Shoes

I’ve got shoes on my mind.

I admit I’m taking things a little out of order. I haven’t even chosen a dress yet (soon, I promise) and I’m already thinking about finding the perfect shoes. The great thing about being the one in the big white dress is that no one sees your shoes. The dress is so long and important that no one will be looking at my feet. Theoretically I could wear bunny slippers.

Then again, there’s that foot+ height difference to think about…

So far I’m leaning toward a white wedge of some kind. Wedges are generally more comfortable than your traditional heel because more of the shoe is heightened rather than just the heel. Platforms are another option to get me a good 4 inches taller. I’m thinking cheap – Payless or Target being my first stops. I also plan to buy them pretty early so I can parade around the house in them well in advance to break them in and make sure I don’t do an uncoordinated nosedive down the aisle. Well, I suppose there’s always that risk but I want to make sure it’s not because of my shoes. And anyway, if that happens I’ll blame my dad. :)

I’ve also started to check out shoes for the Catherines. They are a little trickier since the dress they’ll be wearing is knee/mid-leg length so people will see their feet. I haven’t decided which dress I’m going to go with mainly because I haven’t gotten my lazy butt out to the two stores to see if they have the Alfred Angelo version of the dress everyone likes. Motivation escapes me. The shades of purple are a little different depending on which designer I go with. But I’m not sure purple shoes would be a good idea anyway. I might just go with white or silver to keep it simple and something re-wearable. I also have to keep in mind that the guys are tall and the girls are not. And my sister hates heels. Aah, the dilemma. I think I told her she’s 99% guaranteed to be stuck with some kind of heel. I’ll try and keep it below 4 inches though. :)

Here are a few I like for me:



And for the Catherines:


Update: As fate would have it, I couldn't find any of these shoes when I went to the actual stores. Figures...

Cars

My car is over 50% mine! Last month was the half-way mark for my car loan. As of the 13th, I own 52.8% of my car. Woo! The best part is I haven’t spent anything on maintenance aside from the occasional carwash and a couple sets of windshield wipers. All my oil changes, tire rotations, etc. have been comped as part of the package I got when I bought the car. The first time I’ll have to pay for any of that is next month when I take it in for its next check-up. It’s a sweet deal. Even nicer is the fact that nothing has gone wrong with the car yet. It always starts, runs well, gets great gas mileage (average is now 31mpg), and is generally cute. A vast improvement over the various cars I’ve had before. If things go as expected I’ll own the car outright by March 2008. I plan to keep it for a while after that though. Save the car payment and all. It’s big enough that (when needed) a car seat or two can fit in the back with no problem. Eventually we’ll want to get something bigger that can get a hitch put on. That way we can quit borrowing his dad’s Santa Fe every summer. But that’s a ways off. And I’m not sure whether my car or Adam’s car should be replaced. We’ll see when we get there I guess. There are lots of things that will come before that.

It will be interesting to see how well my “life plan” works out…

Definately Fall

Well, looks like yesterday was “*whomp* day.” The parking lot is ankle-high with leaves of various colors and the trees are looking bare. Considering it snowed yesterday and has been snowing randomly today it’s only appropriate that things are progressing. Ugh. It has been windy enough that wind advisories have been issued in surrounding areas. Last night Adam put up the plastic insulation things to try and get rid of the draft we have around our bedroom windows. By all accounts it looks as though the fun is over.

FOCCUS, the Sequel

We successfully completed part one of our marriage preparation, Catholic style. And the nice couple from St. Mary’s didn’t look at us like we were crazy too often. That’s a good sign. There were a few uncomfortable moments (at least for me) when different items came up. For the most part Adam and I had anticipated there would be discussion points about certain things. We were pretty much right on. There was a question or two that showed up because I think one (or both) of us had misunderstood the question. The best way I can sum it up is that we don’t have many problem areas and those that were brought to our attention by participating in this process we were already aware of. Still it was a positive experience overall [and we got homemade pizza too! :)] We got our “diploma” last night and we have to drop it off with Father Mike. Next is the “Engaged Encounter” day-long “retreat.” We’ll do that early next year. St. Mary’s has it in January and April but Adam wants to do it through St. Joe’s for some reason concerning a certain Sister… I don’t know the story. I don’t really care where we do it through anyway.

Wedding planning has been at a standstill for a couple months. Intentionally so. It was our plan to get lots of stuff taken care of right away so we could enjoy some of our time together. My mother’s visit is fast approaching so dresses will be taken care of by next month. Flowers and candles will follow soon after and then it’s just the little stuff: favors, gifts, programs and actually mailing things and planning menus. Given that there are still 10 months to go, we’re in excellent shape. I went through our contracts and updated our budget on Monday. June through August 2007 is going to be an expensive time. :) We have deposits on most everything so we’ll have balances to pay on the reception, the photographer, and the honeymoon. We paid full upfront on the DJ and cake so that’s all taken care of. So far it looks as though we can come within the preferred budget with no problems. Granted, the budget didn’t include a honeymoon and that’s getting to be almost as expensive as the wedding itself. Oh well. You only do it once, right? (Oh god, I hope so!) The good news is we’ve got months to save up the money to pay for this spectacle. And we’re earning lots of world points! Yay for credit card rewards! It’s kind of annoying that our chosen photographer doesn’t accept plastic since we’re spending quite a chunk of change on that portion of the deal though. *sigh*

Nothing much else is going on right now. The weather sucks and it’s supposed to SNOW tomorrow. I’m getting a cold and I’m hoping it will do its thing before Katie’s bachelorette party on Saturday. Next week is her wedding and I was informed last night by Adam’s mother that I’ll be sitting at the “family table” at the reception. Sweet…

Progress

We made some progress over the weekend. Nothing too spectacular, but still something. We booked our flight to Seattle for our honeymoon cruise. We didn’t arrange for a hotel for the night before yet but we’ll get to that. Adam checked at Hotwire but didn’t like any of the locations I guess. We’ll see what we can find. We also got our tickets for the opera in November. We’ve got pretty good seats in the side loge with (hopefully) lots of legroom. My only concern is that perhaps we’ll be too close to the stage to see the subtitles well. Oh well. Not like you really need them…

Other than that the weekend was pretty much a success. We saw the movie Friday night (and it was as good as I'd expected) and then we heard on the news that the Big Picture Theater is closing next week. What luck! It’s too bad that it’s doomed. It was a nice place but it just didn’t have the attendance it needed to function well as a business. Saturday was pretty uneventful. I went grocery shopping, Adam worked most of the day and survived yet another Walmart bomb threat. Sunday we went to the zoo, Marshalls, Cooks Corner, and Beersten’s. Then we went to bed at 9:30. Yeah, we’re lame.

This week is unusually busy. Tomorrow we have our second (and last) FOCCUS meeting. Wednesday I have dinner plans with Uncle Kirby. Thursday Adam has the night off and we’ll probably find something to do. Then next week will be full of crazy with Katie’s wedding and the hoopla that comes with it. I’m still undecided about whether I want to go to her bachelorette party or not.

We'll also be getting tickets soon for a "Christmas Extravaganza" at the PAC. We plan to go to that with Tina and her husband. I'm not really the world's #1 Christmas cheerleader (I know, you're all shocked), but it should be fun.

This Weekend

This weekend should be an interesting one. Tonight we have tickets to see the second Pirates movie over at The Big Picture Theater. Batman Begins was awesome on the large screen and I have high hopes for this movie as well. And you definitely can’t complain about the $5 admission price. Then on Sunday we’ll be heading down to Milwaukee. We plan on going to the zoo for a while since we’ve been meaning to go there for a long time. We’ll also make a stop at Marshall’s (we’re hooked) and at the Marcus Performing Arts Center to get tickets for Don Giovanni which we’ll be seeing in November. If time allows we plan to come back up through Manitowoc and see if Cook’s Corner has any good going-out-of-business sales. The store up in Appleton appears to have been taken over by another company so we’re not sure it’s going to close and there are no clearance prices yet.

Unexpected Visit

Last week I got an out-of-the-blue email from my uncle Kirby informing me that he’d be in town (well, Madison) next week for some training. So we’re meeting for dinner next Wednesday. It should be an interesting time. I haven’t seen him since Evan’s wedding and even then I was in a perpetually bad mood so I probably wasn’t the best company.

Hand Horror

Last night was not a good night for my hands. I came home from work armed with a recipe for roasted butternut squash. We had stopped by the local farmer’s shed and picked up some apples and squash last Sunday and I figured I should probably use them up. I got to peeling, seeding, and cubing the first squash. After much frustration I decided it totally wasn’t worth it and just halved the remaining squash. I got them into the oven and went to wash my hands. This is when I noticed they were orange. I scrubbed at them with soap and water but they wouldn’t de-orange. They were also very tight and stiff. I lotioned them up good and put some rubber gloves on them while I cleaned up the kitchen. While loading the dishwasher I managed to slice the tip of my right pinky finger open with my huge (and awesome) knife. Right through the rubber glove. Wow, did that finger ever bleed up a storm. When I finally managed to get it to slow down enough that a band-aid (or three) would stay on, I kind of gave up on cleaning up the kitchen or doing much of anything. By this time my left hand had started peeling. I don’t know if it was a pesticide/chemical reaction, a squash reaction, or what it was. It was just uncomfortable. After the squash was done and removed from the oven I soaked my hand in soapy water for a while. This didn’t accomplish much other than make my fingers wrinkly. I donned gloves again when I scooped the squash out of its skin. After stowing the food in the fridge I took refuge in bed for a while. Then I tortured the guinea pigs with cuddling for a little while. Good times.

