Dichotomy...

Who wants to come with me to Macy's tomorrow and raise some hell? It's a long long story, but basically we've reached the point where we're never shopping at Macy's again, and I would encourage you to do the same. I was going to say their customer service is nonexistant, but that would be giving them too much credit and doing a great disservice to noneexistant things (or really, non-things) everywhere (actually, nowhere). Their customer service is more like being dragged very slowly through a pit of smoldering ashes littered with shards of broken glass that used to be bottles filled with sulphur salts.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

I had a pretty good birthday over the weekend. Emily treated me to dinner at Potbelly on Friday night and then we saw the cutest baby chinchilla at the petstore. Emily tried to convince me that he would be a good birthday present, but he's a he, and the others are all she's, and I'm not interested in starting up a breeding operation. I do hope he goes to a good home at least. We also swung by Best Buy in search of new video games, but they didn't have much in stock. I don't like their new store layout where they put all the popular games in lock boxes at the front of the store; it makes me not want to buy them. So I didn't get Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy, Okami, or No More Heroes like I wanted. But I did get Metroid 3: Corruption, which I have thoroughly enjoyed so far. The aiming is taking a little getting used to, and the auto aim doesn't do what I feel like it should, but everything else about it is pretty sweet.
Saturday (after watching Kimi Raikkonen easily win the F1 Grand Prix of Spain and playing Metroid), we went over to my parents' for a slightly rainy BBQ. The food was good though even if we couldn't sit outside. And it was nice to see Kristin and Rich and Caryn. We haven't seen them in a long time, so it was nice to catch up. Kristin and Rich left early to head to the Nats game, and I'm anxious to hear how they like the new stadium since I refuse to set foot in RFK anymore.
You know you're getting old when you can't blow out the candles on your own birthday cake anymore. And I think there were only like 8-10 candles on it too. They were really far apart, but still. And when everyone asks to see your new glasses at your birthday party. And when you spend 30 minutes at dinner talking about your medical problems. *sigh* On the other hand, I did get a video game character cake and did spend several hours playing Metroid on Saturday and I did get Legos, a Frisbee, and a kite as birthday presents, so I can't be all that old yet! ;)

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments

I don't think my MS Paint version is all that different from the truth, do you? Maybe I should apply for a job as a graphic artist. I'll bet if I had used Photoshop instead, the results would be seamless...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

Yeah, that's going to take a little getting used to... Over the past few months I've noticed that reading certain things has become more difficult. Not that I can't see, and I have no problem actually focusing on things in front of me, but it just seems like it's requiring more effort than it should, and when I close my eyes for a minute and reopen them once they've relaxed, everything is a bit fuzzy. So I went to go see an eye doctor yesterday, who told me what I figured was inevitable: I need reading glasses. Of course, the fact that I spent nearly all my day in front of a computer kind of makes them de facto all-the-time glasses. In any case, this is what I will be looking like in a couple weeks when they're done, though hopefully not so pixelly.
Frankly, given my bad habits of reading Stephen King under the covers with a flashlight when I was 13, sitting in front of a computer staring at code and spreadsheets all day for the last 4 years, it's kind of amazing I've made it 27 years without needing corrective lenses. In fact, what's really causing the problem isn't even so much my eyesight getting terribly bad, but rather developing some mild astigmatism. *shrug* When nearly everyone else I know wears glasses or contacts and has for years, it's going to be a bit of an adjustment for me, but I had accepted this as inevitable a few years ago anyway.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

Today's tongue twister: Stick with liquids.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments

Hooray!!! At long last, the photographer's official proofs are posted online! Go! Look! Some of the "goofy" poses we did had me absolutely cracking up this morning.

