoppe called "Quizno's" for our grub. (Isn't she adorable?)

After lunch, about half the group decided that they didn't need to be back for the wedding rehearsal with the rest of us, so they were going to take the Seattle Underground tour. The rest of us hiked like fools up 1st Ave, then over to the Mall to pick up the monorail to the Space Needle. (When we arrived, we had given people explicit instructions on what bus and what platform they needed to be on to get back to the cars. Instructions that they almost ignored to their peril later. Why would you ask a security guard for the right bus when you already had written down the number of the bus you rode in on? Luckily, random stranger lady interrupted, and set them back on the right path.)

It was another 30 minute bathroom stop (what is it with these people?) before getting on the monorail to the Space Needle. It was not that long of a wait to go up, but time was starting to tick by as we had to be back by 4:00 for the rehearsal. Up most of us went, and the view was pretty good, though Mt. Reiner was obscured, like I'd warned them. A leisurely walk around the sky deck, and some time in the gift shop, and it was right on time for us to be heading back. We caught the monorail back, and were heading down the bus stop with our group strung out over about 100 yards when the bus we needed to make it back shows up. No amount of shouting and waving could encourage them to actually walk down the escalator, and there was a train behind the bus, (in downtown Seattle, they share the same transit tunnels), so he couldn't wait. Next bus? Scheduled for 20 minutes. It finally came. On the bus, this crazy woman started having a very weird conversation with my uncle Bob. Turned out, she had a blu-tooth headset on under her hoodie, but I still think she was nuts. We also checked that all the cars in the group had some sort of navigation device to get back to the hotel and change before heading to the country club for rehearsal.

Cora and I hit the ground running. (Or as close to running as Cora can do since the whole "blood clot on the spine" incident.) We ditched those jokers in(I hadn't gotten my room yet), and tore off for the country club before anyone else had the parking lot and tore @$$ to the hotel, where we quick changed in the lobby bathroom even gotten there. We made the rehearsal right at 4:01. Right on time. No way being one minute late like that would ever burn you, since you can't be sure that everyone's watch is set EXACTLY, right? (If you smell foreshadowing, congratulations, you were paying attention.)

NEXT: The Rehearsal and my Rehearsal Dinner speech.

The Pre-Wedding: Part 1

Hey folks, what have you been up to? Me? Oh you know, same old / same old. Flying to Seattle, visiting with my extended family, having a near perfect wedding (to spoil the drama, while dancing later in the evening, a button popped off my vest) and then jetting off to San Francisco on my honeymoon with my lovely wife, Cora. So, other than my life completely changing for the better, not much is new. ;-)

Before I get to the wedding (there's a lot of photos and video to work with there), I thought I would sneak in a few minutes while Cora is getting ready and tell you about the lead-up to the wedding.

Some facts:

• I flew out Tuesday after work.
• My parents drove to Seattle from Illinois. They had never been here before.
• 13 people from my Aunt Pat's side flew in from Indiana. They had never been here before. Some had never been on a plane before.
• My best man and his wife flew from Houston to Denver, and then drove the rest of the way, to pick up states he had never been in before.

Wednesday – While my parents and sister's family were out touring Snoqualmie Falls and the wineries, Cora, Gwen and I had some last minutes wedding stuff to do. Buy a guest book, get numbers for the tables, that sort of easy stuff. So, after Party City, we went to Jimmy Mac's for lunch. Cora and I have now eaten there 3 times, so it's 'our place'.

One thing about Jimmy Mac's is that it is a Texas style roadhouse, with a big barrel of peanuts by the door. When you are eating the peanuts, you are supposed to throw the shells on the floor. (There is a sign that says that there's a $1 fine for leaving the shells on the table.) It took Gwen a long time to get used to throwing the trash on the floor. She just had a hard time being that messy. (awwww)

After Jimmy Mac's and the shopping, we went home to finalize the seating chart and to fill out those little tent thingies. but before we knew it, it was time for dinner. My immediate family would be joining Cora and I, plus Cora's father (Carl) and her stepmother (Heather) for dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory.

