Status Report: Blog, Wedding, Life, and Thanksgiving

As Life As I Know It approaches its one-month anniversary (and no, in case you're wondering--there is no comparison to a high-school relationship here), I just wanted to say thanks to all of the support and feedback I've received thus far. At least some of you are enjoying reading this, so that is always very rewarding to hear!

Just so you know, I've set up the site to only include the seven most recent posts, so with the addition of this one you will see the "archives" officially kick in. These are located at the bottom of the menu to the right and allow posts to be accessed by month. So if you find yourself searching desperately for a gift for someone on Christmas Eve and wondering, "What the hell was that crazy guy saying about TiVo?", the archives are the place to go.

I know that most of the posts to this point have been based largely on humor (perhaps that is a good indication to how I see the world at times), but they won't all be that way. Some will serve more as updates, some may be dedicated to a friend, and some may convey the depression that can only follow fourteen consecutive days of rain. All I can promise is that they are 100% genuine, and they are 100% me. From there, only you can decide what to do with them.

Well, with that said, I'd like to pass on several wedding updates! Kel and I made some very good progress this weekend: we were able to finalize tuxedo rentals, register for gifts, reserve a location for the rehearsal dinner, and select wedding invitations. Not bad! All of this information does not pertain to everyone, so I will distribute it individually with the exception of the "bridal" registry...that will come soon from both of us. If you're wondering, I put "bridal" in quotation marks because the practice of every major store in the country seems to be to completely ignore the groom. There were forms that had "Groom's Name" almost listed as an afterthought, which shouldn't have surprised me, but I have to admit I was a little appalled. It seems we have a long way to go for equality of the sexes in this country. ;)

One bit of very unfortunate wedding news: Josh, my treasured Best Man and friend of almost fifteen years, will be unable to attend the wedding. This is due to a military obligation which he absolutely cannot escape from. It goes without saying that the two of us are extremely disappointed by this, but as there is nothing to be done, we will simply move forward and do the best we can. To clear up any misconceptions, I will not be naming another Best Man--this is a distinction that cannot be traded off, in my opinion--but will continue with my four outstanding groomsmen as-is. At least this way our DJ will not have any competition from Josh.

As far as a personal update goes, I will say that our team presentation (the one I mentioned a couple posts ago) went extremely well on the 18th. I could not have been prouder of my team and all of the effort they put in! The results will not be announced until February 12, but the good news there is that I (along with Lori and Jan, two other team members) will be flying out to Albuquerque, New Mexico to be present for the announcement. One of my co-workers, Michelle Fergus, quickly pointed out that this trip will be my last as a single guy...I found this quite humorous. :)

I continue to stay very busy with my day job as programmer, my night job as web designer, UG basketball (our first game/loss is Wednesday), wedding tasks, movie watching (see the new section in the right-hand menu!), and anything else that comes along. I'm also trying much harder to get back in shape for basketball, and that's not an easy thing. The sight of me running up five flights of stairs during the workday, only to come back to my desk totally out of breath, is certainly something to see.

As a final note, during this Thanksgiving holiday, I just wanted to offer a genuine thank you for the amazing group of friends and family that you are. There are so many times that we walk through life taking it for granted, but I try extremely hard to keep those times to a minimum...mostly because I honestly realize how great all of you are, and how fortunate I am. In return I try my best to offer something back to each of your lives, in whatever way I can. Even if that's just making an ass out of myself during your worst day, so that you'll have something to laugh at. :) Seriously, though, thank you for everything. All of you.

Have a great Sunday...a day which, as soon as noon hits, my Grandmother loves to call "Do Nothing Day." I couldn't agree more.

Guys Night Out

Have you ever had one of those weeks that felt insanely busy, only to turn it around with a pathetically lazy weekend?

Come on, I know you have.

For me, that's what this weekend felt like...although I'm not sure if I was actually lazy or not. Perhaps I just felt like I was lazy. Or maybe I'm just watching Sydney's life and thinking that she and I saw far too much of each other this weekend.

