June 2009: NYC Trip to see British Mike and fiance photos
Jamaica Trip Photos are posted!
Jamaica Trip Blog: Hey it's our big trip to Jamaica, mon!
Thursday morning our flight was early. We got to BWI at about 5.30am, our flight was at 7am. Amanda got the unjust pat down by a novice metal detector (female) jockey who was wearing a ring and gave false beeps about every 2 inches. It took 5 minutes to get through that. Our flight was smooth and fast, only 3 hours or so. Now that's traveling! We flew into Montego Bay, and thought to ourselves how that airport seems so much more industrial than what we saw in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. No matter, we weren't staying there.
We boarded a van to go to the resort, but had to wait quite some time for other passengers to arrive and get through customs. We filled the van, and listened to Jamaican radio and watch the skies rain down on us. It was the start of the rainy season in Jamaica, only what we had found out a couple days earlier. Thankfully, it was not an all-day rain, but just a couple hour rain until it became sunny again.
Along the way on our 1 hour trip we stopped at a roadside stand for a pee, a drink, I got a rum cream; which is like Irish cream but made with rum, and apparently only available in Jamaica, and surely not in ass-backwards liquor law PA! We saw a gimpy chicken with no claws but just a club foot.
The island is quite poor, and also sort of sandy and rocky. From movies I though islands were lush and soft. But really, most islands are lush with vegetation but it's hardy and has to grow on rocky corally soil. Our bus driver said that we can get the best rum, best weed, and when it rains they call it the season for making love.
When we got to the hotel, it was earlier than 3pm check in, so we walked the grounds and had another drink. Once readied, our room was nice and spacious. Too bad it smelled like a horrible humid moldy locker full of mildew. Ugh! Of course it's a tropical clime, but the AC in the room clearly did not work well, and I suspect it's lack of cooling power (there was just a tiny bit) was due to a broken compressor, though the fan worked OK enough. And the bed, which was supposed to be a king size, was, well cavernous. Which is, there was a cavern between the beds. Yeah we had 2 full size beds pushed together. On a shiny floor.
We changed and ran down to the beach asap for some sun and waves. The water there is very warm and you can walk out a good 200 feet and only be up to your chest. At least at our hotel's beach area. The RIU Tropical Bay in Negril. Down the street was Sandals, which we were told was just as nice as RIU but more expensive, and Hedonism (nudist), and Couples, and a few others. We changed for dinner then and asked a Maitre Dee if there was a free table that the reservation didn't come. He said to wait about 15, so we went for another drink and then came back. Well it was the buffet restaurant and they told us to just walk right in. We sat out on the patio area where the view was nice and had a little breeze.
Friday
We walked down the beach in the morning, and were pummeled with offers of trinkets, ganga, shirts, or all. We had to gracefully decline. After walking back we waded in the water for a while and met this guy Barton from Texas. After swimming a while, we just hung out under a tree for a while on the beach. Back near the pool hotels we heard music start up and it was a raggae music fest and dance expo. Girls were dancing and doing some crazy hip motions. They had some jerk chicken being grilled in a hut, and had coconut juice from real coconuts, or pink juice with rum.
After lunch we swam a bit more, but then got on our bus to go on our Rick's Cafe boat tour. Charlie, the driver, stopped and picked up some other folks. We boarded the big catamaran by wading into the water and climbing a small staircase on the boat. We sat on the front and talked to some other people from RIU. Clouds were moving in over us. We cruised around the end of the island to Ricks. There we had to just jump in the water and swim over to the cafe stairs. It was a lot harder than I realized! It was sort of far, and also was against some waves and current. I was swimming with my sandals on. On the way back they began to come undone which slowed me down and worried me a bit. Once at Rick's, Amanda was pretty quick to go to the high dive and jump off. It was a good 35-40 feet up. I got her on camera jumping in. On the way back we had quite a downpour on us. We all crowded under the canopy, had a drink, danced, and made like subway riders, holding onto the overhead rails. After the rain stopped, a beautiful blue and golden sunrise was going down. Amanda and I danced a bit, a very slow hustle, on the deck. I think we had some watchers. Ha ha!
