Half-a-dozen of the other

The Bad:
- People who still don't have power
- Not getting to play Zelda as much as I want
- Crazy cats
- 1 F wind chill
- Computer problems that only occur when I'm not around
- Allie leaving all day Saturday

The Good:
+ TiVo freeing us from the shackles of "scheduled programming"
+ Getting the final version of Windows Vista running (and successfully activated!)
+ Websites that get me through the day (StuffOnMyCat and Fark)
+ My lovely wife
+ (Probably) getting another car (a nice one!)
+ Getting more Wiimotes and nunchuks (they're on their way!)

6 of 1

The Negative:
- Car would not start this morning
- I have to work all day Saturday
- My feet hurt & and I haven't slept well this week
- I only worked out once this week
- I have to miss my tennis lesson this Saturday cause of work
- My computer randomly shutting off!


The Positive:
+ Its FRIDAY!
+ Our Christmas trees
+ Car is seeming to start again
+ CCHCC Holiday Party - success!
+ Joy's cherping at Lenny
+ MY NEW BOOTS! (that I got for HALF OFF CAUSE I RULE)

Wii day arrives

Today was the day. Wii day. If you're not familiar with Nintendo's latest console, you can find more information about it on the official website. Essentially it's the successor to the Nintendo GameCube and the method of control is extremely innovative. So much so that it may in face put the big N back on top of the home console market. But I digress...

Wii day. For gamers such as me, this day has been in the making for longer than we can remember. Recently there were rumors of possible shortages... demand would be high, especially due to the hype generated on the internet. We decided the best course of action would be to wait in line outside our local Target this morning before they opened. I managed to get there about 6:00 (they opened at 8:00). This particular store was to have 39 in stock the first day. I was not a moment too soon! I stepped into the line, 37th person from the door.

It was a cold, cold morning... but it was worth it. I snapped this picture with my phone in the car.


Allie and I spent the rest of the day (after I got home at 9:00) setting it up and playing games. Man, it's amazing. Everything I thought it would be. Here's another shot in case the first one's not believable:



Everyone should get a Wii!

supa hot!

And one of MY favorites...

Website updates!

In the midst (er... near the end, actually) of a busy busy week, I've finally gotten around to updating our website, to coincide with the RTM (tech speak really gets into your head; sorry!) of the first wave of Thank-You notes.

Updates include a transcript of our wedding ceremony and photo albums from the wedding shower and the reception. The photos currently up are those that we got from the "table cameras." That means that you, dear reader, are the photographer who created these masterpieces.

Below are a couple of my personal favorites from the reception album.



Head on over to our website to check it all out!

Cat update!

Yes, my cats love me.




And here is my multi-cultural kitty family.

BAT!

So, the other week Jon and I were walking down one of the strip malls in Champaign, and much to our shock, we saw a bat!!!!

HOW AWESOME!

Here is where the bat was hanging out on the building.



And closer...





BATS ARE SO AWESOME!

Saying goodbye

As previously posted about on the blog, our friend Philipp from Germany came to visit for a few weeks. For those who do not know, he was originally in the US as an exchange student in high school, and we have all remained friends since, with a few international visits back and forth.

Philipp left to fly home today (Saturday), so last night we had a little get together at Ashley's mom's house. The evening was lots of fun, of course, with a grill, fried potatoes, and smores.

It is really hard to say goodbye to someone you love - especially if you know you will not see them for a long time.

Last night was also a bit hard, because Ashley's mom is probably going to be moving and selling her house. We have spent countless evenings at Ashley's house - playing board games, playing video games, drinking, eating, talking... etc etc. Doing all the wonderful things that make life wonderful. It is one of those places that you just cannot describe - I suppose the right word is home.
And, although a few friends were missing, it was a fitting goodbye.


So, last night was bitter sweet. I love where we've been, I love where we are, and I look forward to where we will all be.

I'll miss you Philipp, but we will be together again some day!
I'll miss you Ashley's house, but you will always be in my heart!



A part of you has grown in me. And so you see, it's you and me together forever and never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart.

Here comes the bride!

Well, the wedding is over! It went so, so well! It was so great to see everyone look so beautiful. We had such a great time. There will be a longer update eventually, especially when we get the professional photos back.

But for now... thank you to everyone!

I love you, Jon!




(Thanks to my dear friend Amanda for the photo!)

Today's the day!

It's finally here, and we couldn't be more excited!

We hope to see you all there! Once again, here are the maps and directions, in case you need them.

