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.

1. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s trying to poke my eye out. The other night I woke up after he jabbed his thumb into my right eye.

2. He’s what you might call a high-maintenance husband.

3. When Jason gets bored on an airplane he opts for self mutilation to pass the time. He hits himself with the strap of the seatbelt until he has red marks. Once he does leave a mark he giggles and giggles.

4. He looks surprisingly good with a shaved head.

5. Jason is just as sweet and generous as he was when we were dating. He seems happy being married.

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.

August 30-31, 2008. Kim and Kevin got married – lots of fun. The ceremony was nice, the food was awesome, and I had a great time. Lots of dancing, lots of fun, lots of nice people. It was a good time.

The view of Lake Tahoe on the wedding day.

Sara and Chrissy, bridesmaids. They were a little cold during the ceremony from the breeze off the lake.

Kim and Kevin about to say “I do.”

Here’s a video of a very special (and funny) speech… Read the rest of this entry »

August 29, 2008. On the way to Tahoe this morning, we had a slight incident. Less than 10 miles from Reno (and about an hour from our final destination in Tahoe), one of the studs on the right rear broke.

See the two holes that don’t have lug nuts? Both of those studs broke.

For those of you that don’t know, the stud is a “bolt” about a half an inch in diameter that the lugnut spins onto. It’s rare that this happens – in fact it’s extremely unlikely. The person who installed my wheels a few weeks ago must have cross-threaded the lugnut and weakened the stud. Once one of the studs broke, it was only a matter of time before a second one gave way. Since the wheels only have four studs a piece, losing one is kind of a big deal, and losing two is cause to stop driving. Sara and I heard a thump-thumping once the second stud broke (we had no idea one was already broken) and we pulled off to the side of I-80.

We called a tow truck and after about an hour we were towed to a service facility in downtown Reno, Nevada known as Generator Exchange. The shop manager was named Dodger, and even though it was lunch time when were towed in, he worked hard to get us back on the road. He has our thanks.

Next we headed for the Cal-Neva Resort which straddles the California-Nevada border. The joke is that you can swim from Nevada to California and back in the hotel pool. Back in the day, Sinatra owned this resort, and it doesn’t look like it’s changed much since the 60’s. Mirrored ceilings in all the hallways, a sort of “swinging 60’s” feeling, you can definitely see the Rat Pack strolling through. Learn more about the Cal-Neva Resort’s history (it’s a quick read and definitely interesting).

The Indian Room of the Cal-Neva Resort with the border lines colorfully emphasized.

I gambled tonight and had no luck. All I won at the casino is a free drink for Sara – not very cost effective. Evidently I’ve already done all the winning I’m going to do two weeks ago in Aruba.

Soon we’ll be attending Kim and Kevin’s wedding. Sara is excited to be a bridesmaid, and I know she’s eager to hang out with her friends after spending so much quality time with me this past month.

August 31, 2008 will live in on infamy as the day that Kim and Kevin got married. We had a blast despite the wind. Here is a picture I snagged of the couple during their rehearsal dinner.

Here is a picture of  me and some of my friends looking like models with our hair in the breeze/hurricane force gales.

And then for the real event…the wedding. Ceremony was sweet. Food was good. Music was great. Toasts were fantastic. And the bar was open.

It’s been awhile since either of us have written and that’s because we’ve been en route to somewhere or an event of some kind. It’s been a good week, but we are ready to stay put here in Tahoe. I’m sure we will work a lot more than we did in Aruba thanks to an abundance of Starbucks locations and colder temperatures.

Stay tuned for more details on:

Visiting Atlanta.
Mooching off our friends in Denver.
Finding Winnemucca, Nevada.
More tow truck tales.
Fun pictures and videos from Kim and Kevin’s Tahoe wedding.
A trip to Yosemite.
Hopefully a bear sighting or two.