Thinking.

Hi there.

Things have gotten quiet around the blog lately, but that's to be expected. Lots of things going on in my personal life, and plenty of other projects I've been working on, all on top of the regular hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

Also, it's quiet because it's just me.

If you've been reading this blog for less than four months, you might not realize that, for four years, this was a tag-team effort. It was virtually unheard-of for me to post more than two, maybe three days in a row before my partner Alex picked up with a rant about the state of the publishing industry, or an enthusiastic review of the latest comics, or a thoughtful reflection on his time playing baseball. Or a call for me to go back in time and kill Grizzly Adams. You could never tell.

When work got busy, we started working out some ways to ease the burden of sticking to a regular posting schedule--like his weekly Waiting for Wednesday column, I initiated a weekly Sunday Spotlight column to guarantee that, at the very least, he'd never need to crank anything out for Sunday. From there, we relaxed our posting schedule so that we didn't have to post every day. Then, without any real fanfare, Alex simply disappeared.

The official story is that, on top of his day job, he'd plunged himself into the world of self-publishing. Once his book was published, he'd be able to return to the blog. Well, the book is published now: it's called Sarah Faire and the House at the End of The World, and you should read it. As soon as it's possible for people who don't know Alex personally to read it. At the moment, the book's website is very pretty, and very devoid of content, including how one would go about ordering the book.

"I know; I know," I can hear him saying now. But I digress.

We both thought Exfanding would be back to a two-man blogging crew by now. Once I got used to the idea of solo blogging--which took a while, mind you--it became easier to keep this blog afloat. I stopped stalling until Alex returned, and began treating Exfanding as my blog, while still keeping with the style and traditions that we established for our posts. Things worked out fine...until December.

Gifts for Geeks. A specifically Christmas-themed Christmas post. That HTML snow widget we always have. All overlooked. All forgotten. And our chances of collaborating on some New Year's resolutions, or compiling a joint list of our favorite posts from this year (or last year, for crying out loud), are looking slimmer and slimmer as 2013 approaches. Just when I was hitting my stride, December descended to remind me that, no matter what I post on my own, this blog isn't this blog without both of us leaning on each other to uphold tradition.

What I'm about to say, I've been thinking about for four months. This shouldn't be a surprise, either, if you've been reading between the lines every time I've written a post like this one. I keep dancing around the inevitable conclusion because I'm not ready to let go.

But I think it might be time to let go.

I'm selling you to the zoo.

Wait; no. That's not it. I mean, I think it might be time to formally, and very conclusively, go on hiatus.

A real hiatus. Not the kind where I say we're going on hiatus, and then I come back in a few days and keep writing. The kind where there are no new posts. Ever. Again. Until both of us have a post or two scheduled.

I'm not making that decision on my own, though. If we do go on hiatus--or if we ride off into the sunset and you never hear from us again--it'll be a decision that we both make. There's been no horrible argument or sudden boredom that's to blame for placing this possibility on the table; Alex is simply busy, and I'm debating whether to keep making new episodes of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show when we haven't seen Bullwinkle since the summer.

To be fair, if Alex is Bullwinkle, that means I'm voiced by a girl.

Regardless of whether we take a vacation, carry on as we've been doing, surprise you with Alex's sudden and triumphant return, or close up shop altogether, this post is not the end of Exfanding Your Horizons. I'm merely putting an option on the table. If you've got any thoughts, loyal Exfanders, the floor is yours.

Sunday Spotlight: IKEA

My wife and I paid our second visit to IKEA yesterday, the fabled Swedish furniture store. Perhaps you've seen it from the highway.

 Assuming your highway is in Singapore, where this photo from Wikipedia was apparently taken.

The problem with our first visit to IKEA a few months ago was that we really didn't know what we were in for. I thought we could walk in, pick out a shelf, and do some window shopping along the way. I was not expecting to go apartment hunting. We walked through a labyrinth of living rooms, dining rooms, bathrooms, each furnished with a consistent theme that prompted us to start categorizing these mock living spaces as, "wish we could have that," "wish we had a friend who had that," and, "meh." By the time we reached the end of the showroom floor, I was worn out.

Then there was an entire floor of rugs, lampshades, and picture frames that we hadn't counted on.

Followed by the gigantic warehouse where we actually picked up the box containing the assemble-it-yourself shelf that we had picked out a few hours before.

Followed by a checkout line comparable to the queue for a Star Wars premiere.

Followed by a small food court and a mini-mart with assemble-it-yourself Swedish food.

Followed by the trip across the bustling parking lot back to the car, and the realization that the do-it-your-shelf may or may not fit into the back of the car.

I suppose the huge food court at the entrance should have been a clue that you don't simply "go shopping" at IKEA. You're there for an afternoon, whether you're buying a potholder or a twelve-piece dinette set.

This time, we came prepared. We started our adventure by sitting down to a glorious meal of Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, veggie wraps, and Mountain Dew. (The food was quite good.) We had a list, and we stuck to it: lollygagging was kept to a minimum by moving through the store with purpose, rather than the wonderment and promise of 50¢ hot dogs that characterized our first visit. We abandoned our previous mindset of, "find what's cheap, and then see if we like it," replacing it with, "find what we like, and then consider if it fits into the budget." Overall, our second experience was much more in line with what Jonathan Coulton sang about.

Now we're well on our way to making a home, as opposed to living in a place created by the haphazard mingling of trappings from our previous lives apart. Of course, that means I need to vacuum the carpet before we move everything into place. But that's a small price to pay for having somewhere that we can truly call ours.

Taking a Look Around

It's gotten quiet around here again. The number of monthly posts has been dwindling, and it's clear that I've just been phoning it in for most of the last two months. From the look of it, Exfanding is dead; I've merely been playing Weekend at Bernie's with the blog.

Hm. Apparently, I've already referenced Weekend at Bernie's three times before on this blog, but in completely different contexts. Guess it belongs up there with toasters.

I look at posts like this one and this one, and despite their optimism, I keep hearing myself sound like the guy on the Titanic who's telling everyone it's just a scratch and the ship probably won't sink. I think back to our one-year anniversary celebration, and this particular question:


How long do you plan to continue with this blog?

Alex: That’s kinda like asking Frodo and Sam when they’ll stop their silly journey and go back to the Shire with all the dancing. Really. It’s just like that.

I wanna keep it going for as long as it’s fun for us to write (and read), and for as long as we have something to say.

Nathaniel: Ah, but in the case of Frodo and Sam, there’s a clear endpoint; I’m not sure that’s the case with this blog. Besides, if the alternative is dancing, then I have no intentions of ever stopping!


Honestly, I can't remember the last post that was fun to write. Cathartic, maybe; comfortable, sure. And fun to read? I do go back and re-read some of my posts from time to time, and my wife worries about me when I laugh out loud at things I wrote a few years ago. But most of the time when I look at my newest material, I think, "Huh. That post is still at the top of the page." Guest posts have been refreshing, but looking at my own work just reminds me that it's time to write something else. And when I do sit down to write, either the inkwell is dry, or I just don't have the energy to prognosticate the future of the Mega Man series based on Mega Man Xover or introduce this new anime series that I kinda liked. By all accounts, it's time to close up shop, admit we had a good run, and not Simpsons our way through another 15 seasons for no other reason than that we don't have to stop.

