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Friday, January 01, 2010

Happy New Year, that was 2009

Wow 2009 was a hell of a year. There is not much else I can say about it. It was just amazing. Everything went as planned, but it was so much better then I expected. The big point of the year was March, 21. My wedding day. The whole year up to that point seemed to be getting ready for the wedding. I will admit that getting ready for the wedding was stressful. I will say the first three months of the year was more stressful than the rest of the year combined. It was worth it.


The rest of the year after that was about learning how to be a married man. Kate and I lived together for about 16 months before being married. Lots of people ask if being married was different than not being married, for me it is. Things between Kate and myself became intense. It was like the stakes are higher. If I did something wrong, I felt worse about it. It was like the reality of being married hit me.

My God Father's Wife Janis gave us a piece of advice after the wedding. She told us that you need to work at you marriage everyday if you want it to be good. This seems true to me and I have been trying to live this idea. I try to work to be a better person for my wife. It is not always easy, but it is always worth it.

This year Kate and I went to Portland, Sacramento, Monterey, Comic Con, Baseball Games, and all over San Jose. This year has been about the two of us. We have spent a lot of time together, even both did National Novel Writing Month this year. We stayed home this Christmas so we could have our own Christmas Tree, It was really cool.

The best thing I did not related to getting married was getting my bike back on the road. I decided it was silly to drive to the gym, ride the bike at the gym to warm up, and drive back. That got my bike back into riding shape. It took a little more for me to get myself into riding shape.

Being married has been really good to me. I am losing weight, getting more exercise, and feeling better. I really feel this has been one of the best years of my life. It was definitely the best year of my adult life. I am hoping the trend continues. I know that I need to work at my life to keep that trend alive.

Below is my first photo from 2009

Labels: 2009, best of 2009, kate, marriage, self, wedding

- Rich, 6:01 PM

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

2009 Mayfly

Mayfly 2009

I got married, yes that amazed me and it was cool. It still surprises me I am married. It defined my year. She's great.

Past Mayflies

2008, Mayflys: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2002, 2001,

Labels: 2009, kate, mayfly project, self, wedding, year in review

- Rich, 10:12 PM

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Pulled away fro a while

...or So much has happened, I have not had the time to blog

Sometimes your life just has too many things going on. I got married in March. That pretty much took me away from my blog for a month. I did not have the time or the mental space to sit down and blog. I was either too busy, too tired, too stressed, too focused, or too distracted to just sit at my computer and type. When I did use my computer I was either working on wedding things or vegging out. I seemed to have no mental space to work on my blog.

Now that I am married I have to find a new approach to work on my blog. I need to come up with the time to work on it and the will to not screw around on the web when I find that time. When I started this blog I had all the time in the world to work on it. I would often spend four nights a week doing nothing but my blog.

Now I have to be more selective. I see and hear lots of things that I want to blog about. The problem is that I do not have the time to work my thoughts into something that I can easily post on a blog.

Of course there are other ways I can get things out. While I have been working on this post I have sent three tweets and posted three links to del.icio.us. If you like you can follow all that on Friends Feed.

Postdating

I am going to do some postdating of blog posts. There are notes that I took during the week before I was married so I would remember things. I know that I am using my blog as a journal trying to keep track of things, but deal with it. It is my blog and I don't really care

Labels: blog, sadsalvation, self, wedding

- Rich, 7:34 PM

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Vows

11-ALT
Originally uploaded by KayMTee.

Here are the wedding Vows that Kate and I said to each other. We decided really early that we were going to write our own vows. It just seemed like the right think to do. People at the wedding told us they liked them. Maybe they were just being polite. I hope that people like them.


Kate:

Love of mine, you are one of the most beautiful of God's creatures.
It is my good fortune to have you in my life I am better for knowing you.
I pledge everyday to seek your gentle smile.
Looking inside my heart only finding you.
Give you comfort and rest
I pledge to be present in our life together.
To be careful with you.
To be vulnerable
I pledge to also be strong and patient
To compromise with you
To nurture the good in our relationship
I will not try to fix things but just to listen
To be honest with you as well as trust you
To bend but not to break
Along the road I may disappoint, anger, or make you sad.
Know the mistakes I make are only my own frustration
No matter what it looks like all I bring you is love.