German invasion

This weekend we hosted an international guest. I speak (well, actually type) , of course, of Philipp, our friend from Germany. Philipp has been a dear friend of ours ever since we met him in high school.

He was a foreign exchange student at the time at MacArthur HS and became friends with some MHS people I hung out with regularly. We got along well as fellow nerds often do, communicating through the international languages of binary and JavaScript. After he left to return to his homeland, we stayed in touch and he came to the U.S. to visit us again in the summer of 2004. Needless to say, we were surprised and delighted to find out that Philipp would be present at our wedding!

So after he flew into the States on Friday, he came to our house and we partied all weekend... and by partied, I mean played video games. But it was a lot of fun and we are definitely looking forward to everyone being there next weekend!

Speaking of which, holy crap the wedding is close! In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm ready for it; but I keep thinking there's so much left to do. I'm not sure there really is that much left to do, but it feels like it sometimes.

return to blogging!

It has been FAR too long since we've updated! Things are just so busy lately!

There is plenty to report to! My trip to California was great, and it is alos great to be back. The wedding planning is nearly complete, as it is less than a month until the big day! Things will hopefully calm down a bit afterwards.

Here is a photo I took in California after a difficult hike. More to come...

Bachelor chow

Allie's been gone to California for almost a week now. (I'm going to pick her up tomorrow, yay!) But I've managed to keep myself busy while she's been gone. Here are some of the projects/adventures I've had in the mean time.

Before Allie left for California, we went camping in a place called Graham Cave State Park. It was really pretty fun! Here's a photo I took of my knee and our campfire.


Then we hung out in St. Louis until her flight. We went to a Whole Foods for the first time, which was really awesome. Then we just kinda chilled at our hotel and Allie got ready for her departing flight, which was really early in the morning.

In the time since Allie flew away, I've managed to stay busy and take a few decent-ish pictures on my phone in the process. I rented and watched V from Netflix, which was interesting. A package came that Allie had ordered, which included these awesome items:

(whatever this thing is)

I also managed to do quite a bit of cleaning around the house that I'd been meaning to do for a long time. Ah, but I see the cat hair is already accumulating on our living-room floor once again. Oh well.

Today I went to the dentist and found out (not surprisingly) that I need a significant amount of dental work. I'm scheduled to get a root canal and a crown in mid-October and a small filling in November, then probably a few more crowns next year. Oh well... that's what dental insurance is for! While I was at my (new) dentist, I saw that he had proudly displayed the 2005 "Provider of the Year" award he received from CCHCC in the same office as his DDS diploma and Illinois state dentistry license. I was so excited (and wanted to show Allie) so I took a picture with my phone (You can almost read it):


Holy crap, the wedding is getting really close now... Eeep! I'm besided!


In geeky news, I've spent the past few days using Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 on my laptop. It is actually pretty good. I've only had it totally freeze up on me once, which is impressive for an OS that's still unfinished. The coolest eye-candy thing they've done is called Flip3D. Here's a video that gives you an idea of how it works. Aside from the aesthetic improvements, I looked through all the Group Policy settings today and noticed that a ton of stuff that I've always wished I could set by GPO (Power Options comes to mind) will be configurable in a Vista environment. Now that is exciting!

Other than that, I've just been watching reruns of Futurama, TOS, DS9, etc. all week

So tomorrow I drive to STL and pick up Allie. Hooray! The bachelor week comes to a close.

Muuur!

ALTHOUGH, there is something super important that I should write about!

We got yet ANOTHER kitty! This is it though! Our house is full!

We got this little one from my family in Oklahoma too, just like Edgar. Her original name was Abby, but that is my Mom's cat's name. So we have named her Joy because she is such a joy. She is SO sweet, she loves toes, and L-O-V-E-S Lenny and Edgar. They all get along really well. She's about 8 months old, but is only about as big as Edgar (4 months old).

One thing that has surprised me... its amazing how MUCH food three cats can eat!




Joy + Edgar = <3


Joy + Lenny = <3


Pile of Cats (tm)

biz

Super busy lately! No time!

But here is a cute picture of Jon and I.




PS. I go to California in SIX DAYS! A-w-e-s-o-m-e!

Plan B over-the-counter!

((I'm stealing alot of this text from my co-organizer Brooke's blog, but she wont mind! And besides, I couldn't have written it better myself!))

Wow, what a huge day.

This morning, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved emergency contraceptive pill, Plan B, for sale over-the-counter to women 18 and older. Emergency Contraception (or EC) is a special dose of ordinary birth control pills that can prevent unintended pregnancies if taken up to five days after unprotected intercourse, contraceptive failure, or sexual assault. It does not cause an abortion and has no effect if a woman is already pregnant.