This morning my hand was pretty much the same until I took a shower. Then it started peeling like crazy. I showed it to Adam and he was kind of disgusted. Most of the loose skin rubbed right off though and now there are just little patches of flaky skin on my palm and fingers. My pinky finger is still all bandaged up though. When I removed the band-aid this morning it started gushing again. *sigh* Good thing I’m not squeamish about blood…

My question is this: what in the squash caused me to lose a layer of skin on my hand? I don’t think I’m allergic to squash but I suppose this is the first time I’ve ever prepared it myself. I was just not expecting this kind of reaction.

Creepy...

This is one building down from the apartment I used to live in.

(from the Oshkosh Northwestern)

A 36-year-old man is in custody in the Winnebago County Jail in connection with the brutal stabbing death of on Oshkosh woman whose body was found early Sunday morning in a west-side residence.
Barry Busby, Winnebago County coroner, identified the victim as Jodee L. Thompson, 48.
"It's one of the most brutal, vicious attacks that I have ever seen in 29 years in law enforcement and nine and a half years as coroner," Busby said.
Oshkosh Police Sgt. Steve Sagmeister said Thompson was found dead from multiple stab wounds at about 12:45 a.m. Sunday after officers responded to a report of a small fire at the residence at 1750 Taft Ave.
This is the fourth murder in Oshkosh this year, the most Sagmeister can recall in many years.
"Our largest number before this I can remember was three (murders in one year)," Sagmeister said.
The other deaths include a January shooting on Minnesota Avenue, a murder-suicide on Monroe Street in April and a stabbing in July at the Court Tower apartments.
The man was transported to the Winnebago County Jail until the Winnebago County District Attorney's office can review reports and issue charges. He has not been identified by Oshkosh Police.
Sagmeister said officers received information about the vehicle the man was thought to be traveling in Saturday night and were able to take him into custody elsewhere in the city. He said the suspect may have been intoxicated at the time he was taken into custody and police believe alcohol was a factor in the homicide.
"The Oshkosh police department did an excellent job of having the suspect in custody within a couple hours after the incident," Busby said.
As of press time, police said the relationship between the victim and the suspect was unclear.
The cause of the fire and the events surrounding the homicide remain under investigation.

Ooh! The Golden Key Society wants me!

Today in the mail I received a letter from the Golden Key International Honour Society. It congratulated me on my academic achievement, which to date apparently places me at the top 15% of my class at the University of New Orleans. This accomplishment is undoubtedly the result of years of hard work and an indication of my future success. It went on to offer me membership in the GKIHS, listing the many impressive benefits of joining this society.

I find this amusing for a couple reasons:

#1. I was a temporary student at UNO for 6 weeks when I did my study abroad in France. In 2003.

#2. This invitation is good for college juniors and seniors. I graduated almost 2 years ago.


Methinks their records got washed away by Katrina.

I have until October 25th to respond!

Sinuses

(wrote this yesterday)

With the change in seasons comes the evilness that is a sinus headache. Several times a year my nose rebels and decides it no longer wants to be part of my face. While unsuccessfully trying to detach itself it causes all kind of pain. It then generally gives that up and decides to torture other parts of my body like my ears or my throat. *sigh* My body hates me. It’ll go away eventually, but for right now I tend to go home from work squinting painfully into the sun, pop a few Sudafeds and lay in bed all evening with an eye mask on. Sometimes the invisible vice around my head loosens a little bit, but most of the time it just gets tighter and tighter. It probably hasn’t helped that I’ve been sleeping like crap the last few days. I don’t know what the problem is and I can’t blame it all on Adam. Well I could, but that would be unfair.

Tonight, by some unexplainable happenings, Adam has off from Walmart. He flexed his hours over at Cisco so we’re going to go out tonight. This is my idea, I planned everything, and I’ve refused to tell him what we’re doing. It’s fun. I like surprises when I’m on the giving end.

Fall

(wrote this yesterday)

It’s definitely getting to be fall. This morning was the first morning I could smell it in the air. It rained all night and was in the chilly 50s as I left for work this morning. The combination of the rain and the leaves that have already fallen on the ground gave the air a definite “fall” smell. Trees are getting yellow, orange, and red and pretty soon there will be that one really cold night that causes their leaves to go *whomp* and fall to the ground. It’s a pretty funny phenomenon, actually. One day the trees are prettily tricked out in their fall colors and the next day they’re naked. Aaah, the beauty of four seasons.

Yes, despite the numerous jokes about Wisconsin weather, we do indeed have four of them. Unfortunately, my least favorite is coming up next in the rotation. I dislike winter for many reasons, most of which involve a pesky white substance. I can deal with the subzero (literally) temperatures and scraping the frost off my car windows in the morning. I just don’t do well with the snow thing. I hate walking in it. I hate driving in it. I hate other people trying to drive in it. Ugh. Luckily my new morning commute is much shorter than it used to be and I avoid the winter death-trap known as the Butte des Morts bridge. Let’s hope this global warming thing will make this year the least snowy winter ever.

Anywho, I’m still making due with my Columbia jacket and, on occasion, the Cisco fleece Adam’s former team members sent him last quarter. I’m going to resist pulling the winter jacket out for as long as possible. And it better not snow before Thanksgiving…

More About House Hunting

This weekend we got an idea of what kind of house we’d like to buy when the time comes. We figure it will be easiest to get a buyer’s agent, tell him/her what we want, and let them find houses that meet those expectations. That way we won’t waste our time going to lots of holes. We’ll also plan to get pre-approved for a certain loan amount to make the whole process easier.

So far, this is what it looks like we want in a house:

Ranch style house
2+ bathrooms
2+ bedrooms
Split bedroom layout (master on one side, other bedroom(s) on the other)
Large kitchen, preferably with an open layout to the dining room
Partially finished basement
Two+ car garage

I have a feeling it’s going to be hard to find all these things in one house. The two we liked from this weekend didn’t even have all those things. They both had nice kitchens, but one didn’t have a basement and neither had a master bathroom. Adam basically wants a carbon copy of his parents’ house but I’m not sure that’s realistic given our budget restrictions.

Here are links to the two houses we liked:
In Menasha

In Neenah

Comedy and House hunting

This weekend was relatively eventful. As weekends go anyway. Adam worked Friday night so I didn’t do much. I don’t even remember really.

Saturday he worked 9-6 so we made reservations at the comedy club for the 8:00 show. I did some cleaning during the day to pass the time. I’m sure some animal torture in the form of cuddling took place as well. We stopped for dinner on the way to the club. We got seated way up in the front, close to the stage. We were totally early so we could fulfill our two drink minimum before the show even started. For the first time I can remember, a screen came down and ran some commercials before the host comedian came out for her set. Her name was Andy and she was the typical depressed, mad at everyone, female comic. She had some good jokes but for the most part it was just ok. Then the headliner, Jimmy Dore, came out. His new show is called “Pop and Politics” and it consists (mostly) of him showing clips of politicians saying something stupid, doing something stupid, or looking stupid. That said, it makes sense that there were a lot of Bush clips. Cheney got a few, the Governator had one, and some other well known politicians had their minutes of shame as well. It was a good show. It’s nice to go to places like this sometimes and have affirmation that I’m not the only one shaking my head at politicians these days. After the show Adam wanted to buy a CD but he didn’t have any cash. Oh well… Overall, not as good as The Untamed Shrews, but still enjoyable.

Sunday we got up and went to breakfast at Griddles for the first time in a long time. They had changed their buffet so I couldn’t get my waffles loaded with strawberries and whipped cream but they still had their little potato pancake things so it was ok. We then headed over to Adam’s parents’ house so he could walk through iPod operation with his mom. After that was done we headed to some open houses. I had looked through the paper early and made a list of 17 houses that were in a price range I thought was doable and had general things we were looking for. We ended up going to about 10 of them. We liked 2 of them. I think this is generally how it goes though. In most of the ones we didn’t like it was an issue of a small kitchen, a bad layout, or a bad garage/driveway situation. It gave us a good idea of what kind of houses are out there though. We’re not seriously going to start looking to buy a house for another year or so but I thought it would be fun to look at a few. After we looked at the last house we headed to Cranky Pat’s for lunch. This pizza place has a lot of good word of mouth. I don’t know if it was just because it was a Sunday afternoon during a Packer game, but the service was terrible. We sat down, ordered, and waited about half an hour for a pizza that was burnt. It was still ok and we didn’t want to sit around and wait for them to remake it. Overall, a bad experience though. We then went home, watched the end of the game (hey, they won!), and hung out for the evening. We went to bed pretty early too. Strange, since I’m tired today.

FOCCUS II

In all truthfulness, it wasn’t that bad. The fun part comes next time when we go through the test results.

We went to the couple’s house which, coincidentally, just happens to be right down the street from Adam’s parents’ house. It’s a nice place and they have a cute, friendly black lab named Maggie. We had the small talk for a while, getting to know each other. Then they pulled out the test. (Dah, dah, DUM!!!)

Ok, so it’s not a “test.” It’s an “inventory.” A 180+ question survey covering all kinds of subjects from finances to children to problem-solving. We got to do the special “Cohabitating couples” and “interfaith couples” sections. I think my favorite question on the whole “inventory” was the last one in the “cohabitating couples” section. It said, basically, “You know the church disapproves that you’re living together, right?” Bwahahahaha.

