people, news and views

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New York
We’re there now, spending quality time with Sara’s family and all that jazz. So far it seems that the whole focus of the trip is dress shopping – yesterday we had to find something for her sister to wear to the wedding, tomorrow is the wedding itself, and Sunday all of the girls are going dress shopping for our wedding … even though I thankfully won’t be involved with that one, as I’ll be hanging out with Sara’s Dad for the afternoon instead. While I can tolerate shopping with Sara alone for short durations, there’s just something about the thought of shopping with five Sara’s that makes me say, “Ummm … no thanks!”

Airplane!
While getting through the airport itself was actually pretty painless, the flight on the other hand was anything but. I think they need to make a rule that just says if the seat behind you is full, you can’t recline your seat – end of story – because the two kids in front of us opted to keep theirs reclined for the bulk of the trip, leaving us with less than 12 inches of space from chest to the seat back. Also, we hit some nasty turbulence over the ocean that frighteningly reminded me of the plane crash scene in Castaway, which really helped my nerves and all! Eventually we landed, and I vowed to not step foot in another plane for at least four days…

Writing
I’ve been doing some lately!!! I actually spent most of the plane ride up working on a new humor column – of course, about the horrible flying experience itself – and even had a chance to do some more last night. It seems like every time I take time off of work, the gears in my head start grinding about how I’d really like to not have to go there anymore, between the freedom, lack of drama, actually doing something I love for a living – you get the idea! We’ll see if I can keep the momentum up for more than a few days this time.

On the Lot

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So with both American Idol and The Office over for the season, I decided that I needed something else to watch on TV and seeing as how it’s supposed to be based around making movies – something that I’ve always found to be quite interesting – I’ve opted to give FOX’s latest reality show, On the Lot a try. Between Mark Burnett (creator of Survivor and The Apprentice) and Steven Spielberg, I thought that it might be something similar to what I really enjoyed from Project Greenlight, but so far that’s not exactly what we’ve gotten…

Whereas Project Greenlight started with introducing the winner of the contest (or at least fairly close) and then spent the bulk of the series actually producing a feature-length film, On the Lot builds us up to that point and shows us the competition itself, or at least it tries to, that is. So far I really haven’t been all that impressed simply because it seems like there are too many people to keep track of at this point, even though Sara inferred that most of the other reality shows like American Idol and Survivor and The Apprentice start off with a lot of people, too. The only other turn off at this point would be that the judges chosen, well, don’t really seem all that qualified on the grand scheme of things other than they’re all folks that haven’t really had a whole lot of work as of late. I mean, don’t get me wrong – all were great for whatever they did, whether it be in producing the Rush Hour flicks or entertaining geeks ’round the world in a golden bikini, but maybe I just had my hopes set too high thinking that Spielberg himself might be a judge or something.

Oh yeah, and also … America is a bunch of idiots because the three voted off of this last week’s show weren’t even close to who I would’ve seen voted off! My choices would’ve gone a little something like:

Top 3 Contestants of the Week:
1. Danger Zone (by Zach Lipovsky)
2. Check Out (by Shira-Lee Shalit)
3. Deliver Me (by Carolina Zorilla De San Martin)
(…because all three were actually funny and didn’t resort to urine and barf jokes…)

Bottom 3 That Should’ve Been Sent Home:
1. Wack Alley Cab (by Kenny Luby) – because it just didn’t make any sense
2. Ghetta Room (by Jason Epperson) – because going by the director’s explanation, the movie just didn’t work. He tried to get around the controversy that the main character was mentally retarded by saying that he was just a nerd, but I was a nerd in high school and we didn’t act like that! The last thing that nerds want is more attention, so the story actually made more sense – crude as it might have been – to have the character be retarded instead.
3. To Screw in a Light Bulb (by Jessica Brillhart) – again, because it didn’t make any sense and just felt more like a cheap knock on men

