11 Days

Things to do (in no particular order, they just need to be done):

• Reschedule meeting with priest because he is not available tonight as originally planned.
• Reschedule wedding rehearsal because church is unavailable... meaning they decided to make Wednesday nights adult CCD nights so they moved our practice to Tuesday but failed to tell us.
• Help brother sell tickets for concert that we will not be attending because the church rescheduled our rehearsal.
• Call a local restaurant to make reservations for after rehearsal dinner.
• Buy a belt for my suit. While I'm shopping, I need undershirts and a few more polo shirts. New cargo pants and Levi's 501 won't hurt either.
• Pack for mini-honeymoon in San Francisco (my patron saint)... although the future wife wants us to be packed by Sunday but if I do that I won't have anything to wear for the rest of the week other than business casual attire. Hence the need for extra polo shirts, cargo pants and Levi's 501.
• Commit to a "first dance" song. Note to self: stop being wishy-washy - commit!
• While I'm at it, commit to mother-son dance. Same note to self as above.
• Music - do and don't play list for the DJ.
• While we are still on the subject of music, follow up with the Trio.
• Book a hotel room for the night of the wedding.
• Determine if "Ave Maria" does in fact exists in Spanish and not just in Latin (which although sounds a little bit like Spanish is not the same thing.)
• Pay vendors - right quick.
• Certificate of insurance - can't have a party with out that.
• Fire permits that are required for the location for the two (2) 5" candles that we are planning to burn for a few hours.
• Apparently the day of can't be all willy-nilly so finalize day of schedule.
• Send schedule to vendors so they know where they need to be.
• Ideas for things to do while our guests wait 3 hours between church and the reception.
• Buy champagne.
• Finish decorations.
• Unity Candle. That's important.
• Deliver ties to brothers and hope they fit.
• Figure out when I can spend time with my best friend from 9th grade as she is flying in from San Francisco (where she currently resides).
• Make sure dad gets suit.
• List of names for our friend who is writing out the seat-assignment-chair-tent-place-thingies.
• Figure out who is helping us deliver items and pick-up items after the wedding.
• While I'm at it, who is helping us on Thursday and Friday before the wedding?

I'm pretty sure there are a few other things I still need to do but I'm getting a headache. And no, I'm not stressed but thank you for asking.

A Pirate's Life for Me...

For the uninitiated, today be a glorious day for any of the aspiring pirate. Because today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! A day when any land lubber can cast aside their everyday confines and embrace their inner pirate.

Now I could provide you with more information on this glorious holiday but these scally wags do a much better job than I would. Suffice it to say that all you need to do is... talk like a Pirate! Arrr! So let us begin...

What I be offerin' is the followin ye scurvy dog - a bit of Pirate wisdom t' help ye celebrate:

• Arrr, first an' formost, talk like a pirate!
• Fly th' Jolly Roger from yer ship. Dasn't be havin' a ship ye say? Yer car or cubicle will do.
• Choose a beauty of a pirate name usin' this tool.
• As a lesson t' all annoyin' bilge rat (co-workers), make them keel haul th' plank.
• Watch any o' th' fine buccanneer cinema availble at yer local store.
• Dress in tattered fineray (which most people do already.)
• Pillage an' plunder th' cubicle across th' way in broad tide light.
• Raise a keg o' rum (or any alcohol really.)
• Lead a office mutiny.
• Find a nice wee spot fer buried booty

Arrr, that be all for now. Have ye a grand time on this most festive of holiday. Arrr!

The Pen Thief

At a recent working dinner, a co-worker proclaimed that one of her golden rules for business is "to always have a pen to write with."

Fast forward to the next morning at an important client/partner agency meeting. I was sitting down, going over my portion of the presentation and writing down my notes when she sat down next to me to review her portion of the presentation. She needed to write something down but contrary to her golden rule, she did not have a pen with her. So she just helped herself to the nearest pen which happened to be the pen I was using which was resting on my notebook... without asking and even worse, never returned the pen. (For those who know of my pen obsession, you know how infuriating this is.)

Now the funny thing is that this is not the first time she has done this to me but the fourth time which is why I found her golden rule a bit perplexing and very comical. That is also why I always carry extra pens when she is around (that and it is also part of the pen obsession.) To bad too, I liked that pen. I was getting used to it.

Don't Call it a Come Back!

I think I heard the greatest news ever this past Wednesday morning on my local NPR station.

Ten months after the closing of my favorite local record shop Tower Records, Russ Solomon - founder and previous owner of said record shop - has opened a NEW record shop. Modeled after the original Tower Record's philosophy which he feels can still work in this digital age, R5 Records has opened for business across the street from where the first Tower Records opened forty years ago. If this new venture works out, he plans to open additional stores outside of Sacramento.

