Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The wedding

The wedding has now come and gone, and what a great day it was. We had to give up a lot of the things we'd wanted when we first decided to get married, and we weren't very happy about that. Of course, people kept telling us that when the day came, it wouldn't matter what we'd given up...all that would matter is that we were married. It seemed kind of crazy to us, but in the end, they were right. Not much of what we did was traditional, but it was a great day, with just one minor problem...

We got to the park a little late for pictures, but those all went well, and we had a lot of fun with it. We took the pics with the fathers first because we needed them to go pick up the cake and deliver it to the restaurant. When we'd first talked to King Soopers about doing the cake, they'd said they would deliver it, but when we ordered it, they said they wouldn't...should have been a warning sign. Shortly after the fathers left to get the cake, her dad called me to let me know that King Soopers hadn't made the cake. Even though the order form clearly said 5/21, they thought it was for Saturday. I don't know how much hell her dad raised, but we ended up getting half the price of the cake back, and they did a rush on it, so we could pick it up after the ceremony. Of course, when we picked it up, it was a little lopsided. I'd said all along that if anything went wrong, it would be the cake, and thanks to King Soopers, I was right.

After the pics, we went to the courthouse to do the ceremony, and we had a great judge who performed a very nice ceremony. Neither of us collapsed during the ceremony, and Rebecca only cried a little...or so she says.

We had our reception at the Macaroni Grille, and they did a great job. The food was good, the service was awesome, and they did everything they could to make sure that Rebecca and I didn't have to worry about anything.

We had a great time talking with family and old friends. A lot of people we wanted there couldn't make it, but we still had a good time. Cowardly me even got up and did three toasts. The first was to my "new" family. The second was to all of our guests, and the third was to the "people" who couldn't be with us. Those "people" were Jim Baker, Joe Mackey, KJ, and Rebecca's brother Danny. That toast brought a few tears to some eyes.

After that, we left for our brief honeymoon in downtown Denver...not the honeymoon we really wanted, but still a good time.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Prairie Dog Massacre

Many long time readers of this blog will know that I'm a nature lover. Even though we live in the city, there is a large field and a wooded area near us. Over the years, we've seen all kinds of animals around here. For birds we see all of the normal birds plus a lot of hawks. We even see an occasional egret or bald eagle. For furry critters, we have squirrels and rabbits, and even an occasional deer or coyote. But more than anything, we have lots and lots of prairie dogs...hundreds or even thousands, or at least we did.

Today, Denver Water came through and killed most of them. They dropped poison down the holes, and then collapsed the holes. I have no idea of why they would do this. We know that they're going to be putting in some new sewer lines at the farm on the other side of the field, but considering that there's a creek between these prairie dogs and the farm, it's kind of hard to believe that these lines will be in the area with these dogs. The fact that there are apartments on the side of the field with the dogs means that they can't run the lines to the street, so there doesn't seem to be a logical reason for the massacre.

I know a lot of people hate prairie dogs, thinking that they're just disease carrying rodents, but it's really not true. They actually serve an important role in the ecosystem around here, and even though a colony will occasionally be infected with the plague or some other nasty disease, how many diseases are humans passing around amongst themselves?

The simple fact is that we love our prairie dogs around here. They're fairly intelligent creatures, and we love to watch them, especially since we've learned a little about them. We're also questioning the timing of this slaughter. The young have only been out for a couple of weeks, so it seems very inhumane to kill all of them. If there really was a logical reason for this massacre, why not do it in the fall before the adults breed?

Plus, they did leave some of them alive, and they left some of the hole untouched, so if there was a logical reason for doing this, why would they leave some of them alive. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Overall, we are quite pissed with Denver Water. We're trying to get an answer for why this massacre has happened, but so far, we haven't heard anything.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

FlashForward

It looks like ABC has decided to cancel FlashForward. I'm not much of a TV watcher, but this is the one show every week that I actually looked forward to. I also watched Caprica and V, but neither of those story lines come close to comparing to FlashForward.

I worry about Caprica because of the way BSG ended. The last thing we need is another deus ex machina ending. Any writer will tell you that's the worst way to end a story, and as for V, I mostly watch it because it's SF, although I don't think it's anywhere near as good as the cheesy 80's TV show.