And there were even some others that could’ve just as easily been substituted in the bottom three, depending on whether you want to judge on their subject matter or simply not following the directions, but I ultimately was not pleased at all with who got sent home because I strongly felt that my number 1 & 2 choices should’ve been clear as day. It kind of makes you wonder what kind of audience is watching the show, really, but I’ll still keep watching at least for a few more episodes to see how things pan out. Whether I’ll have NetFlix’d the other season of Project Greenlight and will have switched to that by the end of the month, it’s still hard to say…

life, etc…

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I realized tonight that I haven’t really blogged much about life in general lately, at least not since the engagement, so as I try to unwind and prepare for bed this evening, here we go…

Memorial Day Weekend
I had planned to get all of this great stuff done and make loads of progress both with my writing and around the house … but I didn’t. Instead, I layed around a lot, slept a lot, and started playing Final Fantasy 3 again which ate up gobs of my time all by itself. Didn’t get a single word of writing done, didn’t go down to the gym once – yeah, what a waste of a weekend.

Also, I had great plans to try a new recipe and make some teriyaki meatballs for lounging around the house today, and apparently they were great this morning when Sara got home, but by the time we got up in the afternoon apparently the crockpot wasn’t set right and they were burnt to a crisp. I still think they tasted kind of funny even this morning, but oh well…

El Dieto
It’s going ok … just ok. I’ve been holding off with hopes of being able to post about breaking my all-time low scale reading, but it still hasn’t happened yet. Granted, I’ve pretty much been slacking off since the holiday weekend started, so I don’t really have anyone to blame but myself … it’s just that I was doing so good there for a moment! I didn’t slip at all while we were on vacation and found myself right on the 213/214 line last week and the week before, but now I’m jumping between 214 & 216 again. For the record, 212 was my all-time low the last time I tried dieting, so I’ve told myself that there will be a little celebration when I break 210 … whenever that is.

Goals
Like I said, the weekend was pretty much a bust so not much to report here. I sorta set myself a goal of where I wanted to be with writing before we go to New York in June, but seeing as that’s about a week and a half away, I don’t really know how feasible it is anymore. I really need to do some writing tomorrow, but then again, arguably I could be writing columns instead of writing this post!

Wedding Planning
It’s going…

But honestly, there are parts that I like and parts that I don’t like. I think the hard part for me right now is finding the site itself, and granted, Sara’s pretty much doing all of the research and finding the places – I’m simply looking over what she’s found, going with her to the walkthroughs, and so forth. She’s really been the driving force with that effort, but I think what just gets to me is all of the pressure that comes from this decision – the date can’t be set until we pick a place, and everything we look at is mad busy even a year and a half out so we need to make a decision, like, yesterday; and bigger yet, the BUDGET is completely dependent on where we go with because the reception is by far the most expensive thing. Of course, this is a touchy spot just because I have no idea how we’re going to pay for all of it, and we’re trying to brainstorm creative ways to save wherever we can because although the last thing we want to do is limit our guest list, I honestly and sadly don’t see many other options. 🙁

And of course, then there’s learning after the fact who we can and can’t talk wedding planning stuff with because they think the money being budgeted is just insane. I’m going to stop here because I don’t want to get all worked up over it again, but A) the beach wedding we’re planning is going to be more expensive – period, and B) there have been weddings just as grand and expensive in Northern Michigan as what we’re planning, so it’s not as crazy as you think.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still crazy, but I digress…

Coming Soon
Anyways, that’s my crazy life in a nutshell, as of this point, anyways. Tomorrow we’re going to look at – you guessed it – more reception sites after work, which means that I really should be in bed by now. Hopefully some day this week we’ll be able to get Sara’s fish tank back up and running, as we picked up new gravel and whatnots for it yesterday but didn’t get it completely cleaned just yet. Meg, expect happy fish pictures … eventually. Friday we may go over to Disney because after that our passes with fall under the summer blackout dates and we won’t be able to go back until mid-August, although with the way things are going thus far I don’t know if I’m going to want to do anything but sit at home by Friday. Next week we fly up to New York mid-week for a wedding for one of Sara’s cousins or something, and also some R’n’R with her family. After that, well, we’ll get there when we get there…

Wal-Mart does something RIGHT!

