A Gamer Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Tag: wedding

Celebrating a Decennium of Matrimony

10 year wedding anniversaryFerries Bueller is right, life moves pretty fast. It’s hard to believe that this is my 10 year wedding anniversary. It has been a decade since entering into the sacrament of marriage. I think what really makes those 10 years go so fast is that I believe we have a good marriage and a healthy relationship. A relationship that started at Purdue; thus why we were married on campus with all of our Purdue friends in attendance. After all, they are the reason we were brought together.

We shared the alter with 14 other people; we had a large wedding party. Those people were important influences in our lives and it was an honor to share that moment with all of them standing beside us. The following 10 years I would move to another state and change jobs twice. Apple and Google barrel in like bulls in a china shop and knock Microsoft off their pedestal. The Chicago Cubs finally break their World Series curse. Star Wars becomes bigger than it ever was before. Social media first becomes an amazing phenomenon then a cesspool of deplorable human behavior.

I’m glad I got to share all of that with my penguin.

I Found My Penguin

According to scientific research, it is true that most penguins do mate for life. It also, just so happens, that penguins are one of my favorite animals in the animal kingdom. Isn’t that ironic. In the last 10 years I may have developed a few regrets but I do not regret standing at that alter. In the words of Lee Brice, I’m “hard to love / I don’t make it easy”. I’m stubborn, I have a bad temper and I’m a massive nerd but it’s humbling to see that none of that ever matters. It’s rare to find someone who just rolls their eyes instead of hiding their face when your nerd is showing.

Honestly, I hate clichés and there are so many clichés that describe finding your perfect partner. You’ve probably heard them all and maybe you know some I haven’t heard of. “Soul mates”, “marrying your best friend”, “finding ‘The One'” and these are all applicable, but I like “penguin”. I found my penguin. It’s simple. It’s not an overused cliché and its 100% accurate.

TBT: My Favorite Date

wedding-dayOctober 13, 2007 will forever be the favorite day of my life, followed very closely by April 14, 2014 (after all the latter couldn’t have happened without the former). Since Octoboer 13th was just this past Monday, this seemed the appropriate TBT post. I’ll admit it was a day I never thought would happen to me; not many of us with that “computer geek” label are credited with having much luck in the romance department; but for what its worth, we do have amazing “grep” patience 🙂

So, most of my friends and family I’m sure remember this day. We were married in the city we both loved for 4-6 years (i.e. West Lafayette on Purdue’s campus) and in a church we both loved (St. Thomas Aquinas). There are so many memories I could go into from that day. One memory, for example, was the morning of the wedding when I did not receive the groom’s complimentary bagel from Einstein’s Bagel’s because I was not present when a few of my groomsmen went to get some breakfast. Since the Best Man was dressed slightly differently than the others, the clerk thought he was the groom and he decided he wasn’t going to make the correction. I took no offense, but its a great story!

An example of “best made plans going awry”, which is a frequent theme for all weddings, was the night before the wedding. The church had made a mistake when booking the rehearsal. We were supposed to begin rehearsal at 7pm but we received a phone call about 5pm asking why nobody had arrived at the church. We had to call all the bridesmaids and groomsmen (that had managed to make it into town) to get to the church as quickly as possible. We ended up doing the rehearsal with about half the bridesmaids and a third of the groomsmen and the rehearsal dinner was still 2 hours away. Everything still worked out because all of our bridesmaids and groomsmen are awesome!

We were both so happy that so many of our friends could attend. Friends from high school, college, and friends we made while Beth was getting her MBA at Notre Dame.

So here’s to 7 years, to another 70 years and to the Best. Wife. Ever!

TBT is one of those crazy Facebook trends. It stands for “ThrowBack Thursday” and often times people post pictures. I know the old adage “A picture is worth 1,000 words” but most of the time the pictures I want to post have a great story behind them. In my traditional nerdy fashion, instead of just a picture I want to provide a blog post for my TBT moments to share those great stories. I will not share stories in which the context will embarrass or incriminate myself or my friends and family.

Back from Vegas

I have returned from my trip to Vegas; it was my first time in Vegas but I wasn’t there to gamble, I was there for a friends wedding. I can sum up my impression of Vegas in one word: expensive. We spent a whole $1 gambling but money spent on food also makes things quite expensive in Vegas. I believe that is why people gamble in Vegas, to attempt to replenish the money they spent to eat.

At any rate, like I said, I wasn’t there to gamble, I was there to attend a wedding. This may sound odd but I had never met these friends face-to-face but I have known them and I have known their voices for over 2 years. They are friends we have made from playing World of Warcraft. It was well worth the time and money to fly out there and finally put a face to the voice. It was actually extremely comforting to learn that we all get along very well even when we are not playing the game. We all got along as if we had known each other before the game even existed.

The ceremony was fantastic, Tiff looked extraordinary in her wedding dress. This union between Rich and Tiff was a long time in the making; in my opinion they were already married, this was just the formality. I had so much fun that I really hated to see the weekend end. Again, congratulations to Rich and Tiff to a match made in heaven; may your love never fade and may you both have a long and fulfilling life together. Thank you very much for giving me the honor to attend your wedding.

I definitely think that a real life guild gathering will have to be organized sometime in the future.

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