Some of the questions were kind of funny (“I think I’ll be uncomfortable being nude in front of my future spouse” – whoops, too late for that! “I have homosexual urges that I’m concerned about” – so if you’re not concerned it’s ok?) but there were some questions I had problems with. Mostly the religion ones. There were others that I wasn’t quite sure how to answer given that my only options were approve, disapprove, or uncertain. Sometimes I wanted to add comments in the margins but I guess that’s what the second meeting is for. I know there will be some areas that will be flagged. But I think it will be a good experience overall.

These test creators sure were trying to trick you though. Double negatives, a sneaky “un” which changed the whole question. “I am uncertain that I don’t not want to marry this person.” Uhm, what? Hopefully they didn’t catch me on any of the questions where I meant yes but filled in the disapprove circle.

It also brought up some things that Adam and I realized we hadn’t even thought about. Nothing earth-shattering or anything. Just interesting points that we hadn’t talked about.

We meet with them again in a few weeks. They’ll be making homemade pizza while we talk things through. Supposedly to make it a bit more fun and not so serious and scary.

FOCCUS

We have our first FOCCUS meeting tonight with a married couple from Adam’s church. I don’t really know what to expect. I’m not sure if we’ll be doing the 150+ question compatibility questionnaire tonight or if something else is planned. I’m not nervous, exactly. I just don’t like going into situations not knowing what to expect. With most of the other things for the wedding I’ve done some research before I show up so I know what I want and I know what to expect. This is completely foreign to me. The fact that it’s a church-based program doesn’t really alleviate any misgivings I might have either. I know this program is a requirement in order to get married in the church. I suppose in theory it’s a good idea to discuss things and work out kinks before you’re legally bound together. I’m just wary about the religious ramifications. I don’t think this couple, the priest, or Adam would appreciate me expressing my true feelings about certain things. But I can’t, with a good conscience, go along with things I don’t believe. But is the “smile and nod” approach the safest thing to do here anyway? I just don’t know. This is, by far, the thing I’ll struggle with the most. It will definitely get interesting when we go back to Father Mike and start planning the ceremony itself. *sigh* I think I’d better stop before I launch into another essay on religion.

Bad Drivers

I’m so tired of bad drivers. They’re everywhere.

Yesterday morning I was stuck behind a car from New Mexico (ugly license plates, by the way.) The two people in the car were passing a cell phone back and forth between them. Every time the woman who was driving reached for the phone, she reached with the whole car and swerved dangerously. Morons…

Today on the way home for lunch I was behind a van from Indiana. I don’t know what the driver was on, but they could not stay in their lane if their life depended on it. They were all over the place. Maybe they were drunk.

On the way back to work I was tailgated by an old guy in a blue Saturn. I was going fast enough if you ask me, but apparently not fast enough for him. I moved over to the right lane so I could get off on my exit. He zooms around me, cuts me off, and takes the same exit. Asshole. His license plate said “1 GOD.” Let me guess, sir. That god is you? *sigh*

On that same subject, why is it that almost all the stupid bad drivers have that fish or some other religious crap plastered to their bumper? Is it like they believe their faith is so strong that they can drive like shit and Jesus will keep them from being splattered all over the highway? *sigh* again

I’m in a bad mood. Can you tell?

A final note about one of my greatest pet peeves: Why do people who are going fast move from the left lane to the right lane when they know they’re going to pass people in the right lane again? I tend to drive on the fast side and unless someone’s coming up behind me faster than I’m going, I just hang out in the left lane. I don’t see the logic in going back and forth between lanes constantly. It’s annoying to watch. It’s even more annoying when the offender doesn’t use a turn signal. But that’s a pet peeve for another time…

IMA, Weekend, and Critters

The first IMA meeting of the year is this coming Tuesday. I’m getting the feeling that it’s going to be a doozy. I myself have 5 guests coming. Who knows what other members have been up to. *sigh* Add to that the fact that I’m implementing a completely new registration process, we’re at a completely new location that I’m not familiar with, and it’s a unique set-up with the PD session being a boat tour. It should be interesting. Luckily we eliminated the majority of the raffles so I don’t have to deal with them. Unfortunately we did keep the 50/50 but Adam has agreed to take that on for this meeting. Then there’s the whole issue of guest tracking. I’m kind of waiting to see what happens on Tuesday before I decide how I want to handle it. It could get messy if I don’t do it efficiently and easily on my first crack at it. Guess it’s a good thing I like organizing lists. I was born to do this job. Now if I could only locate the paper cutter so I could get the registration forms prepped…

No big plans for the weekend. No plans at all that I can think of. Adam works both days, pretty much all day so I’m on my own for entertainment. There’s not much cleaning to do at home. I can only torture the critters for so long before they get bitey. Maybe I’ll go shopping and check out the fall stuff. I need a few new sweaters this year. My office is like an igloo. Maybe I’ll go to a movie. I’ve gone to movies alone before. It’s kind of a strange experience, but it didn’t kill me. Or perhaps I should rent some. I’ve been wanting to see a few (that I don’t think Adam would be interested in.) Hmmm. So many choices. Of course, there’s a good possibility that I’ll end up laying in bed for most of the day watching the Food Network. I did get the new issue of Rachael Ray’s magazine today so perhaps some more experimental cooking is in order. I’ve really gotten lax on my cooking lately. With Adam working all the time it just doesn’t make sense. Helped keep the grocery bill down though. Hopefully there are some good recipes in the magazine to inspire me.

Speaking of critters, I’m almost certain that Mo has same-sex tendencies. He was looking forlornly at me from his cage the other day. He kept squeaking at me, looking at Einstein. I thought he was bored and wanted to play. So I set up their playpen and put them in it for awhile. I left for awhile to do some other things and then came back and turned the TV on. After a few minutes I heard what I’m going to call a “guttural moan” from Mo. Seriously, his whole body started shaking and he purred. Loudly. He then ran at Einstein, got up behind him and went at him, doggy style. It was disturbing. I immediately removed Mo from the pen and apologized profusely to Einstein. Poor guy looked shell-shocked. I want them to be friends and all, but not that kind of friends. Geesh. Hopefully next time they’re out in their playpen Mo can control himself. Perhaps I should set up the camera to capture it? Man, I’m such a pervert…

Red Tape Chronicles Article

There’s a Redtape Chronicles article over of MSNBC.com that is causing quite a stir. It involves freecreditreport.com, a website that, coincidentally, makes you pay for their product. Truth in advertising much? Anyway, I’ve browsed through the 300+ user comments and I’m amazed that I keep coming upon the same comment: “I was charged $12.95 for 6 (or 8, or 12) months and didn’t even realize it.” HOW COULD YOU NOT REALIZE IT?

Ok. So perhaps I’m the only one who awaits the arrival of my monthly credit card bill like a child waits for dawn on Christmas Day. Maybe I’m the only one who takes the statement out of the envelope and painstakingly matches all the charges to the receipts I’ve kept on the desk for the past month. I also get to balance the account in Microsoft Money. It’s the highlight of my month, I tell you.

How can someone be charged for something for a year and never notice it? Maybe these people deserve to be taken for a ride. If you’re so lax about your credit and where you money is going, you’re the perfect target for identity thieves and other scammers. I don’t understand people who pay bills without looking at the detail. That’s just stupid…

Signs of Fall

How do I know that it’s getting to be fall? A few things bring this to my attention:

1) I have to wear a jacket when I go to work in the morning
2) The leaves start to change to orange and yellow
3) The smoke alarm goes off when Adam takes a shower

Aaaah, cool weather is here once again…

Dresses Part Two Gazillion

I know, I know, I'm beating this to death right now...

So, taking into consideration the feedback I've gotten from people, Choice B seems to be popular. Unfortunately, Choice B is a David's Bridal dress and I've heard not-so-good things about the customer service and results from DB... So I looked around the Alfred Angelo website and found something similar. What do you think?





The reason I seem so fixated on Alfred Angelo is because the wedding dress I'll probably end up going with is by that designer and the place I'll probably end up getting it gives a discount if we order the same designer for both dresses. Just something to think about...

Dresses

So Catherine came up to Appleton today to try on the dresses I had picked out as possibilites. I think both she and I have some preferences but I'd like to get other peoples' opinions as well. You can view a larger version of the picture by clicking on it or by visiting the Wedding page on Photobucket. Choose your favorite(s) and leave a comment. :)

Choice A



Choice B



Choice C



Choice D (it's not really that poofy - she was holding it out from her body)



Choice E



Choice F



Choice G

Honeymoon Update

Ok, last post today, I promise.

We went to the travel agent this past weekend to get an idea of what we wanted to do for our honeymoon. Being the person I am, I had pretty much decided which cruise I wanted to go on and all we needed the agent to do is book it for us. I'm like that. So we went in and took at look at what was available. We did good. Not only did we book within the early bird period, we chose a cruise that was one of the group rate trips so we got a $100 shipboard credit. We went ahead and booked the cruise while we were there. We'll be on Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Pearl August 19th-26th, 2007. The Pearl is a brand new ship launching this December. It spends some time in the Caribbean before heading up to Seattle. We have an oceanview balcony room on deck 8. We also went ahead and ordered the honeymoon package - wine and strawberries, dinner for two, champagne, and some other goodies. Ports of call include Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Victoria, BC. We'll be looking at excursions and all that later on. We just wanted to get a good room at a good price. We'll also be keeping an eye on airfare starting next month.