Rich:

My love, from the first time I kissed your lips, I knew we had a bond
The days since that first kiss, my love for you has grown and flowered
I pledge you my hands
That they work hard to support you
and be there for you when you need them
to be ready to act when times get hard
I pledge you my mind
That it will find the word to bring you a smile
and think through every challenge life brings us
you will never be far from my thoughts
I pledge you my heart
With every ounce of love I can muster
I will let you into my heart
making our lives a place where we can always find joy
I will be present, patient and loving
Thanking God for everyday we have together
As we build a family and a life together

Labels: kate, self, vow, wedding

- Rich, 4:17 PM

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 25

We were told that we had to visit the Oregon Zoo in Portland. Kate loves animals and I love photography. That makes a zoo great for booth of us. We got to see the new baby elephant, Hippos, Polar Bears, Mandrills, Zebras, and Bats to name a few.
We had dinner with our favorite Portlanders, the Dornblasers. We got to meet the newest member of the family. We were sorry that they could name make it for the wedding. We spent our time talking about all kinds of stuff like, weddings, marriage, kids, work, and The Birds.
We had dinner at the Lauralwood Public House. I had the Burger which was very good, but I should have had the Mac and Cheese Kate had. It was great Mac and Cheese. I am not sure there are restaurants in San Jose that rate with the Laurelwood. If there is let me know

Labels: Don D., honeymoon, notes, Oregon Zoo, tag overload, travel, travel notes, wedding, zoo

- Rich, 11:58 PM

Monday, March 23, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 23

March 23
Had the complementary breakfast at the Ashland Springs Hotel.
I did my best to not speed too much. I saw two drivers pulled over.
I cannot even recount everything that Kate and I talked about.
Ate Lunch at the Vintage Inn diner in Cottage Grove Oregon.
I have been to Portland enough times since leaving that I do not think about my year living there when I visit. I end up thinking about my other visits.
We made it to the Grand Lodge at about 5 PM.
We were spending most our honeymoon at the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove, Oregon. We are staying in the walker brothers suite that includes a sitting room with a fireplace.
I had the buffalo burger and tater tots for dinner.
The thing about staying at a McMenamins hotel is that they brew their own beer. We had the samplers and a number of pitchers after that. Kate's favorite is the Ruby and mine was the Working Man's Red.
We put the fireplace to good use on the night

Labels: beer, McMenamins, notes, tag overload, travel notes, wedding

- Rich, 11:22 PM

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 22

Most of my family were staying in the hotel
I woke up before Kate to have breakfast with, Alice, the Greens, and the Hoffmanns. Kate joined me later to have breakfast with my mom, Kathy, Jed and Janice, and the Prattles,
We went back to the apartment, finished packing and opened a few more gifts.
We were on the road. It was I-880, I-680, Over the Martinez bridge, I-80, I-505, I-5. We had lunch at Mary's Pizza Shack in Vacaville and had pasta.
We were happy to get through the mountain passes without issue. We saw snow, but we did not need chains. I am happy the passes were open.
We spent the night in Ashland, Oregon. Ashland was dead because it was Springbreak and there were no plays that week
We pulled into the Bard's Inn and asked if they had HBO. We needed HBO to see the finally of Big Love. They called four other hotels looking for one that had HBO. I guess Ashland is a very literate town. More hotels had sharing libraries than HBO. We needed to see the Big Love Finish. The hotel clerk thought it was romantic I was doing this for my wife.
Got Takeout hamburgers at munchies
We ended up staying at the Ashland Springs Hotel.
Kate want to come back to Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival. I think that would be pretty cool.

