I'm finally home now. Work is over, the pager is off and all my thoughts are focused on the preparation over the next few days, and finally "the day". I don't know how diligent I'm going to be about updating the log but I do plan on posting stuff here while we're on our honeymoon. A daily trip diary, if you will. I'm looking forward to it because I love cruising and also because you're forced to relax and enjoy the time together. This is exactly what the doctor has ordered and I'm headed towards "full overdose".

We're both looking forward to spending time with friends and family, in celebration of what everyone has contributed a part to. Its not everyday that the opportunity arises and we're planning on making it last as long as possible. Mostly, we just want to have fun with everyone.

We'll see you Saturday - if not then, we'll see you when we return. Bye for now...

What is the deal with the freakin :: :: symbols. After viewing one log after another I'm beginning to see a distinct pattern of lack of originality. I'm sure it looked cool the first time around but I definitely think its bordering on overuse. "Step away from the colon key and nobody gets hurt..."

Five days to go and time continues to march on. At this point I'm finally beginning to feel the emotions of an impending wedding. Its sometimes hard to verbalize but I can say that I'm looking forward to the day and all the days that will come behind it.

We have some last minute details to take care of (it seems these never end), but we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's been a long year of planning and execution and we're looking forward to seeing our ideas come to life and hopefully take on a life of their own. Mostly, I think we're looking forward to sharing the moment with our friends and family.

On a slightly different note, we're three days away from the opening of the new Star Wars prequel. I'm not a totally devoted fan but I do enjoy the films. I'm hoping to see it before we leave. Its bad enough I won't be able to watch the X-Files season finale for two weeks after airing due to the Honeymoon but I guess that's the way life goes. After spending 9 long years following the adventures of Mulder and Scully, I'm pretty sure that I'm due some closure - I think we all are.

Tonight is park night and somewhere in between that, dinner and some dance practice, I'm supposed to get some CDs burned for the party favors (I'm tired already). I'm just hoping that we have enough time, but mostly patience.

Thank God its Friday, I've got one hour left to go and then I'm out of here. Even better, today is pay day. I know, its pretty pathetic when small things like these seem to make life worth living, but what can I tell you? After work I'm off to get my haircut. All this in preparation of the wedding. Apparently, its important to women to not have the "freshly cut" look on the big day. I thought it was an interesting theory and asked around about it and to my surprise, its a concensus among my "girl" friends here at work. Who figured? Sometimes I do think they're all sharing a secret manual. Now, if we could only get a copy...

The peanut (Daisy) should be good and rested today considering she went to "day care". So I'm looking forward to a night of take out, a movie and quite possibly some on-line gaming. I think I'm back to Quake. I've spent too much time trying to figure out this Spider-Man deal. I think it'll work better on a game console. We're probably going to watch Ali. Anyone have any comments out there? I hope its a good movie. I like Wil Smith but I just don't know about the story. We'll see.

I have 8 days until the magic date. So far, so good.

After spending some time at the old county courthouse Karen and I have bought our marriage license. From what I understand, the wedding ceremony is a formality, so for all intents and purposes we are married. Sometimes, I can't believe that it will be my second time around. Everytime I think back to the first marriage I always wonder the hows and whys. Was I in love then? I can say that I was. Was it enough? I don't think its supposed to be. As I get older I begin to realize that in my life love is only part of the process. If forever was a motor then love would be the oil. One can't live without the other but forever will require care and feeding. I understand that now. I finally have the tools to put that back into the relationship. What was I thinking when I was in my twenties? I don't know. I was young and in love, partially idealistic but mostly oblivious to the underpinnings of a successful relationship. We both caused our own self-destruction, in the end everything we had shared and invested in each other became a waiting in line at the courthouse, answering a question, getting a stamp on our paperwork and walking away from each other.

I look forward to the life that Karen and I have ahead of us. I have finally found myself, honestly and without misgiving. In that revelation I have found someone to share this life with. In every way, it just feels right, and you can't argue with that can you?

Things might get hectic over the next couple of days but I'll try and share some more as the day gets closer. I'm in the home stretch now and I can hear the thundering of a race well run coming to a close...

Do you ever get used to a cam? I guess I did, and pretty quickly. I forgot about it completely until Dave reminded me of it... which was pretty funny. I told Karen about it once it was done and she laughed. She reminded me that it would be a bad thing to get caught picking my nose or something of that nature. Considering the image refresh is for 5 minutes, I guess it could be bad after all. But then of course what fun would it be if you couldn't see "precious" moments like that? Oh well, the artistic part of me will try and create interesting shots of my cube while I'm gone or just before I leave (okay, that's only if I can remember to do it) and maybe I'll pan around here so you can check out the other animals in the zoo.

On a briefer note, Spider-Man is a great looking game but the interface bugs me. It bugged me so much in fact that I immediately went to the web and got the cheats. There are some pretty cool extras you can get in that silly game and it was nice not having to worry about running out of webbing and being impervious to damage. Oh well, its been almost 8 years and I still don't have a real replacement for Quake. They games may get fancier but the essence is always just a "little off". I say, "don't mess with the basic formula, if it moves and it ain't you - kill it."

Sweet - I just go a hold of the Spider-Man game for the Mac. I guess working here does have certain "perks"... Now I gotta wait 3 1/2 hours to try it.

Its official - we can do without Celine Dion. Will someone please put her out of our misery? While you're at it you can take that freakin glitter hag, Mariah Carey. What a waste.