Back at the hotel we had dinner at the Krystal Fusion restaurant. It was a 9pm engagement. We were first in. The place was very upscale and had rotating color lights in the walls. The appetizers were teeny tiny. It was tomato and watermelon foam, a miniscule piece of salmon, and a tiny bit of fried cheese. The smallest pieces of food I've ever seen. Amanda had some spicy pumpkin soup and I had chick pea puree with cooked tuna strips. My main course was lamb bits and vegetable bits. Dessert was a decent size bit of chocolate and ice cream. We left there and stood and watched a dance show of African dance and fire breathing. It seemed to sort of mirror the Lion King story.
Saturday
We had a late breakfast and then went to the pool. I like the pool and swim up bar area, and wanted to be in clean water for a while. The sky was growing cloudy but the water is very warm. We got a drink and were watching some of the other people there. It appeared to be a wedding group in front of the bar. We noticed a guy with a yellow bandana whom I dubbed "Hulk Hogan". Then we heard him talk and he was very british. So he was the British Hulk Hogan. He stopped over and started talking to us. He was father of the bride. After some time it started to rain and drizzle. We were all sort of chatting together and having drinks and toasting. We met this guy named Rage from Los Angeles. Then we met a couple from Minnesota, Ben and Megan (say Meee-gan). And then we met from Maine Mike and Savannah. BHH (British Hulk Hogan) was getting tanked and climbed up the fountain in the middle of the pool. His dauther "with the little titties and big bum" went behind the bar to get out of the rain I guess and was trying to help serve drinks. Ben and Megan and MIke and Savannah and us later went to a little table/sitting area off to the side of the pool and had more drinks and talked and laughed. A couple from Belgium came over and tried to talk with us and tried to make us drink this wretched concoction of tequila, gin, and vodka, ie TGV like the train. We did the stage drinking technique and tossed it over our shoulder while they weren't looking.
We had dinner at the Japanese restaurant that night. Good sushi, better than I was expecting! The night was hot and muggy and we did not want to stick around for whatever show was going on. We had to walk through the "street sales" area in the middle of the resort again I think, and just went to bed.
Sunday
We had planned to go snorkelling but it was raining reasonably well by the time we got to the front to get ready for it. I had asked someone up at the desk if they still do it, and she said usually; but she was not our official tour lady. We stood in line for reservations to the steakhouse place, which again seemed like a huge waste of time, considering we were there at 7.30 and were still 30th in line. So as we sat our tour lady showed up and called and said our snorkel was cancelled. Amanda instead went for a massage and I finished reading the worst novel ever, the Unconsoled. Do not read it, its total crap. I actually skipped about 200 pages and went toward the last couple chapters. I missed nothing.
We went to the Scuba Caribe house and signed up for some snorkelling on Monday and wind surfing later in the day. Our windsurf time arrived and we got on some vests and went out into the shallow water with our teacher. He gave us the lesson in the usual Jamaican way, which was short on technicals and long on "OK mon". I had water skiied before and knew it was a whole body workout/solution. I got up on the board, and took several tries to right up the sail. Amanda tried it a bit then. I tried again and got the sail up and eventually I was sailing if for only about 20-30 seconds. In the mid section of the lesson though our teacher started sailing out with the wind and never turned around. He was out for a bit, then fell. Then was up, sailed farther away, fell. He was a good 1000 feet out and we wondered what the hell was going on, and went and inquired about it at the booth. Well, no problem mon, your lesson will be OK. Eventually he swam the sail back and fixed it, he said it broke. To make up, after our lesson, we went out on a catamaran boat for a sail. He gave us some instruction on sailing technique, although honestly I had no interest in learning sailing and was slightly concerned how far away from the beach we were.
We were meeting Megan and Ben for dinner. We had a nice time chatting inside over dinner, it was international night, which meant essentially no theme foods we just make what we want. Though it was reasonably good. We went over to meet Mike and Savannah for the evening show. It was a steel drum band, which jumped around like headbangers and played feverishly. Their act seemed to deconstruct into a breakdance competition with all the RIU hotel dancers taking a shot at jumps and flips and breaks.
Monday
Snorkelling onward! Onto a catamaran with Barton and his crew and others. We snorkelled close to the jut out of the southern end of the beach. I had been having some water trouble with the underwater camera bag but today it was all kosher. There were not too many fish around and certainly not very large ones. We boated off to the island of MBJ Making Babies in Jamaica and snorkelled there. It was much more corally there with many large rocks and upcroppings of coral and stone. It was sort of confining because we do not want to crash into the reef but had to swim really carefully. At one point it was like a maze. I tried to have Amanda take a picture of me when I went under but didn't breathe right and got a lungful of water.