There was a beautiful view of Mount Rainer from the parking lot, and I encouraged everyone to take a look and take pictures, because if the weather got a little more 'typical', that may be the last they saw of the mountain. They ignored my advice, and the weather turned more 'typical' and the mountain went into hiding until later in our wedding reception as the sun was setting. (Then they monkeyed around again, and missed that. FLATLANDERS!)

Seated around the table from 12:00 clockwise are: My brother, Tim, my brother-in-law, Doug, his daughter, Hayley, Cora, her daughter, Gwen, Cora's dad, Carl, his wife, Heather, my mom, Leanna, my dad, Richard, my empty chair (photographer), my nephew, Adam, his girlfriend, Jenny, and finally, my sister (Doug's wife, mother of Hayley & Adam), Karin.

It was the first time anyone in our families met, and it worked out well. Cora spent the evening talking with my sister's family, which she has met before. I spent most of my time in the conversation between the parents. Both Cora's father and my mother are a little hard of hearing, so I needed to occasionally relay / translate what was going on. The night ended with a wild goose chase of my nephew, Adam, trying to buy and iPad to catch up in tech with his sister, who had gotten hers on the day they flew out.

Thursday – With most of the wedding stuff done, Thursday was a light day during the day. Had a little "Depp-fest" as we watched a little Alice In Wonderland and Edward Scissorhands with Gwen, ran some errands, and had Boca burgers and Boca Ribs for lunch. It was then off to the tux shop to pick up our tuxes. But like Cora, you will have to wait to see pictures (I didn't take any that day). My best friend, Tony, and his wife Maribeth made it from Houston. They flew to Denver, and then rented a car and drove the rest of the way, so they could see more of the western US that they hadn't seen. Cora's brother, Craig and his girlfriend Kristen, and her mom, June, and her nephew, Jaden joined us. (My family was out whale watching.) After the tuxes, we had a wonderful, and long meal at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse at the mall.

A great time was had by all.

Coming soon – Friday, the wedding rehearsal, and the rehearsal dinner!

The 'Say Hey' Kid

My apologies to Gwen @ Everything I Like Causes Cancer for stealing this video. You know that without you, my 'today' would be very different. You actually changed the course of my life, and I do not take that debt lightly. And while you can't be here, trust me, you are here in spirit.

Gwen posted this video a while back, and I think it is the perfect one for today.

Hopefully the embed works. YouTube was trying to block it, but when I pasted the URL, something embedded. If it doesn't follow THIS LINK. And turn it up.

[Note: No, people, I am not ACTUALLY blogging on my wedding day. I have left the robots in charge. I'm probably just starting to get the tux on about now. But for those of you who couldn't make it, I wanted to reach out to you today and let you know that Blogworld is an amazing place, filled with the best people around. And Dr. Zibbs. ;-) ]

Have Netbook. Will Blog.

So, I'm sitting in Midway Airport, waiting for my flight to be called. I have an hour or so before take off, so instead of playing 20 games of Free Cell, I thought I would fire up the netbook, and start a blog post.

I know. Go figure.

It's dawned on me that as I enter this new phase of my life, many of you are somewhat new (or somewhat forgetful), and maybe don't know a lot of my back story. It may help to appreciate where I'm going if you know where I've been.

The name's 'Eric'. I real life, Cora calls me 'Eric', too. But, 'Scope' is a nickname / pen name that I've used for about 25 years now. (Heck, it's on my car's plates.) There are also non-blogger people out there who call me 'Scope', too.

I grew up on a farm, 2.5 miles outside of a town of 250 people in central Illinois. Never was much into farming, and my dad never pushed me into it (Thanks DAD!), but I did bale my share of hay, cut hogs, and dehorned calves. Was into basketball & track in high school. Was never popular, but never really unpopular. Never really dated much in high school.

