Baseball failed to make the playoffs this year, so I officially have nothing scheduled, save weddings and next weekend's baseball tournament in Vegas. I'm going to do my best to knock belated projects off the list, then I suppose I should probably find a job.
Like I said, I'm back from Virginia. That was a fun trip with a mildly interesting return...
There was crappy weather again in the midwest, bungholing everything through O'Hare. My family's flight was delayed a bit, not to mention changed from a direct United hop to a US Air layover in Charlotte, which was delayed even leaving Richmond. I was scheduled for a direct United regional jet shot to O'Hare, to connect with another flight back to Lindbergh. When I got to RIC to see the parents off, my flight was already flagged as delayed. When I checked in, the agent didn't even ask questions or offer suggestions, she just transferred me over to Northwest.
Here's today's lesson, kids: flying on a ticket transferred from one airline to another by rule 120.20 means You Might Be A Terrorist. It got me pulled off and searched at the RIC security checkpoint. Assholes. And then the TSA stole the keepsake matchbook used to light the sparklers at Nicole's reception from my checked bag. On the upside, my seat from MSP->SAN was in first class. I don't drink, but the space was damned nice. Now if only Northwest had power jacks in their seats...
NB: RIC has free wireless in the terminal. MSP probably makes you pay for it--they advertised it with the same signs I've seen at $3/day North County Fair mall--but the gateway web host wasn't answering queries. We still got nothing at ORD and SAN.
The wedding went off fabulously, with only the slightest hitch. The forecast was for 30% chance of scattered T-storms all weekend. Well, Friday night it just fucking poured. Big beautiful lightning strikes in the distance, quiet thunder, and a brief power outage (about 10 seconds.) I took this as a good sign. Some of Nicole and Tim's friends were skeptical, but I insisted, we're good to go on Saturday. Sure enough, it was hot (around 90) but a little less humid under clear skies. Half an hour in the setting sun (6pm ceremony beside a lake) wasn't uncomfortable enough to be a problem.
That slightest hitch? Rather than hire a band or a DJ, Nicole burned a few CDs of music to throw in a multi-disc player. Except that one of the discs she brought with was the wrong one. Instead of the burned disc, she grabbed a blank that was lying on the desk. Of course, this was the disc with the first-dance song on it. Of course, the song was something the iTunes Music Store doesn't carry. Great big honking thanks go out to Dave Lemson, who was idling on #uiuc at the time. Dave installed Kazaa to track down Sting's "My One And Only Love" and put it where I could get it and burn it to the conveniently blank CD I had handy. During the ten minutes it took to do that, Tim's brother Andy found a Barnes & Noble clear on the other side of town (40 minutes round-trip) that had the Leaving Las Vegas soundtrack with the song, so we were saved both the trip and the headache of not having the first dance.
Nicole insisted that not having the song was not a big deal, that we shouldn't worry about it. She and Tim were the only ones convinced, the rest of us were like, "Fuck that, you don't get another chance at this." Katy, Andy, and Hunter worked the phone and phone book while I got the iBook talking to the cable modem, and away we went. (Don't laugh--I brought the iBook to ensure I could dump my camera's card if became neccessary.)
The photos are finally up, though the ceremony and reception pictures are not yet fully captioned.