Part of the reason for this is that Kel decided to participate in a Girls Night Out (this phrase must always be capitalized) with Jen and Megan, two of her classmates in Chapel Hill. This even sounded like fun to me at first, but my energetic notions of hanging out with beautiful women to the tune of Matrix: Revolutions were not well received. Actually, I'm not sure the suggestion even made it into the receiving area; it's amazing how fine-tuned a fiancé's selective hearing skills are after three years of studying ears. So I was rejected quickly and decisively, a turn of events which left me with not only an open Saturday night but also a million thoughts to ponder.

For one, why isn't there a such thing as a Guys Night Out anymore? I think we all believe that there is such a thing, but it doesn't ever actually happen. You just won't drop by a thirty-year-old guy's apartment and find dudes draped all over the couch watching Predator. 'Cause once you get to a certain age, I think there comes a prerequisite that women have to be present at all social events. It's a strange phenomenon. Ultimately the reason for this is not so obvious, but can be seen via the following scenario:

"Hey, Virgil, how 'bout those Dawgs! You know, I was thinking of having some guys over to watch a movie tonight."

"Oh...uh, okay. What movie?"

"All Hell Breaks Loose 3! Have you seen it? It's gotta be great. There's even a poster of Anna Kournikova in it."

"Yeah, I heard! Can't wait to see it. My little cousin got thrown out of a movie theater trying to get in, and he's sixteen. It must really be good."

"So what do you say?"

This becomes the point of death in any such request. If ol' Virgil says yes, then immediately he's placed himself in a situation where two dudes are watching a movie, with no women present, and no way for either to conclusively prove he's not gay. That situation is never going to happen, and he must immediately illustrate that it's never going to happen. Thus he's left with the only safe response:

"Who else is gonna be there?"

"Well, I haven't asked anyone else yet."

Repeat this scenario for each guy, and on Saturday night you'll have six guys watching ESPN Classic on six different sofas.

Girls, on the other hand, pile on together and count the success of the night by how many collective tears they shed. If Rachel can't quite get the tear ducts flowing, there's always Amanda to step in and make up the difference. Let there be no doubt--Amanda will earn her MVP honors on this night. And so it goes. It's bonding, it's emotional, and for women it's just downright effective. Yet it's absolutely, 100% unimaginable to anyone with a Y chromosome.

My personal theory is that women are from Venus, but guys have competitively taken over every other planet in the solar system. Seriously, just Mars? Are you kidding me? Yet somewhere on each planet there's a lone guy on his sofa, looking fearfully for other guys while broadcasting to anyone that will listen why his planet is the best planet. And every once in a while, a lady will stroll by, but she never stops on her journey towards Venus. Because there, my friends, on an enormous big screen TV, is the thirty-eighth showing of Steel Magnolias.

My Drug-Induced November

As my wonderful and creative cousin Erin sets out for college in January, I had one simple piece of advice for her: make sure you try all the drugs before you put your money into any single one. There's nothing worse than getting addicted to crack and realizing you could have saved a lot of money with other options. Even Reggie, the balding cocaine dealer down the street from where I work, has double-coupon days every other Thursday.

The reason I mention this is because I have, at times this month, wondered if I haven't slipped into some such habit myself. I mean, this month has flown by. I suppose there are several reasons for this, upon reflection...one being that I can't ever remember working so hard over the span of two weeks. Tomorrow morning marks a big milestone for my volunteer team at work: a fifteen-minute, scripted six-page presentation in front of an audience of twelve committee members. In it, we have to demonstrate why our project was actually worth the time we spent on it. What an effort it has been! I have about twenty-five lines of memorized dialogue to get through, and fate will probably determine whether I make it or not. I suppose I could have slipped another few bucks into the offering plate at church on Sunday to help things, but isn't hindsight is always 20/20? I'll just be thankful when tomorrow morning has come and gone, and we can all go back to our usual non-normal lives.

Another reason for the workload this month is a very good one--the completion and rollout of the Bethany Presbyterian Church web site! My wonderful aunt Tina and I worked together to get this done (she gathered the content, and I designed and implemented the site itself), and it was a fun experience. Technically, it is the first paid web project that I have completed, so I suppose I am officially a web design professional now. The best part is that I can do this job with pajamas on, a cat in my lap, and war paint on my face...no one ever knows the difference!