Good plan. But you're forgetting two things, Me: This is just as much Alex's blog as it is yours—he might not have the time to be writing right now, but at last check, he was still reading.

And you hate dancing.

There are days like today when I want to write, not just for the sake of writing but for this blog. There's a real Presidential election right around the corner, which means it's time to roll out the candidates for Fake President once again. I've got a beginner's episode guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation that I've been toiling over for months, off and on. There's a comprehensive guide in the works to becoming a better Mega Man player, and the only reason it hasn't been posted yet is because I need to take some screenshots. And I'll be darned if we get to 2013 without posting our Year in Review of 2011 first. I've been keeping our blogging boat afloat by patching it up every few days while it's adrift at sea, rather than bringing it ashore to plot a real course and hammer out good new material for it. And it's time to change that.

Exfanding Your Horizons is going on hiatus. Might be for a month; might just be until tomorrow. But when we come back, we'll have something worth reading. It might be silly, it might be philosophical, it might just be a YouTube video I forgot I wanted to share with you. But it will not be fluff. It'll be something we wanted to write, enjoyed writing, and will enjoy re-reading. Until such time as we're both able to keep up with this blog on a daily basis again, we'll be taking as long as we need to write another post. And once we've written another post, we'll be taking our time on the next one.

It's right there in the blog's charter: "We're both geeks. But we're both different kinds of geeks. We've joined forces to introduce, explain, discuss, and demystify various hobbies and fandoms to promote an understanding between geeks and to spark an interest in the things that interest us." Nowhere does it say we have to do this on a regular basis. Nowhere does it say the blog is over if we go too long without visible new content.

Maybe I'm not the guy on the Titanic who's saying the boat probably won't sink. Maybe I've mistaken which boat I'm on in the first place.

See you soon, Exfanders. And whether "soon" means tomorrow, or sometime next month, this is a promise I intend to keep.

Our blog rules.

Panel to Panel

Because I'm in a cliche-y kind of mood this morning, I'd like to start this post out with the following, staggeringly insightful statement: Life is funny sometimes.

Told you it'd be cliche-y.

But tired old cliches are both tired and old precisely because they're usually quite true. And, despite the validity and/or ridiculousness of that previous sentence, I do have a point I'd like to make today. Only, as with most things when it comes to my writing, it's taking me a little while to get there.

I just find it funny--not "haha funny," mind you--that just a couple weeks ago, I was stressed out to the max, worrying about every possible future event that might have been on my horizon. As I've talked about, just before Christmas, I left a job that I had spent the past two years doing, working with truly wonderful, smart people.

I'd carved out a nice little thing for myself, and I was content with it.

But, as life tends to do, an opportunity arose that I couldn't ignore. And then, when I wished that there might be some kind of sign to help me make a decision about what to do--take a new gig or stick with the one I had--a sign literally fell on my head and all but made the decision for me.

Still, I was hesitant and more than a little angry and sad at the way things went down.

But in the end I knew that I had to make a move. And now, two weeks into the new job, I'm glad I did. Don't get me wrong--I am by no means an optimist, and I fully understand that every job has its ups and downs and sometimes the downs can be crushing. And I still miss the people I used to work with, but I'm very fortunate that I've been able to stay in touch with a good number of them.

But the way things are now, I get to spend the majority of my day writing.

Like, for a living.

After being an editor for seven years and working on everything from high school textbooks to how-to guides on laying tile, from interviews with pet psychics (Note to Self: Must write a post about that, one day) to a book on built-in furniture, I've always had a...let's say, love/hate relationship with writers.

And I've always wanted to write my own stuff, obviously, but as an editor, that can be poison. So I all but knocked that thought out of my head.

Sure, Nathaniel and I write on this blog every day and quite a few people read what we lay down on the keys. But for me, at least, Exfanding has always been my only venue to get my work out there. Nathaniel, on the other hand, writes for GameCola and produces an insane number of YouTube videos--both of which garner an impressive number of readers and watchers.

Now, though, I have a new creative outlet (that's WWE.com, kiddies) and, like I said, I spend my days writing.

And that's just fine with me.

First Week Recap

And just like that, it's Sunday morning again.

This past week--this past month, actually--has gone by in a flash, but today I've come to a place where I can just...sit. Just sit, have a cup of coffee, watch some brainless morning show tell me for the hundredth time that the weather's going to be nice, and not do much of anything else, really.

Plus, later on, there's playoff football to watch.

And, once that first game gets out of hand (which I'm betting it will), there will be multi-player Call of Duty to play while we wait for the 4:30 game to start.

So, yeah, after weeks of worrying about making a career move, weeks of saying goodbye to friends, and a week of meeting new people and learning new things, this lazy Sunday morning is most welcome.

Now, I'm sure you're all sick and tired of hearing me and Nathaniel tell you about how much we like weekends, but c'mon. I'm still without the Internet at home (that little problem will hopefully be diagnosed in a couple of hours, though), so doing anything online is a bit of a pain for me at the moment.

Fear not, however, as next week promises to see plenty of posting from your friendly neighborhood Exfanders. In the meantime, though, enjoy your Sunday and I wish you all have as lazy a day as I plan to have.

A Brief Interlude...Or Is That a Prelude?

Normally at this time of year, Nathaniel and I pat ourselves on the back(s) and tell you how great we are by ranking our best posts of the past 12 months. We won't be doing that today but rest assured, our egos won't allow us not to do exactly that sometime this week.

Complicated double negatives aside, the reason we won't be doing our yearly recap is an interesting one. And, come to think of it, there are actually two reasons. First and foremost, I start a new job today--I know, it's kinda weird that it's on the day after New Year's, right?--and I've been a bit preoccupied with getting things in order for my first week.

And second, my wireless router at home is acting all kinds of strange and I haven't been able to get online without interruption since Friday. My connection is still a bit wonky today, and I'm starting to think it's because of the (several) new devices I've introduced to the network in the last week or so.

It's working fine now, but it's been going in and out and driving me just a tad bit insane so I'm not overly optimistic that I won't get bumped offline before I finish writing this post up.

Even so, I will trudge on and attempt to provide you all with something (moderately) entertaining for this first Monday of 2012.

I haven't talked much about making this most recent transition to a new job, mostly because my last two weeks at my previous gig were filled with finishing up a book or two and tying up as many loose ends as was possible. More than that, though, I wasn't thrilled with the way things ended there, and I guess not enough time has passed to heal those wounds.

I can say that leaving turned out to be an incredibly emotional experience, and there's a long list of people I will miss quite a bit. I made enough friends there to warrant co-worker lunches and dinners for two weeks straight and I plan to stay in contact with as many of those folks as possible.