After high school, the most formative period of my life began. Mac Murray College, Jacksonville, IL. Most of my closest friends are college friends. The minister @ my wedding? College. Best man? College. We just gelled at that small little college, and life ling bonds were formed. I also started writing for the college's daily newspaper (usually one sheet of legal paper folded into 4 "pages") as 'Scope' in rambling commentary that is generally not all that different than the blog I write now. Didn't date a whole lot in college, except for my senior year when I had a single room.

After graduation, I moved off the farm and got a job in downtown Chicago. I loved it. I got a job doing financial reports for a BIG accounting firm. I held that job for over 13 years before we closed up shop in the whole "Enron" thing. (I still miss the Andersen days.) More 'data-ing' than 'dating'.

(Note: Boarded and in flight somewhere over western Illinois.)

I spent the next year (53 weeks) unemployed. I trained for and ran a marathon, and started a new job working IT at a law firm. For the same manager as Andersen. Was there for a few years, then moved to another law firm. Still reporting to the same manager. It so is "Who you know."

One day, two summers ago, a friend of mine had a backyard party. At this party, I ran into a fabulous, spunky, smart, cute, sassy broad, Gwen , from Everything I Like Causes Cancer. She introduced me to 'Blog-World' and I spend the next few months commenting around and getting to know the likes of Candy, Dr. Zibbs, and MJenks, before firing up Scope-Tech. And then one day, over at Zibb's place, I read a comment from a gal, teasing a story about showering naked with nurses. Cora. I kept checking back, and finally, I left her my first comment on her blog. Something about wanting to put a hidden camera in her house so I could watch her work out on a stripper pole. I remember being nervous to see how she would react (go figure).

But, she played along.

Blog flirting led to emails.

Emails led to phone calls.

Phone calls led to plane flights.

Plane flights led to me dropping to me knee last October.

And now here we are, ready to start a whole new series of adventures.

And I can hardly wait.

[Editor's Note: And I just realized I basically did this post LAST NOVEMBER. So go HERE for links that I am too lazy to reproduce here.

Also, I have been on the ground now for about 36 hours, and that countdown clock doesn't bother me in the least bit.]

Don't Let It Get Me

Last Thursday, Beckeye over @ The Pop Eye ran THIS POST featuring Sparks.  That jogged my memory to think of the only other Sparks song that I knew:

'Eaten By The Monster Of Love' from the 'Valley Girl' soundtrack.

And while I have the MP3 on my computer, I went out to see if there was ever a video for it.  While on YouTube, I did find the movie scene that it was in [LINK] , but even better, I found this bit of homemade awesomeness.

What kills me, is that the production values here aren't that far off from early MTV.

And the 'Monster of Love' haunts the bathroom.  YES!

Love is in the air around here.  As you can see, the countdown timer that at one time was over 100 is now saying something about 5 days and 9 hours.  (FYI – It's counting down to 4:00 Saturday, July 3 (wedding start time) based on your LOCAL time, not Pacific Daylight Time.  Please adjust your math accordingly.)  I fly out on Tuesday night for the celebrations, so don't expect to see me floating around blog world too much for the next few weeks.  I'm certain that I will do a photo-post or two while my (by then WIFE) Cora is doing her hair in the morning, but I will catch up and catch you up when I return from the honeymoon.

Also, 'No', I won't be one of those jackasses who altar alters their Facebook status.

Have a great week, hombres.  I know I will.

E-P-I-C FAIL!

I know what you're thinking, "Scope, the blog looks great. What are you talking about, 'EPIC FAIL'?"

Well, let me tell you a story.