To say that I heard a choir of angeles when I heard this news would be an understatement.

To Mr. Solomon - thank you, good luck and Godspeed. I'll just sit right down here and wait.

New Furniture

The thing about living with your parents for 33 years and then moving out is that your parents own all the furniture you are currently using. So as I moved out, the only things that came with me were my CD's, book case (needed something to hold the CD's,) stereo, TV (that my brother donated to me two months ago,) collectibles, assorted mementos and clothes.

So, until I get married in October and we purchase essential furniture, I'm currently living "like a college student." Although as a college student, because I was living with my family, I lived in a fully-furnished home. But that is beside the point. Beyond the assorted metal folding chairs and cardboard boxes pretending to be tables, the essential temporary furniture has been a bed.

I started the new apartment experience by sleeping on single-person sofa that turns into a single-person bed that if my memory serves me correctly, was purchased at Montgomery-Ward. There was also a night on a glorified yoga mat but that thing went back to the store right quick.

But now, I'm the proud owner of a Costco purchased AeroBed Raised Queen Air Mattress and sleeping has been good. Although there has been something that has crossed my mind. As I lay there on my fancy-shmancy air bed, I started to think. And what I thought about is that the reality is that the only thing that is keeping me from crashing to the ground is a sheet of plastic and air. I'm basically floating 18" above the ground as I sleep. Beyond the whole floating thing - what happens if I spring a leak in the middle of the night? I know I won't come crashing down (I hope) but I'll probably slowly sink into the plastic eventually getting tangled up into a plastic straight jacket and since I'm currently living alone I don't know how long I will be stuck like that...

OK, maybe I'm going a bit far. But still, sleeping on an air mattress is pretty trippy. I'm just saying.

On the Road

Today is the 50th anniversary of the publishing of ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac. Some of you may have heard of this book or even read it. Some of you may have not. I have.

In jazz-influenced prose, Kerouac recounts the adventures of Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise (in reality his friend Neal Cassidy and himself) as they criss-cross a now gone America in search of life's adventure. The writing of the actual book goes that one night, Kerouac taped together a large roll of paper - measuring 120-feet - fed it into his typewriter, turned on an all-night jazz station and started typing away in a stream of non-stop consciousness. 3-weeks later, he had his first draft of ON THE ROAD. With the lyrical style of the book, the glory of life on the road and a 3-week writing process, the book has become required reading for all aspiring poets, rock stars, bohemians, etc. And in college, I was all of the above or at least thought I was.

The book was in simple verse but carried such a passion and excitement that I have never encountered in any book. For me, it played into my new-found love of jazz (and music in general), my desire to be on an exciting road trip that was plaguing my restless heart and most of all, just being part of a new adventure each and every day.

It's been over 10 years since I have read the book, but it still holds a special place in my heart. I am no longer an aspiring anything - I am who I am and that is who I want to be. At the time though, there was a crazy sense of freedom that the characters had and I wanted. I sometimes lived vicariously (and still do) through ON THE ROAD and his many other books. All written in a jazz-style prose and describing life off the beaten path.

It’s Hot

Seriously, this weekend was way too hot. I know that summers in the San Fernando Valley are known to be hot but this weekend was ridiculous. On this particular Sunday, by 8:13 AM it was 86°. By 10:06 AM it was 98°. And by 12:49 PM it was a cool 111°.

Granted, it wasn't like I working outside for an extended period of time or anything. But I could feel the heat when I left my air conditioned car to enter an air conditioned store or an air conditioned home. I’m just saying that it was hot.

On the nostalgic tip - since I pass most of my time indoors now - I (sometimes) miss those San Fernando Valley summers. Playing in that heavy heat and cooling off in creative ways such as:

• Running through the sprinklers while watering the lawn... ultimately turning the lawn into a swap area because the water ran too long. (Not the best way to conserve water I admit but we were just kids - what did we know.)
• Playing with a slip and slide that my mom happened to make out of some plastic material she had. She said it was the same thing as the one in the commercial but looking back, I don't think it was.
• The pool that my dad created one weekend using his truck bed and a few strategically placed towels. It was drained by Sunday night because he had to go work on Monday.
• The bath tub that my dad brought home one day and set up in the backyard for us kids to sit in while the water hose filled it to the brim.
• Drinking some Kool-Aid but mostly fruit juices that my mom would make fresh like this red drink called Jamaica that looked like Kool-Aid and was apparently Kool-Aid's cousin according to my mom but it just tasted funny.
• Drinking a plethora of water straight from the hose since the invention of bottled water was only a faint dream.

But looking back, I don't know if the heat ever really got to me as it does now - dang old age. But ahh, those were the days. It's still too hot though.