Sometimes you need to make a decision based on what's best for your professional life, and you cannot allow your personal life to get in the way, no matter how hard that may be. That was certainly the case for me, and while it's been tough to come to grips with my leaving, I am very excited to start something new.

Which is an entirely appropriate statement for New Year's, I'd say.

I'm incredibly fortunate to have this new opportunity in front of me, and I plan to dive into it just as I've done at my previous jobs.

Oh, and speaking of something new, I've got a couple things planned for this year that have me pretty jazzed. One's a book project that you'll be hearing about very shortly-- a children's book, to be exact--as my artist and I ramp up the production schedule heading into the spring.

The plan is to have the book ready and to the printer by May, and available for sale in October.

If you're interested in taking a quick sneak peek at the book's main character, you can check out this page, where my artist--the incredibly talented Abigail Larson--has posted the first teaser image.

Let me know what you think, or better yet, leave a comment on Abigail's DeviantArt page and let her know what you think. Needless to say, I can't wait for this to take shape and I plan to keep you guys updated as things move along.

I've decided that 2012 will be--for better or worse--the year I try a bunch of things I've either been planning for a while or that I've been thinking about planning for a while. (Don't worry. It makes sense to me.)

So here's to a new and exciting year, Exfanders. I know I'm looking forward to it.

On Tradition

This has been a weird Yuletide for me. I've spent most of it cycling between bouts of trepidation, bouts of annoyance, and bouts of disappointment, excitement, sadness, and happiness.

Also, there was some gas.

So, yeah, pretty much ran the gamut of emotion these past 30 days or so. Not exactly the way I pictured my holiday (or my vacation), but that's what's fun and infuriating and so great about Life.

After all, it's what happens when you're busy making other plans.

So while my December hasn't exactly been...typical...some things never change. And thank goodness for tradition, I say.

The holidays mean a lot of things. Gatherings with family and friends, exchanging gifts, drinking eggnog, trimming the tree, taking a week off and staring at the wall.

Most of all, though, I think the holidays represent the familiar. For a day or two over the course of the entire year, we can all dive back into things we've done for years, ever since we were kids.

And even if certain things about those traditions have changed--people, places--some things will just always be there.

For me, I'm spending my Christmas morning reading some Goon comics, waiting for company to arrive.

Whatever it is you're doing today, I hope it's fun, and familiar, and just what you wished for.

To all of you, we here at Exfanding wish you the happiest holidays and the Merriest Christmas ever.

Big Life Stuff Redux

Bittersweet.

That's a good word to describe my feelings today.

It's my last day at a job filled with people I've come to respect and love. Publishing is a uniquely tough business, and one that has become increasingly so in recent years. Production schedules and turnaround time has shrunk on a level parallel to the diminishing salaries and the increasing hours spent at the office, or with pages taken home on nights and weekends.

You do this job because you love it. I've heard that a lot over the past several years. And, while that may be true, you really do this job because of the people you get to work with.

They keep you going. They make it fun to come into whatever deadline mess you're currently embroiled in. You manage to laugh at the Thing That Will Keep You Here All Night.

That's something pretty special, and I can honestly say that I'll miss it dearly.

Yes, I'm on to other things. Yes, I'm happy and honored by the chance to branch out into a new field with exciting possibilities.

But I'm sad to leave my job here. I'm sad to leave this desk that has become my life for the past 20 months. I'm sad to leave the people I've become friends with. I'm sad to leave traditional publishing.

I'm sad to leave books.

But it's time for the next chapter. The New Thing. I'm taking a week off, and then I'm diving right in.

I'm going to work for the WWE. Hang on. Let me type those words again. I'm going to work for the WWE.

Somewhere along the time stream...

The 8-year-old Alex has just dropped his Hulk Hogan action figure.

The 12-year-old Alex has just stopped trying to Super Kick his little brother on the trampoline.

The 16-year-old Alex is still buying that Stone Cold t-shirt at the mall, even though he's already spent most of his money on CDs (remember those?) at Tower Records (remember those?).

The two-weeks-ago Alex is amazed at how quickly things can change.

This is a Big Deal for me. It's new and exciting and a little scary. But I'm at a point in my life where I think I need a little scary.

So.

To the next thing.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Status Quote

Given that it's taken us two weeks to get most of the way through our week-long Gifts for Geeks celebration, I feel a status update is in order.

At virtually any other point this year, any delays could have been attributed to the Big Life Stuff that was keeping me busy. This time, I am pleased to report, it's not my fault. As it turns out, Alex is the one with Big Life Stuff afoot, which he'll probably share through cryptic hints over the next few months until he finally writes a formal explanation, which he will either immediately discard after re-reading or hold off on posting until the Cubs win the Super Bowl.

And yes, I realize the Cubs only play in the Stanley Cup.

So, without Alex here today to dismiss or substantiate any claims that behind-the-scenes machinations are responsible for our slightly irregular posting schedule, I can only give a status update on what's going on in NathanielLand. I realize this will have nothing to do with why we keep putting off Gifts for Geeks, but hey, it's free admission.


- Life is gradually returning to normal (or whatever passes for normal 'round these parts) now that the wedding is over and weekend road trips have been scaled back to a more reasonable frequency. Consequently, I'm finding more time to tackle my long-neglected errands, housework, and creative projects. Productivity is happiness.

- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been released and is consuming the lives of millions. True to form, I'm just getting around to playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

- With barely any time to enjoy it, my wife and I have finally set up our Christmas tree. Our 4' tall, chintzy blue Christmas tree.

In other news, we desperately need a more holiday-appropriate tree topper than a Dr. Wily action figure and an Enterprise NX-01.

- I inadvertently threw myself into a nightmare holiday shopping scenario, the likes of which I swore I try to avoid. The Saturday before Christmas, I head out to the mall. I realize it will be busy. I realize I may need to drive around a while before locating a parking space. I realize everything will be sold out by the time I get there.

I fail to realize I'm now living in a place where the mall is the size of the town I used to live in, and situated at the intersection of two major thoroughfares. I have a lovely 45-minute joyride around the mall before I decide that maybe a smile and a hug is all anybody needs for Christmas.

- The wife and I got out to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in the theater this past weekend. We don't get out to the movies so often anymore--we watched J. Edgar over Thanksgiving weekend with my family; before that, I believe the last film we saw in the theater was Kung Fu Panda 2, back in May. Come to think of it, we've hardly watched any movies recently--it's been a lot of Star Trek and LEGO Batman instead.

- At long last, I discovered the option that allows me to organize the game list on my Backloggery. It was fun to tinker around a little bit and make some updates. I'm also pleased and amused to see that my GameCola article on The Backloggery is still the first Google search result that isn't the site itself.

- The Third Easiest Contest on the Internet, after sparking a good amount of initial interest, seems to have quieted down significantly. But, with a deadline of January 4, there's still plenty of time to follow us on social media and poke holes in our archives for a shot at a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate. See, it doesn't sound so much like shameless advertising when it's part of a status update, right?


