so, the honeymoon is over. well, not in that way. the actual honeymoon is over…i’m still the luckies mofo i know (it rhymes!). 2 beautiful weeks in fiji and australia. i’ve put a few pictures up on flickr. there is a set specifically for some fiji pictures, too. i’ll be getting the rest of the fiji ones and the australia ones up soon, as well.

the trip was amazing. i’m hoping that it is going to lead to more posts, but i wanted to at least get one up, so where else to start than at the beginning? and since i’m tired, i’ll do an easy post…

we were in the security line in LA and kerri nudges me and says ‘look behind you’. i do, and who should i see by Nigel Lythgoe from (among other things) “So you think you can dance” which I have never seen, of course (read: I watch every episode). He was kind enough to let us get a few pictures after we got through security. we were both so excited that we both didn’t notice that he had not even had a chance to tie his shoes.

i hate being sick.

i don’t get sick very often, and when i do i think my body does a pretty good job fighting it off. but it still sucks. the timing of this illness couldn’t have been worse, either. my guys from out east are in for a visit, so my plans for a team dinner and a vendor dinner were foiled. luckily, those events still went off, but i wasn’t there.  i did manage to go to work and get the stuff done that i needed to (and hopefully minimizing the potential for spreading my bug, although i read somewhere that i was probably contagious before i showed  any symptoms…still, it’s the thought that counts). i probably stayed too long today, but i think it was for a good cause.

i’m actually sitting on the couch right now, trying to do too many things, so i figured i would do none of them and write for a bit. and watch hockey. so far the lightning haven’t blown it like they usually do, and the vancouver game just started so they haven’t had an opportunity to lose yet. oh, speaking of hockey, i checked out my old teams website tonight. it looks great (except the old, freaky picture of me)! i miss playing and am trying to figure out if i want to fit it back in my life next season, although that’s unlikely with the wedding. and the 1,000 other things i want to do. still, if i can work the schedule, i think i’d like to.

and, speaking of wedding. i still haven’t made an appointment with a photographer, although it’s a work in progress. i did check out a few more websites tonight, and have a few more lined up to look at tonight. i need to focus my priorities and stop making excuses for not making the appointment. tomorrow.

i need to update the website, too.

ok, enough about all the things i need to do. it would become the never-ending post.

it’s going to be a busy few days. i got a violation letter from the HOA because i haven’t taken the christmas lights down yet. between travel and all that, it was a low priority, but i’ll take care of it saturday. i think it’s supposed to be nice out. we have an engagement party on sunday, and i think some folks from work will come up, so that makes me very happy (unless, of course, they get sick between now and then, and then i can only blame myself. and them, for getting sick).  then on monday, i’m flying east for the week. it will likely be my last trip for a few weeks. kerri and i are going to florida in march, just in time (hopefully) to see my friend’s new baby, or to see her right before she has it, or to be there when she has it so we can babysit their precious daughter. we’ll see a hockey game with mom, and spend some (noisy) QT with the new puppies. We’ll probably head to Orlando for a bit, too. I think I’ve earned a free night at a hotel with my Marriott points, so there is something to be said for the travel.

a light night of writing, i guess. no deep thoughts, no keen observations. it was an eventful day, but one that i’m trying to process, i guess. it was also work related, and i don’t / won’t post about that stuff. it is what it is.

oh, speaking of. i know a few folks that hate that saying. but there was a brief segment on npr talking about the saying. i looked for a link but didn’t find one, but it was a light story talking about the phrase, where it might have come from, and how it’s used.

and on that note, it’s back to photographer websites. vancouver scored and my insides are churning in celebration. stupid being sick. boo. still…

it is what it is

i’ve been wanting to write something for awhile, but things have been busy (as usual) and i’ve been unmotivated (as usual). but over the course of the past few days, i’ve actually been semi-productive, so i figured i would top it off with a post.