After that Amanda wanted to lay out on the beach. We neglected to put new sunscreen and thus got burned, not to be discovered until about 4 hours later. I tried to hand feed a white bird some scraps from a table where food was left. We got a shower and went out to see a nice sunset on the beach and take some photos and a movie. We walked southward on the beach to check it out and see the nudist area. We had a lot of time to kill until our late dinner at 9, we walked the beach again for a bit. We were bitten by lots of mosquitos and at dinner it was nearly non-stop. I got twitchy from every little thing I felt on my skin. We had snacked a little at the buffet and were not very hungry at 9 and did not eat too much of our meal. The wine was pretty mediocre too, but hey it's free.
Tuesday
Amanda wanted to shop so we went down the beach and hit up, or were we hit up, the sales shops. We finally saw one of those little sand crabs digging his hole. Our goodies bought, we had to pack to leave a little earlier then scheduled. Thank God for air conditioned busses. Our hotel departure at 11.30 was good, since the ride was 1 hour until we had a break. At a gift shop tourist trap. I bought some rum cream but I think it has gone bad. Then in the bus for another 90 mins stuck in construction traffic. The airport was easy to get through, the flight was fine. BWI had drizzle and low visibility, icky weather. But otherwise uneventful.
Chris's tips for rum buying in Jamaica
Your best bet is probably the Airport duty free shop. BUT, you will only be allowed 2 bottles per person. At the airport, you will check your baggage, then go through security, then after through security, you can shop at the duty free shop upstairs. The liquor store there clearly has the best selection possible. Many flavors of rum cream, all versions of Appleton rums, and many other liquors, all fresh, and they pack it in little sealed boxes for you to carry onto the plane.
If you want to bring more than 2 bottle home per person, you'll need to pack it in your checked luggage. So you'll need to buy it before getting to the airport. Don't overpay! I paid for Appleton Reserve and 12 about US $40 a bottle, which was way too much. The same product was about $15 in the airport store.
Appleton is available in the US (hey even PA!) in a couple varieties. So refrain from buying anything you can get in the US. Check your local stores or websites before you travel!!
What you probably won't find is the Rum Cream, of various flavors or brands. Check your stores first, I see very little of it available in the US. So, seek out rum cream if you like it. You can get this at the airport store. There are many flavors of rum cream, including "plain", coffee, banana, coconut, and chai tea I think.
In the US airport, I did not specify the number of bottles of rum we were bringing in, only a dollar value, on my customs form. I am vague on the actual law for importing, ie the number of bottles or dollar value. If you are unassuming and average looking I imagine you could bring many bottles of rum back with you, more than 2 each, so long as it doesn't seem like a struggle to pull/carry your luggage. Also consider the extra weight fees for checked luggage, and of course good packing technique. You could conceivably but 2 bottles in each checked bag, and also buy 2 at the airport store to carry on the plane and be fine.
May 2009: Trying to get rid of excess junk in my life. Selling/giving away some stuff. Fixing the Trans Am door, getting an oil analysis with help of Jon French (mini-TA) husband of a friend at work.
Star Trek movie came out on 5-8 and it is AWESOME! 6 out of 5 stars! I loved it, we all loved it
April 2009: Autocross season is here again. The month started with a 2 day event in the blowing wind and moderate cold at Hershey. I had some competition from CPR and other regions. Sam Strano brought his Camaro, and beat the rest of the field by 2 seconds but seemed to be grumbling about it. WTF? Anyways it was fun. I then went to some Porsche Club autocrosses (caution sh*tty website), they have invited others to attend to fill the ranks and maybe make some extra dough. The first course was smooth and extremely fast! 2 Turns that were essentially high speed sweepers with 50+mph entry speed. My TA with 315 tires really stuck well. I totally kicked asses there! Made a name for myself at the second event. I missed FTD by 0.003 seconds (to a prepped 911). I was getting props from some guys including the Porsche guys. Some European guy told me that he expected my car to swerve out of control, but then he saw me drive it and knew I had the skills. Totally creamed a 914 that had a Chevy v8 transplanted inside it, and some guy in a Subaru that was skeptical of my claim of FTD the week before. Fear the Trans Am!! My hubs on the car are getting worn from the big tires. My brake rotor just developed a crack. At the 3rd PCA AX, my brake booster motor pretty much failed me completely. Ugh, vacuum.
I decided that I must become richer and increase my skill level. I am going to the Big Nerd Ranch to learn Mac programming, for real. It's an intensive immersive 7 day course, in Atlanta, that will give me the knowledge to take on more programming on the Mac and iPhone. Wish me luck! Finally got to see my friend Mandi. Hadn't seen her for years. She needed some Mac upgrades to her old eMac. It took a new hard drive, DVD burner, and some more ram. Runs like a champ now, but could be a bit faster. The new OS and new software sort of taxes the processor. But that machine is built like a tank! If the processor could be upgraded with a plug in CPU like some old ZIF pc processors, this would scream and still be a fantastic machine. Even the screen (tube) still looks great. It was fun to be with Mandi and see her photography she has been doing.
March 2009: I had been eagerly anticipating the Watchmen movie. I read the book/comic book with interest just to know the story and know what the fuss was all about. It was pretty interesting, and I am not a comic book reader really. Playboy is more my kind of magazine (haha!). So the movie premiered and I LOVED it! It was everything it should and could have been. Well it could have been longer, but realistically it was just right. It was a fantastic character development movie, that moved along, had some action, and a nifty plot. The changes from the book to the movie plot made a lot more sense actually, and worked well. I recommend this movie to everyone!! 5 stars out of 5!! It's not for little kids, grownups only! I saw it twice in the theater. I should have seen it more. Today, now it's May, I could go for seeing it again actually.
We fixed up Amanda's bagpipe lair with some panelling in the basement. No longer is it exposed beams and insulation, now it's a real wall. I want to do some more fixing up but I often don't feel like I have the time, the project seems "big". Thankfully it's only the basement.
I bought a toy - Aliens the movie figure of the Queen Alien, it's 12" tall and realistic. Sort of scary and sexy. Not like in "it's a girl" but "it's designed beautifully".
February 2009: Amanda and I decided we were going on an anniversary vacation. We really liked the all inclusive resort from the Clipper trip, so we wanted that kind of experience. No worries about dining, payments, drinks, anything. We went to Liberty Travel, and got booked there. Ha, booked sounds like we're criminals. A travel agency is the easiest to deal with for this kind of trip. We could have researched it ourselves but it's so much faster to name a destination, name a price, name a date, and you're done. I know maybe we pay a bit for the service, but again, it's all included. We are going to Jamaica, at the Riu Palace hotel. They have 6 restaurants, free alcohol, a fridge in the room (very important for Amanda's insulin!), a nice size pool and beach, free snorkelling maybe and 1 free scuba lesson I think. It fit our budget just a little better than Sandals or Beaches or Hedonism.
We went to an interesting wedding in DC. Amanda's friend got married to an Indian man, like Ghandi-Indian. The first ceremony was in a R.C. church then at a hotel was the Indian part. It was all in Hindu and few people understood that language. It was long but there was a nice cocktail hour and dinner was nice, the Indian dance music was fun!
January 2009: Started off with not a bang but some fun hoopla with my best friend John Nissley and his wife. We went to the center of Lancaster, had some drinks, make some noise and jokes, and went to see the Rose drop in the square. Well the rose didn't drop, it popped out of a box, and it was barely off the ground. It was sort of underwhelming. Pffft.
December 2008: I vowed that I will update my Font Catalog program, which had been dormant for about 2 years. I think CS2 was still the rage when it was first published. At my wife's parent's house over Christmas break I went nuts on coding the new version. I knew where I wanted to go with the app, knew what the new interface needed to do, and how to do it. I surprised myself with how easily a lot of it came together.
11-10-08 » Great news! No not about Obama. THE KITCHEN IS DONE! YAY! Remodelling hell hath been overcome. We started on this, well look, 2 months ago. So about 9 weeks and a lot of money, painting, breathing paint fumes, sanding, and more painting, it's gone from a bland-o white and crappy plain oak cabinet kitchen to a warm and stylish Italian interior. The floor tile is Dolce Vita, made in Italy, "Jerusalem Stone" style in Antico and Gold color, a totally random pattern. We put some small 1.5 inch squares in a stripe down the long wall to give it some accent, and used some glass tile from Magica Tile, Greco Vetro. There is a 4x4 diamond pattern inlaid in the center of the kitchen area. We painted the walls a deep butter yellow, actually called Yellow Frost from the Valspar Elite series.