Well, that should do for now. We've got a Waiting for Wednesday lined up for tomorrow as usual, followed by what we suspect will be a conclusion to this year's Gifts for Geeks. Stay tuned.

My Kingdom for a Weekend

In terms of Big Life Stuff, this has been one of the biggest years of my life. I moved--one of the most drastic relocations I've ever done, and by far the most complicated. I attended multiple weddings, of friends and family and myself. Like literally millions of others in my region of the world, I was affected at least to a small degree by an earthquake, a hurricane, tornado warnings, flooding, a snowstorm on Halloween, and the subsequent power outages, property damage, road closures, cancellations, and evacuations....most of which all happened within the span of a few weeks, just after I moved.

These are just a few of the factors that account for my state of mind and lack of free time this year. Things absolutely could be worse, and I am thankful they are not. What's taken its toll on me the most is the amount of driving I've done to address it all.

This move involved staking out neighborhoods I've never heard of in a part of a state I've only driven through at high speed. My new digs are an extra hour away from the friends I had been spending most of my time with, and though I'm now closer to many of my other friends and family, it's still 2-3 hours by car to where they live, and there's no convenient bus or train route for anyone. My wedding was held in a different state altogether, so any onsite planning required a road trip.

I enjoy the occasional road trip, and typically spend 1-2 weekends a month going somewhere, visiting someone. It's been this way since I was a kid.

There hasn't been a weekend where I haven't left the STATE since April.

It's now December.

Have you paid for a full tank of gas recently? I'm not paying as much as other people, for sure, but I didn't budget for this kind of nonstop travel when I signed the lease on the apartment. I've also found myself limping slightly from having my left leg propped up in an almost-natural position while driving; I was fine for the first 5-1/2 months, though. And let's not even begin to discuss how far behind I am with my Mega Man videos, GameCola articles, apartment unpacking, and thank-you notes for the wedding. I've needed a weekend to kick back, give my creativity all the time and space it needs, and get stuff done...and I finally have one.

This weekend, I don't even need to leave the HOUSE if I don't want to. There's a sense of freedom so overwhelming that I can barely prioritize what I want to do.

Wait, I know--I can go have lunch.

This weekend rocks.

Journey's End

Following the reception, my wife and I rode off into the moonlight for a week-long honeycat. Not honeymoon--honeycat. We're both cat people, so we generally approve when a feline shows up when we're visiting a friend's house, watching an anime series, etc. Little did we know how much of an impact cats would have on our honeymoon. Erm, honeycat.

My wife and I worked out a formula:

Cat = Good
No Cat = Bad
Fake Cat = No Cat
2 Horses = 1 Cat

You can apply this in your everyday life; I assure you it works.

Our plan for the week was to go bed & breakfast hopping, staying at a few different locations for two nights each, and seeing whatever sights in the vicinity we cared to see. As long as everything was within a reasonable driving distance and we could spend most of our time out of big cities and away from highway traffic, we'd be happy. The first place we stayed at might actually have been run by the cats. But we'll get to that.

Out in the remote hills of Pennsylvania was a small B&B in the woods. I have driven back country roads. I know back country roads. Getting to this place made me redefine "back country roads."

Our rustic, artistic cabin was decorated with original tile and stained glass work crafted by the host himself. The sink in the bathroom, for example, was a colorful glass bowl with a drain in the bottom. We spent the better part of a day learning from our host how to make stained glass art, which is really not that difficult to learn...it's having the patience, planning, and skill to actually create anything that's the tricky part.

The general idea is to map out your design on a piece of paper, cut various pieces of glass to the specifications you've drawn, smooth down the edges of each piece and run some metallic tape around them, and solder the pieces together. There's more to it, of course, but you probably don't want an art class from the guy who ended up with a 4-piece glass sculpture when the beginner's average is 10 pieces.

Mine was supposed to have a fancy, 6-piece border. One of the pieces broke; the other two weren't fitting together properly; I hadn't even started on the tiny ones--for the sake of simply finishing, I called it quits at 4 pieces and assembled what I had. Meanwhile, my wife is channeling Charles Rennie Mackintosh and having visions of buying her own soldering iron for Christmas (which she did).

My wife is all sorts of artsy; she started off with an ambitious design and picked things up pretty quickly. I am a writer. I used to doodle in school. I've drawn a few pencil sketches here and there that've turned out pretty OK. I am all about scoring grooves into sheets of glass and snapping them in half, but I'm afraid my expertise at working with stained glass...doesn't even extend that far; I had to call for help about half the time.

Still, with a fair amount of assistance, I have a souvenir that I'm quite pleased with. Guess which one's mine:

We weren't alone in our stained glass endeavor, however; in addition to our teacher dropping by every so often, we had no fewer than two cats come in to show us how it was done. Apparently, licking the empty lunch plate on the table is how it's done.

There were cats outside, cats joining us for breakfast, and, at one point, a cat in the cottage who saw fit to sleep on my face. We are cat people, as I said, so we welcomed the extra company, except when company fell asleep on my face at 2 AM (though we still got a laugh out of that). Our already enjoyable stay at this bed & breakfast was made better by the ambient fluffy bundles of happiness, and thus the first part of the formula was born: Cat = Good.

Our second B&B was in the historic part of Maryland, not too far from the part of the state that's next to the water. We ended up extending our wonderful stay by one night, and on the morning of checkout, we were escorted back to the car by a cat. Once again, Cat = Good.

One of the places we visited during our time there was a used bookstore. I'm fairly confident we spent the gross national product of Kenya in the hour we were there. Our somewhat eclectic finds included The Complete Sherlock Holmes, a book of hilarious letters to and from Groucho Marx, poetry by Mary Karr, a Russian Jewry book illustrated by artist Marc Chagall and written by his wife Bella, a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth signed by the author and illustrator, a history of the Star Trek universe as told by the wisecracking Q, and a novel by Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Michael Dorn (Worf) about time-traveling samurai warriors fighting Egyptian gods.

It's nice to be reading again.

We moved on from Maryland to Delaware, spending a day at the Delaware Art Museum before checking in at what was originally our final B&B of the trip. Ceiling Cat works in mysterious ways, because canceling our first night in Delaware to stay an extra night in Maryland was the best decision we made all week. Our one night at the B&B in Delaware was undoubtedly the low point of our vacation--the drive there was miserable; the "historical" honeymooning couples' suite had neighbors downstairs watching loud TV; an old book cabinet containing Clive Cussler and David Baldacci novels rescued from a garage sale; plastic blinds with the price tag still on them; a huge and slightly creepy portrait of someone's grandmother staring at the bed; and worst of all, there were no cats. Hence the second part of the formula: No Cat = Bad.