my favorite accomplishment was putting up the honeymoon page on daveandkerri.com. i found web pages for the places we are staying and included links and pictures along with the itinerary. it seems so crazy, really. fiji, sydney, and the great barrier reef. i think we are going to see and do a lot of things but, at the same time, the itinerary seems to also include a nice balance of relaxation. as an added bonus, october is supposed to be a great time for heading to those parts of the world, too.

i also put pictures of the western show up on flickr. we only saw the wild west show, but it was fun and educational and was one of the things i wanted to ponder deeply and write about, but that won’t be tonight. in a nutshell, it was related to the history of the cowboy, and how much it has become a part of our culture, even though the cowboy as we think of him only lasted for about 20 years. it seems like such a short time. granted, there are cowboys today, sort of (none of which actually sing country music). it’s like hip hop, i think. it’s a lifestyle, not a profession. the real cowboys are the ones that led steer drives for hundreds of miles…the old west cowboys, not the ones that drive chevy’s and have the little decal of calvin relieving himself on a ford emblem. my point, if i ever decide to write about it in the future, was how it became part of our culture, and how long it would be a part of it. how far back in history will the lasso reach? fifty years from now, will there be a wild west show? will the seats be packed like they were when i was there? maybe we’ll have a new-age cowboy show that doesn’t involve any cattle, but folks driving around in their ford and chevy trucks, perfectly synchronized at 50 miles an hour (and 3 miles per gallon).

back to the pictures, i haven’t decided if i want to put any of them on kettlepot. i’m still unmotivated, and severely critical right now. but at least i took some pictures. that should count for something.

i’m also trying to finish brave new world. technically, i finished the main story. i’m reading huxley’s follow up to it, which is very, very interesting. even if people don’t read the book, i think they should read “brave new world revisited”. right now, i think i want to do a small book report on it. there were a lot of similarities to “stranger in a strange land”, which i’ve read maybe 5 times. the interesting thing about brave new world, though, is that the “revisited” provides a lot of insight in to why things are the way they are in the future, including examples of huxley’s present day that led him to design it the way he did…creepy experiments that proved things about human nature that, in the story, the future “world controllers” use the make a freak utopian society.

to tie my last to thoughts together, in the brave new world, there are “savage” reservations; basically, native american reservations. (pieces of that were very “stranger in a strange land”). but i wanted to mention that there were some native americans doing a few different dances at the western show, and some of those pictures are included on flickr. the dances were amazing, especially the hoop dancing, which constitutes a large number of the pictures on flickr. the coolest part was that the father was the main hoop dancer, which from the announcer is a big deal and not something just anyone can do. but the dancer’s son was following his father and learning the hoop dance, and the two of them danced together and was really touching, and real. the crowd gave a nice response, as well, which made me, even if only for a brief moment, believe there is hope for us all yet.

and then i caught the news on the radio…

after the daveandkerri.com site was completed, i spent some time updating the keywords on the website and then resubmitted the site to google. previously, searching google for “dave and kerri” didn’t show our site on the first page. i mean, seriously, daveandkerri.com was behind damon and (some other) kerri’s page. what’s up with that?

so, perseverance paid off today when i went to google and did my search and was pleased to see that daveandkerri.com was at the top of the search results!

top of the world, ma!

i spent most of the day updating out wedding website. we had fun trying to come up with the “Dave recommends…” and “Kerri recommends…” sections for all of our out of town guests. the site turned out to be a lot of work, but i like the end result. i spent a few hours working on the flash countdown clock at the bottom of the page with the help of this tutorial. we added some pictures to my flickr account which now feeds the top of the site. in addition to the recommendations, i started putting up some of the other content up, too. with the work i did on kettlepot this weekend and the daveandkerri.com site, i feel like i actually accomplished something, which is great. i need to spend a little time tomorrow doing work-related stuff before we go celebrate new years eve with some friends. new years day should be the museum and then a guitar lesson before returning to work on wednesday. time flies and all that.