Our New Office

The last couple weeks we took the office on the road. One of the perks of an location independent career. Here are the haps…

I went to Boston for a long weekend. Got to spend time with our friend Alli and watch a baseball game.

We’re always down for a wedding. Here we are in Madison, Wisconsin, enjoying friends and a view of the lake (that’s what we’re looking at, not you.)

Time with the fam in Iowa. Jason and Sydney are seriously contemplating a design choice here in this photo. Later, Katie posed as a half-dead bride. At least I think she’s a bride.

And check out this photo of my mom and sister at the Des Moines Art Walk. Neat.

If you want to know more about the Art Walk in Des Moines, read a recent article from The New York Times.

October 4th and 5th, 2008. The day after the wedding, Sara’s parents (mostly Georgia) entertained guests at their beautiful home in Ankeny with a nice brunch. While Sara and I spent the afternoon opening gifts and packing our bags for Asia, many of our friends decided to go to the Hessen Haus in Des Moines and get ripped. Unbelievable.

Many, but not all, of these people tried to burn down a portion of Des Moines shortly after these photos were taken.

While I won’t bore you with photos of people drinking big boots full of liquor, or doing there best Sarah Palin impression, or pawing each other like drunken high school kids, I will say that all of these things happened (or so I’ve been told). If only we had been around to see more of it…good times.

Our wedding weekend was a load of fun. Thank you all for making the days so special.

Here are some of my favorite post-wedding quotes (that I can remember):

• “Let’s go to the barn dance!”
• “Four boots?!”
• “Take the damn picture all ready!”
• “I’ve been putting Asgrow in my coffee for years.”
• “Who was trading clothes?”

Our friends are awesome.

October 3rd, 2008. I won’t go on and on about how great this day was, or the fact that I’ve never felt or done anything like it. I won’t brag about how great Sara looked or about how well I danced, and I certainly won’t talk about the fact I was happy and smiling for 12 hours straight.

I would like to say a deep and profound “Thank you” to Dale and Georgia (Sara’s parents) as well as everyone that came. We had a great day.

Thank you.

Here are some of the many photos we’ve collected. When the photographer gets done and when we get back to the USA, we’ll upload some more. In the meantime, you can see all the wedding photos we have on Flickr. Thanks to Kelly Melton for taking the nice black and white above.

P.S. Our youngest niece can NOT hold her booze.

September 28th – October 2nd, 2008. WOW. Can’t believe I got it all done. Between work, selling my car, finalizing the details of the wedding, (NOTE: Make no mistake – Sara and her mom did all the work. I was given minor tasks only.) and getting ready for the big Asia trip, time has been short.

While I didn’t have much time to blog about my work-filled weekend (not much to say about that anyways), I DID manage to make some time for a little pre-rehearsal dinner fun with Mike, Tim, Ralph, Matt, and Thomas (not shown for secret reasons).

There’s nothing like smoking cigars while shooting shotguns at clay pigeons. (No animals were harmed in this pre-wedding fun time.)

I know I already told everyone, but I had a GREAT time. Very fun. Very relaxing. I’m lucky to have such good friends, and I’m ecstatic to have two kick-ass brothers in law.

Next, we had a very nice rehearsal dinner. While I didn’t get near as many photos as I would have liked at the rehearsal dinner, I did have a fun time talking to everyone. Sara and I both enjoyed the great toasts very much – it was a lot of fun to hear so many great things from so many friends. Thank you all again. We should do this sort of thing more often.

Our time in Iowa is officially over now, but we had a great time hanging out with family and friends there. I imagined our stay to be more relaxing, but with wedding planning, Asia trip planning, working, and general overall craziness it was probably the most hectic of weeks we’ve had in awhile.

Wedding pictures are on the way, so stay tuned, but in the meantime I thought I would share with you some Iowa trivia.

1. Iowa is the only state name that starts with two vowels.

2. Herbert Hoover (a West Branch, Iowa native) was the 31st President of the United States and the first one born west of the Mississippi River.

3. The first caucus for the presidential election has been held in Iowa since 1972.

4. RAGBRAI is the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It began in 1973 and is the longest, largest, and oldest touring bike ride in the world. Lance Armstrong often does the ride.

5. Ninety-four percent of Iowa land sustains crops. Over one-fourth of the nation’s best crop soil is within the Iowa borders. Iowa produces 20% of the nation’s corn.

6. Ronald Reagan began his professional career in radio as a commentator for University of Iowa football in 1932.

7. In 1935 a University of Iowa swimming coach originated the “Butterfly” stroke.

8. Iowa has an average of 34 tornadoes every year.

9. Iowans are smart. 93% of Iowa schools are above the national average for scholastic achievement. Iowa is first in the nation in per-capita undergraduate college degrees. Iowa has a 99% literacy rate – the highest in the nation.

10. The Iowa capitol building in Des Moines is topped with a dome covered in paper-thin sheets of 23-carat-gold.

Bonus – The picture you see below is titled “American Gothic” by Grant Wood. The painting is inspired by a farmhouse in Eldon, Iowa.

September 24 – 27th, 2008. Wednesday and Thursday I had my Ford Focus cleaned and touched-up for sale. When we sell the car, Sara and I will be getting rid of our last worldly possession of any significance. Sara remarked that it “feels a little weird.” We literally own our clothes, our computers, and some odds-ends in a storage unit in Lakewood, Colorado. Not much.

