Greg

Italy pictures up

Pictures from the honeymoon to Italy are now online here.  This is just a sampling of some of my favorite pictures from the trip - either becuase I think they look very cool or because it was part of a cool experience (e.g. World Cup final in Milan)...  Probably I'll add a few more over time but this is most of what I was planning on uploading.

Photos from the wedding. Continued

Slowly but surely making progress getting pictures online - a bunch from Prasadi and the rest of Suzanna's online now.  I had been erring on the side of putting duplicates up if two people gave me the same or a similar picture - otherwise it'll take even longer to get things up - but I'm going to try to be a bit more selective and not put pictures up if the same basic shot is already available...  Obligatory link to photo gallery.  On a brighter note(?) the weather is a bit crappy this weekend so may finish up the wedding pictures that have come to us thus far.

Much less progress on the honeymoon pictures since there are so many of them I started out trying to be more selective.  Eventually, eventually.

Last comment on the page to upload things (if you had gotten the email about sending us your pictures and coincidentally also read this page) - I'm taking it down since it never really worked properly.  I'm sure there was something I could tweak server-side to fix things, but it's not really worth it since we've gotten most of the pictures already (or know they're in the mail on a CD).

Weight-loss has it benefits and drawbacks

Strange and embarrassing moment yesterday - Clodagh and I are on the way home in some of what is the worst traffic I've seen since working in Redmond/Bellevue.  As we're driving down 156th stopped waiting for the light someone running slows down and starts to come to our car.  He looks a little familiar, but I presume it's someone Clodagh has worked with so don't talk.  Clodagh also thinks it might be someone she's worked with but expected me to talk.

The conversation went like this:
Him: "Hey"
Us: <silence> - Clodagh thinking I was going to talk, me thinking she was going to talk since she knew him.
Us: <silence continues.  kinda awkward now>
Him: "It's me, <name>."
Me: "Hey, hi, holy crap."

Yep, it was a friend of mine from college who apparently has gotten into running.  And lost a ton of weight and now looks like a completely different person.  And happens to be out in Seattle area in conversations with Microsoft and another area company.  What're the odds?

Moral of the story is that getting in shape is all well in good, but if you do too well then people who don't constantly see you won't recognize you.  So get in shape, but not too good of shape.  Or maybe just wear a nametag? :)

Age is in the eye of the beholder

Apparently I now look over thirty.

Last night Clodagh, I and a couple of friends went for a drink in the bar of a local restaurant (hooray for airconditioning!).  As we were ordering Clodagh and one of the others both got IDed.  As the waitress was apologizing she came out with this: "I'm really sorry, I have to ID people who look under thirty.  I need to see your ID and your ID (pointing to the two of them)."  No, I wasn't one of the people pointed to.  I've been places without getting IDed before, but this was the first time I've been called out as looking over thirty.

This is even a bit funnier because when I have a fresh haircut I tend to (think I) look really young - a couple of years ago I got IDed going into a club in Dublin.  Where the age to get in is eighteen.  Yes, I got IDed going into a bar in a country with a drinking age of eighteen.  Either I've gone downhill fast, or it's really whatever people want to see.

More than 1 photo from the wedding online

I've got probably 1/3 to 1/2 of Suzanna's photos from the wedding up now.  Will update when finished and when I get photos from other people to upload (they're promised but not recieved at this point).

Note - if you got the email I sent out about how to upload pictures and zip'ing them up and uploading isn't working, feel free to upload the loose pictures.

Eventually I'll work through the crazy number of pictures I took of Italy and upload some of those too.

Things you don't actually want to know

Allow me to sum up the weather in Seattle over the past couple of days: Hot.  Damn Hot.  Friday the Boeing field recording topped out at 95.  Saturday, 92.  Now, in the midwest and South this is warm but certainly not a record - but the big difference is that those areas of the country generally have airconditioning in most houses / apartments.

