Right, so, where was I? Right. A month late writing about the wedding. Ok, well here’s a bit of the pre-game show.

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This was fast, unproductive, and kind of frustrating week of work. It was my first week back after being out with the wedding and moving stuff for two weeks and it was pretty difficult to get back into the swing of things. I kept finding excuses to procrastinate and procrastinate, I did.

The frustrating part was with the new brand manager. I guess he used to work there before I got hired (I don’t know what he did then though) and they re-hired him to manage the brands. I haven’t even met him yet, but I’ve been getting feed back from him via a third party and he’s irritating me. I’ll try not to get to granular, because the details are boring but basically he’s giving feedback that doesn’t have anything to do with brand management and is dipping into my territory.

I have to do an 18 foot tall banner for one of the games that will be at GenCon. I was given a set of renders to pick from, the specs for the piece and instructions that it only needs to have: a render of the character, the logo of the game, the smaller company/publisher logos. I put together a rough (though my roughs aren’t very rough) and he came back with some bad feedback. It was clear that he didn’t know anything about the banner size or configuration, he tried to dictate my use of shadow and color, and now he’s trying to dictate layout.

As a brand manager he should be checking to make sure the logo is big enough and that the render, and the treatment of it is representative of the brand and current ad campaign. But he tried to start pulling the puppet strings and simply will not play that way. I got in a pretty good argument with the last brand guy and I just will NOT go through that same frustration. I spent a lot of time being timid at work, bending to the will of others because I wasn’t confident in my skills. Now I have a little experience under my belt; I’m still not mega-confident in my kung fu, but it helps to realize that I’ve been there for nearly two years and have nothing but good reviews. Most people like my work and I feel I’m doing a good job. So I’ve decided that I need to be the advocate for our designs. If that makes me unpopular and makes me some enemies, well I guess I can’t help that.

The way I figure it, they don’t just pay me to be photoshop monkey. If I can honestly look someone in the eye and say “yes, I think this is a good design, it does what its supposed to do, and it’s the best job that I can do by the deadline” then I owe it to myself to give a push back a bit on what I feel is stupid feedback.

OH! On the upside, I got a new loaner monitor from the HP reps. It’s a 24 inch, 1 BILLION color LCD. It’s the first LCD that can match the professional color capabilities of a CRT. It’s huge, it’s fast, it has built in color profiles. I. Fucking. Love it.

There’s just no way I deserve a woman that packs me a wonderful looking bento-style lunch like this. I’ve said it before and it bears repeating: I am one lucky geek.

I’ve probably logged in and back out of wordpress eleven times, completely intimidated with the task of trying to encapsulate the events of the past two weeks. I know I’m never going to do it justice, but here we go.

Wait, no. Let me first sum up. I’ll go deeper into each of the topics in separate posts.

Ok, here we go. The Master Plan: Fly to North Carolina with my best man on Friday, get married to the girl of my dreams on Monday, pack up her things, drive 1000 miles back to Massachusetts with a dog and two cats Saturday, and have a week to unpack, clean up the piles of fur and carnage after Erika’s cats meet MY cat Isis Destroyer of Worlds. It’s been quite a couple of weeks to say the absolute least.

Posts to follow:

1. The Flight South and Pre-Wedding Stuff or “It’s No Wonder My Parents Got Divorced”
2. The Big Day! or “The Last Time I’ll Look That Good”
3. The Pack & Move - Plus “Holy Shit, I Lost A Cat!!”
4. The Unpack, Adjustment, & Settle-In or “CAAATTT FIIIGGGHHTTTT!!!”

Well, after two days of driving Erika and I (plus her dog  Maya and two cats Selphie and Vinny) are in Massachusetts!  We have a lot to put away and to do but all week to do it. Lots more to write, but later! So tired!

All you need is a microwave and a Nokia cell phone!

Don’t try this at home, blah blah blah

It’s a sunny day in May. The 28th, in fact, exactly one year ago today. A man and a woman are sitting in a car in an airport parking lot. The man is about to get on a plane and head back home to his boring little life and his empty apartment.

The woman is gorgeous. She has beautiful hair that becomes more red as the sun shines on it and eyes that are slightly puffy from tears.

These two have known each other for several years, six give or take, But they’ve only seen each other twice in person. But when they first saw each other for the first time it was like they’ve known each other forever.

It’s the very picture of boy-meets-girl, boy likes-girl, boy-not-sure-girl-likes-him. He is losing his mind with nervousness. He has something he wants to tell her, but doesn’t want to scare her off. He’s pretty sure this is the girl he wants to spend forever with, but what if she doesn’t feel the same way? Well he would die, simply put. He could curl up in a ball and become part of landscape and in the years to follow everyone would come from miles around to see the weird man-shaped tree stump that died of anguish and embarrassment.

Somewhere in the back of the man’s head he recalled all of the things people say about situations like these. Do or do not, carpe diem, maybe not today maybe not tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life. It then came to the man just how many of his thoughts were in the form of movie quotes…but that’s a post for another time.

It’s nearly time to get out of the car, the plane leaves soon. This is it. Do it. What if she hates me, he thinks. She’s not going to hate you, he also thinks…she might might reject you but at least you said it. Being a reject has got to be better than being a coward, right?

Right. He put his shaking hand on her tear-wet cheeks and said it. Erika, he said, I think I love you.

And you know what? He was right.

You know what else? She loved him right back.

I love you with all my silly heart. I love you for everything you are and will ever be. I love you for loving me despite, and because of, my faults and quirks. I will love you for the end of time.

Here’s to happily ever after, my angel. Happy Anniversary.

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So…the details of that fateful weekend.

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I don’t have the time to outline the whole weekend yet, so I shall sum up for now and then detail later:

My Xbox was kidnapped.

I drove to a cabin on a lake in New Hampshire.

I was completely surprised by who I found there.

I was shot.

Many times.

I played Donkey Kong.

I love my fiancee’.

My friends need professional help.