Well the time has come and gone.  I am now a married man and have enjoyed everyone minute of it so far.  Thanks Tina!

The wedding went off without a hitch.  I was a bit nervous beforehand but once we got into the ceremony it was all good.  Thanks to everyone for making the trek and showing your support.  I’d also like to thank my parents, Tina’s parents, the bridal party, and since they are my boys I’ll name my party, Jason M (best man), Dan F, Chris A, Carl G, Jason S, and Ben K.

The reception was great.  Although it went quite fast.  Thanks to J again for a great speech.  I couldn’t even foul him up with the “go sign”.

Now for the honeymoon…. I surprised lbt  (a lot of good that tinagillen.com domain does now, eh?) with a trip to Maui.  I told her when we got back to the hotel after the reception.  She was quite excited (which I was expecting).

We flew out on Monday morning.  After a flight to Seattle, a layover spent at the bar, and finally landing in Maui we were relieved, tired, and excited all at the same time.  We picked up our rental car which was a mustang convertible.  By the time we were driving to Kaanapali it was dark.  Maui isn’t the best place to drive on unfamiliar roads at night, but we made it to the hotel.  After checking in we took a little walk on the beach.  I could tell this was gonna be good.

We woke up quite early the next morning and took another walk along the beach.  Tuesday was recovery and relaxation day.  We hung out at the beach.  The first two days the surf was extremely active (although the red flags were up all week).  The Pacific is much more powerful than any other ocean I have set foot in.  I was quite surprised and a bit itimidated at first.

The next day we went to the shops and boardwalk in Lahaina.  Since I left my sunglasses at home this was an order of business.  We walked into a Sunglass Hut and the sales guy got me into a pair of Maui Jim’s.  If you know me and how often I buy new sunglasses you might be saying “WTF?, You’re a moron”.  Perhaps.. only time will tell.  We also caught the fireworks in Lahaina.  They shot them from a barge out in the ocean and they were quite magnificent.  I have some time lapse videos that I’ll try and get posted.

Blah.. I am worn out..  I’ll continue in an updated post but I’ve got stuff to do now.  Later.

With the Wedding day fast approaching I was reminded of many a conversations back in the day arguing about who would be the next to go. Well it’s pretty much official and it’ll be me. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited and can’t wait to get started on a new journey with lbt.

I’ve been spending my last “free” moments doing the finishing touch-ups and paying off the final bills for the wedding. Let’s just say it’ll be good to get it over with and on our honeymoon, which if I do say so myself will be another story in itself.

Well.. I’ve gotta go find something to keep my nerves calm. And I’ll see most of you on Saturday!

Later.

P.S. I’ll be sure to keep twittering, or is it twitting, or tweeting during the honeymoon. I’ll keep everyone apprised. Just stop by the site and you’ll have your update.

Summer is swinging into full effect.  I can tell the weather is becoming a little more stable, weekends are nearly all full, and the wedding is 29 days away.  I can’t tell if  am getting a little nervous or anxious or what… either way it’s time to get it over and done with.

V-ball is going well.  We’ve picked up the 3 seed for the spring session playoffs.  Should be exciting the next 2 weeks.   Thanks to Jason for getting some photos.  They’ll be up soon.

As you can see I also updated my theme.  It was time for something new and Aaron had to copy me so I needed to change.   If any did or didn’t notice, my twitter module (What I’m Doing) was screwed up and probably has been the majority of the time.  So you’ve been reading someone else’s activities.. or I have been leading a secret double life.

I guess it’s time to think about getting lunch and food for the dog.  It’s the one thing she lives for and it breaks her heart when she doesn’t get a full dish.

Well it’s really coming up fast.  44 days from now Tina and I will be wed in the wonderful town of Northfield, MN.  I think we’ve finally got all the tuxedo measurements in.  It’s been a gas getting RSVPs every day, both the random comments and the regrets.  We seem to be doing pretty good so far.  I think they usually say you’ll get about 70% of invitees.  So far we’ve been well over that mark.  At this point I think Tina and I just ready for the day to be here so we can celebrate and then get on to the honeymoon.

Now that the NFL draft is over and the Twins aren’t really doing much for me this year and I can’t watch the Brewers much, I find I can’t get enough of College Football.  The NFL I can take or leave until Week 1 of the regular season.  I like to read the gossip of my beloved Packers, but I really enjoy college football and am excited for the upcoming Badgers’ season.  There is even talk of making it out to Camp Randall for a game (which I haven’t done in quite a few years).

I really need to build a new computer too, I can’t wait for some money to free up after the wedding…

Holy nerd batman… I couldn’t resist when I saw this headline posted on reddit.

int i = 5; i = ++i + ++i; Question: i = ? ; ( PHP: 13; C: 14) Why?

It effectively turns into one of the most nerdy conversations I have ever read. I did enjoy reading it, probably because of some of the nerd humor.

I re-discovered podcasts the other day. I admittedly haven’t listened much since Digg started to bore me and Ricky Gervais started charging for his podcast. I found one of my all time favorites - “Car Talk” with Click and Clack. Cars aren’t my hobby, but for some reason I enjoy listening to those two. I also found a few other NPR shows that have kept me interested as well; “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” and “Fresh Air”.

LBT and I are progressing on the wedding plans. We are getting closer and closer. Soon we’ll have nothing more to worry about except showing up.

We are also going to be painting our garage… and then the house next fall or spring in preparation of putting the house on the market. I think we’ve out-stayed our welcome there and figure it’s time for an upgrade. So if you want to donate or show off your prep or painting skills give me a call. I’d be more than happy to evaluate.

Volleyball is going well and we have in fact launched our own website… mostly for shits and giggles and because we won’t be outdone by suckandblow.com. We are going to have to see if we can’t get into a couple of tournaments this summer. Perhaps the Friendly City Days tourney, and maybe one or two at Mama G’s. Although the summer weekends are filling up VERY fast.

I stumbled upon an entertaining flash “tutuorial” about Learning to Dance with Napoleon Dynamite. It was entertaining not because I hadn’t ever seen the movie or revel in his sweet dancing moves, but I never knew there were names for all of his moves.  I bring this up because Vegas is a mere week away and when Jason and I drink and end up in strange bars with thumping music, we tend to pull out some of the classics… i.e. “The Lawnmower”, “The Shopping Cart”, “The Bus Driver”, “The Chainsaw”, etc.  Well now I can add an entire new set of moves.  Watch out, I’ll be studying this intently. You can bet they’ll be out at the wedding too.

Well, I hope to say that Windows has crapped the bed one last time for me today.  I have no idea what happened other than I was trying to update my ipod, it never got recognized, and windows never was able to reboot properly.  I am dual booting and I upgraded my copy of ubuntu to fiesty fawn, which I must say went very well.  I think I’ll keep the windows install around until I am sure I don’t need it anymore, and then I’ll make the switch for good.  I suppose there is always wine in those emergency situations or for any .net development that might be needed at home.  While I don’t call myself a novice linux user, one thing I haven’t really done is use the desktop a lot.  I run a linux server for my websites and some development, but haven’t had the need for the desktop until now.  I’ll keep everyone posted on the struggles and hopefully, ultimately the switchover.

Tina and I bought our wedding bands today.  Nothing shocking as far as price goes, which is good because that usually happens when you take Tina shopping.  We should have ‘em within the next two weeks.  Check one more off the list. Invitations are also printed and at home.  Most of the assembly is done (the inner envelopes, and the inner announcment).  I think the announcement needs to be glued/taped to the inner envelope and then the inner envelope stuffed with all the goodies.  We should be good to go then.  Now if we can only get those damn cupcakes and the pig spit taken care of.

Tina informed me last night that we have 100 days before the wedding. It sure seems to be coming up fast. While it feels like we have just about everything taken care of I don’t feel like I can coast along quite yet. There are few ends that need to be tied up. We gotta purchase the wedding bands, book transportation, send out the invites, pick up the marriage license, get the pig and the spit for the roast… hmm my head is starting to spin thinking about all of this.

Let me move on to something a little more pressing… Vegas in 13 days! Think “Very Bad Things” without the “Rainman” suite, and the coke, and the hooker, and the killing, and that’s pretty much what we’ve got. I’ve got big plans to lounge at the pool and get smoked out in the warm intense sun of early April in Las Vegas. I plan on hitting Gilly’s for some bikini bull riding as well. After that, it’s wherever the lights take me. I’m pumped, Dan says he’s ready for some poker, and J says his recent birthday gifts have him pimped out for a Vegas weekend, and Mason doesn’t tell me much about what his plans are, and Big Tuna wanked out, and Chris is “still deciding”. Let’s get it on!

I also recently received my Fonera router. If you happen to be in the neighborhood feel free to leech, but I’ll be watching!

Finally booked the flight to Vegas for the bachelor party. So far it’s Jason, Dan, and I. I believe there will be a few more stragglers as the date approaches. If you’ve changed your mind or want in, let me know and I’ll pass along the details.

The lamp on my dlp went out. I hope 9 months is not indicative of the normal lamp life. OEM bulbs run for about $150, and I have seen that my particular bulb is on national back-order. Sounds like everyone’s is going out. I have a service call into Samsung since it should be covered under warranty. Sigh.. 3 - 5 business days to set it up and then who knows how long before they will come out to my house. You can bet I’ll be buying a spare for the next outage… then again maybe I’ll have a different TV by then. So Tina and I have resorted to the good old days of the 19″ TV in our upstairs living room. It’s not quite the same :-/

The Choxie bar experiment is complete. 207 bars in just over 3 weeks. Not too bad. I won’t disclose the juicy details here but lets just say we saved some money on our wedding favors.

I can’t sleep… I can’t eat, I can’t drin…… whoa whoa whoa.

Yeah, I’m still up browsing the net and calling hotels for good deals. Like they are gonna change every few hours or something… or succumb to some random guy giving them the bachelor party spiel. I think the problem is that I don’t have a whole lot to worry about, as far as the wedding plans go. I have to thank Tina for being so proactive and on top of things. I think we’ll start getting stressed pretty soon as some of the finer details come down to reality.

Even if you are here for something random, check out the gallery for some entertaining stuff… and you can now rate the pics.

Enjoy! I gotta hit the sack.