Home Grown Tomatoes

When we moved into our new condo, my wife decided that our balcony would serve as a substitute for having a real yard, and subsequently planted all kinds of vegetables in a plethora of pots. We've got tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, radishes, and a host of herbs. The fresh basil is pretty darn good, but nothing, and I mean nothing touches those tomatoes.

What on earth is it that makes fresh tomatoes ripened on the vine taste so damn good? Even "vine ripened organic" tomatoes from a produce store don't compare to these in taste... and ours are grown on a balcony in the middle of the city!!

A caprese salad with fresh basil and tomatoes from our "balcony garden" just can't be beat.

The Economist

I love a good style manual. I'm particularly fond of my Chicago Manual of Style, but I also have AP, MLA, and Strunk & White by my desk. Oh, and I just added a Bluebook and the ALWD. So check out The Economist's Style Guide. (Thanks, Ernie!)

It's chock full of good advice, although as an American, I take umbrage with several of their guidelines against Americanisms. For example:

"Gubernatorial is an ugly word that can almost always be avoided."

Gubernatorial is a fantastic word! It conjures up images of George Lindsey and Jim Nabors. And if you follow American governors, I think any word with "Goober" in it might be frighteningly accurate.

"Do not feel obliged to follow American fashion in overusing such words as constituency (try supporters)"

Actually, this is just wrong. The preferred definition (from the OED, not to mention Webster!) is "a body of constituents, the body of voters who elect a representative member of a legislative or other public body; in looser use, the whole body of residents in the district or place represented by such a member, or the place or district itself considered in reference to its representation."

Believe me, I am the constituent of many representatives who do not enjoy my "support".

"The military, used as a noun, is nearly always better put as the army."

Veterans of the United States Navy, Marines, and Air Force would probably take issue with that. I realize there is a difference between "army" and "Army" but replacing "military" with "army" in America invites confusion.

"They rest from their labours at weekends, not on them"

No, we definitely rest from our labors on weekends. I was married on October 26th, not at October 26th. On weekends, Americans might go have drinks at a bar, or go out to see a movie at at a theater. But mostly we sit on our butts watching TV shows.

Floater

Anyone remember "sensory deprivation" tanks? Well, I don't, thankfully. But I am fortunate enough to live in a city that has some floatation tanks at SpaceTime Tanks. I meant to write about this when I first tried it, but never got around to it. Last week was pretty stressful, so I went to float again today, so here you go...

Last year, my friend Ken and I (on the advice of BEB) decided to give floating a try. We were both expecting a really "trippy" experience, since I (mistakenly) thought the whole idea was to be in an environment completely devoid of sensation. In actuality, there is a whole lot o' sensin' goin' on.

The tanks themselves are just large enough for a person to float in the center, not touching the sides. You are suspended in a solution of water which has about 800-1000lbs of Epsom salts in it, so you are hyper-buoyant. It's actually an effort to make yourself not float. The water is also warmed to skin temperature, so it's hard to tell where the water ends and your skin begins.

When I first got into the tank, it was a little claustrophobic. It's actually about the same size as a capsule hotel room in Japan. Once you close the door, it is completely dark, which combined with the warm water and air does induce a slight claustrophobic feeling, but in all honesty, it subsides pretty quickly. You do float in the nude, just in case you might be wondering. The "water" in the tanks, in addition to being salty enough to sterilize any cuts you might have, is also purified with Ozone in-between customers.

Once you lay down though, the experience is totally awesome. You float, like you've never floated before. If you're floating in a pool, sometimes you have to regulate your breathing to stay hovering at the surface... not in a tank. You have to make an effort to push your arms and legs down into the water. And it's warm, and soothing. But it's not devoid of sensation. You still have a sense of touch, and you still have smell (although the salt doesn't smell bad or anything) and definitely taste (the salt does taste awful if you get a bit in your mouth). You can also hear. I use ear plugs when I float, to keep the water out of my ears, but with or without them, you can very faintly hear the buzz of the ventilation fans, and you can still hear your own breathing and heartbeat.

There isn't any "tripping" happening in the tank, it's just pure relaxation. After a few minutes (time does seem to be completely arbitrary in the tank) I start to crack parts of my body I never knew cracked... there's no pressure of gravity weighting down any parts of your body, so you feel, well weightless. It's incredibly relaxing, and I think that's the value of it. It's not really depriving you of your senses at all, thank god! Instead, it's depriving you of your cell phone, the television, the radio, the report you have to finish for work, or school, the kids, the spouse, the boss, traffic, and any number of other things that can add to the stress of day-to-day life.

Honestly, it's worth doing if for no other reason than you know that when you close the door to the tank, no one is going to interrupt your thoughts for another hour, except you. When you couple that with the relaxation of just floating and being warm, well, when you get out you just feel so relaxed and renewed. I would highly recommend the experience to anyone. If I had a basement, I would build my own so I could do it once a week. It's a great way to recharge, even if it seems like it might be a bit "new age". In reality, it's just a trip to a pampering day-spa with a massage condensed into an hour and for a lot less money.

8,000 New Bloggers a Day, and Still Not Much Worth Reading

Here are some interesting blog stats from Technorati, courtesy The Register...

Weblog search engine Technorati says it is now tracking over three million webblogs, with 8,000-17,000 new blogs created every single day. That means that a new weblog is created somewhere in the world every 5.8 seconds. Of these, a reported 36 per cent irritate friends or family with their twitterings, while a staggering 12 per cent attract the attention of lawyers with their biting commentary.

Heh. I still think the blog hype is overrated. It's a tool, people, not a revolution. Blogs are (generally speaking) just a new varient of vanity web sites; just as some vanity sites were useful and interesting, some blogs are useful and interesting. Blogging software makes it easy for nearly anyone to host a site and update it regularly, but honestly, it's no more of a revolution than say, Geocities was in the 1990s. If there's anything from the "Blog-o-lution" that is interesting it's RSS... syndication, finally done right, well, mostly right. But syndication isn't a new idea either (*cough*Pointcast*cough*Marimba*cough*Push*cough*).

GMail

Wow. I have to admit, I was skeptical about GMail before I tried it, but I'm a pretty enthusiastic convert. The idea of never throwing away e-mail (which I don't anyway) is so appealing... and with Google's search integrated... wow. I just wish I could run a client on my desktop for work e-mail!!

I was fearful of not being able to delete mail, but you can delete e-mail, archiving is just the default. I'm already using it for mailing list traffic. It will be interesting to see how it handles spam as I use it more, and post the address in more public areas, but so far, I'm very impressed.

GMail!

Cool! With a big thanks to Ernie the Attorney, I have a GMail account now and I'm ready to get started putting it through the paces. As someone who never deletes e-mail anyway, I think I'm going to like it...

Blog Advice

Tony Pierce has some excellent blogging advice which is pretty valuable. However, I do take some issues with a few of his points:

8. dont worry very much about the design of your blog. image is a fakeout.

Don't worry much, but still think about it. Completely neglecting the layout/design of your blog can lead to something that is just down right painful to look at... although many readers may never actually see your blog (thanks to RSS) it's still worth a little time to make it look presentable. Hell, with so many templates, it's a no brainer to make your blog have a little style.

9. use Blogger. it's easy, it's free; and because they are owned by Google, your blog will get spidered better, you will show up in more search results, and more people will end up at your blog. besides, all the other blogging software & alternatives pretty much suck.

If you have a blog worth reading, it will spread regardless of the tool. Blogger is fine, but there are many other good choices out there. Don't get hung up on the technology. If you find one that does works the way you want it to work, but it ain't fee, so what? Pay for things you find valuable. I started on Radio, which has some pluses and minuses, and now I'm on Movable Type, and I love it. Being owned by Google doesn't mean much, you'll still get indexed. Google indexes your mother.

13. if you havent written about sex, religion, and politics in a week youre probably playing it too safe, which means you probably fucked up on #5, in which case start a second blog and keep your big mouth shut about it this time.

Everything is about sex, religion or politics. Anything you think isn't really is, you just haven't put it in context yet.

25. dont use your real name. dont write about your work unless you dont care about getting fired.

Boy howdy. That one should be the #1 on the list.

Most of Tony's advice is applicable to writing in general. I think that's the best approach to "blogging". Fuck blogging. Blogging is for chumps. The best "blogs" are in reality collections of essays by writers, with a few exceptions (which are just collections of cool stuff). So be a writer and do what writers do: write. Stop trying to "shift the paradigm" be an "early adopter" or "embrace the revolution" just write. It's about the writing.

JD v. MBA

So, why did I decide to go back to school to pursue a JD? And why not pursue an MBA? I do have a fair amount of entrepreneurial business experience, so an MBA might have made sense.