Oh, and one more new development: United Guaranty basketball season has started up once again as of tonight. This is a work team that I have played on for two seasons now, and sometimes I really have a difficult time describing it. If you will, please imagine with me...a beautiful day in the park, the sloping lawns masterfully created, and as we crest the nearest hill we come upon nine frolicking puppies. Some of the puppies are cute, some of them are little older than the others, but none of them are very graceful. At the moment, their collective attention is completely held by a group of five college students throwing frisbee across the open lawn. The more we watch, the more we wonder why the dogs simply choose to form a giant pack and chase after the frisbee with wild abandon. Why don't they split up into pairs and wait by each thrower to intercept it? Why are they constantly tripping over each other? Why are they so white?

The UG men's basketball team is a collective 1-27 over two seasons. And I play as many minutes as anyone.

That's pretty much all of the personal news I have at the moment, but I have a great bit of other news to share: my great friend Josh is getting married! He and the lovely Jossi have decided to tie the knot, which was terrific news. For those of you that don't yet know Josh, you will...he is the Best Man in our wedding this March! And what's more, he has asked me to do the same in his wedding next year (probably July or August), which I was very honored to accept. Perhaps the best part is that it gives me "embarrassment insurance", because I will have the last say in that particular sequence of events. :) I only wish I had similar insurance against my Dad, who's delighted himself by intentionally embarrassing me for years. I guess you can't have everything.

Well, that's it for tonight...thank you very much for reading! Just remember that I love all you guys, even Michele.

Have a great rest of the week, and here's to Arnold in 2008! You know where your vote is going...nobody wants to be a "girly man".

Life With TiVo

After it was released, months and months went by and I scoffed at the idea of buying TiVo. The ability to pause TV for $13 a month? What kind of sick waste of money is that? I could pause my TV pretty easily just by turning it off.

But as many things go, I was forced into a relationship with digital television. My ex-roommate, Kevin, received ReplayTV as a gift from his ex-fiance when we lived in our ex-apartment. Long after the fiance, apartment, and roommate have moved on, Kevin and ReplayTV are still living happily together. He loved it, not only through pausing live TV but as a way to record his favorite shows, fast forward through commercials, and instantly replay any funny TV moments involving monkeys. I couldn't exactly move out, and thus the seed was planted. It slowly began to gnaw away at me.

Several months later, TiVo (which in my opinion is better than ReplayTV, but Kevin and I can argue about this for days, as only guys can) ran a major rebate of $100 off any new receiver. Then I saw an "Open Box" offer at Best Buy--discounted an additional $50--and all of the loving memories of my ReplayTV experiences came rushing back to me. I crumbled. I melted right there in front of an Asian couple in Best Buy. And five minutes later I carried out my very own TiVo box.

So there is where you'd normally expect me to say, "TiVo was great! I've loved it ever since!" But alas, I do not. Because it's not TiVo that's so great now--it's my life that's fantastic. I come home every day looking like Chunk did right after finding the freezer full of Rocky Road in The Goonies. Pure, giggles-inducing happiness. Why? Well, for exactly these reasons:

• I never watch commericals anymore. How much of life is wasted by watching Larry the Local Car Dealer yell at us about the latest specials? Unless you're watching something at 2:00 a.m., in which case you have to really suffer through ads telling you how many 18 year old girls would love to talk to you for $5.95/min. Then you have to start thinking about the type of people that actually call these numbers, and it's just depressing. Anyway, if you're wondering how I avoid commercials, it's simple--wait until twenty minutes into an hour-long show to start watching it, fast-forward through the commercials as you go, and you'll end right as the same time everyone else does. And you've just gained back twenty minutes of your life.
  