The third part of the formula, Fake Cat = No Cat, came from this leg of the journey as well. We figured that having dinner at a restaurant called Krazy Kat's would help salvage things. Our meal was avant-garde and exceedingly fancy--my wife and I tend to prefer simple, casual dining, but we can do avant-garde or exceedingly fancy from time to time...just not both at once. Underdressed and unable to identify half of the items on the menu, no amount of bizarre anthropomorphic cat paintings could make us comfortable enough to properly enjoy the meal. We needed a real cat.

With a few more Delaware attractions on our must-see list than we could fit into one night at the Delaware B&B (which, I might add, did not serve complimentary breakfast and is therefore not a true B&B), we had decided it might be nice to stick around the area for another day or to. So, we found a B&B in a part of Pennsylvania not far away from the places we wished to visit, and settled in for two nights in the terrifying murder cottage at the edge of the property.

Ha ha! I'm just joking. It wasn't actually that close to the edge of the property.

No, really, it was a lovely two-story colonial home with plenty of privacy, lots of windows (with no price tags on the blinds), two full bedrooms, a spacious kitchen, a cozy living room, and really tiny hallways and tight corners that make the house seem eerily empty with just two people in it after the sun goes down. Nonetheless, our stay there was most enjoyable, and we knew we were going to have a good stay when we spotted a cat during one of our day trips, sprawled out at the entrance to a museum building with swarms of people around him, knowing full well he was the main attraction.

We found no cats at the B&B; however, there was a pasture in the middle of the property. Two horses came over to the edge of the fence to greet us as we got out of the car on our last night there. I am not a horse person, but my wife seemed to enjoy their company, so we concluded that 2 Horses = 1 Cat. Thus, our formula was complete...and so is the tale (tail?) of the honeycat.

As with the wedding, there are plenty of stories yet to be told. But, considering I just resorted to using the old tale/tail pun, it's probably best if I stop here. For now, at least, the wedding saga has officially come to an end. Until we meet again...I wish you many cats.

Reunion

At last, I was married. All that was left was the party. And the honeymoon. And the rest of our lives. But I can see your eyes starting to gloss over, so I'll see what I can do about speeding this up.

It was great.

Join us tomorrow for our regular fare!





...OK, I guess I can tell you about the reception. I'll spotlight the two nerdiest points: table decorations and music selection (incidentally, my favorite parts of the planning process).

This is the part where everyone starts to think we had a Star Trek-themed wedding. While the invitations, my cufflinks, the medley of theme songs that played during one of the party games, the guest list indicating table assignments (with bogus invitees such as Roger Wilco from Space Quest and Jek Porkins from Star Wars), and the table markers were all clearly Star Trek-related, we weren't deliberately putting together a theme; it just happened that a bunch of our ideas were drawn from the same fandom.

We had wanted our table markers to be a little more creative than large-fonted numbers, and two pairs of my fellow GameCola staff members had already used some great ideas for their weddings that I didn't want to steal. (Well, I did, but I wasn't gonna.) So, after some brainstorming, the idea my bride-to-be and I liked best was to name each table after a class of starship.

Her plan was to make cutouts of various starships to put on the tables. I reminded her that she had flowers to make, and the wedding was three days away. We went with my plan instead: laminated paper with a different image of the chosen class of starship on each side, in the style of an LCARS computer display.

All table markers could easily double as placemats or posters for whichever guests brought them home. The classes we chose were partially limited by the size and quality of the images we could find--I value consistency, you know.

Per my wife-to-be's request, the head table was a Klingon Bird of Prey; the other tables were Starfleet ships, including Constitution, Constellation, Miranda, Akira, Defiant, Steamrunner, Nebula, and Oberth classes.

Our DJ was captain of an Intrepid-class turntable, and the table near the door was prepared to hold a Galaxy of gifts.

We had a rationale for most of our table assignments, but the one that caused the most ruckus was seating part of my wife's family at the Oberth table, directly next to our Bird of Prey table. "We're supposed to be the unarmed science vessel that gets blown up by Klingons in Star Trek III!?" was the outcry, to which my wife responded, "But you're my family! This is the table O'(my)birth!" I think you can guess which table marker wasn't taken home by any of the guests.

As for the music, we spent a good long time assembling a playlist for the reception. Our DJ provided us with a website where we could log in and add any songs we liked to our playlist, categorizing them as "Must Play," "Play if Possible," and "Do Not Play." My gal went in there first and populated the list with around 150 of the maximum of 300 songs the system would allow. I then filled up most of the rest of the list with songs I have saved on my home computer and from my Pandora playlists, urging my wife-to-be to shift at least a few of her requests to "Play if Possible" so that I might actually have a shot at getting any of my music played at the reception.

About a week before the wedding, our DJ informed us that we had requested over 10 hours of must-play music for our 4-hour reception. After some extensive calculations, I determined that this would preclude the possibility of anything getting played from our additional 10 hours of "Play if Possible" music.

The songs that did end up on the reception playlist offered a glimpse into just how eclectic our tastes in music are, and we were both very pleased with how it turned out. Some songs of possible interest include several video game tunes from OverClocked Remix, the original "Mah Nà Mah Nà" song on which the Muppets' famous sketch is based, the infamous "Numa Numa" song, Rocky Horror's "Time Warp," the Marrymore town theme from Super Mario RPG, and a few Japanese artists (Gackt and Marbell come to mind). The bride and groom entered to Lucca's theme from Chrono Trigger, and we closed off the evening with Europe's "The Final Countdown." The rest of the playlist consisted largely of occasionally mainstream 70's and 80's music, with sprinkles of 90's, Irish folk music, and etc. thrown in for good measure.

So there you have it: music and table decorations. Thus, the wedding story is complete. Well, as complete as is relevant to this blog. For now, anyhow.

Alright, so there's more to tell, but some stories are better suited to being told in person, and some stories are better suited for friends and family than every single person on the entire Internet. Hello, every single person on the entire Internet. Thanks for stopping by.

The last part of the saga is the honeymoon--or, as we've started calling it, the honeycat. If you can stomach just a little more marital bliss, find out how felines directly affected the outcome of our honeymoon in Part 7.

Unification

With the icebreaker questions ready, and everything else in place for the wedding (as far as I was involved, anyhow), there was nothing left to do but strap myself in and go along for the ride. Specifically, the ride to the church for our rehearsal, and then the ride to the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner, and then the ride back to the hotel for the botulism party.

Bachelor party, I mean.

The rehearsal was everything you might expect from a rehearsal attended by anyone who might want to associate themselves with goofball like me, with the highlight being where I was asked if I would take this woman to be my awfully wedded wife, and I replied, "I guess..."

Evidently she still loved me enough to marry me the next day, but we'll get to that.

Following the rehearsal was the celebratory dinner for all involved in the rehearsing, during which friends and family made eloquent, heartfelt, often-humorous speeches about us. Most speeches about me involved Mega Man. One groomsman even supplied a brief musical interlude hummed to the tune of the first Dr. Wily stage from Mega Man 2 before segueing into his speech.

For the record, I do talk about more than Mega Man. There's also Star Trek. But we'll get to that.