I've wanted to pursue a post-graduate education of some kind for quite some time, but I frequently vacillated between a degree in Fine Arts and a "professional" degree of some kind. I'm one of those artsy types who happens to have a head for business (or so I'd like to think). Unfortunately, returning to school full-time is not really a realistic possibility, so I needed to limit myself to degrees that I could get part-time/evening, which pretty much ruled out going back for my MFA.

I tried to think of what I really loved doing, what my passions were, and I determined that in order for me to be happy with my career, I need it to have a several components:

1. The "job" must be (for the most part) intellectually challenging.
2. I enjoy project oriented work, that is, work which involves deadlines as a motivating factor. Once a project is finished, I want the opportunity to work on another project (or handle multiple projects simultaneously).
3. I would like the career to have a writing component.
4. I would like a career that uses technology as a tool, but is not necessarily technology based (I've done software development, I'm done with that).
5. I like to interact with people.
6. I need to have some level of control over my own destiny.

So, having been on my own with several business ventures, I wanted an education that could help me find either a job for someone else that met those criteria, or would aid me in once again striking out on my own. The two degrees that made the most sense were and MBA or a JD.

The MBA had the advantage of being focused on business. But the MBA also had the limitation of being focused on business. Then I came across an article that mentioned over 10% of American CEOs have JDs. Not that I want a corporate career necessarily, but the fact that so many executives have JDs indicates that on some level, a JD is beneficial in the business world. That's a big "Duh" for the most part, but still a factor in my decision.

Then I met Groklaw. I was hooked. You know you’re in trouble when you’re reading a motion written by attorneys for IBM and you find yourself laughing at the subtle humor. My wife happens to be an attorney, so I grabbed some of her books, and started reading about torts, and again, I was hooked.

I hope that my interest isn't just a passing fancy, and that the intellectual challenges of studying law continue. I would like to go into some area of intellectual property law, combining my technical skills and background into a career that I might find challenging and rewarding. And even if I don't end up practicing law (and at this point I am far from certain I want to practice law, at least in the traditional sense), it seems that the educational experience itself will be beneficial and applicable to many other areas I might end up.

Of course, this could all be the rationalization of a naïve, soon-to-be 1L...

The Value of MBAs

Disclaimer: I work for a very highly regarderd and ranked business school. The students here are very bright individuals who are highly motivated, and the faculty here are very intelligent and capable teachers, who do really seem to care about giving their students a top notch education. That goes a long way towards setting this school apart from the norm.

That said, a friend of mine recently sent me an article from Fortune magazine, entitled "Why an MBA May Not Be Worth It" which was a very interesting read. An even more interesting read was the paper that sparked the article. That paper, written by a Standford University business professor, is called "The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye" and it has some really enlightening information, especially for anyone considering going back to school for an MBA.

It did a lot to reconfirm that I think I made the right decision in deciding to go back to law school, rather than pursue an MBA.

Web Comic Roundup

There are a lot of really good web-comics out there these days... here are some that I am currently reading on a semi-regular basis:

Something*Positive
Penny Arcade
The Devil's Panties
Queen of Wands
Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles
Red Meat
Sore Thumbs
/usr/bin/w00t
User Friendly

If you know of any others I should check out, please let me know!

Vending Machine Economics

Perhaps it is because I work in a business school, but the soft drink vending machine near my office is helping teach us all the economic theory of supply and demand.

You see, it features two buttons, both of which dispense an identical 20oz. plastic bottle of Diet Pepsi. However, the first button dispenses the Pepsi for 1.10, while the second costs an additional .15 for a total of 1.25.

So, early in the week, while supply is high in the newly stocked machine, we can drink Pepsi for 1.10. But as demand increases throughout the week and supply decreases, the price jumps to 1.25.

In reality, it's probably just a mislabeled button that used to be Snapple or something, but still, I'd like to think they planned it.

We're Moving.

My building has every convenience
It's gonna make life easy for me
It's gonna be easy to get things done
I will relax alone with my loved ones

Loved ones, loved ones visit the building,
take the highway, park and come up and see me
I'll be working, working but if you come visit
I'll put down what I'm doing, my friends are important

We are moving into a new condo in less than two weeks (yikes!) more details to come.

The Hood

Okay, I'm getting pretty sick of my neighborhood. Really. It's getting quite irritating. It's an area that is in the process of "turning over" whatever that means. We moved there for the rents, when my wife and I moved in together, the rents were much cheaper there and we got a lot more space. It was a good deal all around.