Labels: honeymoon, notes, tag overload, travel, travel notes, wedding

- Rich, 11:28 PM

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 21

Woke up early
Drove around San Jose, it was very quite and peaceful
Had a donut for breakfast
Andrew J Thomas came over to my place to get ready
Got to the wedding site before any of the guests
Ran around like crazy before the wedding started.
Spent what felt like a long time on the wedding platform trying not to see Kate before the wedding started.
We were waiting for the wedding party to be ready, I was on alone on the stage. All the guests where standing there looking at me. I stood there in front of the guests. I took questions to warm up the crowd. I was asked how we met and if Kate offers a 401k.
I am so happy I waited for that moment to see Kate in her wedding dress for the first time. It was almost overwhelming in a good way. I think this is a good tradition.
During the ceremony, the whole world faded away except for Kate.
I almost cried when Pat read Corinthians 1:13
I could hear people go ahhhh when Kate and I read our vows.
It felt like the photos took a long time and that we should have done more.
I did not take many photos with my camera.
I did not get the time to talk to as many people as I wanted to. The day really did fly by.
It rained before we cut the cake. It was amazing to see my friends start grabbing stuff to get it out of the rain.
We cut the cake while it was raining. The cupcakes where a big hit. Cupcakes are a great idea for an outdoor wedding. No one had to spend time cutting the cake.
Peter and Kelly did the toasts.
It started to rain as we decided to do our first dance. We both had a great time with the first dance.
Pat was a real ham with his first dance.
After the first dance was over, all the guests left to get out of the rain. That was the end of the wedding for the most part.
The bridal party decorated the car with Shaving Cream and Tin Cans. The tin cans fell off the car somewhere before the highway.
Kate and I snuck out of the hotel for a romantic sushi dinner.
After dinner we opened some of the gifts and had some left over cupcakes
After dinner we went to the hostility suite to see some family.
We were really tired by the time we went to bed.

Labels: flickrpost, notes, tag overload, wedding

- Rich, 11:19 PM

Friday, March 20, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 20

Hung out while Kate got her nails down
Checked Kate into the hotel
Got some advice from the impending father-in-law
Had the rehearsal for the wedding
I got to the rehearsal site and half hour early and relaxed alone. It helped a lot with the stress.
Kate was late to the Rehearsal. I made jokes about her heading to Mexico
Had the Rehearsal dinner at the Tied House
At the Rehearsal dinner the distortion of time field started. It went very quickly.
Watched Battlestar Galactica Series Final.
Slept in my broken bed alone

Labels: Battlestar Galatica, list, notes, tag overload, wedding

- Rich, 9:09 PM

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 19

First day off work for my wedding.
The Greens got to town
Had Lunch at Peggy Sue's with all the family in town
Went to the Winchester Mystery house
Did Chores with the Greens
Had dinner the family at Vito's New York Trattoria
went to be early

Labels: list, notes, wedding

- Rich, 11:05 PM

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 18

Worked from Home
Kate and I had Lunch with one of the Brides Maids
Mom and My sister Kathy made it to town
Met Mom and Kathy at the Hotel
Had dinner at Henry's High Life with Kathy and Kate.
College roommate came over the the Apartment to hang with Kate and I.
Jimmy told a story of something I did in college. I did not remember it, but it sounded like me.

Labels: list, notes, tag overload, wedding

- Rich, 11:03 PM

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Wedding Notes: March 17

College roommate got to town.
Went to Dennys with him after 10 PM and talked. It reminded me a little of college
Topics covered

comics

publishing

kids books

television

being married

the Watchmen
Gave him an idea of a kids TV show I doubt he will ever pitch

Labels: Jimmy Gownley, list, notes, tag overload, wedding

- Rich, 11:59 PM

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

2008 Mayfly

The idea of a Mayfly is to summarize your year in 24 words. I will tell you it makes you think about what is important.