Geocities Site

The following is an e-mail I got from GeoCities regarding the wedding site. I'm not sure what part of my site violated their terms. Anyone have any ideas? Adam thinks it's because I used photobucket to store the pictures...

***Begin Email***

Please do not reply to this message.

Dear GeoCities customer,

Usage of your Yahoo! GeoCities account was recently identified to be in violation of the GeoCities Terms of Service, and the site and GeoCities account associated with Yahoo! ID (marthaandadam081707) have been closed.

Your web site was identified as containing logic redirecting viewers to another site. The GeoCities Terms of Service states that you cannot use your GeoCities home page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or "signpost" to another home page, whether inside or beyond Yahoo! GeoCities. For more information, please see the Terms of Service at http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/tos/tos.php.

If you feel that your account has been shut down in error, please contact Yahoo! GeoCities Customer Care at geo-cancellation@cc.yahoo-inc.com.

Sincerely,
The Yahoo! GeoCities team

***End Email***

I think it was kind of rude to just delete all my files. This e-mail went to the junk folder of my account as well so I didn't even see it until a few days ago. Oh well. I'll have to decide how much I care to fight with them to give me the files back. :)

The New Critter Line-up

Adam went to Petsmart on his way home from work on Sunday and picked up a second guinea pig to keep Mo company. This one has been dubbed "Einstein" because of his whacked-out hair. Just look at him. It explains itself.



He's totally huge. And has a weird habit of hanging out on top of his house.



We had both him and Mo out in their pen and they did the same things Mo and Larry would do. Nothing. They just hover in a corner and freak out at the teeniest movement or sound.



They seem to be doing ok. Mo is making a lot more noise than he used to. I guess he misses Larry's loud squeaking when he was fed.

The other critters are doing well. Gus and Barry have their routines that they stick to: Sleep, run psychotically in wheel, eat, chew on house. Howie is... strange. He seems to sleep somewhere different every day. He attacks his tp tubes with vigor. But he's still alive so that's an improvement over some of the other guys. Ha...

Geocities Site

Somehow the new geocities site completely disappeared. All the files just went *poof* for some unknown reason. I'll work on redoing the site tomorrow maybe.

New Wedding Website

For the most part it's updated. It still looks like crap, but I'm ok with that. Look for lots more pictures and links in the upcoming months.

Take a look

Random Post

It’s been a rather boring week with a really bad moment thrown in for fun.

Monday was a busy night. I went to the third of four dress shops, returned library books that I’d had for three months and hadn’t read, and stopped at Erbert and Gerbert’s for dinner… at 8pm. I didn’t get back home until almost 9 because of stupid construction on 41. It’s awful. Pretty much at a complete standstill for a good mile or so around College Avenue. Note to self: Take CB.

Tuesday was Adam’s night off for the week. It’s the first weeknight he’s had off in what seems like forever. We went to Good Company for dinner, stopped off to pick up his tickets for next weekend’s game, and then went to bed at about 9. Refreshing.

Wednesday was the downer of the week. After whipping up some food for lunches for the rest of the week, the dead pet was discovered. On the positive side, Adam got to come home from work earlier than usual. I also finally got around to wrapping Katie and Chris’ gift. It’s going to be hard to carry now though. The handles are covered up. Hadn’t thought about that.

Thursday was a pretty low-key day. We did inventory at work. Adam called Kaytee and didn’t get a very satisfying response. I stopped at Sam’s club after work and resisted the urge to stop at Erbert and Gerbert’s again. Seriously, I could eat there every day and never get tired of it. They’re much better than Subway. I also began designing a new wedding website. I hate GoDaddy. It’s so obnoxious and hard to figure out. I’d much rather deal with the sidebar ads on geocities and be able to type my html in. You can check it out even though it’s not done yet. We also signed the contract for the DJ at the reception. Music in Motion. They did the Convergys thing we had been to so we’re familiar with their work. Reasonable pricing I guess and we get $100 discount for booking so early. Woo us.

And today is Friday. Really not much going on today either. I’ll probably work some more on the website this evening. Since Adam works until 10:30 or 11 chances are we won’t go out tonight. We might tomorrow though seeing as how he only works until 7. We plan to stop by the travel agent on Sunday afternoon and see us about a cruise.

Next week is a short week because of Labor Day so that’s always nice. It’s also closing and I’ll get to see how Rachael handles closing New London. I had vowed not to do any of the journal entries this month but I’ve already done two. Intercompany stuff she can’t do yet. Oh well. I’ll be getting to the last dress shop sometime next week as well since I want to have all that info worked out before Catherine comes up on Saturday. I have a “UWO Accounting Guys” group gathering on Friday up at HuHot (a Mongolian Grill thing) so that should be fun too.

And that’s about all I have for now. Hard to believe it’s September already.

349 days! :)

Tragedy Strikes Yet Again

We've got to be cursed or something. There's no logical explanation for why these things keep happening to us. Something evil lives in that room...

Last night I had the misfortune to discover that Larry had died. No warning, no sickness. Just walk into the room and see him sprawled in front of his house. Our best guess at this point is that he choked on a chunk of honey stick treat. Truly horrific way to go if you ask me and I'm feeling just awful about it for a couple reasons: 1) I gave him the treat. 2) I was probably in the other room reading while he was dying. Not that there was anything I could have done to stop it... I don't think the Heimlich would go over to well on a guinea pig. It's just so terrible.

Right now our main concern is Mo. He must have been right there, watching his friend struggle and die. That's got to leave a mark and it's not like there's therapy for your pet. Even though they had their problems when they lived in the same cage, they seemed to like each other. They would squeak to each other. They'd sit in their cages and look at each other. They'd poke their noses out at each other. I don't want Mo to be depressed and lonely now that Larry is gone. Perhaps I'm personifying the guinea pigs more than is realistic, but I don't want this to turn into a gay, guinea pig version of "Romeo & Juliet." He seems to be ok right now. He's still eating and emerging from his house every once in a while. We're just not sure if we want to get another one. Adam says we should. I'm not convinced yet. We'll see what the weekend brings.

Dress Site Updated

I stopped over at Bridal Event this evening so the dress website has been updated with a few more dress choices. Fun stuff... I have one more place to check out yet.

Choices, choices

There are so many choices to make when planning a wedding. Right now my focus has turned to dresses. I want to have the attendant’s dress picked out by the end of September so I can get the flowers and candles going. I am on hold with those items since I need a color swatch from the dresses to match things up. I plan to get my dress done in early November when my mom is here for a visit. Adam’s on his own for the men’s clothing, but he’s pretty much decided on the colors and is just waiting to see where he wants to go for them.

With that kind of thing pretty much under control I have started thinking about honeymoon options. Originally Adam had suggested a cruise but he later changed his mind and rooted more for a European trip of some kind. I had at one point suggested The Grand Canyon but he shot that one down. I was all gung-ho for a European trip as well until I started really thinking about it. Let me try and organize my thoughts here:

Choice 1: Trip to Europe
I’d love to go to France again and see other countries in the vicinity (Germany, Italy, etc.) My main apprehension now is that a honeymoon might not be the right time to do this kind of trip. Honeymoons are supposed to be relaxing times to spend with the person you love. You unwind from the craziness that weddings tend to be and you just want to spend as much time doing nothing as you can. Europe is not really conducive to being relaxing and you’re more likely to run around trying to see everything than spend time doing nothing. It would be a waste to fly all the way over there and then spend the whole time in a hotel. Even with a great travel agent there are so many opportunities for things to go wrong. The food is very different, the people are very different, and I think there may be too many chances for us to get completely pissed at each other. Not a good way to spend our honeymoon. Still, it has been a few years since I’ve been to France…

Choice 2: Alaskan Cruise
We had discussed this previously. He’s never been on an Alaskan cruise and I’ve never been on a cruise period. My mom and sister went on one this past spring and they loved it. I’d like to try one out and a honeymoon seems like it might be the perfect time. Once you get on the ship you’re basically taken care of for a week. No running around, no strange food, no potentially confusing customs. You’ve got a lovely room to hole up in. There are ports of call you can go explore if you want. If not, there’s still that lovely room waiting for you. Romantic spas, breath-taking views. As talented as we are, I think there’d be fewer opportunities to pick fights when things are basically taken care of and there’s no risk of getting lost. Of course people always say you eat too much on a cruise. It’s also potentially more expensive than a trip to Europe, depending on what kind of room you get and what is all included.

I think you can tell which way I’m leaning. To me it just makes more sense to do something relaxing and mindless. I haven’t really talked to Adam about this yet. I’m just kicking ideas around. I do know that there are four different cruises that go Seattle roundtrip leaving the 19th though… :) Perhaps some outside input would help?

Camping 2006 Attempt #3

Sorry for the major gap in blogland. I had a rough week.

Anyway, for our final camping trip we got a site down at Rocky Arbor State Park in Wisconsin Dells. We also invited Catherine and Tony along for the ride. You'll notice I titled this post a camping "attempt" and I think it's safe to say that we completely failed. Hold on folks, this is going to be a long post.