Recently though, it's become more and more crowded. It's nearly impossible to find a parking space half the damn time... and on top of that, my car was just broken into for the *third* time last night. *Three times* and I've only lived there about 18 months. That's once every six months! This is ridiculous. If you combine the fact that recently we just got some new neighbors who are very loud and have shifty looking people over at all hours of the night... *sigh*

I'm moving.

Slow Week

It’s been a slow week at work so far… I’m mostly waiting for other people to follow up on some issues we discovered at the last planning meeting. And I’m doing a lot of research for one of the new systems we’re going to be installing in the new building. Basically, it’s going to be a real-time streaming solution. We want to be able to take a live feed from the classroom and record it, and at the same time, automatically create an MPEG/Quicktime/Windows Media version of the recording. Then we’ll archive the recording and make it available on a webserver. So if you know of any turnkey solutions for that type of system, let me know!

In other news, I turned 29 yesterday!! ;)

Week One

Ah, Monday, the start of my second week here in the new job. Something funny (especially for those of you working or living in University towns)... On my drive to work, I cross "Cottage Grove" and then proceed to cross "University" and then turn on "Woodlawn". Do all college towns have the same street names? Or are these names modeled after some locale I'm not familiar with?

I still don't have my computer (it's on order though) and I'm still waiting for the phone to be installed in my office. It's hard to hit the ground running in academia. However, I did already have a *huge* project meeting already, which, thankfully, went very well.

And I spent the weekend relaxing, which was much needed. I got to catch up on some movies... finally saw Stevie which was really excellent, although somewhat troubling. And I was surprised by the Pirates of the Caribbean, which for a movie based on a Disney theme park ride was shockingly entertaining.

All in all, a good weekend, hopefully to kick off a good week at work...

Back on the Chain Gang

Well, today marked my first day back in the working world as I started my new position at a major university as a staff member. I've been a professional staff member at a university before, so I knew a little of what to expect.

The day was pretty uneventful... my boss was out due to a family emergency, so that was a minor setback, but the rest of the staff picked up nicely. I'm still waiting on my phone and my machine. I have been placed in a temp office (they are building a new building and so I have no space until that opens up this summer!) and given a "loaner" machine so I can start being productive.

I met most of my staff today as well. They seem like a nice bunch and I'm looking forward to working with them. One of the nice things about this particular institution is that it's reputation precedes it... and so far, it's living up to my expectations. The people here are bright, dedicated and nice. If you're going to work for someone else, it might as well be in a good environment like this!

Of course, it wouldn't be a university if there weren't some issues... namely parking. I had to put my name in a "lottery" for a parking permit today. Otherwise, it's a "fend for yourself" system, which on campus can be pretty bad. Oh well, I suppose if I can get used to getting up at 7am to come into work, I can get used to hunting for parking. It's rough giving up the "come and go as I please" atmosphere of working for yourself, but then again, it's nice not to have all the 24 hour worry and ulcers that come with it!

Do Job Boards Work?

Apparently not. Or at least, not well. Here's a very interesting article from "Ask the Headhunter" about how effective some of the major job boards (Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder) are at helping you find employment. The bottom line: they aren't very effective at all.

JVC HD Camcorder...

Last night at the MCAI meeting, JVC was on hand to do a presentation about their new "consumer" High-Definition video format, tentatively called HDV. To make a long story short, the have basically taken an HD resolution signal and compressed it in the camera using MPEG-2 compression, to create an MPEG-2 Transport Stream which gets recorded onto a standard Mini-DV formatted tape. Pretty nifty, overall, but there are a few drawbacks:

• The compression is done in hardware, so you don't get a true HD signal, you get an MPEG-2
  
• You need a special HDV Deck (or to use your camcorder for editing) and the format is not widely supported.
  
• The cameras are only 1-CCD (more on that later)
  

JVC has two cameras out, the consumer GR-HD1, and the professional JY-HD10. Price aside, there are two really critical differences:

• The professional unit allows you to generate color bars
  
• The professional unit has XLR inputs
  

If you don't know why those are big deals, the consumer level camera is for you. Otherwise, go for the professional unit.

The camera can record in SD at 480i or 480p, compressed w/MPEG-2, it can also record in standard DV format, or in HD at 720p, also MPEG-2 compressed. JVC boasts that it can playback 1080i, but it can't record in 1080i.