EC is most effective the sooner it is taken, but previously EC required a doctor's visit and physician prescription, making it difficult for many women to get a prescription in time for it to be effective. So, women nationwide launched a campaign to get EC made available without a prescription.



My job at Champaign County Health Care Consumers is the lead organizer for the Campaign for Access to Emergency Contraception.

We have held rallies, hosted community forums, conducted pharmacy surveys, went on lobby visits to our legislators, got physicians to write advance prescriptions for EC and later to give away free EC on the spot, sent Valentines to the FDA, held house parties, spoke in classes, and otherwise worked our butts off to promote easier EC access. And it paid off! EC is now available for sale over-the-counter. It is lamentable, and a damn shame, that the FDA is too short-sighted to also approve the pill for non-prescription use by women 17 and younger as well, particularly after highly reputable studies show that young women are no less capable of taking the medication without a doctor's supervision, nor are they any more likely to engage in sexually risky behavior when they had ready access to EC. But, today's decision is still a huge advance for women!





Thank you Brooke and Claudia, for being my inspiration and all the women out there who made this victory possible.

It's great to feel part of something.

Important life events

Our car recently reached an important milestone...




YES, that is SIX (6) sixes - with a 1 in front.

True love.

Jon + Edgar = <3

Supastar!

Allie is on the radio!

Click HERE to listen. [below "This Week's Public Square]


I got to go record a 3 minute radio spot for our local public radio, WILL 580 AM. They have a segment each Friday at airs at 4:45pm and 6:45pm, and this week I was the featured speaker! Woo hoo. I got to do this for my job, of course.

Let me know if you want to know more about the issue!

Razzle-dazzle-good-time!

So, this weekend was the Decatur Celebration, and for the last few years we have volunteered for the Roving Characters. This means we dress up in outrageously hot costumes and walk around in the roasting sun to entertain millions dozens of kids! They hug us... we sweat... they dash across the street away from their parents safe grasp to see their favorite cartoon character... we sweat... sometimes they cry... always we sweat.

It's lots of fun, supporting the home town pride! Usually we have some crappy costumes (generic brown bear, odd looking bunny, etc) but this year we had all REAL popular characters! And every year for the last 4 years at least one of us has made it into the newspaper. Although this year we did not get the font page, Ashley still made it in as Blue!





Elmo = Allie
Sponge Bob = Jon
Blue = Ashley
Shrek = Jeremy

You're invited

We've sent our invitations out. If you don't receive one soon, and you think you should, let us know. (You can comment here and we'll get it.) We forgot to put return addresses on the first (and by far the largest) batch of them, so we're a little afraid that some of them may just vanish into thin air.

Check your mailbox for one of these:



As always, you can get up-to-date wedding info here on our blog, and on our website.

Spam ruins everything

So I have been forced to turned on "word verification" on our blog. What this means is that, if you want to post a comment, you'll have to do something to prove you're a human being. It usually consists of reading some funky-looking text, like this:


And typing in exactly what it says. This is something that's very difficult for a computer to do automatically, but relatively easy for a person to do.

I didn't want to use this feature, because it's annoying. But today we got comment-spammed (about 50 comments were posted in a 30 second period; all of them linked to shifty sales websites), so my hand has been forced.

Where's the food?

Edgar has a question.... or at least his tail does!

The times, they are a-shifting

So Allie and I have entered the world of 21st century television. Our TiVo (our first DVR) arrived yesterday, along with one year of the TiVo service. We set it up and I added a few "Season Pass" recordings (i.e., shows that the TiVo should always record) last night. We played around with pausing/rewinding "Live TV." It's really neat. Sure beats the hell out of the digital box we had from our cable provider.

They say it changes the way you watch television, but I suspect it will still mostly consist of sitting, snacking, and absent-mindedly browsing the web. :)

Muuuuur

Yes, my life does consist of me sitting around taking pictures of my cats.

Visit us on the intarwebs!

So Allie and I bought a domain (read: website). Right now we're focusing on putting information about the wedding up, so it's not terribly pretty. Eventually there will be photos and stuff too! Check us out here:
allieandjon.com

Look at me!

Attention people of this world!


Allison Jones has a new email address!

please remove: shna60(at)juno(dot)com

please add: allisonjones(at)juno(dot)com

xoxox

~ Allie

What if...

(from Saturday Night Live)

[EDIT] Apparently NBC has very uncool-ly instructed YouTube to remove this video. However, through the magic of the internet, you can still see it here.

Pttthhhhh!

He must be dreaming about eating!

Countdown!

WOAH!

Less than 100 days [96 to be exact] to The Big Day™!!

Pretty exciting!

wrist rest

Needless to say, the cats are getting along great.

Our new baby

WE GOT A NEW KITTY!!!

He is so cute and funny and playful! My Aunt Julie who lives in Oklahoma found him about 2 weeks ago just sitting on top of her tractor all alone crying! She has quite a few inside cats already, so we offered to take him. He's about 2 months old now, and SO PLAYFUL. He and Lenny are getting along great, although I think he's going to wear Lenny out very quickly. We've decided to name him Edgar - named after a character on a tv show that we really like.

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes"

Tonight my heart is aching a bit for old friends.

You are all loved.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. ~Robert Browning

Well, 23 years ago today I burst forth into this world, pink and screaming, to the horror amazement of my parents. Soon to follow would be my (ever) late twin sister, equally loud I'm sure.

My mother groaned, my father wept,
into the dangerous world I leapt;
helpless, naked, piping loud,
like a fiend hid in a cloud.
~ William Blake



Its been a good 23 years, and I can't wait to see what the next 23 have in store!

Happy Birthday dear sister. <3


Also, thank you to everyone who wrote, called, texted, emailed, whatever. I felt very loved today. Thank you Jon, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Bill, Sue, Jenny, Cory, Jordan, Jamie, Ashley, Katie, Doug, Grant, Claudia, Jeff, Paulette, Sharon, Kim, Elin, Clare, Sharon, Sarah, Evan, and anyone else who sent me warm thoughts. You are all in my heart.

Laptop maintenance

Allie's laptop has been getting hot lately, so we took it apart to clean out the dust and (let's face it) cat hair. First of all, the documentation on HP's website (it's a Compaq) was really bad. We had to take out waaay too many parts to get to the CPU fan (which is something you usually need to do about once a year on a laptop). I know on most "business-class" laptops, there's just one panel to get to the fan/heatsink. Anyway, so we got it open and took out this little thing:

It's pretty much all cat hair. Except the quarter. I don't know how that got in there...

Oh, and my new job is going very well, thanks for asking.

P.S.: John Hodgman rules! I love PCs!

Photo-rama!

Finally! Jon got me a new gadget thingie - so now I can get my pictures off my camera! Thank you Jon!! I have too many good ones to post all at once, so I'll try to spread them out a bit.

Here is a cute picture of various family members. My Aunt Julie and cousins were up visiting from Oklahoma, and while they were here went to the zoo.



Also, a few friends of ours got married the other weekend. Here is a photo of a few of us ladies lookin' fine!

one fine day

I'm sorry we haven't been posting much lately. I left my camera cord in Washington DC back in January, and since then we've been using Jon's computer to get the pictures off of my camera card. However, about two weeks ago Jon's computer FREAKED OUT and is pretty much dead. So I have about three weeks of awesome pictures on my camera, just begging to be posted, but with no way to retrieve them.

Jon started his new job today! Woo hoo! Go Jon!

We went to our friend's wedding this weekend, though, which was quite fun. I'll be putting up pictures eventually!

In our own wedding news, we've been doing a good deal of planning, including picking the final bridesmaid dresses. So, here you go!

dun dun dun dun

The biggest news is....

I GOT A WEDDING DRESS!

It was the one I wanted, it fit very well, and was reasonably priced!!




And YES, I look as good as the lady in the picture.

They call me the Working Man

"GULLIBLE WHITE GEEK WITH EXPENDABLE INCOME" is right... At least the part about income.

I finally got a "real" job! I'll be working as a consultant with CITES Departmental Services. It's gonna be awesome! This page pretty much describes my job.

I start June 12. I'm going to miss working at MIE, but it will be real nice to have actual benefits.

Go me!

GULLIBLE WHITE GEEK WITH EXPENDABLE INCOME

Not much to post lately, I guess.

Work is busy, but good.
This week is going to rule, tv wise! Season finales of: 24, House, Lost
I get to hang out with my sister tomorrow.
I get to go to Ikea this weekend!

Woo hoo!

Happy Mother's Day!

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!

Happy Mother's Day to all those Mommies out there - those that were, those that are, and those that will be.

I learned today that the idea of Mother's Day in the US orginated back in 1870 as a call for peace and disarmament. Click here to learn more.


*****************************
Much love to our own mothers
*****************************