Adam woke up on Friday morning sick. Luckily he had taken the entire day off anyway so while I got up and went to work, he spent the morning throwing up, etc. This meant we left about an hour and a half later than we'd planned. We should have taken this as a sign that we weren't meant to go. *sigh* Anywho, we get to the campground, check in, and drive to our campsite. Which is the size of a shoebox. Seriously, when Adam backed the Santa Fe off the road the back of the car was over the camp pad. There was a drop-off at the back of the camp pad and no picnic table. There is no way two tents and two cars were ever going to fit there. So we called down to the office and asked if there were any other sites open for the weekend. Of course not. So Adam called Reserve America and talked to a lady there. There was basically nothing to be done. So I called Catherine up and told them the situation. They weren't sure they wanted to come up if we weren't camping. We did still have a boat reserved for Saturday though and we didn't want to lose the money on that by leaving. So we went back down to the office to see what could be done. Luckily another site had cancelled so we could have that one. Unfortunately it was about the same size as the first one. We decided the only thing to be done was to get a hotel room and enjoy the night that way. Tony was harder to convince. Eventually everything got arranged and we ended up at a Comfort Inn and they ended up at a Motel 6 across town. We met for dinner at Marley's, a caribbean inspired restuarant, and then went back to our hotel for a while. We played Snorta, a game where players try to confuse each other with animal sounds. It was actually pretty fun and I even won both times.

**Off topic** I've noticed that when I play games without my sister, I tend to win. When she's playing, I haven't got a chance. Odd... **end off topic**

We then called it a night and agreed to meet up in the morning at the boat launch.

The next morning we got the boat, loaded everything, and then waited an hour for Catherine and Tony to get there. They got lost... After we left the docks, we cruised around for a while on Lake Delton.

Adam fished


we watched the Tommy Bartlett Show from the water, we went swimming, grilled some food. It was a great day to be out on the lake. The sun came out for a while, it was a good temperature. Adam even fed the ducks:

We had the boat until 7:30, but we decided to call it a day early so we could go to dinner before we both headed back to our respective homes. The frosting to our great day was when we headed back to the docks and totally took the biminy top off going under a bridge. Nice... They should have signs to warn you it's not high enough or something. Oh well. We bought ourselves a nice, bent piece of metal. Woo. After unloading the boat and getting into normal clothing we went to Moosejaw for dinner. And some pictures:






We then parted ways and headed back home.

Where I proceeded to be sick for the entire week.

Woo.

So, camping this season is over. We have two dates reserved up at Peninsula State Park for next year though. We know they're good (and big enough) so hopefully they'll work out better than our three attempts this year did.

Dresses

Take a look at this newly created webpage for the current candidates in the dress race. It includes both attendants and my dress choices. I won't say which are my favorites yet. I want other peoples' opinions. Leave comments!!!

Happy One Year Until We're Married Day!

Yup, one year from now I'll be married... and probably a little tipsy. Heh. It's a strange thought.

In other news, Adam gave Mo a haircut the other day. His hair was just getting out of control. When he emerged from his igloo, he looked like he had been electrocuted. It was crazy. Now he looks so much smaller since the majority of his bigness was his hair. He left his mohawk alone so he's still Mo. Just a lot less hairy. It will grow back.

The two guinea pigs seem a lot happier now that we separated them. Larry's nose has healed nicely and Mo's ear is back to normal. All the other guys are doing just fine as well. Gus and Barry really go at their wheels all night long and Howie pops up from a random spot in his cage every once in a while. Everyone appears to be healthy.

What's the World Coming to?

This shocked me. I'm not sure if I ever knew him personally (his obit says he was a member over at 1st Pres), but I know his son, Matt. It's just terrible when things like this happen to people you know. Ok, yes, it's equally as horrible when they happen to complete strangers. It just seems so much more real when it's someone you know.

The same thing happened a few years back when the sister of one of my friends from elementary school suffocated her newborn baby girl after she gave birth at work. I was shocked. Granted, I hadn't had any contact with either of them in years, but it just seemed unbelievable that someone could do that. Especially someone I know. My friends are friends with her boyfriend and the whole situation was just unreal. The drama continues still today with her attempts to get a new trial.

I just wonder what prompts this kind of madness?

A Majorly Oversharing Blog Rant

All day today I've had a stupid song from Bye Bye Birdie running through my head.

"How lovely to be a woman,
The wait was well worth while;
How lovely to wear mascara
And smile a woman's smile.
How lovely to have a figure,
That's round instead of flat;
Whenever you hear boys whistle,
You're what they're whistling at."

Blech! Boys never whistled at me. Barked, maybe mooed, but whistled? Never.

Anyway, I've determined either the person who wrote this piece of crap must have been doing way too many drugs (it was the 60's afterall) or it must have been written by a man.

Hey, whadd'ya know. Lyrics by Lee Adams. Figures.

In any case, you might be wondering why this particular song is my mental soundtrack for the day. The answer should be obvious. Obviously it's not so great to be a woman like me right now.

I can sing the praises of Seasonale all day long. It's truly a great thing to go for months without the hassle of womandom. But when it comes, it comes with a vengence. I don't know if it's just me (I've always had a pretty rough time in this area) but it just seems kind of ridiculous sometimes. I'd like to add a couple verses to the aforementioned song, detailing the not-so-nice details of being a woman. They forgot to mention the week-long entire body ache. And the craving for salt even though you know if you eat it you'll retain water like Spongebob. I won't even go into the more obvious unpleasantries. Ugh. Menopause will not come soon enough in my opinion.

I was so pissed when I "became a woman" at the (relatively) young age of 12. It's been a monthly hell ever since. I actually had to stay home from school quite a few times because I could not move due to blinding cramping. I know I scared my dad at least once because of this. I also threw up in science class once because of it (on my birthday to boot!) It's just a miserable part of life. But this is why I'm so happy to avoid it 2 out of 3 months. Supposedly this Seasonale stuff is supposed to make it lighter as well but I'd beg to differ.

Anyways, I'll welcome the break that comes with pregnancy and I'll be so happy when the hot flashes I get are because I'm "going through the change." I do find it interesting how one's attitude towards this changes though. I was never really looking forward to it, but I'll tell you there were some times I was so happy to see it.

With that oversharing, I'll end this entire post of oversharing. Chalk it up to PMS...

Brat Days

***Warning: Lots of pictures!!***

We headed down to Sheboygan for Brat Days 2006 on Friday. We stopped at Cruiser's for lunch and struggled through the construction on hwy 28. After a stop at the GameStop store in the Target/Home Depot shopping center we checked into our hotel at the La Quinta. When Adam discovered the refurbished PS2 he bought didn't work we drove across town again, taking cty A this time to avoid the mess. We then hung out at the hotel until my dad and Cheryl came and picked us up for dinner. They took us out to The Bull, the golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus, so Adam was happy. The food was wonderful and the view was great too:



We had a picture of Adam in front of the entrance, but he went delete happy later on in the evening and accidentally deleted that one. Oops...

We headed back to the hotel, mentally regrouped, and headed down to Kiwanis park for the Firehouse concert. We actually parked relatively close to the park. We only had to walk 3 blocks or so. We picked a spot on the second tier of the hill, far enough from the stage to avoid any hoopla and retain our full hearing. Therefore the pictures are kind of blurry and psychadelic. I think Adam was kind of bored (and he had a headache) but I enjoyed the concert. They played a lot of newer stuff from albums I wasn't altogether familiar with, but they also played some classics from their earlier albums.



We then packed our chairs up and headed back to the hotel. It was a rough night, but we made it through. We got up early Saturday and headed to the free breakfast in the lobby. After we checked out we drove to West Side Bakery for a bit of nostalgic donut goodness and then headed back to Kiwanis. We got there just after 9am and staked our claim on the benches in front of the Johnsonville Big Grill truck. We sat about 5 benches from the front. Great seats if you ask me. Of course, the competition wasn't due to start until 11 so we had some time to kill. We got to listen to the announcer practice his speeches and yell at the music person who kept missing her cues. Her name was Kate. :) We also got to hear the crew's pep talk. We saw the two top contenders (Takeru Kobayashi and Sonya Thomas) when they arrived at the park after the parade. The park filled up pretty quickly after about 10:30 and there was a decent sized crowd. At least ESPN thought so. The competition was originally supposed to be done live to tape and then aired (edited for commercials, etc.) at 3. Apparently the people at ESPN like the energy of the crowd so well they decided to just go live. It was interesting. They had to do the entrances of the contestants 3 times.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The amateur contest was first. 16 local guys shoving brats into their faces. One guy barfed. A lot. Other than that it was relatively refined. The winner ate 14 total. The stage was then cleaned up and prepped for the professional contest. After a lot of hoopla and the announcer's speeches (which we had already heard once), the contestants all got up on stage. Then it was announced that ESPN wanted to air it live so they had to start over. They got three of the guys back up on stage and then had to send them back off and start over because they hadn't gone on air yet. *sigh* Finally they got everyone back up on stage and started the competition. It was disgusting, yet exhilarating. The world record set last year by Sonya Thomas was smashed in less than 5 minutes. Kobayashi, this tiny Japanese guy, plowed through 58 brats in 10 minutes. It was amazing. He lifted his shirt up at the end of the competition and you could still see his abs... this guy is ripped... Anywho, he won, the crowd went wild, and we went to seek out shade and water. It was incredibly hot and I got totally sunburned.

I can't find any video of the contest anywhere that shows us. There's nothing on the ESPN website, although the contest made #10 on their top ten moments on SC this morning. There's a two-minute (low quality) clip on YouTube, but that's about all I can find so far. If I find anything else, I'll post it. Trust us, we were there. :)


Kobayashi

The amateurs

The stumf fiddle battle to the death (don't ask... it's a Sheboygan thing...)

Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas

The pros

My sunburn

Our brat "thunder sticks"

There are more pictures on my Photobucket site.