• I never worry about setting my favorite shows to tape. I don't watch that many shows, but like anyone, I hate to miss the ones I do watch. I used to be out somewhere thinking, "I have to get home in time to catch The West Wing!" Not anymore, though--it's going to tape whether I get home or not. Every time.
• De-stress the importance of TV in the first place. This one is surprising, but how many times has someone called on the phone during a show, and you've asked them to call back? Or what if your significant other asks you a question right as MacGyver is about to finish his latest concoction and explode his way out of a temporary prison? With TiVo, none of this matters--just pause, take the call or have the conversation, and then jump back in. No stress.
• Automatically record all movies and shows with Jennifer Garner. She just has such eloquent dialogue delivery.
• Set any show to record from any internet-enabled computer. Ever gone to work and realized you forgot to set your VCR to tape the 2004 National Scrabble Championship? Instead of immediate anguish, all you need is the internet, and the problem is solved.

All in all, I don't think TiVo is the reason for my increasing happiness in life. Such an idea is absurd, isn't it? All I know is that my life is happier, and that sometimes I see a faint yellow glow cascading down from my TiVo receiver. I assume these have nothing to do with each other, but sometimes, as the night creeps onward, I wonder. I wonder quite a bit.

The Faint Chiming of Wedding Bells

I haven't really thought about it, but I think there are four months, five days, seventeen hours, three minutes, and eight seconds until I get married. And every time I say this I realize I am already several seconds closer than I was when I began that sentence.

Of course, I welcome this date with open arms!

Since everyone reading this will likely be coming, I feel it's quite appropriate to provide an update to our wedding plans. I know that I've talked to just about everyone out there individually, but God only knows what details I've told each one of you (and left out for others). So it's time to set the record straight. :)

First, the wedding will be held on March 12, 4:30 p.m. at Orange United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill. It is a beautiful church that holds approximately 200 people--we will have around 120 at our wedding, depending on the quality of Christmas gifts we receive from those we're not sure about. Because it will be technically held in winter, we expect that the service will begin just before twilight and end around sunset. From here, everyone will head over to the Sheraton Chapel Hill for a cozy reception, complete with DJ and a sit-down dinner. I flirted with the idea of just having Josh (my best man) perform DJ services, since that's all he ever did in our dorm room through the first two years of college, but ended up thinking better of it. I'd much rather see him dancing instead.

At any rate, here we'll have a wonderful array of events such as "Pin the Corsage on the Donkey", "Bobbing For Bruschetta", and the ever-popular grandparents game of Limbo. For this last, we will begin taking bets starting Friday, November 19.

Some additional (and slightly more authentic) details on the wedding itself include the wedding party, which are as follows:

• Matron of Honor - Lauren Ramshur
• Bridesmaid - Michele Blackstone
• Bridesmaid - Emily Bower
• Bridesmaid - Beth Chalmers
• Bridesmaid - Kate Rihm
  
  
• Best Man - Joshua Lovett
• Groomsman - Drew Land
• Groomsman - Kevin Popoli
• Groomsman - Dirk Singer

Kelly and I are absolutely honored to have each of these kind souls in our wedding party. We also want to give a special thanks to Kevin and Lauren, who are the only ones we didn't have to bribe. :)

Rounding out the update, we have already completed arrangements for the following: DJ, reception, photographer, church, wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, organist, pastor, and wedding director. Most of the work is done for the flowers and wedding cake(s), and we have made headway on the invitations as well. Still left to do are: rehearsal dinner arrangements (my responsibility), tux selection (yep, mine too), wedding program design (me again), and numerous other odds and ends. The honeymoon will take us to Whitehouse, Jamaica, to a brand new Sandals resort opening in February. Unbelievably, this will be the first time I've spent a night outside the U.S. or Canada. It will also be the first time I've travelled anywhere with a wife.

Okay, I suppose that will wrap it up for now...hopefully everyone has learned something in this exposition! Seriously, thanks to each and every one of you for helping to make this event very special to us--along with it being a day of celebration between Kelly and I, seeing all of you is such a great source of excitement for both of us. We eagerly await this day as it grows nearer.

Only four months, five days, sixteen hours, forty-two minutes, and nineteen seconds now.