The camera is also only a 1-CCD chip. For a one chip camera, it does take a very sharp, crisp image that doesn't blow out too badly on highlights and it doesn't crush blacks horribly. JVC claims to be using layer technology on the CCD to eliminate the need for multiple CCDs (like the Foveon chip) however, they either need to license the Foveon chip or do a better job implementing the technology, in the SD range, any 3-CCD camera I've seen produces a better image.

Of course, the technology is not designed to be a replacement for higher end HD Cams (like the Sony HDWF900 or the Panasonic AJ-HDC27 VariCam) but I think it falls a bit short on the lower end.

The camera features are extremely limited. You can do far more tweaking on a Canon XL1s or Sony DCR-VX2100 both of which compete with the JVC on price point.

Frankly, I think the "HD" aspect of it is a bit gimmicky, and if what you really want is a great looking NTSC picture, pass on this one. If HD is really what you want, don't jump into it with this JVC. The HDV standard is being adopted by other vendors, and there might be some announcements at NAB in April. I'd be very interested to see what Sony and Canon plan for the format (they are both supposedly developing with it). If you're a die hard early adopter, or have a clear project that justifies it, the JVC is okay, but I have a feeling in a year we'll have a lot more camera to choose from.

JVC HD Camcorder...

Last night at the MCAI meeting, JVC was on hand to do a presentation about their new "consumer" High-Definition video format, tentatively called HDV. To make a long story short, the have basically taken an HD resolution signal and compressed it in the camera using MPEG-2 compression, to create an MPEG-2 Transport Stream which gets recorded onto a standard Mini-DV formatted tape. Pretty nifty, overall, but there are a few drawbacks:

• The compression is done in hardware, so you don't get a true HD signal, you get an MPEG-2
  
• You need a special HDV Deck (or to use your camcorder for editing) and the format is not widely supported.
  
• The cameras are only 1-CCD (more on that later)
  

JVC has two cameras out, the consumer GR-HD1, and the professional JY-HD10. Price aside, there are two really critical differences:

• The professional unit allows you to generate color bars
  
• The professional unit has XLR inputs
  

If you don't know why those are big deals, the consumer level camera is for you. Otherwise, go for the professional unit.

The camera can record in SD at 480i or 480p, compressed w/MPEG-2, it can also record in standard DV format, or in HD at 720p, also MPEG-2 compressed. JVC boasts that it can playback 1080i, but it can't record in 1080i.

The camera is also only a 1-CCD chip. For a one chip camera, it does take a very sharp, crisp image that doesn't blow out too badly on highlights and it doesn't crush blacks horribly. JVC claims to be using layer technology on the CCD to eliminate the need for multiple CCDs (like the Foveon chip) however, they either need to license the Foveon chip or do a better job implementing the technology, in the SD range, any 3-CCD camera I've seen produces a better image.

Of course, the technology is not designed to be a replacement for higher end HD Cams (like the Sony HDWF900 or the Panasonic AJ-HDC27 VariCam) but I think it falls a bit short on the lower end.

The camera features are extremely limited. You can do far more tweaking on a Canon XL1s or Sony DCR-VX2100 both of which compete with the JVC on price point.

Frankly, I think the "HD" aspect of it is a bit gimmicky, and if what you really want is a great looking NTSC picture, pass on this one. If HD is really what you want, don't jump into it with this JVC. The HDV standard is being adopted by other vendors, and there might be some announcements at NAB in April. I'd be very interested to see what Sony and Canon plan for the format (they are both supposedly developing with it). If you're a die hard early adopter, or have a clear project that justifies it, the JVC is okay, but I have a feeling in a year we'll have a lot more camera to choose from.

The "New" Preaching to the Perverted!

Welcome to the new home of Preaching to the Perverted!

As you can see, everything really looks pretty much the same. In fact, nothing has really changed except the publishing software and host. You can now subscribe to the RRS Feed for the site here:

http://www.gulbransen.net/preaching/index.rdf

I moved because I wanted to start using MT, and I wanted the blog to be hosted under my own domain. You'll still find the same incoherent ramblings you are used to... enjoy!

Web Comics Round Up

I love animation, but I'll get to that in a minute. I thought I would do a quick summary of some web based comics out there that I check out regularly. Some are more geeky than others, but all of them have (I think) something going for them. Check them out, you might find one or two of interest:

• Something Positive
  
• Her!
  
• Red Meat
  
• Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles
  
• Penny Arcade
  
• User Friendly
  
• /usr/bin/w00t
  
• The Devil's Panties
  

Beware, some of these (Especially Mr. Wiggles and Red Meat) are probably not for the faint of heart. But they are still damn funny.