Now, as a writer and former theater guy, I've got no problem getting up in front of people and making speeches. The trouble was, my ability to focus and string together cogent sentences had been slowly degrading since showing up in town at 3:30 AM the day before the wedding. It was a combination of fatigue, excitement, and deeply internalized wedding jitters that I was either unwilling or unable to acknowledge. I had been handing off responsibilities more and more to the people around me, and at the zenith of my "just tell me what to do and where to go" mentality, it was time for me to take matters into my own mouth and make a speech.

From where I was standing, whatever I said didn't do my groomsmen justice. The sentiment was there, but the wording wasn't. Or maybe it was, and I was too fatigued, excited, and jittery to recognize it. If we're talking in terms of Dungeons & Dragons, I've put a good many ranks into my speaking-related skills on my rise to becoming an epic-level commoner, and the night before the wedding, I was rolling the dice without looking at them. I suppose eloquence is in the eye of the beholder, and while I didn't turn to stone, it's entirely possible I was partially disintegrated. I really couldn't tell.

What I had hoped to convey was how much it meant to me to have my two best buddies from high school, my brother-in-law, and half the writing staff of this blog (read: Alex) as my groomsmen, and as my friends. The gift I gave each of them was a pocketwatch, hand-picked according to their individual styles and personalities from a list of about 500. I then proceeded to throw knives at them.

Let me back up a second.

After the food and the speeches came the violent part of the evening. I knew that a bachelor party had been planned by one or more of my groomsmen, but I had not been privy to any discussions about what it would entail or who would be involved. My friends know me well, because instead of a big, loud, potentially disastrous party, we sat down in a hotel room and started firing off rockets.

One of the guys was staying in what must have been the largest room in the hotel--two stories, with a living room on the first floor and the sleeping area lofted up on the second, overlooking the living room. I wasn't even aware hotels had rooms like that. After a brief moment of taking in the scope of the room, my eyes settled on the projector screen that had been set up against the wall. And the root beer and ice cream on the table. And the projector with the N64 hooked up to it. And the GameCube and NES and piles of games.

I would spend my last night on Earth as a bachelor playing video games with my friends. I could think of nothing more fitting.

After several rounds of GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Mario Kart 64, and root beer floats, I was exactly where I needed to be: relaxed, focused, and jitter-free. Enjoying a quiet (though appropriately rowdy) evening of launching grenades and turtle shells at your friends has a way of letting loose any pent-up...anything. I had enjoyed the opportunity to get together with a large group of friends and family for the rehearsal and the dinner, and I was looking forward to seeing everyone at the reception, but a small get-together with just a few people proved to be what I needed most that evening.

The following morning, I ate a bagel. I think that was the biggest part of my day. Well, and the part where I FINALLY GOT MARRIED. Per my wife-to-be's request, I dressed in tails (the traditional English morning suit, as I'm told), sporting the Star Trek delta shield cufflinks she bought me for the occasion. My bride, my lovely, gorgeous cupcake, came to the altar as a cake topper. She even described herself as such, so I'm not getting smacked for this paragraph.

Her dress was 6 feet in diameter--large enough to use as modest shelter on a camping trip--and when I was told I may kiss the bride, the first thought through my mind was, "how!?"

Still, it worked. The wedding went off without a hitch, except for the part where we got hitched. There may also have been some small (and major) glitches during the day, but if I don't acknowledge them, it's like they never happened.

No nerves; no one speaking now instead of forever holding their peace; no cursed pirate ring turning my bride into a gold statue. We had a traditional ceremony both led and attended by family and friends, followed by some picture-taking with the photographers, followed by our dorktastic wedding reception. As far as I was involved, anyhow, it was wonderful.

But we'll get to that in Part 6.

The Bonding

As my friends, family, and fiancée assembled the favors for our wedding, I worked on slicing up strips of paper bearing icebreaker questions for each table at the reception. Though this post is technically Part 4 of my wedding saga, it functions well as a standalone post because the list of questions is so extensive that I simply can't justify adding it anywhere else.

Below is the full list of icebreaker questions and statements intended to bring out the more creative, thoughtful, and geeky sides of our wedding reception guests. Feel free to use these for any of your non-profit needs (though I'm happy to accept a cut of the profits if you use them any other way).

~-~

Name three things that people would need to be familiar with to understand you.

What’s one question you wish people would ask you more?

What’s the coolest/funniest t-shirt or movie poster design you’ve ever seen?

Name one of the most memorable advertisements you’ve ever seen or heard.

What’s the most elaborate party or celebration you’ve ever attended/hosted?

Name one of the most ridiculous luxury items you’ve ever seen.

Name one of your favorite costumes you’ve ever worn.

Tell us a story about one of the worst restaurant experiences you’ve ever had.

Are there any fictional villains you love to hate? Baddies so evil they’re awesome.

Has anything ever made you laugh so hard you couldn’t stop?

What’s the most impressive feat of skill or strength you’ve ever seen in real life?

Describe one mind-blowing action sequence from a work of fiction you know.

Name one fact you’ve learned that completely changed your perception of reality.

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Fill in the blank: “Kids these days don’t know enough about _____________.”

What’s your dream retirement?

List a few of the most absurd or unfortunate product names you’ve ever heard.

What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

List one or two bizarre or impractical household inventions that actually exist.

Fill in the blank: “Chuck Norris has only been defeated once: _____________.”

Tell us about the best pair of shoes/slippers/boots/sandals/etc. you’ve ever owned.

What’s one word or phrase you use frequently that you picked up from someone else?

If you could’ve been born in any other time period, when would you have liked?

What’s the most drastic thing you’ve ever done to try to win someone’s affection?

Got any favorite plays or musicals?

The crafty Croctopus corners his crock of collectables in Coral Capers.

What’s the most pointless argument you’ve ever been involved in?

Name one sequel or prequel you’ve always wanted to see released?

Name something popular whose popularity you completely don’t understand.

What’s your favorite decade of music, and why?

Are there any technologies you wish had never been invented?

Got a favorite fast food joint?

List a few of the most obscure ice cream flavors you’ve ever heard of.

Do you collect anything? If so, what?

What’s your dream job?

If you could have any law immediately put into effect, what would it be?

What’s your favorite memory of playing a card or board game?

Describe the most unusual food you’ve ever eaten.

Identify one word that ought to be stricken from the English language.

Fill in the blank: “I could’ve majored in ______ for all the time I spent on it in school.”

Is there anything you loved to do when you were younger that you can’t stand now?

Ever meet anybody famous?

What sci-fi technology would you be most excited to have in real life?

Ever seen any live concerts?

Name one achievement you’re proud of that others might raise an eyebrow at.

Tell us a story about a hilarious/embarrassing case of mistaken identity.

Which do you prefer: remakes or reboots?

Name one thing you inevitably expose someone to if they hang around long enough.

Describe the hardest or most unfair game you’ve ever played.

Name something outrageously expensive you regret paying for.