Friday and Saturday were big work days. I’ve been spending entirely too much time at the local Panera here in Ankeny, Iowa. I can say that I’m not alone – it’s incredibly popular. There are people coming in and out pretty much all day (at least that was the case on Friday and Saturday when I was their). Unfortunately, I don’t have much exciting news to report.

I keep joking about our status as gypsies. Make no mistake – we have every intention of returning to the ‘normal’ world at some point – where we’ll own a home, a couple of cars, a dog, etc. – but for the next 6 months or so we won’t have much in the way of ‘normal.’

In honor of the gypsies (whose identitiy I have co-opted for comic effect), I have decided to list some interesting gypsy facts.

1. The word “gypsy” is thought to be a variation on the word Egypt, as earlier Europeans believed the gypsy people came from Egypt.
2. Commonly, the word “gypsy” refers to the Roma people, whose modern-day home is known as Romania. However, scientific evidence shows that the Roma people can trace their lineage to India.
3. Gypsies have been scapegoated in the past – since they were a traveling bunch, whenever they reached a new country (mostly visiting Europe and North America), they were often ostracized and discriminated against.
4. Historically, Gypsies were known for their dancing, music, and “magic” skills such as fortune-telling.
5. The Gypsy people believed in various superstitions, likely leading to the myth of the “gypsy curse.”

This photo of a gypsy family shows just how little Sara and I have in common with these fine, proud people.

In short, Sara and I have little in common with actual real gypsies. We’re not Southern European or Indian. We don’t believe in curses. We don’t have much musical skill, and I’ve got no idea how to perform even the simplest of magic tricks.

Still, it’s fun to joke about. Hopefully we haven’t offended any real gypsies.

September 20-23, 2008. A lot of people will tell you that Iowa is all about farming. While it IS true that Iowa is an important part of the agricultural industry (I just learned that Iowa grows 20% of the nation’s corn), it’s not the whole story.

There are hills, there are shopping malls, there are lots of the same stores you would expect to find anywhere else in the U.S., and downtown Des Moines is pretty damn decent. If you’ve never been to Iowa, it’s likely that you have some incorrect opinions. At least I did before I got here.

I like it here just fine. It’s a great place to visit.

Anyways, here’s what happened this weekend and here’s what I learned:

1. Competitive baseball can stress you out. Imagine being 10 years old and having the fate of the game rest on the performance of your bat. Bases loaded. Last inning. Your team is down by 2 runs. You ARE the final out. The pitcher is throwing all over the place. The crowd is silent, with half the people hoping you hit a home run and half hoping you strike out. Did I mention that you’re also only 10? Tough situation. I was stressed and I wasn’t even playing. Talk about a “character building experience.” My soon-to-be-nephew Thomas can tell you all about it someday.

2. There is good food to be had in Iowa. I haven’t had a bad meal in Iowa yet. Sara’s mom is a cooking machine, whipping up a new desert every other day. We’ve dined at the local Noodle Zoo (very good value, btw), a cheesy BBQ joint called ‘Bandannas’ (where everyone wears a bandanna, go figure) that had great BBQ (it was also a great value), and our wedding DJ Tiny told us about a great Thai restaurant.

3. Our wedding DJ kicks ass. Seriously – the guy is hilarious. He’s got a great sense of humor, he’s got a ton of experience (2,800 weddings DJ’d, give or take), and he’s just cool to be around.

4. Getting a marriage license is pretty easy. Sara and I got our license to marry yesterday, and it was easy. Almost too easy. No blood tests, no complicated forms, nothing hard. In fact, I can think of a ton of things that are much harder to acquire than a marriage license. Here’s a short list:

• Buying a cellphone
• Buying a car
• Buying or selling a home
• Filling out a job application
• Getting a paypal account
• Bidding for a job on elance
• Finding a decent wi-fi signal in Aruba

The funny thing is, marriage is forever. But none of the stuff I listed above is really permanent or life changing. Maybe our society’s rate of divorce would be lower if getting a marriage license was at least as complicated as buying a used car. You could sign a few disclosures like “it’s not always going to be fun and easy,” and “this person you’re marrying may have mis-represented themselves,” the “your money is no longer you own as soon as you sign this paperwork” disclosure, maybe toss out a couple of “birth control isn’t 100% effective and you could end up with 5 kids in 5 years” and “your future spouse may ask you to stop picking your nose” forms, etc.

What about a marriage credit application? You could list of all your previous relationships and your future spouse could call all your old girlfriends/boyfriends and find out about all the awful things you did – like a ‘credit reference’ check.

Scratch that last one.

But seriously, how crazy is it that it’s easier to get a marriage license than it is to buy a car? If you don’t like your car, you just sell it or trade it away and get a new one. Not so with a spouse (at least not yet).

That’s not true. At the moment I’m in a Starbucks in Denver, Colorado, but the other night we stayed in Wyoming in some town with the word “Rock” in it and for the life of me I cannot remember the name of that town. It doesn’t really matter since we were only there long enough to eat at an Applebee’s and sleep for eight hours, but still, it’s a little disheartening that I don’t even know where I am for large chunks of a day.

I guess this is just the beginning of that. At least I know what day it is. But wait…what day is it? I know it’s Wednesday but I’m not sure if its the 16th or 17th. Well, I guess we’ll never know. Time and space are irrelevant as long as I’m having fun and there is a WiFi connection. Check and check.

We’re in Denver until Friday (no idea what date that is), and then we’re in Ankeny, Iowa for two weeks. We’ll be wedding planning and working, I’m sure.