as you might have guessed, there's been so much going on in my world of late, i can hardly keep my head on straight, much less figure out what to write about. first and most importantly, the wedding was awesome, and married life thus far has been challenging, interesting, enjoyable, and fun (not necessarily in that order). to read more about the wedding itself, check the last post on the wedding website.

after the honeymoon (which we both enjoyed the hell out of and wished never to return from), we've been busy trying to dig ourselves out from under all the crap that got piled into our house the following week–mainly wedding presents, but also all her stuff when we finally got her (almost completely) moved in. things are settling out, finding their places, and we're getting the house in order (have i typed/said this a million times already? it sure seems that way… oh well, i'm nothing if not consistent) i've been too busy and distracted the last few months and in the weeks since the wedding to even really think about getting a bunch of pictures online, but i did manage a few of the simpler smaller sets. wedding/honeymoon pics will follow as soon as i can get them whipped into shape.

one set i did manage to get online are the ones of our new kittens! artemis and apollo are about as cute as kittens can be, but ari was a bit sick the first few days… we're still having to give her some anti-biotics, but i think she's feeling much better. of course, they're both turning out to be little shits, running around like crazy, knocking stuff over, scratching the shower curtain… y'know being kittens, essentially. we're trying to "train" them, but as you'd expect, it's hard to control them when you're not home–they tend to do whatever they like, which usually involves something potentially destructive.

the other gallery i got up was some of the pics from my new phonecam.

generally, things are great, and we're gearing up for our first big party this weekend–something i've been itching for for quite some time.

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the day is almost upon us. tomorrow +3 hours from now, i will be married and beginning the next phase of my life. it'll be weird to share a house with someone again, but i'm looking forward to having Sara there all the time.

amazingly enough, i haven't really been nervous or apprehensive about the whole thing until about… oh, 10 minutes ago. i think my nervousness mainly stems from the confluence of events and things that have to happen in the next 24 hours to pull this thing off. plus, we're taking a weeks vacation, and i always feel like i'm leaving something undone in the days/hours leading up to a departure. and there are so many things to leave undone. of course, none of them cannot be picked up when we return, but it's the reality of leaving things in a half-done state that is a bit nerve-wracking.

while we're gone, my laptop will be in the shop, the electrician will be roaming about the house bug-bombing the crawlspace and grounding all our outlets. seems like there should be more going on than that… amazing how the mind blows things out of proportion at the slightest provocation.

nevertheless, i'm trying to maintain my focus on Sara and enjoying the proceedings. tomorrow is all about me & her, so i want to make sure we're not losing perspective with all the other stuff going on.

and despite that selfish focus, i'm sincerely looking forward to being able to get all my friends and family, and new extended family under one roof, and to be able to see and talk to as many of them as possible, especially those i don't get to see very often (which is pretty much everybody, considering our social calendar of late).

so, i'm excited, i'm nervous, i'm anxious, and i'm focused (or trying to be) on the things about this next 30 hours that are the most meaningful. all-in-all i suppose i'm pretty much the typical husband-to-be.

wish us luck!

completely unrelated link: Technorati Profile

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holy cow. i swore (to myself) i'd stop mentioning with every new post how long it's been since the last one, but jeeze louise, i'm making history here! a whole month gone by without a single post in it, and just over two months since my last post! it's a bipolar first folks (and hopefully a last). i'm going to have to fix the archive index script (see way below) to skip April 2005 for me… weird.

anyway. as you might have guessed by my last few posts, and by my (even for me) uncharacteristic silence, i have been bizz-eee… no, not even that, i've been extremely fucking BUSY for too damn long now. let's recap, shall we?

1) finally bought a house.
2) closed on the house and moved out of the old apartment
3) ITS ALL A BLUR
4) slowly began to see light again
5) started writing this post

i think somewhere in there around 3 and 4, Sara and i spent a bunch of money buying stuff for the house, she had a couple of bridal showers, so we got crap-loads of gifts, i've been doing honest-to-god yard-work, washing a crap-load of dishes (no dishwasher), trying to get my stuff organized and put away, trying to finish the wedding website, trying to finalize wedding plans, trying not to go insane.

we're getting a load of brick today… how incredibly surreal and weirdly pedestrian and adult-like is that? i spent 8 hours on sunday outside… my world is currently sitting directly on its head.

the work roller-coaster was barely noticed (by me, anyway… Sara would've been freaking out if she hadn't had to study so much for finals), in that my 1 year contract expires at the end of the month… but my newly minted boss finally managed to push the paperwork through for a 6 month extension, so i'm gainfully employed until… er… christmas time.