The cabinets had the most work done. We had to strip off the old paint/polyeurethane/varnish. They are crappy cheapo cabinets with not real wood sides. So I got some real oak pieces and fit them over the sides. We stained the base color of Zar Rosewood stain. Then I really wanted a deep reddish color of cabinet. I tried about 5 kinds of polyeurethane and bought 4 different stains to try to get a good combination of stain and poly. The poly ended up being a mix of 2 colors. Wouldn't you know it, after I picked the colors I found out the one color is probably out of production! I had to call 3 stores and run to another to pick up their last 6 tiny 1/4 quart cans! So it's Minwax brand Bombay Mahogany and Natural Cherry. About 5 parts Cherry to 4 parts Mahogany. Its a rich deep red, almost purple/blackish in dim light, but definitely rich red in bright light. We also put a coat of clear poly on all of it too. It was a split decision, Amanda did not want to put that on, too much work, too shiny. I felt it better to protect the color finish and be easy to clean. She put the first coat on the cabinets attached to the walls and hated it. But well it was done then. I did the poly on all the doors, which are the majority of the visual space anyways. I got a nice system and technique down and painted all the doors, and the finish is nice and even and is sort of satin-y, which was the finish the clear poly was supposed to be.
We hired a guy from in the neighborhood to lay the tile. Jeff Harless is a professional tile layer. We visited his house and it was all done beautifully. I trusted him to do the job, and it looks great. The tile was bought from Color Tile, he just did the install on it. I did most of the trim work, and also put the crown molding on top of the cabinets. The counter is staying the same. We put up a new light over the sink, and a new chandelier over the dining room table. It's very old world style. It's from Lowes, and thought the quality isn't top notch, it was much cheaper then the other style I picked out at the lighting store (by about 3.5x!).
So here's a picture or two, click here for the gallery! Pix of before, during, and after.
11-08 » Let's get our heads on straight and the country on the right track!
VOTE BARACK OBAMA!
I was at the big Obama speech and rally in Lancaster on September 4. There were like 15,000 people there! My friend and photographer Mike went along too and took some fantastic photos! Check it out here.
9-10-08 » We're starting to work on the kitchen remodelling job! Yay, lots of sanding cabinets, and fretting over tile.
8-20-08 » The summer is cruising by quickly and it seems like there's so little time
for relaxing. June was sort of a get-back-to-normal month, and Amanda and I
were trying to merge more things of our lives, open wedding gifts, learn to
grill. We painted the basement walls, just the cinderblock, so we can spruce
that up slowly. It's not going to be full studded walls and drywall, just
some paneling in the built out areas now, plus 1 additional wall. We're
going to do something nifty with our kitchen I promise, but it's a really
big undertaking so it's gonna require planning.
July was busy for me. July 4th weekend we went to Amanda's grandmother's
house in upper New York state. It was relaxing and nice, way out in the
boonie. We learned about a bunch of geneology and played card games. The
drive up/home was rough though, traffic and construction on the highway. I
went to an autocross the next weekend in Washington DC. I got my ass kicked
and plus was rained on during the drive home. I really did not have fun that
day. Then my dad and I went to Mid Ohio to see IndyCar and American Le Mans
races one weekend. The weekend after that I had autocross at the Farm Show,
a 2 day event. So my weekends were not lazy and relaxing. But heck I'll
sleep when I'm dead!
So this great thing we bought at LNT after the wedding is a metal basket for
grilling veggies and stuff. We marinate some cut up veggies and dump them in
this thing before the meat goes on, and bam! Great veggies. Makes a lot of
smoke when the oil drips down though.
6-25-08 » OK look below for the big wedding story blog!
6-01-08 » Our wedding happened smoothly and wonderfully. The honeymoon was great, we went to Orlando and Cocoa Beach. We swam with fishes and rays and dolphins, saw Shamu, and went to the Space Center and hung on the beach. It was a lot of fun. Too much for a quick post here. Check out some wedding pix, and our honeymoon pix.
Pix by my friend Mike Frederick, pix from Aunt Molly
Official wedding pix by Mike Miville here, the password is the place we were married (two words, no space, use caps where appropriate). If you want to order pictures please email me and there is another site you can buy prints from.
Check out some additional blog entries over at chrispaveglio.blogspot.com
5-24-08 » FINALLY here is the wedding story blow by blow, mostly!