Same Sex Marriage Ban LTTE

In case this is news to you, there’s a “same sex marriage ban” state referendum that will be voted on in Wisconsin in November. Even though that is months off, the debate has been in full swing in the newspapers for weeks now. There was a LTTE on the Oshkosh Northwestern website today that just pissed me off, especially the bolded part:

Pro-gay advocates lying about normal lifestyle

The pro-homosexual campaign to portray an utterly (their) lifestyle as "normal" with the approaching November vote on a one-man/one-woman marriage amendment has a familiar ring. The old saying of "Tell a lie, tell it often enough and people will believe it" is a favorite tactic of the anti-decency side.

Rather than relying on logic, common sense and facts, homosexual advocates constantly repeat the same slogans and react emotionally to opponents of their agenda. Here are a few points to consider about this narcissic (sic) subculture.

Anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of anatomy can see that the human body wasn't designed for same-sex intercourse. If homosexuality is as "natural" as its supporters claim, then why is the average lifespan of homosexual men in the low 40s? Could engaging in disgusting acts with hundreds of ever-changing and often-diseased partners be a cause?

Pastor Henry Vanderbush described the situation precisely when he said, "There's nothing gay about perversion."

Al Doyle Oshkosh

Now, if you have a problem with gay people, that’s your right. But to make sweeping statements like that completely nullifies any reasonable argument you may have had.

On his first point: Rudimentary knowledge of anatomy combined with perhaps more than rudimentary knowledge of sex tells me that there is more than one way to get things done. Even straight men do what gay men do. They just do it with a woman. Really, is there that much of a different whose ass (or mouth, I suppose) you’re using? Perhaps Mr. Doyle needs to get out more. Or maybe Mrs. Doyle isn’t very adventurous.

On his second point: I don’t know where he gets his information, but I highly doubt that there’s any proof that gay men have a shorter lifespan than straight men. Perhaps the doctors among us can weigh in on that subject.

But the part that disturbed me the most was that last sentence. How can he make such a ridiculous statement? There are many deeply committed and monogamous same-sex couples out there (in fact, I know a few.) They sleep with only that one person and are disease free. There are also many promiscuous heterosexual people who sleep with someone new each day (I know a few of those too.) Every incidence of sexually transmitted disease does not involve a homosexual. There are plenty of nasty straight people around. If he’s talking about AIDS, which has typically been seen as the gay man’s disease, a lot of the new AIDS cases these days, especially in places like Africa, are women who acquire it from their husbands. Disgusting act indeed, Mr. Doyle.

Oh, and speaking of telling lies over and over until people believe them, how about what the Bushies are preaching about how teaching nothing but abstinence in the sex ed classes is the answer. Yeah, the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the civilized world is proof that’s working… In a “perfect” world, everyone would wait to have sex until they’re married. In a “perfect” world no one would cheat, exposing their partners to disease. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect. These hard-core traditionalists need to realize that what might have worked 100 years ago (and it didn’t even work then, it was just such a taboo that no one talked about it) won’t work now. Teens will have sex whether you tell them how to protect themselves or not. Making sex seem like a horrible, dirty thing that you can’t talk about will just create more confused and uninformed parents. Education is the key and the lawmakers (and educators) seem to have forgotten that.

Our culture has become like a crotchety old man sitting on his porch in a rocking chair glaring at all the young whippersnappers prancing by. We’re so far behind in the times that it’s pathetic. Denying the reality of life today won’t make it go away. The reality is people have sex without being married. People have children out of wedlock. People have sex with others of the same gender. Get over it. While I fully intend to go the more traditional route (that is marriage and then kids) many people find it makes more sense (for them) to forego the ceremony and just cohabitate. In fact it’s rather popular in Europe, France especially.

I’ve gone on something of a rampage here and I apologize for that. I just got so mad when I read that letter. Perhaps that is the reaction people like Mr. Doyle are going for. But it is this kind of ignorance that keeps this country from being all it could be. Sometimes I’m ashamed to live here.

I think there’s no doubt which way I’ll be voting in November. :)

Who Knew?

My dad and Cheryl came up for lunch and some wedding discussion this afternoon. We also played a couple rounds of Clue - both of which I won, by the way. :) Somehow in the midst of our discussion it was revealed that my cousin Joanie was the runner-up on the latest cycle of America's Next Top Model. Here's her page on the UPN website. Ya learn interesting things everyday...

Meet Gus

Adam named this one all by himself. :)

Look Ma, I'm a doctor now!

Brat Days

This past weekend the subject of the Brat Days brat-eating contest being televised on ESPN came up while we were at Adam’s grandmother’s house up in GB. His cousin, Dave, asked if he planned to watch it. I asked why they would watch it when we could just drive down and see it live. I mean it’s Sheboygan. Barely more than an hour away.

I took a look at the website this afternoon and we’re definitely going to head down. Why? Firehouse plays on the main stage on Friday night. Yes, Firehouse. They were quite popular in the late 80’s/early 90’s and then they kind of faded out in the US after the big-hair, power-ballad rocker days were over. They have enjoyed the success of a band that’s famous in Japan I suppose. I plan to go and find their last 3 albums (all released post 1998) on iTunes tonight. In any case, they are awesome and one of their songs is currently the front-runner on our “first dance song” list for our wedding. So we’re going. End of discussion.

Adam originally wanted to enter the brat-eating contest but when he called for information he was informed that they’re all full (no pun intended) so there’s no spot for him unless someone else cancels. Oh well. We’ll still enjoy watching other people make themselves sick. Should be a good time.

Camping Trip #2

Camping trip #2 is now behind us. There’s at least one more, and possibly two more to go. We have reservations down at Rocky Arbor State Park the end of August. It’s pretty much right next door to Mirror Lake so it will be similar to our first camping trip except that we’ve reserved a 24’ pontoon boat for all day Saturday. Hope for decent boating weather!

Anyway, back to this weekend’s trip. We left home around 11:30 and ran into quite a bit of construction on Hwy 21. Adam was continually frustrated by trucks and slow drivers since it’s a dinky two-land highway. Jill, our friendly GPS voice, guided us through to the campground. We ended up going into Minnesota and then coming back around to the campground from the north. The campsite itself was nice enough. Not really as private as most of the others we’ve been to. There were very few trees and we could see everyone else who was camping around us. Luckily our site was right on a corner so we did have a big tree that provided shade for most of the evening. We were also right next to the shed where they sold wood.

We set up the tent and then headed up to Alba to investigate boats and bait. The boat thing didn’t work out so Adam decided to do some fishing off the shore at the campground. After he drowned a few worms we went back to camp and fired up the grill. My chicken was still frozen solid so it made for some interesting cooking. We spent the rest of the evening vegging out in the camp chairs. Adam got a fire going but it died relatively quickly. He revamped his log piling methods and got another one roaring in no time. We made a few s’mores while waiting for Justin to give a call after he was done at work. He arrived at the site around 10 and we hung out and talked and had more s’mores for about an hour. He had to leave around 11 when the park officially closed. The visit was short, but it was still a good time. After he left we called it a night and headed to the tent. Seems that I forgot to mention that we were also next to a very busy set of railroad tracks. Every five minutes or so a train would go roaring past just beyond the trees with its horn blaring. All night long. We were also about a mile from a racetrack where they were having races all evening. Until 11:30. Followed by fireworks. It was a noisy night, but I think I slept decently.

We awoke (officially) around 6 on Saturday and proceeded to the showers. There are only 3 showers for each gender in the entire park. This is why I was slightly amazed that I was the only one in there for the entire length of my showering and dressing. This is the first park where the showers were divided by gender so Adam and I had to shower separately, not at the same time. After we hung the towels to dry we hopped in the car and headed up to Bloomington. We figured since the day was going to be so oppressingly hot it made sense to try and spend the majority of it inside an air-conditioned building. So, Mall of America it was.

The drive up wasn’t too bad. We actually got there about a half-hour before the mall opened. The building itself was open for mall walkers so we could go inside. Starbucks and Cinnabon were also open so we got some breakfast while we waited for the rest of the mall to open up. We decided to kind of start at the top and work our way down the mall. We got distracted by Marshall’s and spent the majority of the money we spent at that store. Adam loved the fact that he could find lots of good quality, good name clothing in his size for a fraction of the retail price. The way he figured, he got almost $300 worth of clothes for less than $100. And there is no tax on clothing in Minnesota, so it’s an even better deal. Unfortunately the closest Marshall’s for us is down in Milwaukee. We’re already planning a day trip down to visit the art museum, the zoo, and now Marshall’s. We hit a few more stores (cheese, Lindt, Godiva, a toy store) and really didn’t end up spending too much money. I was impressed at my restraint. We ate lunch at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. We totally nailed the Forrest Gump trivia the server did with us. I think we only missed one question. Adam had a plate full of all kinds of shrimp and I had the southern fried chicken with mashed potatoes and a cob of corn. After purchasing a “stupid is as stupid does” t-shirt and investigated a few more stores, we called it a day and headed back to the car. We stopped at a Sam’s club we spied off the highway and bought some more water and ice. We also filled up the gas tank while we were there. It was $2.92 at Sam’s compared to the $2.99 at other local stations. (Yeah, and it’s $3.07 here in the Fox Valley…)

We then headed back to the campsite. When we got back Adam decided to try his hand at the fishing again. This time, while he didn’t catch any fish, he did catch a tree. After he had to cut the hook loose he packed things up for good. It was then he informed me that he had a headache of gargantuan proportions and he wanted to pack things up and go home. While we went back and forth on this subject for about half an hour I ultimately left it up to him. He opted to drive back home. So we packed up camp and headed back to the highway for the drive across the state.