What’s the most clever surprise you’ve ever pulled off?

What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed awake?

Has there ever been a movie or performance you walked out on?

What’s your favorite chewing gum?

Name two fictional characters who would make dysfunctional college roommates.

What’s one major life decision you’ve made that you would never change?

Do you listen to any music that might surprise people who know you?

Have you ever competed in a competition or a tournament?

When was the last time you wrote a letter? Like, a letter.

Fill in the blank: “They just don’t make ____________ like they used to.”

What’s better to have: brothers, sisters, both, or neither?

If someone made a documentary of your life, who (living or dead) should narrate?

Name something you took for granted until you left your home/town/state/country.

What’s the last work of fiction that provoked a strong emotional reaction from you?

If you were a superhero, what superpower would you most want to have?

Name a type of clothing/material you’ve worn before that bothers you.

If you could do one thing with no negative consequences, what would it be?

What’s the worst facial hair or hairstyle you’ve ever worn?

Talk about something you’ve read that was unexpectedly thought-provoking.

You’re a fictional hero—what’s your weapon of choice?

What’s the creepiest idea for a pet you’ve ever heard of?

Name one dessert so good it might make a spouse jealous.

List a few words or phrases that would make awesome band names.

What’s one thing you’re curious to know about someone nearby?

What physical feature or characteristic would you love to have naturally?

Do you know any other languages or dialects than the one you’re using now?

In combat situations, fictional or real, what role do you most often play?

Are there any songs that frequently get stuck in your head?

Name something unbearably cute.

What’s one type of accessory or clothing that is clearly characteristic of your style?

What specific dance or style of dance do you enjoy most?

Did you have a favorite childhood breakfast food?

What’s the ugliest animal you’ve ever seen?


[Translation from the Webdings: "Can you read this?"]

~-~

Stick around; I finally get married in Part 5.

The Game

We had run out of time to finish the wedding favors at home, and our chances of assembling everything onsite didn't seem so good: we had loads to do, and only a few hours before everything for the reception--including the favors--had to be handed over to the restaurant. This called for minions.

I call you a minion lovingly, Mom.

I rounded up a small posse comprised of family members, wedding party representatives, and my bride-to-be, and set them to work on putting together the favors. In the meantime, I sat at a desk and...sliced.

As much fun as it would be to say that we stuffed our wedding favors with deli-style turkey and ham (which would have delighted my vegetarian future-wife, no doubt), I found myself slicing up mass quantities of paper. After much deliberation over what, exactly, to put into a hundred little blue plastic containers as wedding favors, I decided a sort of board game would work quite well. After a fair amount of playing around with the concept and format, I had settled on a game (with some input and inspiration from my gal) that could easily be mass-produced, cut out, and rolled up to fit inside the containers.

The original plan was to have a board game with a title such as, "Race to the Wedding," in which players would progress along a set path toward the goal of their wedding, landing on spaces along the way that sent them forward for being good wedding planners and backwards for being total schluffoffs. Practicality put the kibosh on that plan, however, because what I had in mind would require a much larger playing area than we could reasonably mass-produce and fit into our fist-sized containers.

The final product ended up being an untitled game that fit onto two quarter-page strips of paper, with instructions on the back, and a game board on the front of one and a scorecard on the front of the other. Accompanying the two strips of paper in each favor container were a tiny 6-sided die and two rolls of Smarties candy, which make excellent edible game pieces (and were my favorite candy growing up).

That about covers the contents of the favor containers (plus whatever factory-sealed air remained), but my favorite part was and is, hands-down, the exterior:

This would not be my wedding if there weren't at least one reference to Mega Man. I was also ecstatic to throw in a subtle Crystalis reference on the reverse of the container:

Oh, yeah. We had a wicked-efficient assembly line going for these babies.

Now, back to the game. Here's it is in its entirety, with the directions reprinted below. Feel free to use or adapt all this for your own wedding:

INTRODUCTION: You’ve got ten months to plan your wedding! Can you make all the arrangements you want and keep up with your everyday responsibilities without losing your sanity? Probably not, but let’s try anyhow.

PLAYERS: One or more. Ideally, players (couples) will form teams of two and advance jointly on the same scorecard.

SETUP: Place one token (Smarties will do nicely) on the game board for each player—guys start on HIS; girls start on HERS. Place a score marker (again, Smarties) on the first circle of each category on the score card, for a total of nine score markers.

GAMEPLAY: Players take turns rolling a die and advancing that many spaces around the game board. Players may move up, down, left, or right to any adjacent space, but may not backtrack over any space they have moved through this turn. HIS and HERS spaces are off-limits after leaving them. If you enter the WEDDING! space, you must remain until death do you part.

When you land on an activity space (Road Trip, Play Stuff, etc.), advance the corresponding score marker (Road, Play, etc.) by one circle. If landing on an activity space would advance your score marker onto a “?” circle, instead leave your marker where it is and advance a different score marker in any other non-Wedding category. [See other sheet for further instructions.]

ENDGAME: Game ends after ten turns or when all players have entered the WEDDING! space.
SCORING: At the end of the game, add up the numbers in each of the circles on your scorecard that are currently occupied by a score marker. This number is your Grand Total. Cherish these points forever and always. Now, put them aside for a moment.

Compare your number of Wedding points against the total points from all other categories. If the difference between them is 3 or less, you’ve successfully kept your life in balance while planning your wedding, and may add 5 bonus points to your Grand Total.

Then, add the number of turns remaining when you entered the WEDDING! space (got married). If you did not enter the WEDDING! space before the end of the game, lose 10 points—you missed your own wedding, you goober! The person with the most points (biggest Grand Total) wins.

ADDENDUM: All players must then tell made-up stories about their wedding planning process and how their wedding turned out based on their points in each category. Note the wonky progression (and regression) of point values—I’m sure you can find a good non-gameplay-related explanation for everything. I’d love to tell you my rationale, but I’ve run out of space here, so…bye.

~-~

I playtested the game once and am relieved to report that it actually works, which is impressive considering I came up with the idea and cranked out a finished product in a single evening. Whether or not it's fun is a different question entirely, but I'm hopeful that somebody enjoyed or will eventually enjoy it.

Slicing up the game boards and scorecards took some time, but the next bit of slicing is where I completely miscalculated how much work would be required, and had to hand things off to someone else.

My wife-to-be and I had collaborated on a list of icebreaker questions that would appear on individual strips of paper (good, hearty card stock, specifically), and each table at the reception was to have a cup filled with these question strips. I figured there'd be a fair number of total strangers sitting together, and this would also be another fun thing for people to bring home with them if they didn't care for the favors or the centerpieces.

Ten tables. Four pages of questions per table. Twenty-one questions per page. Mr. Calculator tells me that's 840 strips to cut out, and I don't care to do any further math to estimate exactly how long it would have taken if we had gotten through the whole process. Eventually we had to give up on four pages of questions per cup, and just threw together handfuls of however much we were able to slice.