Mayfly 2008

I asked with a picture
she said yes with a smile
knowledge increases love grows
Lost job New job
Looking forward to the Wedding


Past Mayflies

Mayflys: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2002, 2001,

Labels: 2008, kate, mayfly project, self, wedding, year in review

- Rich, 11:39 AM

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Travelogue - Engaged

I asked Kate to marry me in Portland and she said yes. Yes, I asked her on March 17th St. Patrick's Day, but I am getting a head of my self here.

Kate and I started Monday by sleeping in. After breakfast and internet at the Kennedy school we looked for places to get Kate's nails done. We drove around Portland for a little bit before meeting Sean for lunch.

The whole time all of these things happened I was trying to figure out when I was going to ask Kate. Kate knew the proposal was coming soon. She knew that I ordered a ring but I did not have it with me in Portland. Knowing that, Kate has accused me of being kind of "squirrelly". She knew something was up.

I figured my only chance was to make her think I was going to do something at Dinner and ask her earlier. After a couple of text messages with a friend I decided I was going to ask her on the Hawthorne bridge in the late afternoon. I wanted to get my hair cut first. I was just hoping that the weather would hold out.



I had an appointment for get my hair cut and Kate had a nail appointment. My best friend for high school and college, His sister Shannon is a hair stylist in Portland. I had seen her over Christmas. She said she would be happy to cut my hair. We tried to hook it up two years ago, but the timing was all wrong.

It was cool to have my hair cut away from home by a person who knew me. It was a good haircut. I do not have a hair stylist in San Jose I like this much. If I lived in Portland I would go to Shannon at Dirty Little Secret all the time.



I told Kate after the Haircut that I wanted to take some photos of her on the Hawthorne bridge. Earlier in the trip I told her how the Hawrhorne bridge in Portland. Not only did it go between two of my favorite parts of town, it is also a beautiful bridge. Since I take a lot of photos it was not hard to convince Kate that I wanted to take her photo on the bridge.

I knew that I wanted to ask Kate with a photographic months back. I got the idea while we were in Philadelphia after Christmas. I wanted so way to ask Kate that I could later post on Flickr. In February I had Peter Conrad make the sign for me and take the photo of me. The photo of me at the top of the post was taken at the place where Kate and I had our first date, Mission City Coffee.

On Saturday I had Don run out and make a print for me. I knew that I was not going to be able to slip away from Kate for long enough to get it done. This lead to the whole thing with me acting "Squirrelly".

I walked Kate on the bridge and started taking some pictures. After a few pictures I said I had a prop for her. I handed her a bag with the photo in it. The print was 8x10. She looked at the photo and was surprised. She did not expect me to ask her there in this way. I am happy I could surprise her. I told her there were two more signs in the bag, 'Yes' and 'No'. I told her she needed to pick one of them out and hold it up. She held up the 'yes' sign.



We were both floating six feet off the ground when we got off the bridge. We went back to the Kennedy school. It was packed when we got back there. St. Patrick's day attracts a lot of people to the Kennedy School. We used their soaking pool for a little while. It seemed perfect. The water was warm and air was cool. We were as close to weightless as we could be. We floated around each other was we talked about the future.

We headed back to the room to take advantage of the Romance package, which was a bottle of champagne on ice and two chocolate truffles. After a little time in the room we decided to get some dinner in the hotel restaurant. The wait for the restaurant was 90 minutes, but when you are staying at a hotel with its own brewery and six bars, waiting 90 minutes for a table is not too hard.

We had a lot of beer, chicken wings, tater tots while we waited. We mooned at each other over steak and beer for dinner. Steak has become a celebration meal for us. It seemed perfect that night. Lets just say we were pretty free with the drinks that night. Everything that night seemed to make us happy.

We stumbled back to our room after a few hours. When got there I wanted to make sure we finished I wanted to make sure we finished off the bottle of champagne. I paid good money for it and I did not want it to go to waste. It was a little warm and flat for sitting out, but that was fine by me. The only glass clean in the room was a pint glass. We ended up sharing that glass, trading it back and forth. I ended up Twittering "we finished a bottle of flat sparkling wine out of a pint glass. what a perfect day."