Happy Wedding day to us! Our memorial day weekend wedding went super smoothly. Firstly, we were very lucky and very happy that the rain of the past month finally stopped, and fine sunny skies broke out Thursday afternoon.
Thursday I got adjusted by my best man and chiropractor John, then headed over to the bed n breakfast were the Cotten family and our minister were staying. I hadn't met our minister, Babbie, before, and Amanda hadn't seen her for maybe 10 years. We had spoken on the phone a couple times over the past month though. We all chatted and then headed out to an all you can eat buffet, a big tourist thing for eastern Lancaster county. Over dinner we discussed some wedding plans but mostly got to know her and Amanda's mom Cyndy and her were catching up (they were best buds in college).
Friday was a busy day and the start of about 6 more busy days. Amanda went to her chiropractor and the flower lady. I ran over to pick up and try on tuxes. I had an adjustment on mine, a new shirt with better collar. I was also getting John Costa's and Julian's, but the tux place seemed to be missing one! The sales guy was running around taking vests and shirts off the shelf to put it together. Finally the store manager pointed to one hanging in a bag already, it was paid for and ready to take already! OK tragedy averted.
Back home, Jen (Amanda's Matron of Honor) stopped over, and we started to pack the Honda with all the stuff we needed. Including: 4 cases of beer, 12 stringers of party lights, box of table runners, 4 rolls of tulle (shimmery fabric material), 5 road cones (for centerpieces), model cars, shepard's hooks, wooden crates, PA speaker and cords, bag of tools, and probably a kitchen sink. It was packed in the Honda to almost the roof. The drive over was a little harrying, as I was stuck in what might have been an accident just being cleaned up at 772 and Route 23. Stuck for 10 minutes, and I had a schedule to keep!
Getting there after that snag was smooth, and then the unpacking began. All of Amanda's bridesmaids were there and I met them, and Julian and Chris Cotten also showed up. Chris started on stringing some party lights and Julian and I got a system down to put the lights up on the high beams. Thankfully someone had found the tall ladder for us. It took nearly 2 hours to just do all the lights, and Amanda's gals were taking care of the archway and table decorations.
The folks all showed up for rehearsal, and we got things rolling for that. Babbie gave us all a laugh by saying, in her best bugs-bunny voice "we are here to talk about mawwiage." And "wuv." Things were straightened out and we learned out spots and parts, and had Mike Hartman test out the audio system a bit (very important). Amanda really wanted some amplification so everyone could hear our vows in the back row.
A quick yet harried pack-up of the amp, and we all headed over to the Revere Tavern for the dinner. Well a couple people had to stop back at the BnB first. We had a very nice dinner, and "thanks" to mom and dad for hosting that for us. The highlight was that Aunt Joy made some red velvet cake for our official dessert! It was fantastic! To heck with the fancy stuff the restaurant tried to serve us, we had something better! Amanda had a little shadow starting that night, Julian's daughter Allison was dreaming of being a bride or a bridesmaid. She tapped A's arm at dinner and asked if we had a flower girl, and if not, could she be ours?
My bachelor party was going on that night, and also A's bachelorette party too. So we all split ways, and me and John Nissley and Julian headed to Al's Diamond Cabaret in Reading. Amanda and her gals went out bowling and had a sugar-rush party. We both had a real good time. I went home to sleep, Amanda stayed with the Cotten clan at the BnB.
Saturday morning I found myself killing time, I was all ready for the wedding but woke up early and was ready to go! I sat and watched some TV, then packed up my clothes and the Marigolds we had been growing for the past 2 months. They grew great and all had at least 1 nice bloom on them, most of them had 2 or 3. They were our special babies. I left early so to miss any traffic slowing me down along the way. At the last minute I remembered to get Subway lunch to take along. I got there in good time, ate, and relaxed, then went to set up the PA. Guys started arriving, and our time to get ready came. From here on, time really compresses for me.