For the complete list of questions, come back tomorrow for Part 4.

A Matter of Time

The invitations had been sent. The church was booked for the ceremony. The restaurant was booked for the reception. If we were to do no further planning, or if all our further planning were to fall apart, we would at least have a wedding.

Yet my bride-to-be and I had strong leanings about what traditions should be incorporated or left out, what the music selection should be, and what we should do for favors and table decorations. Anyone who's been within five parsecs of an engaged couple probably has a good idea of how taxing and time-consuming the planning process can be, but there's an added challenge when the planning involves creating almost everything yourself.

That is not to say that we built the church, sewed the dresses, cooked the food, constructed an android wait staff, etc. All I'm getting at is that, after the basics were in place, virtually all the personal touches we planned required direct involvement from us.

For starters, the flowers.

My now-wife is an avid reader and an artsy/crafty little kitten who had decided that we could do without a bill from the florist. Instead of professional flowers for the bouquets and boutonnieres (two difficult French-derived words I hope never to spell again), she decided she would make all the flowers herself.

Well, that only took around 15-20 hours over the course of about three weeks. However, we both agree the finished products were worth it.

Using blank pages pulled from the back of various books (an acceptable sacrilege, in this case), my gal printed up poems by her favorite poets and fashioned them into a different type of flower for each bridesmaid. The poems selected were from Dante, Mary Karr, John Donne, and Sappho, all reflecting different kinds of love--courtly, hopeful, metaphysical, and sensual, respectively. Groomsmen would eventually be decked out with flowers matching those of the bridesmaids with whom they were paired up.

Here's the step-by-step technical explanation of the construction process--you'll definitely need to click to enlarge:

And that's just one flower! For our families, she fashioned flowers bearing poetry and song lyrics from the likes of Harry Chapin and Langston Hughes that were particularly appropriate for the wearer. As for the bride...

...hang on--I need a new paragraph for this next part. But first, another picture.

As for the bride, she assembled a collection of flowers (I'm resisting the use of the word "bouquet" here) using the styles given to her bridesmaids and myself, as well as ivy leaves--which are the Celtic symbol of fidelity--adorned with the Three Friends of Winter (bamboo, and...um...fig leaves?). And echinacea, which is not a Friend of Winter, but we can pretend it is because I'm drowning in wonderful symbolism. Wrapped around the stem was her family's tartan, and a poem for W.B. Yeats' daughter (I am mostly confident she is not W.B. Yeats' daughter), plus a Celtic cross.

I got a paper flower.

Actually, it was a lovely orchid (my favorite flower, and the subject of a popular vintage guest post). My bride and I have been poets of a sort for some time, so my flower included poems from her such as, "My Love for You Is Like a Tarrasque," and the orchids in her collection sported my poetry from as far back as high school (my poetic heyday, if you can believe it).

While she was busy folding flowers and generally keeping the machinery of the wednaught in motion, I was hard at work playing Konami games. About three or four days out from the wedding, it occurred to me that we'd need table decorations and labels for our party favors. Also, party favors. We basically had a hundred little plastic pog containers filled with air. Factory-sealed air, mind you; we're no cheapskates.

There was a mad scramble to transform all these creative ideas that had been sitting around for weeks or months into something tangible. After a few evenings of (mostly enjoyable) toil and a number of visits and phone calls to the copy center at our local Staples, I had in hand nearly a dozen laminated table markers, a label for every party favor container, goodies to stuff into the containers, and fun little icebreaker question strips to put out on the tables.

Sample question: "List a few of the most obscure ice cream flavors you’ve ever heard of."

Okay, so that's not technically a question.

We had yet to cut out the icebreakers (10 copies each of 84 questions printed across 4 pages), stuff the favors (of which there were 100), and apply the labels to the containers. Fortunately, there was more than enough time to do all this. We would just have to skip the wedding to make it happen. Furthermore, our week-long honeymoon was to begin immediately following the wedding, which was being held in another state entirely, so at one point we'd have to stop working on the wedding and start packing for the honeymoon.

We simply ran out of time. We left in a rush in the middle of the night, arriving in town at 3:30 in the morning on the day before the wedding, to ensure we could meet with her family for breakfast and my family for lunch as planned. We brought with us bags and boxes of supplies that would allow us to start on the icebreakers and favors. We had our wedding rehearsal and a meeting with the restaurant that night, leaving us with about two hours to do something like eight hours of work.

I impress my friends and family into indentured servitude next time, in Part 3.

The Next Phase

I dated a nerdy girl, made a nerdy proposal to her, and got married with enough nerdy touches to keep the geeky side of our personalities visible without overtaking the traditions of the ceremony itself. We're both creative sorts, and relished (and occasionally cursed) all the opportunities we had to inject our crafty, dorky ideas into the wedding and reception, generally at the last minute.

In order for anyone to enjoy our crafty, dorky ideas, we needed to ensure there would be guests present at the wedding. Combining my love of Star Trek and puns with my now-wife's collection of Japanese manga and her Photoshopping know-how, we collaborated on this Next Generation-themed invitation that would be sure to lure our friends and family (or scare them away):

(click to enlarge)

Oh, we're just getting started. The story continues (or, rather, begins) later this week in Part 2.

Stranger to This Land

What a strange feeling to be back.

If you've been following the blog for the past week or so, you may have noticed that Alex has so generously (and expertly!) been posting during my leave of absence spanning the before, during, and after of me getting married.

Scrolling through the Exfanding archives to see what I missed, I found a tremendous satisfaction in seeing that (a) our blog was not actively on fire, and (b) we truly have developed a writing style that allows us to seamlessly switch off posting from day to day, with content, rather than style, being a better indicator of who's writing. If we signed checks with blog posts instead of signatures, Alex and I could have short-lived careers in pointless mutual forgery.

Even before I got to catching up on the blog, I had to reorient myself to the sensation of sitting before a glowing computer screen. I had been almost completely unplugged throughout Wedding Day and the honeymoon that followed--rare patches of cell phone reception and no computer or Internet save for a quick visit to Google Maps just prior to heading back on Sunday. Getting my computer at home up and running again was an experience I can only liken to emerging from a decade of cryosleep and trying to remember how to operate the complex control panel in front of you before your spaceship crashes into the nearest planet.

I'm speaking from experience here, you know.

It'll take the better part of a week to properly sort through all the e-mails and social media messages, and that's to say nothing about getting the apartment back in order now that basic housekeeping no longer falls into the "not wedding-related and therefore not hyper-critical" bucket.

I'm looking forward to spending a full weekend entirely at home, without driving or taking a bus to another state, for the first time since April. I'm looking forward to reestablishing a routine and finding ample time to write and record commentary for my YouTube videos. And, of course, I'm looking forward to spending a lifetime with my new wife. (A wifetime?)

Will there be stories from the wedding and honeymoon? Boo yetcha. I promise I'll do what I can to keep them geek-centric and relevant to this blog, so don't go running away just yet.

Stay tuned...