We decided to ignore Jill and take Hwy 54 rather than 21. Never ignore the GPS. She knows what she’s talking about. 54 was one tight curve after another. There was one particular curve that came right at the top of the hill and you literally couldn’t see where the road went from the top. It was kind of scary. After stopping for food in Black River Falls, we hopped back on the interstate and then went the rest of the way back home on the safe, relatively straight 21. We got home around 10:30, unloaded the food, and went to bed.

Adam was feeling better on Sunday morning. We finished unpacking the car in the morning and spent most of the afternoon up in Green Bay. His uncle and aunt (Craig and Marge) were up visiting from Florida so I got to meet a couple more family members before the big influx of them in October. Then we came home and finished cleaning up from camping.

To re-cap – first camping trip was freezing cold and rainy. We packed up the campsite early and spent the second night at the Ramada. Second camping trip was hot (I’m talking 95+ and humid). We packed up early and drove home, spending the second night at home.

Not a good track record. We figure perhaps the third time will be the charm… perfect weather etc. We’re playing the odds here…

A New Furry Friend

The new critter. He's a panda bear hamster (for obvious reasons.) No name as of yet.

The two stooges

On a more positive note, Mo and Larry seem to get along well. We suspect they might have some gay tendencies, but that's ok. :)

RIP Dewey

We're not having the greatest furry critter luck lately. This was much more of a shock than Pigster was. He seemed fine until last night when he was breathing heavily and really not responding to us at all. We figured he was doomed and this morning he had crawled out from inside his house and was laying, belly-up. It was so sad.

We haven't replaced him yet. We probably will though. An empty cage is such a depressing sight.

Photographer... check!

We met with our photographer of choice this past Thursday and made the payment to hold the date. I had asked Adam previously if he thought it was a bad thing that we kept going with the first person we meet for each element. He pointed out that we do our research before meeting in person so it was an informed decision. I suppose he's right. I don't have doubts about any of our choices, so it seems like things should work out.

Mo and the Orange

Aww, he's so cute! (Although he does look kind of possessed

A Post of out Boredom

Wow, July already. Time flies when you're having fun.

I don't really have much to say. Most of my thoughts these days revolve around wedding stuff and I'm sure you're all tired of that already.

This nice, long, four-day weekend will be pretty uneventful. Adam works tonight, most of tomorrow, Monday, and then Tuesday evening. Today we hit the strawberry stand and managed to get there right after the owner dropped off some berries fresh from the fields. They are so delicious. I could eat an entire pint in one sitting. I didn't, but I could. We're lucky to leave pretty much down the street from a local farmer stand. We can't wait to see what other items they have later in the season. We also went to Adam's parents' house and set the tent up and cleaned it out in preparation for the camping trip in a couple weeks. It started raining about halfway through the process but luckily it was just a sprinkling. Tomorrow we'll head to church in the morning and then I'll be on my own for most of the day. I'm not sure what I'll do on Monday while Adam's at work. It kind of sucks that my company considers Monday a holiday and his doesn't. On the 4th we've really got nothing planned. We were originally hoping to head to Sheboygan to catch the Cardboard Boat Regatta, but those plans were dashed when he was scheduled to work at 5. Oh well. I'm sure we'll find something to entertain ourselves. Then it's back to work on Wednesday where I'll be thrown into unfamiliar Banner territory. Fun, fun.

More Wedding Updates

These will end eventually. I promise.

Anyway, we met with La Sure's yesterday about the cake. These pictures were taken with Adam's cellphone so they're not of A+ quality, but you can get the idea.

This is the design on the cake. It's like little stars with dots between them. You can see it best around the edges there.


This is how the cake will actually be arranged. Rather than have it in layers, we decided to separate them and have them go up in kind of a circular staircase manner. We also plan to put votive candles in the center of each layer.


This is the (blurry version of the) topper we chose.


All three of these are in the photobucket album in their bigger versions.

Next Thursday we have a meeting with a photographer. We're not sure he's the one we will go with, but his prices are reasonable (even has a discount for being on a Friday) and he comes highly recommended. After that is flowers and then the dress. Argh.

Mother Goose & Grimm Comic 6/25

This comic struck me as hilarious:



Bwahahahahaha!

Camping, Etc.

We’ve got our second camping trip arranged and reservations for a site made. We’ll be heading clear across the state to Merrick State Park July 14-16. This particular park is about 15 minutes from Winona, MN, so we’ll be meeting up with my friend Justin at some point during the weekend. It looks as though this park is relatively small and I’m not really sure what there is to do in that area. Our reserved site is very close to the bathrooms and showers so that should be nice. Adam is still undecided about whether we’ll be bringing a boat this time. I leave that completely up to him. I’m at his mercy to whether or not I get to hover in a boat by a dock, hanging on for dear life or not. :) Hee hee. It wasn’t that bad. Once we get the boat in the water and get out there it’s pretty fun. It’s the getting in and out that suck.

Our last two trips are as yet unplanned. We’re hoping Catherine and Tony can join us for one of them. That trip will probably be down to Mirror Lake (or another park in the area) again. Adam would like to go up near Chippewa Falls once but we’re not sure that long drive is worth it. We’ll see how things turn out. All we hope is that the weather is decent for at least one of the weekends. Otherwise we might lose our will to camp entirely.

This weekend will be pretty low key. Adam works tonight and we’re planning on perhaps going out a little after he gets home. Tomorrow we have to go over to The Meadows in the afternoon to sign the contract. Yeah, the lady completely forgot to have us sign the contract when we were there on Wednesday. I’m not sure if this is a bad sign or not… I think she was just in a hurry to get us out of there. It looked like her daughter was there and she probably wanted to get home. Anyway, so we have to do that and then Adam work a few hours in the evening. He also works most of the day Sunday. I’m not sure what I’m going to do during all that time alone. Maybe torture the critters a little, catch up on some reading. Depending on the weather I might do some cooking/baking. We’ll see how things shape up. There’s no real pressing matters to attend to so I could realistically watch tv all weekend. But I won’t. Hopefully.

A Random Update Post

Been slacking off on the whole blogging thing lately. There are a couple of things to update everyone about.

Wedding-related (of course you can check out the website for info, but I figured I’d elaborate here):

*We had our meeting with the woman from the reception hall last night and we paid our deposit to hold the site. It’s pretty much perfect. It should be a good time. They were set up for a 240 person reception when we were there and since ours will be less than half that large, we should have plenty of room to spread out and mingle. We’ll be talking color selection and menu nitty-gritty sometime next year. It should be nice. The people there are very flexible and seem to want to make things work the way we want.

*We bought our rings this past weekend. Pictures are posted on the photobucket wedding site. They’re pretty basic, although perhaps not exactly traditional.

*The wedding party is all confirmed. My side includes Catherine W. (friend from college) as my maid of honor and Catherine D. (sister) as my bridesmaid. Adam’s side has Dave (his cousin) as his best man and Tony (his friend) as his groomsman. It’s small, but important. I hope to get pictures of everyone up on the website sometime soon.

*We meet with Father Mike this evening. We have no idea what to expect from this meeting. I’m hoping to avoid a third-degree type conversation and I’m also hoping to avoid an “I’m not converting no matter what you say” type conversation. Heh. I’m not too worried about it though. He seems like a nice guy.

*We plan to look at flowers in August since that’s the time of year of our wedding and I’d prefer to get things that are in season. We have an inside connection with a florist in the area since Adam’s aunt works there.

*Most of the other elements (dresses, music, lodging, gift registries) can wait until later. I’m trying to get the big stuff out of the way so I can forget about it for awhile. I don’t want to be one of the obsessed people who can think and talk about nothing but their wedding. (Don’t look at the blog recently as a supporting point for me doing that right now. I promise, I’ll shut up about it soon.)


Not Wedding-Related:

*I am so far behind on my book challenge right now it isn’t even funny. I don’t think I’ve read a page in about 2 weeks. Argh! Hopefully I’ll get back on track soon. The year is half over already. Gotta pick up the pace!

*I recently purchased my third Rachael Ray cookbook and have begun cooking my way through the pages. I’ve posted a couple new dishes on the cooking blog in the past few days. I’m trying to branch out a little so I’m going to try a few fish recipes (salmon and cod) in the near future.

*The office move across town was successful. I’m pretty much acclimated to my new surroundings. Well, that is, I was until they told me they were moving me to the Banner accounting team. I’ve spent the last week preparing to transfer my New London responsibilities to the plant accountant at CSF and this afternoon is a meeting about what I’ll be taking over for the Banner people. It looks as though it will be mostly inventory valuation and job costing. Not sure if I’ll like it yet, but we shall see.

*Country USA started yesterday and although it hasn’t been too bad yet, I have the feeling that by tomorrow I’ll be cursing country music fans. It’s ironic that we moved across town so we’ll avoid the EAA mess, but we moved early enough to get stuck with the Country USA traffic right down the street instead.

New Wedding Website

Ok, so that weddings.com website just wasn't doing it for me. Everytime I went back to update something everything had disappeared. It was so annoying. So we took the plunge (heh) and bought a domain of our own. Take a look at our new website: marthaandadam.com

It's kinda stupid-looking but I'm working on it.

Yet Another One

Seriously, we've got problems. Yesterday we went to PetSmart to get some more bedding for the hamsters. I asked Adam if he thought Mo was lonely since he didn't seem to do much besides sitting there, staring into space. He said maybe and then decided to buy another guinea pig to keep him company. Apparently they like cagemates. So we picked out a cute tan one and brought him home. They haven't killed each other yet so that's a good sign.