all this, and the wedding is only… 4 weeks away. i'm not consumed with fear or anxiety yet, so that's a good thing. and hell, i'm looking forward to being able to get away from all this recent hubbub for a week and just enjoy *life* (and being married) for a moment without having to deal with anyone or anything else.

but i'm glad my sis, a new foreign service initiate, is coming into town this weekend and bringing that cute niece of mine with her. and she'll actually be staying in the states most of the year as she does her FS training, so it's conceivable we could see her more than twice in the next six months. and then, of course, she'll ship off to some foreign land, and we'll be hard-pressed to even get to see her once a year.

and my darling has successfully completed her 2nd year of med school and is even now studying for her first set of boards. i think we'll have at most a week after we get back from the honeymoon before she has to start her first rotation. thankfully she managed to get it set up so she doesn't have to leave town to do a rotation for a while.

and last, but not least, after giving up my precious kitties to Paul and Allison, and having been in the house for a month and getting it mostly whipped into shape, Sara and I are looking for two little kitties of our own. we want babies, and we'd like them to be litter-mates, but we are a bit flexible on that last bit.

and thanks to everybody for their well-wishes and congratulations re: the house. we're hoping to have a house-warming party soon, and i'll make sure to mention it here unless anybody out in the wide world has an opportunity to make it down for a weekend (pre-wedding, i'm hoping)

oh, one more thing… i just launched the wedding website yesterday, so go check it out!

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i've finally broken 300 posts (this is the three-hundred-and-first) on bipolar, which is pretty sad, considering we've been doing this almost five full years. brian over there's killing me in the post-count department, despite my recent spate of activity and his recent absence.

which reminds me, brian's been at home ill quite a bit recently, so everybody .

which also leads me to another point. i managed to steal a few hours yesterday and today "cleaning up" the x13design family of websites to eliminate bare email addresses on all the pages. i've realized i'm getting a fuckload of spam mail, and it's probably all because i've had my address right out there for the spambots to collect at their leisure for years. i found a cool little tool online that encrypts the email address and generates javascript code to display the email link. so now, just about every instance of our various email addys has been cleaned up and obfuscated, so hopefully the torrent of spam will subside a bit. it's a vain hope, i know, but every little bit helps, i guess.

the other band wrapped up recording tonight, so next sunday we'll get seriously started on the mixing process. hopefully, we'll also get a few steps closer to picking a band name. rob actually provided a hefty list tonight, and we all picked five of our favorites from his list. here's the result of that:
3 threadbare taken
3 mammon (? possibly taken, found tabs online, a ref in bandreg.com, and a record label)
2 permafrost (dubliners, some reference to an indie band from '97/'98, and a record label)
2 psychosomatic (3 refs, all dead, maybe dead, 2 on bandreg)
2 nexus (here, here, here, here, & about 20 on bandreg)
2 housing project
2 trite (yup.)
2 kitsch (here, here, & about six on bandreg)
1 homogenize
1 midwife

brax and jim have both promised to provide their own lists on sunday, so i'll probably have some more for you then. after we vote on theirs, we'll repeat the process a few times, 'til we finally figure out what to call ourselves.

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sara and i finally decided on our honeymoon destination: Amelia Island, FL. promises to be relaxing, exciting, and enjoyable. now we just gotta find us a money tree.

we also finally figured out just how much we're willing to spend on a house, so that search will pick up speed (which is good, since the lease at my, Paul, and Allison's place is up approximately April-ish). wish us luck.

and finally, if you haven't checked out Battlestar Galactica you are doing yourself a grave misservice. if you like Sci-Fi at all, i mean even the slightest bit, you must watch this show. pick up the miniseries, download the first three episodes (or all 12 that've been released in the UK already) and plop your ass down in front of the tube for a while. it's worth every minute.

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i just uploaded a bunch of new images to the gallery, some old stuff (like brian's and my trip to Chicago in 2000, pictures i only recently unearthed when trying out Picasa), and a lot of new stuff from recent trips to visit family, and from other various things (like my self portraits from my portfolio and "matt reads his favorites" sessions).

also, i presented the list of potential names to the guys, and, aside from Rob's abstention because he didn't like any of the names, we narrowed it down a bit. here's the revised list, with explanations of what the names mean (where necessary):

i'll give 'em this list next time, and we'll see if rob, brax, or jim comes up with any alternatives, then we'll cull the list again.

