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June 01, 2008
wedding stuff, general life stuff, ceiling fan
Kara has been off in Rockport since last night for purposes of attending a bridal shower this morning, so I've had the day to myself. It's been awhile since I've had a "man day" to just sit around, surfing the web, drinking beer and smoking cigars. The kitty has been hanging out with me; our next-door neighbors, I found, also have a kitty, whom they brought out onto the balcony, albeit unsuccessfully, as neighbor kitty was not interesting in lounging on the porch. I wonder if Labatt would like to come out here, but maybe not...at any rate, I'd be a little too nervous that she'd try to jump in one of the flower boxes or something.
I hung out with MJP the last two nights, talking about plans for our joint bachelor party in Vegas. It looks like it will be a nice small crew, which I actually prefer. Of everybody who has RSVP'ed, I've been to Vegas the most, so it will be fun to kind of lead our merry troupe from casino to casino, play Star Wars penny slots, watch the fountains at the Bellagio, and so forth.
Work has been good and the Q2 software release has been evolving as I have hoped it would, going from a monolithic update to a series of smaller, discrete updates. We've taken the company from a reactive model where we were always fixing bugs in a panic to a proactive model where we're consistently producing upgrades in response to real or imagined customer need. I am very proud of my company and happy to be part of it.
We just about have the wedding invitations finished. The last step is actual assembly of the invite page with the blue backing cards, and the assembly of the entire invitation package into a single unit. Mrs. Hartman was really great in that she hand-lettered all of our envelopes, which looks fabulous and saved us a ton of time. The new "wedding heart" stamp comes out on June 10th, so that will be the date the invites go into the mail.
I had my Elks indoctrination last week and I will be inducted into the Gloucester Lodge on Tuesday night, which I'm excited about. I don't think I'll be able to be super-active in the lodge just yet, but who knows...it will be good to be part of the organization, in anticipation of someday moving to Cape Ann for retirement.
The motorcycle has been back out on the road recently; I did a little work on it on Friday, replacing a very important bolt that had fallen off at some point (one of the bolts that holds the front brake to the fork). It needs to be inspected, which requires me to find the missing registration certificate. I think it's somewhere on my mess of a desk.
Everything is very good. The three tomato plants are growing well, I've re-started some hot pepper seeds in an effort to get viable seedlings, and the pansies in the window boxes are absolutely huge.
I am also adding to my repertoire as a general contractor. I successfully hung, wired and installed a ceiling fan in the living room last weekend, which marks the first time I've done real electrical work. I had replaced just about every outlet and light switch in the condo during painting, but that didn't involve anything more significant that attaching wires to terminals. The fan actually involved attaching mains wires via wiring nuts, correctly identifying hot versus neutral wires in connecting the fan remote, and even cutting into the ceiling so I could mount a fan-rated pancake box to hold the fan. I'm very proud. Next house upgrades include a fan in the bedroom and a couple of light fixture replacements...the fixtures in the hallways are ugly, and Kara and I found a nice new hallway fixture called, ironically, "Kara," at Home Depot the other weekend. So that will go in as soon as I get a coupon from Home Depot so I can buy a bunch of stuff at once.
I haven't been running as much lately owing to some shin splints a few weeks ago and general laziness, but I'll get back into that in the coming week.
Posted by Mark at June 1, 2008 06:44 PM
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out of that long and enjoyable read, the only thing I can say is, don't be lazy!
Posted by: Matt at June 5, 2008 12:14 PM
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