Web Animation Round Up

There was a post on boing-boing today with some web animation links, and since I love animation, I thought I'd repost them and add some to the list.

• Animwatch
  
• AtomFilms (Animation Category)
  
• Muffin Films
  
• Robot Love
  
• Door Steps (An Animated Music Video)
  

This is certainly not an inclusive list of web animation... I'd love to see other sites that showcase what's going on out there. Send me your links!

We love the subs

Quizno's Subs is running a new ad campaign that features the singing, um, things, from the Moon Song Flash. I have to say, these things are some of the funniest ads I've seen in a long time. Quizno's has the ads on the site... check them out! Damn, those things are funny!

Why I Love Red Meat

Superbowl Half-Time Craptacular!!

Um, okay... Janet Jackson and Kid Rock? Apparenly I missed something. I didn't realize they still had careers. It's like I've been time-warped to 1997!! Help!!

I mean, seriously, no one expects it to be good but c'mon. P. Diddy has resorted to ripping off Toni Basil??! I'm going to fire up Garage Band and launch my musical career posthaste. Apparently, I have enough talent in my average turd to get a spot in the Superbowl half-time show.

Not even Janet's tit could save this monstrosity. And I'm sorry, if that wasn't a planned exposure (and I could care less one way or the other) then why did she have on that sunburst nipple ring/pastie on under the bodice? Hmm?? Accident? Me thinks not.

101 Dumbest Moments in Business

It's the new year, and time for Business 2.0's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2003. There are some pretty good ones in there...

"After SunnComm Technologies rolls out new CD copy-protection software in September, a Princeton student figures out how to disable it. The devious hack: holding down the Shift key."

And here's one for Mikey: "Over the course of six months, the sheriff's department in Lubbock County, Texas, catches five suspects attempting to fool urinalysis using the Whizzinator, an artificial penis that dispenses fake pee. Says a straight-faced Dennis Catalano, the owner of the company that makes the device and also sells dried urine, "How people choose to use it is beyond our control."

Foldable 35mm Cameras

Eli sez, "This Czech designed pinhole camera is made from carefully cut out and constructed paper (needs to be stiff and lightproof). The name comes from the Czech word for pinhole (dirka) and a pun on Nikon. Uses 35mm film. Remember that you'll want a long exposure for a pinhole camera."
From [Boing Boing]

Creative Commons

If you are a creative individual (and most everyone bothering to read this blog is) then you need to know about the Creative Commons.The Creative Commons is the creation of Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford School of Law, Harvard Law School, and many others, that allows people to license their works in ways that actually make sense. You can create something, be it text, music, video, images, etc. and then pick out a Creative Commons license that makes sense for you; options for licensing include granting all rights, granting all non-commercial rights, or combinations thereof. It's sort of the creative equivalent of the GPL/Open Source thing software developers have been using for their projects, and I think much good can come of it. Check it out.

I'm Married!

Well, it's finally done! Actually, it was done on Sunday, and I'm just getting around to writing about it, but that's a good thing, believe me!

The wedding was a huge success... nearly everyone we've spoken with has agreed that the ceremony was the right length, the food was delicious, and the cake was one of the best they'd ever had. There were a few snafus, which is to be expected, I suppose. We had some family issues that were hard to deal with... a crisis here, some hurt feelings there... none of which were intentional, but I suppose that is the way it goes. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people... I'd say overall we were pretty successful.

I slept the best I'd slept in months on Sunday night... the relief of having all the wedding planning pressure over was incredible. Then we took a few days off to just be with each other, which was very nice. We're going to shoot for our honeymoon over the holidays... it's hard to get away when you're both starting small businesses! But we're both as happy as you can be!!

One Day!

24 Hours from now, I will be in the middle of my wedding ceremony. And yes, I am nervous as hell! However, I'm not nervous about the actual marriage part. I'm worried that I'll be late to the boat (we're getting married on a yacht on Lake Michigan) or that the cake will be messed up, or that the flowers won't be there... and about standing up in front of 120 people!

It's been so much work planning this wedding, and dealing with all the problems that crop up along the way. My friend Kate said, "A wedding is a terrible way to start a marriage" and now I know what he meant! If we could go back to March when all this was set in motion, I think now we'd elope.

But I guess tomorrow it will all be over, and that will be a big relief, and I will be very happy!!