So I had a bright idea today to buy a thermometer that shows indoor and outdoor tempatures.  Is it bad when it's over 90 indoors?  Sheesh - I knew it was warm but didn't think it was that warm...  Much happier before I had actual data in front of me :(.

Photos from the wedding

We've actually started to get some photos of the wedding back from people.  Sadly, not through the page I set up for it - apparently there are still some problems with the server settings and they've come in through the old-fashioned method of sharing: CDs, thumbdrives, file shares from work, etc.  And yes, I realize the strangeness of calling burning a CD or using a USB thumbdrive "the old fashioned method" :).

Wedding pictures will be uploaded here.

Getting married is weird

I've been to a number of weddings over the past few years between friends and family and never really realized how strange it would be to be on the other side of the event.  I think the thing that really suprised me is that there are things in the course of the night that are universally acknowledged as being dumb and no one likes them, but you still end up having to do them anyway (yes, I'm talking about the "removing of the garter" which I had completely forgotten about until it happened)...

The other thing that kinda suprised me is that even though "everyone" tells you that you won't eat much or drink much on the day I never believed it.  Well, it's true.  I think I had 8 or 10 drinks throughout the night, but I think only one made it past a quarter of the glass.  The remainder got put down during the course of talking to people or dancing or whatever and were lost.  Having said that, I did make it all of the way through a few glasses of water since I was so thirsty.

And for those of you who couldn't make it, yes I did kind of screw up twice.  Once during the ceremony (why do they bother giving you a handout as the groom?  clearly I couldn't really bring it up with me and read from it) when I couldn't remember exactly what I was supposed to say and it seemed like Clodagh and the Father McCarthy were looking at me like I should be saying more so I threw in an extra "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit".  Oops.  The other when I forgot about a quarter of my speech and stopped to acknowledged how weird it is to be looking at a room full of people looking at you and listening to you - if you were there and didn't like my speech, trust me that it would have been really funny and good.  And only a minute or two longer.  This is what you get when you write it at 1pm on the day you're supposed to give it.

On a non-wedding note, at one stage in my life I'm convinced that I had worked out how to travel without jet-lag.  That time has passed me by and I'm suffering from a bit of jet lag (or maybe I can still blame the headwound?!? ;-)) but it does give you an extra few hours in the morning to actually get stuff done.  Silver lining in everything.

Minor Headwound Harry back in the US

In the 90s there was a SNL character named "massive headwound Harry" - well, consider me "minor headwound Harry" for the moment.  As we were coming back from Rome I was waiting in the customs baggage claim area of JFK airport for Clodagh and had sat down under a bank of TV monitors.  When I saw her coming towards me after clearing immigration I jumped up, slamming my head into said bank of TV monitors.  One of those "huh, somethings not quite right." "huh, there's a little blood on my fingers" "huh, there's a lot of blood coming from my head" sort of moments.

Hooray for the US customs officers who were all incredibly nice in coming over and agreeing that the bank of TVs was dangerous, and that they were suprised this had never happened before.  Hooray also for New York's finest and the EMTs who "wink-wink"ed me into not going to the hospital for stitches since it wasn't that bad and we would have missed our Seattle flight.  Boo for American Airlines - the airline official did offer to get me a chair or some water, took my boarding card away at one stage to record my information (presumably in case I try to sue) but never said "wow, we have a slightly dangerous facility - sorry about that".  I was a bit shocked he didn't offer to upgrade us or anything like that or come back as the EMTs were leaving to see if everything was OK.  For those keeping score at home it's Local & Federal Government 1, American Airlines 0.

I also really enjoyed sitting on the tarmac of JFK for an hour trying to get our slot to take off.  The lady behind us was convinced (and loudly letting everyone know) we missed our slot becuase people bring too much carry on luggage then take too long to get situated and the luggage stowed.  I'm not sure that's actually what happened, but it's a decent theory.  People are getting ridiculous with the amount and what they try to bring on as carry-on luggage.

More on the wedding, honeymoon, and some photos later...