My groomsmen got ready and Mike Miville was shooting pictures of us. We sort of started late and dawdled a bit, and had to run and get our groomsmen photos done in short order. Good thing Mike had it all planned, the photos he wanted, so we moved with a purpose. When we were done standing around trees, on a wood pile, or on the road, Mike went to shoot the gals. I had been nervous in the morning when I had nothing to do, but now not so much. With only some waiting until the ceremony starts, I was a tad nervous again, and sort of reflective. I stood around and hung out near the winery, so not to see Amanda getting photos up near the vineyard area. I talked with family members, Dan Farrell, and saw other friends pulling in. We could hear the bagpipers tuning and warming up. I was hoping the PA system was taken care of, since Colleen and DJ brought a bunch of speakers, a computer, a mixing board, and all sorts of stuff. It looked out of control to me and I was a bit worried, but they got it set up and working. I knew they would, but from what we had tested the day before, I was concerned it would still be OK with the levels and mic inputs. I really had no reason to worry, my cousins know their stuff.
The grandmas showed up and were seated, and then the mothers were seated, in the beautiful field with white chairs, the archway with tulle on it, the flowers hanging at the end of the aisles, the flowers on the aisle, the archway at the front, all my family and friends that could make it in their Sunday best.
Walking toward the archway was an ethereal experience. I felt odd as I walked, being one of the centers of attention, following some direction, doing something unknown. My guys are behind me, literally. I felt the eyes of 100 people on me for a little while. We all turned to look up the hill, behind the audience, to see Amanda and the girls processing down. The bagpipes were blazing Scotland the brave, the shifted to Highland Cathedral. Since they were far away, it was hard to see at first. I started getting teary eyed as Amanda was getting nearer. The tune she picked was nice, and now it's burned into my memory as her song. She looked more beautiful than I've ever seen, she was amazing. Her hair was great, the dress she picked was simple yet very elegant and classy. Dad walked her down the aisle and then, then there we were. All 3 of us nearly in tears, holding it back, yep Dad included, we could tell.
Our ceremony went pretty well, I said my vows, Amanda said hers. My sis and bro and bro-in-law read their readings wonderfully! My cousins all sang beautifully, but boy I did not get to hear too much of it. We did not have a match or lighter for the Mothers' unity candle, so we had to ask the congregation for one! Fred (Amanda's Jen's Fred) had one. We bumped over the unity candle at first, a funny moment. Then Cyndy couldn't get the lighter started, and then when we did, it was too windy and also the candle wicks had a lot of extra wax to burn through, so we scrubbed it until later. We said our ring thing, and I gave Amanda a nice big kiss. There were a couple audience woo-hoos. After what seemed like an eternity of more reading (well we picked it!) the ceremony was over and we only had to walk out 100 feet to the "recieving area". What a relief! We said Hi and shook hands and hugged.
Our pace really picked up then for photos. The ceremony started a little late, it was a little longer than I thought, and we had less time for pix. Mike was great, he had our list of family members to photograph ready, and everyone did a nice job of getting in quick and out quick. It was really sunny so I know I was squinty a bit in some pix. Oh well, better than inside and rainy!! Our other wedding party pictures were fun and we had to walk around to different areas of the winery. It was a travelling show! Mike had it all planned and little thumbnails drawn out of all the pix he wanted. We had a laugh doing some goofy pics too. The sky was great and the light was nice everywhere. We stood, we were near trees, we were walking, we were in the grape vines, then finally ready to come in for an entrance!
With our music just a hair late, we waved to our friends and walked over to the dance floor, high fived the wedding party. Our first dance went well except I felt like I was totally off the beat and could not move my feet any more! Good thing for enough practice, at least I knew the steps we were going to do, and ended on a nice sort of dip. John N and Emily R did a toast for us, as well as (new) Dad, to a nice glass of white wine. Ah just what I need on an empty stomach! Steve's toast to us was nice but actually required a bit of retelling by Amanda later to make full sense to me, he was referencing something from her childhood I hadn't heard before.
Our dinner was great, we had some personal service from the OGI staff, oh Amen for food. It was great, it was enough, it was sort of Italian. I think there is a photo of the spread somewhere, but it looked great. I remember chowing down and also getting a little tipsy on my wine, oh the great raspberry red wine. As all good newlyweds, we mingled around as we could to everyone. But time was short for us, we were so busy with more pictures. And then we had the mother-son dance, the father-daughter dance, the Cotten family boogie, I was invited in for that, and then the anniversary dance. Molly and Paul Bodden were the longest married and got the bouquet. I had to get the garter off Amanda, that was sneaky fun. I had to go full under, just to say I did it the right way! I tossed that to all single people in the house, and Will the little 7 year old got it. I hope it brings him luck. We skipped the dollar dance since things were behind and people needed to dance. I think it was specifically my Dad that asked about it. And we did our re-take on the unity candle. Then we fed cake to each other, it was a fake cake and was already cut for us, but we thought we were going to cut a fake slice anyway. No face-smashing today! So everyone danced except us, we had more photos and more talking to do. Miv pulled us outside for a picture near the end of the night. And Amanda had to grab the extra wine we bought.