FlashForward was different from most SF TV, however. The show had an intellectual edge, but at the same time, you didn't have to understand the physics they were talking about to enjoy it. I think the biggest thing that made the show different from other TV shows on today is that the drama between the characters was more realistic, which is probably why it didn't succeed. People want to watch shows like Grey's Anatomy, where the drama between characters doesn't really resemble anything in the real world. In that show, as well as a lot of other shows, people are sleeping around like crazy, which I think is what some people dream their lives could be like. In FF, when Olivia starts to feel an attraction towards Lloyd, she doesn't just jump into bed with him. That resembles reality a lot more. Most people don't have an affair just to have sex with someone else, they have an affair because they're having troubles with their significant other, and they feel an attraction towards someone else, and then over time, that leads to the affair. This is how FF dealt with the issue.

Most of the drama between characters was like this. It resembled what we see in the real world, and that is what drew me to it, and like I said, probably what turned others off.

Was the acting sometimes a bit stiff? Yes. Was some of the writing not the best? Yes, but these are true of most shows when they start out...especially SF. Look at the first two seasons of ST:TNG or the first season of Babylon 5. They had some horrible acting, and some really bad story telling, but the series grew into their own, and turned out great. I really think this is what would have happened with FF.

There are people trying to save the show on ABC, and others trying to get another network to pick it up, and I'm certainly hopeful that something will happen. There is a petition making the rounds to try to get ABC to save the show, if you want to sign it, go to http://www.petitiononline.com/47110815/petition-sign.html.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Honeymoon, wedding, and such

I have to admit that when Sam's Dot started the drive to raise money for us to go on a honeymoon, I really didn't expect much out of it, but people have been great, and we really appreciate it!!!

We aren't going to be able to take our dream honeymoon of going to Taos, but we will be able to get away for a couple of days. We're just getting a hotel in downtown Denver, and we're going to see some of the sites of our hometown that she's certainly never seen, and that I might not have seen. Certainly not what we were hoping for, but still a nice chance to spend some time together, and we have a lot of generous people to thank for that, and we are truly grateful. Not going to Taos might also be a good thing because Rebecca still isn't feeling very good, and who wants to drive six hours when you feel like you're going to throw up all the time?

We are pretty much done with all of our wedding planning. We got our license yesterday, and now we just need for next Friday to get here. Family starts to arrive on Tuesday, so that means I will spend most of the weekend cleaning...and you thought a writer's life was glamorous? Silly readers...

Sunday, May 09, 2010

A Mother's Day update

As the BIG DAY approaches, things keep getting more and more hectic around here, but we still took some time out for a nice little Mother's Day. The oldest got her a bath set and made her a bird house in school. The youngest got her a lavender scented candle. I got her a very large picture frame. It holds seven pictures, so I put one of each of the girls, one of the girls together, one of me, one of the ultrasound picture, a picture of Mikey (the turtle), and a picture of our beloved K.J. (our wonderful cat who passed away earlier this year). She loved all of the gifts, and then she had to go to work. Mothers should not have to work on Mother's Day. If she's feeling good enough when she gets off, we're going to take her out to dinner.

We have most everything done for the wedding now. There are a few more odds and ends that we need to take care of, and we need to get our license...and then I need to clean, clean, clean our place.

Writing and such has taken a bit of a hit. I'd hoped to get the Law Enforcer's Sourcebook for the Ephemeris RPG done before the wedding, but now it looks like that will be June. I also got Tyree's editorial notes for Red Moon Rising, and there's quite a bit of work that needs to be done to get that into shape before it comes out this fall. I'd hoped to get through most of that before the wedding as well, but it looks like that too will fall by the wayside.

For now, we're just all trying to keep our sanity here. Simple weddings should not be this stressful...

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Sam's Dot tries to save our honeymoon

As mentioned in a previous post, Rebecca and I have been having financial difficulties, and those problems were leading us to the logical conclusion that we were going to have to cancel our honeymoon. Well, Tyree at Sam's Dot Publishing has stepped forward in an effort to save our honeymoon.

Sam's Dot now has a donation page set up on their website for anyone that wants to help us out. Tyree's always been a classy guy, and this is just further evidence of that.

http://samsdotpublishing.com/honeymoon.htm

Many thanks to Tyree, everyone at Sam's Dot, and all of our friends...the ones we know, and the ones we don't...