Echohammer419

I've been such a bad blogger.  Look around the interwebs, and you'll find a number of those that advise "never go weeks on end without updating" or something to that effect.  Oh well.  I'll go find a chalkboard and give myself a line through my name. all kindergarten style, if that'll make you feel better.

On to the news.  48 days until the wedding!  Although we're not going to have dancing, as a substitute we thought maybe instead of a first dance, Colleen and I are toying with the idea of playing our first Guitar Hero song at our wedding reception.   Not sure if we can practice enough to make us look like quasi-rock gods in 48 days, but we'll try.  Just one problem: picking the song!  If anyone knows any appropriate wedding songs in either II or III, drop me a message.

Onto bigger news.... I, along with my fiance's stuff, moved into our first apartment this past weekend for when we get married June 21!!!!  I say it that way, because everyone thinks we're moving in together before hand, and I have to clearly differentiate the two. 

Having said that, I never knew I had so much crap!  I had to laugh when, after unpacking the uhaul with the help of my dad, Colleen looks up at me with a tired/overwhelmed expression on her face and says "You know, I think that the TV ad has it all wrong."  I asked what she meant, and she went on to explain, "Well, you know the guy in the State Farm commercial who is getting married and is standing on the red dot saying  'This is where here comes the bride meets here comes all of her stuff?'  Being familiar with that quite well as it's one of my favorite commercials just for how true it is, I nodded in agreement, wondering what she was getting at.  She then said "I think that commercial has it all wrong.  I think it should say 'This is where here comes the bride meets here comes all of the groom's electronic toys and gadgets.'" 

I admit.  It's true.  As my dad was leaving, he had his own little gem of wisdom as well, saying "You may think that this move into the apartment was a lot of work, but enjoy it, as it will be your shortest and easiest of your life and it'll only get longer and more complicated from here."  I don't really remember moving as a kid.  Maybe that's because it was like driving across country on family vacations: I never  had to pay attention!  I'm finding out more and more just how much I respect what my parents had to do, as I work through the same scenarios of moving and wedding planning that my they went through in their early years. 

All that to say, the move went well.  Of course, it's one thing to move, and another to move with everything situated.  That part we're still working on, but are probably 75% complete.  Mostly, the weekend was a day or two  full of "Where the crap did I put....(insert item of utmost importance here)?"  Case in point: I still can't find the remote to my receiver.  It's been a blast though, especially not having to deal with looking through the fridge and wondering what food is or isn't mine.  There's a part of me that will miss my old place though.  I lived in my old townhouse for almost 2 years.  It's where I went from a college senior to two-months shy of a married man.  Good times.  Maybe I'll post a video of the old place or something.

We get our bedroom furniture delivered on Thursday.  More after that!

I was talking to Colleen the other day about this, but it's so surreal to think that there is less 90 days until we get married (now at 80).  I can't believe how fast time is flying by, and yet I'm having a bugger of a time trying to wrap my head around the concept of how to both  become "one" with her, and simultaneously maintaining my own persona.  That poor excuse for a movie, "P.S. I Love You," had one redeeming line; one five second scene where I didn't feel like shoving a ten-foot spiked pole down my throat in hopes of egging on my internal organs and intestines into a vicious state of vomiting.  It was the last scene where Harry Conneck Jr was reading the final letter to Hillary Swank from her dead husband who had some form of cancer or brain tumor, saying "How lucky am i? You made my life... But i'm just one chapter in yours."

Creepiness aside, I don't really feel like I fully understand that concept, nor do I honestly have any inclining or desire to think about it.  I'm not sure why I'm writing about the subject then, if only to ponder the notion of life without her in our AARP years, which is unbearable to imagine and yet provides such great contrast and clarity in helping me understand just how much I love her.  They say you don't know what you have until you don't have it.  Problem is, I know what I have-the best.  And, circle of life be darned, I don't want it to ever go away.  With the beginning of a new life together with her, I feel like I'm caught in a great love paradox... excited to marry the most amazing and beautiful woman in the world, yet afraid of how things will play out 50 years down the road when we're both old with wrinkles that only raisins could rival and facing death.  Beautiful sorrow is still sorrow, any way you slice it.  Don't get me wrong, the little temporary sorrow felt at the end of life is worth it all even if only to be privileged to be married to her for a month, yet alone 50 years, but beyond all of the analytical mumbo-jumbo...it still sucks that eventually it will come to an end someday. 