Amanda and I did get a couple dances in before the end of the night. But soon as we were done, we had to pack up. Since we were doing most of this ourselves, we had to take down the light stringers and pack up gifts etc. It didn't even all fit in the Honda, we had mom and dad bring stuff back and stop in Manheim with us. We only lost 2 shepard hooks in the hubub, so that's a good scorecard. Once the other Paveglios left, I carried Amanda over the threshold, to be chivalrous. We had to pack a bit for the honeymoon, and then we turned off the lights.
The Wedding page (May 24, 2008) is still up.
5-10-08 » We got back from our super trip with Clipper to Dominican Republic, in the Punta Cana region, the beachy and touristy area. We had a 5 day all expense paid trip with the company. It was 4 days of Fun in the Sun. We had to attend some meetings to make it more business like, but that means no taxes! Yay! Amanda and I had a lot of good food, even more good drinks, we danced, we laid out on the beach, splashed in the clean beach ocean water, swam and drank in the pool, met other Clipperites, we went snorkelling and touched Manta-Rays and swam with sharks (no not great white sharks silly!), went on a trip to the countryside to see some towns and a cave and a city on a cliff, and had dinner on the beach with Clipper on Wednesday night. What a great couple of days! Neither of us got bad sunburn, we put on tons of Blue Lizard sunscreen. The cap was nifty that it turned bluer the more it was in the sunlight, like a UV guage. We heard Peacocks and Peahens making noises like an angry cat (MEEoooo-AW), saw pink flamingos, and other little birds all around the property. The resort was big, it took 15 minutes to walk from our room to the beach. We had a cool rep for our group, Simone, that knew all we needed to know to go and check in at the right times. We ate lots of desserts, drinks were free everywhere and pretty good, almost everyone smiled and said "Hola" to us. When we were underwater I had my new waterproof camera bag with me and could take pix, there are even some movies of snorkelling underwater.
So... on to the pictures!
4-03-08 » Wedding day is approaching and we still have plans to put together. Meetings with vendors are happening this week, and time seems to be in short supply after work most days. Thankfully it's feeling more like Spring each day and I like that.
Racing (autocross) begins next weekend and I am hoping for dry sunny weather to try out the new tires and brakes. I had to put a bunch of money into both the TA and the Honda this week for brakes and inspection items. Aside from autocross I plan on going to Summit Point maybe 2 times this year, and want to go watch an IRL race and an ALMS race too.
2-26-08 » HOLY MACKERAL! Champ Car and Indy Racing League are merging. Finally after 13 years we'll have just one open wheel racing series. But boy those IRL cars a butt-ugly! The Champ Cars are just physically better looking, more natural, less like anteaters with snouts sucking along the ground. But in any case, I'm looking forward to racing season starting up and being good racing on street circuits, some ovals, and nice road courses. And one sensible TV packaging.
2-14-08 » Happy V-day y'all!
1-26-08 » We've got ourselves a laptop MacBook now. We plan on using it for recipes and I plan on using it for watching those in-car videos during race day for Champ Car and ALMS. I put Leopard on it, and I'm hoping Apple releases that 10.52 update soon. I'm at home today doing lots of computer stuff, some freelance work and setting up this new computer. Watching the Daytona 24 hour race.
Last weekend, or maybe before, we did some wedding registry shopping. It's not done, but we'll work on it more soon. Just last night we went to some dance lessons, the ones I got Amanda for Christmas. We have to know how to at least do our first dance together!
1-8-08 » Ugh. Upper bathroom has no official light fixture box to mount anything. They just used a hammer to bang a big ugly hole in the drywall. What a mess. I had to fab up a crazy bracket to rebuild some wall and make a secure mount. Now I have to fill in a huge hole with spackle. But we have a nice light fixture.
1-2-08 » Happy New Year to you! Happy new bathroom to us! Nearly 4 straight days of prep and painting results in this nifty new bathroom upstairs in my house! Please forgive the horrible perspective uneven-ness in the photo, it was done quickly to get it up.