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I know, I know – it sounds just too crazy to believe, but as much as I despise the big, blue giant, I still have to give props where props are due…

In talking to my Mom last night, she mentioned that she wanted to get copies of some of the pictures from when we got engaged and swam with the dolphins a few weeks ago. Sure, I could’ve sent her high res versions of them all and she could then take them into the store or print them at home herself after burning them onto a CD after downloading them, but that’s a lot of work – especially for someone who isn’t super tech-savvy. Instead, I had already uploaded the pictures that she wanted to wal-mart.com a week or so ago so that we could get printed copies of our own for a photo book, so all I had to do was simply login, order another set, and change the printing location to the store that Mom works at up in Gaylord. It said that they’d be ready about an hour later, so I just left her a voicemail to pick them up before she left work that day, and they were already paid for and waiting when she had time to stop by to get them.

Maybe I’m just getting technologically soft, but it was kinda cool to be able to get a few dozen pictures of one of the happiest weekends in my life in her hands in a matter of hours, with little to no work required on her behalf other than walking over to the photo lab, all from some 1500 miles away down in Florida! She picked up a book to put them in while she was still there, so tonight she’s got her own photo album of me and Sara’s trip to Disney & Discovery Cove … and we only talked about getting her copies of the pictures yesterday. Typically it would take weeks for me to put something like that together – to pick out and upload the prints, go pick them up, find a photo book, put everything together and get it packaged for shipping, find time to drop it all off at the post office, and then wait three or four days for it to arrive up in Michigan. Of course, not much else works very well on that website of theirs, but you’ve kinda got to hand it to them for the Photo Lab’s portion of the site. Sure, there are a lot of other websites that can do similar services, but at the end of the day Wal-Mart’s still got more storefronts than anyone else and here they’re actually doing a decent job of taking advantage of that…

Somebody like Blockbuster Video could’ve stood to learn a thing or two from this. Oh yeah, that’s right – that would’ve taken them not completely pissing off all of their previous customers by not gouging us for movies like they were the only service in town! Viva NetFlix, and for this post, viva the Wal-Mart Online Photo Center!

“I’ll be WATCHING you…”

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LOL, literally! I’m reading through a list of “suggested romantic first dance songs” for the wedding and this one just jumped out to me as a bit of a no no:

13. “Every Breath You Take” (The Police)

Apparently I wasn’t the only person completely clueless to the fact that this song is about a stalker?! Not exactly how I want to share my first dance as husband and wife! Talk about creepy…

goals, etc…

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I was just brainstorming about life, the universe, etc… the other day and started building a list in my head of some things that I’d like to do this year. Some are new, some have been on the list for a while, and of course, there are still the BIG THREE goals that are priority … even though I am finally making progress on at least a couple of them…

The Standard Three Goals

  • get writing online and post new columns on a regular, weekly basis
  • continue losing weight until I get to a healthy number
  • continue paying off debt, with hopes of cutting mine & Sara’s collective debt by 50% by year end…And Some Other Random Stuff That I Think I’d Like to Try to Do This Year
    • spend more time swimming / snorkeling and get more comfortable in the water again
  • pick up the acoustic guitar and slowly get into playing again here and there
  • be caught up with my writing so I’m only writing new stuff each week and am no longer plagued with backlog after backlog…after backlog
  • collect a check, whether it be for just advertising or directly for writing, from somebody new with my freelancing
  • spend a weekend over at one of the Epcot resorts for the International Food & Wine Festival this fall
  • possibly also do either Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party or the Candlelight Processional again, or both for Christmas
  • get through the wedding planning without going completely insane
  • keep the house a little cleaner (i.e. clean bathrooms, kitchen floors, etc… more than twice over the two years I’ve been here!)
  • go on a spur of the moment, weekend roadtrip
  • spend more time with Sara
  • see some live comedy, improv, or whatever that is actually funny
  • go to a concert – big or small
  • revisit past projects – either bringing parts of Just Laugh back online, or restart the comic, or maybe even start greeting cards withthe comic – just something creative that isn’t directly writing
  • move into a new house this fall that is a step or two up from where we are now, yet still in our price range
  • help get Sara ready for nursing school, and get our finances in order so that we’re not pulling hair out when her hours cut back
  • help encourage Sara to lose weight along with me
  • spend the month of December doing Christmas stuff (cookies, decorations, etc… – last year didn’t seem to happen because we were so busy)Just some food for thought…