I would have to say that this has been a productive day. Work was work but it wasn't as bad as it can get. I spent some time hammering out a couple of details here on the site and I'm quite happy with the results. I really don't know why there's so much interest in becoming a web designer - I think its just a fad that's "new and cool". Myself, I enjoy the final result but the hours of "tweaking" are a bitch. You can have it - please. Anyway, I got the web cam working but I haven't made it as obvious as you'd think. I just couldn't bear putting another icon or graphic on my pages. But, don't worry, its there... If you find it you can take a look at the world that is my life. It won't be too visually stimulating but hey, I'm just a geek at heart and it was a challenge that I thought I would tackle. Plus, it has the added benefit of proving to Karen that I actually work around here.

The day is almost done here and we have dance classes tonight. I'm enjoying them, or at least I'll enjoy the final result. I think that I'm just getting burned out on life right now. I'm hoping to recharge the batteries on my long hiatus away - otherwise known as the Honeymoon. I don't know why I'm restless but it happens once in a while. I think its just my body telling me to come up for air, re-calibrate the destination and then forge on. We'll see... For now, I'm happy that my parents are back safe from Peru, my friend Dave is back safe from New Jersey and I'm 2 weeks away from the soon to be best day in my life. This is me, signing off and forging ahead.

This time I decided to invest some real time into my Newton. I don't know why I hang on to it. I also don't know why I have four of these silly things. Not to worry - I haven't paid for them, its just one of the perks of having been a PC Tech in a large computer company. With the advent of the Palm Pilot and its progeny, people were more than willing to throw out the old to get the new. My pride and joy is a Newton 2100. Slowly over the last 2 years I have acquired all the necessary hardware and software to make it competitive and recently I have gotten my hands on Outlook sync software and a 32MB SRAM card for it. These pieces make me almost as happy as the Ethernet card that I got for it. There's nothing like surfing the web on this baby via Ethernet... Granted, there are slicker toys out there but they certainly aren't sleaker. My Newt will still go head-to-head with the best of em. Suddenly I feel like learning how to program one of these things. It would be nice to have a device that would help me label my Mini Discs...

Well, time for me to "hit the hay". My parents are flying back from Peru tommorow and I gotta deal with the airport at an unGodly hour.

Life on a Monday morning - Nothing much to report, after all work is work. Sometimes its work and sometimes it sucks. I'm now sitting at my desk wondering to myself how I'm going to get clarity back in my life. My personal life is at an all time high but it seems that work is becoming less than satisfying. According to Franklin Covey I am not aligned between my life's vision and my life's work. Seems like an awful waste. I'm just glad that I'm acknowledging some of it early. Oh well, much like everything else - it'll have to wait until after the wedding...

On a more positive note, Karen and I helped contribute to the all time record breaking sum for "Spider-Man's" opening weekend. I never thought I'd see the the $68 Million figure broken but I'm really glad that it was "Spider-Man" that did it. It was a great movie, very enjoyable and full of action. For those of you who didn't like it I need not remind you that it was based on a comic strip... If you're looking for academy award material - go somewhere else and get a life. If its just a matter of being the person who doesn't follow the crowd, that's fine but you're missing out on a "fun" film.

Anyway - no real deep meaningful post, just enjoying the ease of use of Blogger. I'll have more to chat about later...

Training update - Well, we're still taking our detour through the land of Drunken Style Kung Fu. We haven't done LimaLama in a while but its forcing us to adapt and transpose. Since most of the moves share similiarities, with a little thought we can change things around and change the style of the move. The only two variations that I can tranpose to with confidence is Dragon and Eagle Claw styles. The LimaLama is easier and its great to find ways to make the techniques faster and more effective. Again, it has been a day of enlightenment and progress. I can say it again, I am truly amazed by my Sifu. I can only hope that I can be a third of the martial artist that he is - in that, I would be satisfied.

Ruminations and Pontifications - nothing new on the horizon here. Just got back from seeing "Blade II". I must say it was better than the first movie, but it wasn't as good as I thought/heard it would be. Oh well, I find that I'm being a lot more particular about the flicks we watch just because it doesn't make sense to spend money on them. For one, they're $20 just to get inside the theatre. The way we figure, we just stay 3 months behind the latest releases and we buy the movies we want for about $17 (Thanks Costco). Well, I'm the martial arts freak so I thought I'd make the exception - it wasn't that bad of a trade off... this time around.

Other than that things are quiet. I'm actually logged into the net because I've been babying a broken BlackBerry server at work. Its bad enough to be on call, but its a bitch to have it dictate your free time. I'm actually rethinking the career a little. I don't necessarily think that being "on call" is the issue I just think that my company is slowly spiralling into the abyss of stupidity. I still contend that work is just the place you make money so you can spend said money on your life - that's all, period. It may not be a popular attitude, but I don't have blood pressure and stress problems. To some degree I have to draw the line on what's really important in my life. Making sure a handful of over payed executives have e-mail 24 hours a day is not a priority with me. Now you may say "but Jeff, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it"... Yeah well, I'll fix that problem in the near future - stay tuned.

In the pursuit of efficiency and mostly because I find that updating the log is sometimes not worth the effort I have employed the help of the Blogger. After about 15 minutes, I was able to format everything and get it working right. The results, are in a word - fabulous. Hopefully now, I'll be able to add more stuff and make more than one post per day(s). We'll have to see...

I can't believe that we're two weeks out from the wedding. People keep asking us if we're nervous and we can both honestly say that we're not. We're actually looking forward to the day and the time we have afterwards. Plus, we'll both be happy from a time management and financial perspective. I wouldn't regret any part of the process that we've gone through to get here but I'm still glad that its coming to a close.

Well, the post may be short but I have been working on getting this thing to work right for a while now and I'm going to take a break with my favorite, and seemingly obsessive past time - playing Quake. I'll start adding more stuff as the time progresses.