I've been thinking about redoing the blog layout / template for a while. The biggest issue I had with it is that the main body of the blog was too small. At only about 400 pixels wide, I felt that I was having to shrink a lot of pictures down a little more than I wanted to make them fit. And coming up VERY soon, I will be posting a 'shit-tonne' of pictures. (It's a technical term. A 'shit-tonne' is a metric unit equal to 1000 kiloshits. It is roughly 10% greater than a standard U.S. 'shit-ton'. SCOPE-TECH – 10% bonus shit!) And, I wanted to get rid of the rounded box behind my header graphic, because I was always overlapping the stupid thing and it was pissing me off.

Also, enter a new phase in my life, why not throw a new coat of paint on the old site while I'm at it, right?

So, Friday night, I take the blog private, and redo the template with some snazzy ones Blogger is offering now. But, being smarter than the average bear (but within one standard deviation of the mean, I ain't not URSA GENIUS or anything) I took a back up of my current template, just in case things went 'tits-up' (it's a technical term).

Things went tits-up.

Things went Dolly Parton-esque TITS-UP!

Everything is looking good, Saturday, I decide to do the final step, and download my new design into Windows Live Writer (WLW) so that I can do the WYSIWYG (it's a technical term) editing that I have grown fond of. As I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to have a lot of graphics, and layout is somewhat important to me. So, I click to "Refresh Theme" button and…

CARP!

I fought and struggled and struggled and fought for about an hour and a half. No luck.

So, in shame, I restored the old template from the backup, re-installed WLW, and went to download my original template BACK into WLW.

Oh sweet biscuits, it did so NOT just do this to me. Now I've lost all my changes, because I forgot the backup this time! :-(, and WLW was still making me type in the "no template" state. My degree of "Anti-Happy" is astonishing. Well, since WLW is as fucked as a 'football bat' (it's a technical term), might as well redo all the changes, so that at least the blog looks nice for you people. And then I found on a support blog site that I am not the only person in this boat. WLW may be on the case. We'll see. Hopefully they don't pull some, "You need to upgrade to Windows 7" line of 'mumbo jumbo' (it's a technical term).

So, the blog is back up, but I feel like I'm publishing a little blind here, so forgive me if things look a little off while I sort through this mess.

Now, off to clean the bathroom. I can't see what could possibly go wrong with that.

Closed For Remodeling: Will Return Monday

Hey folks, taking the blog private while I work on the layout a little. It will be back at least by Monday.

My "Bachelor Party"

I hinted the other day that I went to my bachelor party on Sunday. Well, that's not exactly right. It was a BBQ at a friend's house. And it was in no way about my bachelorhood. But it's the closest I'm gonna get, and I'm okay with that.

So, Sunday I went over to to a cook out at my buddies, Howard & KC's place. KC's childhood friend, Kelly & her husband, Chuck. (Howard and I used to work together, and now have basically the same job at different companies. KC is the ex-roommate of an ex-co-worker. They met @ my housewarming party.) I've known everybody here for 5 or 6 years.

After a couple strong rum and 7up's the pork burgers hit the grill.

We hung out on the back deck for a while, talking, laughing, and having a good time. And 'Yes', that's a Cabbage Patch doll.

Then, it became time to make for S'mores. They had the largest marshmallows I had ever seen. They were the size of a Kelly's fist!

And not all the marshmallows made it into the S'mores.

After calming down from the sugar rush, we broke out the game of 'Encore'. The basic gist of the game is that you split into teams (girls vs. guys) and then you roll a die and move around a board. Based on the color you land on, you draw a card and get a word off it. Then, the teams take turns going back and forth singing a song with the word in it until one team is stumped.

Eventually, I needed to go home, so we did a "lightening round" and the gals won.

Hanging out with good friends, good laughs, good times. Isn't that what a bachelor party is supposed to be?

---

Note: Over the weekend, I will probably be taking SCOPE-TECH private for a day or so. DON'T PANIC! While I am busy getting my physical house ready for my new life, I'm going to take some breaks and redesign the blog, too.

Nothing too radical, but while I'm moving things around, I'd rather not have people see it all messy.

Gotta get the place looking nice for all those wedding pictures I'll be posting soon.