My Second Career

Even though I live as a programmer analyst by day (i.e. Clark Kent), those who know me at all know that I secretly live as a web developer by night (i.e. Superman). For some reason I've just always been drawn to the creativity of it, the ability to start with nothing and end up with anything. Anything. I can't even remember where it actually started--I don't have a recollection of unwrapping a beautifully packaged Photoshop 2.0 on Christmas or anything--but it has snowballed into something I can't seem to stay away from.

But for whatever reason, it is what has always held the most promise to me. Where else can you reach anyone in the world with only a few bucks, a bit of free time, and a few text and image files? I mean, where else can you:

• Shamelessly promote yourself and get away with it?
• Seamlessly share half of the photographs you've ever taken?
• Start your own business, as my friend Cliff admirably has?
• Create posts like this one?

It's truly an amazing medium to play around in. At any rate, over the past three months or so I've really started putting a lot energy into getting better--into becoming an actual web designer, instead of just playing around in it. The first big step was to make a life-changing decision: come February, I will be an iMac owner for the first time. Supposedly it is light years better than the PC for graphics and creativity, so we shall see. At the same time, I also plan to officially purchase Adobe's Creative Suite, a collection of tools which will allow me to do everything from create graphics to design printed material to streamline web sites. I'm very excited about it, as only a true geek can be. I suppose the only downside is that Kelly has to marry me somewhere in there. :)

Still, it does lead to some exciting creations that are either already here, on the way, or not too far into the future. The first was an interactive application at work that several friends and I completed and donated to the company: MI Guide Coach. We had a lot of fun doing this, in spite of the late hours. Second came AndyMurphy.com, which chances are you've seen before. :) Third has been this site, which was a rather unique opportunity.

Coming up this month is the release of a web site for Bethany Presbyterian Church, nestled in the trailers and mansions of Graham, NC. This is my aunt Tina's church, and she commissioned me to work on the site a couple of months ago. She's done a great job getting the information together; I only hope that I've done it justice. Let me know what you think!

Following that, the next project on the horizon will probably be the most ambitious achievement--one I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge or not. It will be called Alias Concepts, a full-fledged site representing my design work in a way that might actually draw business. In between the arduous work of wedding planning and invitation writing, I hope to get the majority of this work done in January and February.

So that's what I'm doing (or attempting to do) with the darker, more secretive side of my career at the moment. :) I guess the only reason I'm putting all of this out here is to let you know what it is that I'm spending several hours each week on. Some of it is inspiring, some of it is useless, and some of it is downright silly, but it is what it is.

As a side note, you can see the posts to this site will likely range from serious to wacky to thought-provoking to rambling, but what's life without a bit of variety? I think my only true goal is that be the end of each post, both of us will have learned something.

Election Night

Perhaps not all of you realized that I went twenty-seven years, four months, and fourteen days of my life without voting in an election. At eleven, I was told I wasn't old enough. At fifteen, I was told I could drive to the voting site with my dad in the car, but still wasn't old enough to actually vote. At nineteen, I became very excited about writing in a vote for Shaquille O'Neal, but was warned over and over and over again that it would be a waste of time. Apparently black people just didn't get elected president. Then, at twenty-three, I was entirely caught up in a new relationship with some girl named Kelly...I don't remember anything else from that year.

So here we arrive in 2004, and there was nothing stopping me this time. I got my Mebane voter registration card (a phrase I was sure I'd never speak in ten lifetimes, but there it is) and headed to the polls after work! Now, many people here had voted early, including Kelly, with an average wait time of about one hour, forty-five minutes. I wanted to do the same, especially because this promised to be an extremely busy work week for me, but Mebane was just too far from work to make it feasible. And there was no way I was getting up early to vote early. I could have just as easily painted myself red and attended every NC State home game this year.

So I went at the latest possible time, the evening of Election Day, ready with a book and iPod to wait out the necessary 105 minutes. A full fourteen minutes later, I had cast my vote and was headed home with an hour and half added back into my life! Apparently nearly everyone had voted early.

At any rate, I have now voted, and I hope most of you were able to take your own part in democracy today, with or without a fourteen-minute book and iPod marathon vote. Just know that by this time in 2012, I will be looking for your vote during my highly-publicized run for president. Thank you in advance for your support.