This new one is named Larry. So they're Larry and Mo. Like the Three Stooges... Get it? Ha ha. I kill myself...

Sears Grand (!)

On the way home from camping this past weekend we decided to stop at the new Sears Grand store in Oshkosh and see how it looked. Remember, this is the old Kmart store. It has definitely changed. It looks as though they gutted the entire interior and started over. They moved major parts of the store and created a much brighter, cleaner atmosphere. They even re-did the bathrooms so they’re not totally scary anymore. We browsed through their selection of merchandise and even checked out the appliance section. I must say they cleaned the store up pretty well. Then I saw a few of the people I worked with when I was there and it was the same old stuff all over again. Apparently a lot of people were bumped out with the transition. Who’s to say I would have survived it either? I’m just still glad to no longer be working there.

That said, I keep going back and forth as to whether I want to get a second job to make some extra money (weddings aren’t cheap) and occupy some of my free time. Every time I get to thinking it would be a good idea I think about how I’d lose all that down time and the freedom to do stuff on weekends. I really don’t know what I want to do. Maybe I’ll work during the holidays or something.

Wedding Update

There's not a lot of updating to do, but I figured I'd post what I have.

We have two meetings next week: one with the place we want to have the reception - The Meadows, and one with Father Mike - the one who will be marrying us.

The Meadows is "holding" our date for right now which is something they apparently don't do but Adam had some connections or something. Unless there's something completely surprising or uncool, that's probably where the reception will be. We were there last September for a Cisco event so we know how it's set up and what the food is like. It's basically just event-specific stuff I want to talk to them about.

The meeting with the priest is pretty much to get things rolling on the church side of things. I don't think we'll start the marriage prep stuff until early next year, but I'm sure there's more to talk about than just that.

I've been doing research on photographers, flowers, cakes, and all kinds of other wedding-y things. At some point I'm going to have to sit Adam down and make some decisions before anything can really come of any of that research.

Being the absolute food network junkie that I am, I had an epsiode of "Unwrapped" on the other day and they were having a "Wedding Weekend" or something so it was all about wedding related foods. A customized fortune cookie wedding favor caught Adam's attention so we're thinking we might try and do that. I had originally thought personalized Hershey bars, but maybe we can do both. :)

We bought invitations a few weeks ago. From Wal-mart. On clearance. They're totally cute though, white and silver with an embossed bride and groom in the corner. Adam's mom will be printing them for us at the church office.

We're still looking around at all the options for rings. It would make the most sense to buy the matching ring from the jeweler he bought my other ring from but we weren't the happiest with their service and the sale they were running has since ended. We have plenty of time to comparison shop, of course, but it's still out there on the to-do list.

I'll be looking into lodging in the area soon. The wedding itself is in downtown Appleton but The Meadows is in Neenah/Menasha so it will be everyone's choice where they'd want to stay. There are plenty of hotels (La Quinta, Holiday Inn, etc) right off the highway in Appleton and there's a DaysInn in Neenah. I guess I'll need to sound people out as to where they might want to stay and then see if I can get a special rate code to give out. I'll keep everyone posted on that.

Ugh, I get tired just thinking about all the stuff I have to do.

In any case, things are progressing slowly. If anyone has suggestions or anything, feel free to leave comments.

Camping Trip #1

So this past weekend was the first of four planned camping weekends. We reserved a campsite down at Mirror Lake in Baraboo. Things started off kind of rough when we realized right outside of Fond du Lac that we had forgotten something kind of important (hint: rhymes with "girth patrol mills") so we had to turn around and go back home to get them.

On the road again, we made it generally unscathed down to Baraboo. The state park was easy to find and we got checked in around 4:00. We headed to the campsite and set up the tent. It was much easier this time since the pole arrangements had been kept intact from last summer. After camp was set up we hopped back in the car and went to take a spin in the boat. It was raining as we dropped the boat in and continued to sprinkle throughout most of the boat trip.

After we hauled the boat back out of the water we decided that since it was only 6:00 or so we would head to HoChunk Casino just down the road. We both lost our $20 and ate at their Stand Rock Buffet. They had a big Friday fish fry special which Adam loved. After eating too much we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things: bait, ice, an umbrella... We also got to see the world's biggest Menards. Trust me, it's big. By the time we got back to our campsite it had begun to rain again so we vetoed the campfire idea and decided to call it a night a little early. We got the best sleep of the night between about 9pm and midnight.

It rained all night, varying intensity and direction. We got up twice during the night to walk to the bathrooms and each time it seemed to starting pouring the second we opened the tent. It appeared the tent had a leak but perhaps it was just condensation because of the temperature difference. It was cold. Very cold. The air mattress was pretty much completely deflated by about 2am. *sigh* It was a long night.

The alarm went off at 5:30, but we had been up for an hour or so at that time. We had planned to go for an early-morning fishing trip but since it was still pouring we nixed that and headed to the showers. They totally sucked. No water pressure, hot hot water. Ugh. So that made me increasingly crabby. I mean when I went back to the car I dropped a dirty sock on the ground and that made me swear up a storm. Not a pretty sight. After calming down a bit we headed to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Adam had been so psyched when he saw that there was a CB right off the highway next to our campground.

After consuming mass amounts of greasy food we drove into downtown Wisconsin Dells to see if there was anything we wanted to do. We decided to take a tour on the Original Ducks. I know I had been on one years ago but Adam had never been. After waiting in a full duck for about half an hour, our tour guide, Topher, finally boarded and we were on our way, barreling through the woods and diving into lakes. It was a fun time. It left us slightly damp and very cold, so for our next activity we decided to do an indoor one - Tommy Bartlett's Exploratory. Good, clean, educational fun.

After partying with robots and whispering sweet nothings to each other in the whispering dishes we decided to try out Moosejaw pizzeria and brewery for lunch. Our server was a very nice Bulgarian named Dimitar. He was definately attentive. Adam had elk while I stuck with chicken. We also had some of their blonde bock and Adam got a half gallon of that to go. More on that later.

After lunch I felt crappy so I wanted to go back to the campsite and take a nap. Adamm was antsy so he went down to the pier and did some fishing while I slept off the booze. When he returned we headed down to Lake Delton to do some more boating and fishing. It was easier to get the boat in the water this time but then the motor wouldn't start. All the cranking and carb fluid and help from a fellow Fox City marina worker wouldn't get it going. Finally Adam rowed us out a bit and dropped his line. He caught various sizes of seaweed before hanging up the towel and heading back in. We had quite the time getting the boat back onto the trailer. I kept drifting (I was in the boat...) and the line kept getting tangled. Grr. After the boat was finally back on land we had a "towel in the river" incident and an "oh crap, there goes the glass bottle of beer rolling out of the trunk" incident. This made for a second trip to Moosejaw where the bartender recognized us. He must thing we're alcoholics.

After a stressful afternoon we had to make the decision to stay at the campsite or head to a hotel. I was in favor of sticking it out at the park but ultimately we decided it would probably be best to head to more civilized conditions. We had originally planned to pack up the site, get a room, and then come back to the site and make s'mores, but we figured the way the day had gone, we'd probably start a forest fire. So we just took down the tent and all its accoutrements and went to the Ramada. The only room they had left was a two-room suite so we got a living room in addition to the bedroom. Heh. We watched some tv and ordered a pizza from Moosejaw (they deliver in this PT Cruiser with a huge moose hanging out on the top of it. It's awesome.)

After a much more restful evening (it appeared to have rained again during the night and was to have been even colder than Friday night. Yay hotels!) we partook of the hotel's waffle breakfast and then packed up and headed home. Adam's mom cooked our chicken and steaks on their (bigger than ours) grill and then we came back to our apartment.

Overall, not such a great camping trip. We wimped out on night two again, but I think it was a good decision. I got a little bit of a cold and Adam isn't feeling 100% either so who knows what could have happened if we'd stayed out Saturday night. We'll probably go back to that area for one of the other weekends. With the Dells being so close, there's an endless variety of things to do.

I didn't take any pictures and Adam took a few on the Ducks tour. I'm not sure I'll be posting any of them though. I don't even know what they were of. Rock formations or something...

Next trip is in mid-July.

Naming the Pets

Whenever we get a new critter, the hardest thing is trying to find an appropriate name. Adam seems to not really have the naming talent. With this newest addition, he wanted to name him Muskateer or something else ridiculous. I have informed him that he will have no say in our childrens' names.

Anyway, we went through a few different name choices, but have decided on Mo (as in Mohawk - this guy has got some crazy hair.)

RIP Pigster

It's not like we didn't see it coming. Last week I noticed he was being weird and over the past week he got progressively worse. His whole rear end was swelling up, he wasn't drinking or eating. It was really just a matter of when, not if. Adam woke me up around 8:30 this morning and told me he thought he might be on his last legs. So I got up and cuddled with him one last time - and he bit me. Not just a half-hearted bite either. He really clamped on. Sometime between then and 11:00, he went to hamster heaven. Adam cleaned out his cage, throwing away most of his things. It's so frustrating because since we didn't know what was wrong, we couldn't help him. He was so obviously in pain for the last few days. I felt horrible even touching him. I guess in a way I'm glad it's over now.

So, this left us with an empty aquarium. I know what you're all thinking - We went out and bought another hamster. But you're wrong. We bought a guinea pig. He is as yet unnamed.