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jesus, it's been a long day. (see technically, this is still the 22nd for me, so this is Saturday's post).

i finally decided (thursday) to take Sara up on her suggestion, and join her running team. now, mind you, i have no intention of running any races, or doing any of that really crazy stuff. if it's raining or snowing, my ass will be sleeping. but nevertheless, i got up at 8 am, donned my newly purchased running apparel (with that fancy "water-wicking" fabric, bought on sale at Tar-jay), got my ass down to the track at Seneca park, and proceeded to run/walk 3.something miles. ouch. my thighs still hurt.

afterwards, we went out for a celebratory breakfast at Bob Evans–her celebrating that i finally got off my ass and exercised, me celebrating that i did so and didn't keel over from a heart attack. then we went home for about… oh, five seconds… then ran out to meet our realtor to look at a condo and a house we were interested in getting second opinions on. her dad joined us, to help give us advice. turns out, both places were really not great, so we're now moving on to other possibilities. with each additional "unnacceptable," we're moving farther out from the epicenter of our target area, but y'know, there's not much we can do about that without winning the lottery or something. next step, a place sort-of out by bowman field.

i also finally got my papers from the military, and it looks like i'll not be eligible for the VA loan i was kind of holding out a dim flicker of hope for. so, now we gotta find out what exactly we qualify for. then, the "real" search begins.

after that, we chilled at my place for about… 15 minutes, then headed out to a birthday party for her little five-year-old niece. food, family, and er… fun-ish.

the last stop of the night was a birthday gathering for the inimitable puffin, at ZA's. we hung out until the early-to-bedder's (including my lovely fiance) had to beat a retreat, then proceeded to make fun of the ska and rap bands that set up to play a show. we were all getting pretty soused and having a good time, none moreso than neil.

a highlight of the evening was getting to hang out with brian for the first time in god-knows-how-long. but really, the whole evening was great, and i think the puffin could hardly have asked for a better birthday celebration. good food, good drink, good friends, and bad bands.

loverly.

oh, and my thighs are still sore.

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i went to check out some pics from a friend's party last weekend, and realized that he'd "revamped" his site blogger-stylee, and had undertaken a very cool writing project. 100/day being the name of the site, i assume (i've been so busy house shopping i haven't had a chance to talk to him about it) that his goal is to write at least 1 100 word post per day. The cool thing is, this being a writing exercise, he's not doing the typical blog dealie, he's actually crafting a story from 1 100 word post per day. i haven't had a chance to read it all (see: aforementioned busyness), but the posts i have read have been quite good, and each one really pushes the story along, in that allotted 100 words.

i like this idea quite a bit, because like him, i'm also an aspiring author, but unlike me, he's actually a productive one. check it out from the beginning.

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everybody say happy birthday to the puffin! a big ol' 31, beginning that long slog towards middle-age, right along with me.

Happy Birthday Puffin!

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first off, before i get into the boring bipolar related stuff, let me point you in the direction of ghost town studio, the most recent issue of which features an article and images i put together. it's a very interesting little news piece about the Sears/Kmart merger.

in other news, and to the matter at hand, i've just discovered (inadvertently, i might add) that that annoying little firefox bug where scrollable DIV elements, or rather, DIV elements with their overflow properties set to allow scrolling, wouldn't scroll with a mousewheel (or equivalent widget). the scrollbars would work fine, of course, but it would be heresy to knowingly release something that refuses to work with the one really major improvement in HID design to come along in the last 10 years.

anyway, that nasty little bugger is fixed, at least in the latest trunk builds of firefox, and so should be fixed forthwith in the upcoming minor point releases of firefox 1.x of course, if you go to download the stock ff1.0 today, you'll still get the non-scrolly divs, but in a few weeks or a month's time, it'll all be history.

so, i told you that to tell you this: sometime soon, tonight, tomorrow, sometime this weekend, or maybe even next week, i'm going to flip the switch* on those "major improvements" i talked about way back when. so now's definitely the time to go back to that post and knock the crap out of those pages to see if they fall apart too badly. MC Seth-yo did some extensive cross-browser testing, and aside from some completely understandable though thankfully infrequent failings, the designs really held up pretty well. (of course, that may be selective memory talking, and when i go back to look at those screenshots he did, if they're still up, i may be in for a shock or something.) anyway, soon these changes will go live, the world will rejoice, and you, if you're really really annoyed by not being able to scroll with Mr. Mousewheel, should be encouraged to get thyself to mozilla.org's firefox ftp download area and download a copy of the latest trunk build. right now, the latest trunk still reports as being 0.9.1+, so be warned. latest trunk builds can be squirrelly, not as stable as the normal release builds.

also, i'll very very shortly (tonight) be installed an MT plugin to close old comments (we've been getting bombarded by comment spam for a while, but i've been to lazy to install additional protections on top of MT-Blacklist), so if you've been itching to comment on a post from 3 years ago, you better get on it.

**UPDATE**: the switch has officially been flipped, f'real.

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