After that I had this Idea that we should go out side and look at the stars. We we got outside we found out it was raining. The sky was gray and we could not see any stars. So we ended up dancing outside in the rain. It was still pretty cool. It was the end of a perfect day.

Labels: kate, Portland, proposal, tag overload, travel, travelogue, wedding

- Rich, 4:07 PM

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Formal Dress

I think everyone should wear Pro Wrestling Masks to Antwon and Ealasaid wedding. It was good enough for Santo, it should be good enough for us.

Labels: joke, mask, pro wrestling, Santo, wedding

- Rich, 8:03 PM

Monday, June 23, 2003

Weddings

I see lots of lists on the web. One of the worst I have read lately is 10 Worst Reasons to Marry a woman. There is nothing interesting or insightful in this list. You can get these ten reasons from a drunk guy at the local dive. This is just poor content.

Labels: dating, list, marriage, wedding

- Rich, 11:57 PM

Saturday, October 13, 2001

The Wedding

The wedding today was very interesting. To start with it was raining and raining hard. It was raining that typhoon level or rain. All the time I hear the comment that people on the West Coast do not know how to drive in the rain. I did not know what they were talking about until today. It has to be at least three years since I have driving in rain this hard. I passed a lot of accidents on the highway on the way to the wedding.

The weeding was set to be out doors at a forest preserve. They ended up holding the ceremony under a picnic pavilion. The ushers were running an umbrella service. The rain turned out to have an odd effect on the ceremony. It ended up being very cozy. It was almost like an adventure. I know that I paid more attention to the ceremony. All the people at the ceremony seemed closer.

No one seemed to be bothered by the rain. Jen, the bride, seemed not to be bothered at all. She said that the rain made the day seem more special. I think she was referring to how a lot of people seemed more relaxed. The Priest said that the weather made it truly an Iron man wedding. Last year Jeff ran and Iron Man triathlon.

The reception was supposed to be outside also. They were holding it at a part that was the home of some old Chicago Newspaper Baron. They had thought ahead and rented a tent. The problem was it rained so hard the tent was flooded and the dance floor that was set up was under two feet of water. They moved the reception indoors.

I had a good time at the reception. I spent most of my night talking to the people that I had met the night before at the rehearsal dinner. I sat with the people from Jen's book club. They seemed to be fun people. I stuck my foot in my mouth a couple of times with them. After a little while I did not care anymore. I did not start dancing until the end of the reception.

I was surprised that I was the only person from high school that was at the wedding. I expected there to be one or two other people from Tennent to be there. Jeff and I were friends in high school, but we did not really run in the same circles. We rode the bus together and went to the same church. I think that we have been able to keep that level friendship. If we do not hear from each other for six months, it does not bother either one of us. I know there are people I was close to in high school that I would not invite to my wedding. It makes me feel good that Jeff and I have been about to keep that stay friends.

There were times during the reception where I felt disconnected from the people there. I felt like I was forcing myself into every conversation. I found that I just had to sit by myself at these times. It is hard to go to a wedding when the only person you really know is the groom. I did not want to hang on Jeff the whole night. I know the bride and groom are always busy.

It is times like this when I feel fiercely independent. There are a lot of times when I feel alone in the world. At these times I tend to pull back in to myself. My experience is that if I am feeling lonely, it is not a good thing for me to try to push myself on people. I tend to be really needy. I guess there is no way for to avoid feeling isolated at a wedding where I know so few people.

I am staying in a hotel tonight. My idea was that I did not want to drive back to Chicago after the wedding. I was also hoping to be invited to any after wedding festivities. There did not seem to be anything going on. If there was I was not invited. I am still glad that I got the hotel room. It gives me a chance to sleep someplace else then the couch. It also gives Jeremy a night without having to worry about me.

Labels: Chicago, Jeff Banowitz, self, wedding

- Rich, 10:23 AM

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