Reading this, one might wonder if my mid-life crisis was hitting 20 years early.  Having a hope and reason for living beyond this world however, I seriously doubt the whole merit of that phrase.  Maybe the reason it's been on my mind so heavily as of late stems from the people around me that are getting sick (or "The Cancer" as Josh Brolin's mother-in-law in the movie "No Country For Old Men" describes).  I dunno.  Whatever the reason for my sudden sporadic thoughts, I'm sure that anyone who is married and worth their two-cents would tell me that the truth about the entire "two-becoming-one" concept doesn't mandate that each party forgo what makes them unique, but rather uses each other's strengths and weaknesses to build up and move each other and the relationship in the right direction-toward a stronger love for each other, and for God.

I don't really have a great way to tie this post together.  I just can't wait to marry my best friend, my lover, my fiance on June 21!  Whatever life holds for us, it's going to be a great journey, and one that I can not wait to take with Colleen!

...when you answer my phone call to you, and then act like I just murdered your three-year-old baby by calling you during dinner.

Newsflash to the idiots of the world:  If you are eating dinner and don't want to be bothered during your meal.... THEN DON'T PICK UP THE FREAKING PHONE!!!

How hard is that?  Now with technology, it's gotten worse (ala cellphones and the whole ringer vs vibrate issue).  I have friends who answer the phone, and then act all high and mighty that I happened to call them at work, or at the grocery store or (insert lame excuse for having their phone on ringer instead of vibrate). 

The clear and undeniable onus of responsibility is on the person that answers the phone, not on the person that calls.  It does not matter if you are in an important board meeting with some upper-level VP...it's your responsibility to have your phone on vibrate, and your responsibility to choose to answer the phone if you are at dinner, and not my job to guess if it's an inconvenient time.  If it's a bad time... don't pick up, or at least remember to put your phone on vibrate!  How hard is that? And with caller ID, there is even less of an excuse, as all cellphones come equipped with that in today's world.  If you pick up the phone at work, during supper, during the night... it doesn't matter.  It's not my fault that you picked up the phone, you selfish idiot. 

I'm sitting here trying to craft a ten-page paper, while listening/watching a TLC marathon of Jon&Kate Plus 8. 

I don't want 8 kids.  Ever.

And if I hear one more commercial about some old lady spouting off about struggling with "fibro-mialga" pain... I'm going to take a spork to my eye.  Although that really wouldn't do any good for preventing myself from hearing it, but it sounds dramatic enough to demonstrate how annoying that commercial is.

Having said that, it's nice to see the support system the family has in place, and gets me very excited to start a new life with Colleen as the wedding draws closer.

Colleen was up in Michigan this week for her bridal shower...with 55 women.  When I heard that, I was just astounded that so many people would come out for a shower.  The folks in her parents church are amazingly generous. 

What's not generous is Target.  A simple rule of gift-giving for huge occasions such as weddings is, some items shall be returned.  It doesn't matter if you are the President of the United States doing the gift-giving.  Not all gifts are kept.  So for the few that aren't, it makes sense to be very flexible with gift exchanges/returns.  Bed Bath & Beyond has a policy, for instance, that anything bought at their store through a wedding registry can be returned...for cash.  Personally, I think that's a bit too much, but hey, we'll take it. 

Target however, is a bit different...or shall I say...inhumanly aggravating.  Apparently upon taking just a few gifts back, Target told my fiance that only gifts under $20 can be returned, at only $40 per person... for 12 months!  I just don't understand that.  I could go on and on in a rant about how much I really am hating Target at this point, but I have laundry to finish, and don't feel like they even deserve my time.  So moral of the story... don't register at Target.  With about 200 people expected at the wedding, that means that we definitely have some re-registering to do at Khols, to take the place of all of our Target items.  Tasks like that would usually be a big deal, but I really don't mind. Being the good groom that I am, I take charge of the zapper-thingy.  If only I could use a zapper-thingy for everything else in life, it sure would make things much more lively! 

It's on my list of thing to invent.  93 days until the wedding!!