Edit: So, apparently the id for the album changed after I posted this, which is why you're seeing PHP errors. I've changed the link to match what it is currently. If it stops working again, go to T.G. Martin's website, skip past the flash intro, click on Online Previews, and then find "Taylor - Bever FORSYTH PARK" on the list.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

My car rolled over 11111 miles today. Or, more accurately, the bits controlling the digital odometer readout flipped to change the display from 11110 to 11111. In any case, I was excited, especially since I wasn't paying attention when I passed 10000. The next major milestone - 16384. 5 nerd points to the first person who can tell me why.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

Current outside temperature: 74 F
Feels like: 81 F
Current indoor temperature: 88 F
Feels like: WTF?

As soon as I'm done with this post I'm sending an email to facilities asking for them to rememdy this situation or find me another workspace because this is ridiculous.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's official! My promotion came through, effective COB tomorrow. I am now (or, technically, will be shortly) a Principal Engineer. Any thoughts I was having last night about maybe making the wrong decision regarding DCS have been thoroughly quashed given the sizeable raise to go along with the title change. My manager handed me the paper and I just started giggling at the obscene amount of money I (will) make. I wasn't expecting anything near that high. I'm making $5k more than what DCS offered me, including their signing bonus. True, I don't get that all at once, but still, in the long term, at least financially, I'm certainly in a better place here than I could ever hope to be at DCS. Yay promotion!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments

This is the tail end of Tim and Margaret's first dance at their wedding reception.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

I decided the simplest thing to do here is just post links to other people's wedding photo collections and keep them all in one place. Enjoy!

If you have a photo page and want a link posted here, leave a comment and I'll shift the link up to the main post. On the flip side, if I've linked to you and the gobs of traffic I'm sure to send your way (I frequently get 10's of hits a day!) may crush your webserver or you want your link removed for some other more likely reason, let me know and I'll be happy to remove it for you.

Steph R.
Ben B.
Jim B.
Ginnie B.
Jennifer W.
Added at 3:49 pm on 4/8/08:
Katie C.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments

Here's a few pictures from our trip down to Melbourne last weekend for Tim and Margaret's wedding. We had such a good time and the weather was so nice (once we got there). As usual, weather caused massive delays related to Hartsfield, and we arrived 4 hours later than scheduled, and our bags got thrown in a puddle at the airport. But we arrived, had fun with all Tim's friends doing go karts Saturday morning and lunch at Chili's and at the wedding and post=-wedding basketball party in Brian's suite. I have to say that it was pretty hard to get on the plane after walking on the beach under blue skies and 85 degree temperatures to come back to DC with 50 degree temps and blustery, wet weather. Blah. It was really nice to enjoy someone else's wedding and just be a spectator. So much less pressure! The first 10 days or so of married life have been great too, and it's been fun to see a couple other friends who are at exactly the same point in their lives go through the same things. Anyway, here are the pictures.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's official now, Emily and I got hitched last weekend! I think everyone had a really good time down in Savannah. Everything turned out so much better than I think anyone had hoped. It was fun to see some people I hadn't seen in a long time. Still sorta bummed that I only had one friend (Nikki) show up who wasn't also a groomsman, but whatever, they missed a good party and I didn't. (On a related note, I'm thinking about commandeering my parents' house for a BBQ sometime in the next couple weeks for all those people who couldn't make it to Savannah - anyone interested?) Laser tag Saturday morning was awesome (go green team!), and I think I'm starting a new action-activity trend (as opposed to golfing) since Brian is now planning a go-kart outing before Tim's wedding this weekend. I'm finally starting to not want a nap in the middle of the afternoon. The entire experience was totally exhausting, but so much fun, and seeing it all come together really made all the planning and everything else worth it. Also, several people asked me and/or Emily for copies of the vows we wrote. I was going to post them here, but I decided that they're really more of a personal thing between me and Emily that the whole world doesn't really need to see. Anyway, if you're really interested, shoot me an email. (On an unrelated note, I just wanted to say that I'm love with parenthetical asides tonight apparently.) Finally, there are some pictures starting to surface on Facebook, and I'm sure more will be coming along eventually. Once I collect a few good ones, I'll post some here.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments