Tanya's dad is allergic to her new dog, so it looks like she's in the market for some sort of air purifier/filtering device. She sent me this link for an air and surface sanitizer that she heard about. I'm not here to say that not a good product, but I had a good laugh at the little scrolling marquee at the top of the page that claimed "our machines can even get cat urine odor out of your favorite dress". If that wasn't funny enough, they also say that their product is excellent at reducing odors from cigarette smoke, musty houses, dead animals and cooking. Now if that doesn't scream, "We cater to crazy old cat ladies", then I don't know what does.

According to a report released by the Austin Police Department today, there is a six foot, 200 lb. monitor lizard roaming the streets of Austin after it escaped from its enclosure somewhere along Manor Road. The owner, aka moron who should be arrested and fined for keeping such a beast within the city limits, says that the damn thing is a family pet and is not aggressive. Puh-lease. If that thing is scared (and likely hungry), there's not telling how it's going to act.

Let's be real: if a miniature dragon came running out of the woods towards me and I happened to be packing heat, you better believe that I'd unload at least 6 rounds into it before it knew what hit it. I don't care how sweet the owner says it is, I'm not an idiot - if Jurassic Park has taught me anything, it's that when it comes to dinosaurs, you shoot first.

I'd like to propose a constitutional amendment prohibiting meetings from being scheduled between 1:00PM and 2:00PM. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have enough trouble staying awake after eating without the help of monotone speeches and PowerPoint presentations.

My new brother-in-law, Orlando, is hilarious...

Today was our first full day of being husband and wife -- I had to pinch myself to make sure it wasn't just a wonderful dream. Photos are starting to pour in from family and friends and we can't believe how beautiful the whole thing turned out. Only thing I could have wished for were slightly warmer temperatures, but the fact that we caught a break in the rain was probably the most important weather-related blessing we could have gotten. Thanks to everyone who braved the crisp weather and came out to share our special day with us.

Special thanks goes out to everyone who helped out -- our families, our bridesmaids, our groomsmen, Tanya, Trish, Terri, Sarah, Nancy...I know I'm missing a whole bunch of names here, but you know who you are. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You guys are wonderful and we couldn't have done it without you!

I've waited so long for this moment...today is going to be a good day.

Here's a picture of the birthday boy (that's me) painting the rest of the drink buckets we are going to be using during the wedding reception to display some of the tasty beverages from the picture I posted two days ago. We bought those containers last year during a Christmas clearance sale at Wal-Mart -- I think they were like 50 cents each. Throw in a few cans of spray paint and you'd never know they were bright-ass "ho ho ho" red. You can't see it in the picture, but it's a textured spray paint that I'm applying. Selina really liked it because it's a chocolate brown color and has glittery gold flecks in it.



Thanks to everyone who's been wishing me a Happy Birthday today -- at some point today I'll make my way over to Facebook and respond to all the posts on my wall!

Since we had heard that the marriage licenses for Travis County were not the best looking in the state, we decided to head up to Georgetown (Williamson County) to get our license this morning. Well, once we found the courthouse, that is. Google Maps told me one thing and my GPS was telling me another. We ended up going several miles in the wrong direction (thanks alot, Google Maps) before Selina (ahem) convinced me to go into a convenience store and ask for directions. Turned out that the GPS was right and we finally strolled into the courthouse and picked up our pretty little piece of paper. Hooray us!

After crossing through two counties this morning running errands, I came back home close to 1PM and finished up a few things I had on my list, one of which included making the final edits to our ceremony programs. After I picked Selina up from work, we munched on some pizza and made a quick call to our photographer to finalize some things. We then hit our nearby FedEx Office (aka the bastard child of FedEx and Kinko's) to get our programs printed and finished them up by snazzing up the corners with a punch we bought from Michaels. They look great, if I do say so myself -- but you'll have to come to the ceremony to get a better look at them!


Oh, and depending on who you believe, we have a 0-30% chance of rain for Saturday with highs in the middle 70s and lows in the low 60s. That's certainly a lot better than the 60% chance that was forecast 3 days ago.

I've bought a lot of beer before, but I think this takes the taco -- 184 bottles combined! Throw in another 100 bottles of water, 100 soft drinks and several bottles of wine and we're talking about some serious thirst quenching power. If roughly half of the 150 people we invited opt for the alcohol, they'll get about 2.5 beers each for the night. With the way some of my family members drink, though, I'm thinking it's not enough. But, like Selina says, we don't want anyone coming, getting schnockered and then driving home.

We are getting ready to enter the home stretch in our year and a half long engagement with only eight days remaining. Selina and I are really excited, but we are so ready to get the pressure of planning a wedding off our backs. All the big stuff is done, but it's all the little projects that still need to be taken care of. I took all of next week off as a precaution -- I also didn't want to have to deal with work-related issues while my head is already swimming with wedding to-dos. I think we can get everything knocked out.

I don't think I've said this yet, but Mother Nature can kiss my butt. Two years of severe drought and suddenly I'm looking at a 60% chance of rain on October 10 (at least according to the 10 day forcast on www.weather.com, that is). Seriously? Even though the reception is under a covered pavilion, the whole point in us picking the place we did was because we wanted people to be able to walk around and enjoy the countryside. If it's raining, everyone is just kinda stuck in one place. It won't be a disaster, but it's not what I was hoping for.

If there is a silver lining to the weather forecast thus far, it would probably be that the temperature range is pretty much what I was hoping for: highs in the upper 70's, lows in the lower 60's. Now if only that chance of rain would drop to 20% or 30% (or better yet, disappear altogether), then I will be one happy dude.