Wedding invites & signing cloth

Invites from weddingpaperdivas in the enchanting forest pattern. They shipped in a week from Mountain View. Some online review said the invites don't look like 'wedding' invites, not fancy enough. Whatever. We only needed 55, but had to order 75, so some will double as wedding announcements.

Oh you'll notice a bird motif. Pure coincidence.

Ikea framed red signing cloth, instead of the guestbook. Still not sure of how to transport this, it's kind of fragile.

Birdcage my mom picked up at an Easter sale for cards, with paper cranes inside now. She thinks people will bring us cards. And a photo of us, taken by my brother. We set up our own engagement session. It didn't come out that well.

Photo from the engagement session, should be for the reception. But I haven't decided on size, 4x6 or 8x10 or color of frame. I purposefully altered it to be high color, but some say it looks seriously flawed instead of artistic.

comparing blogging platforms

have my new domain all picked out. a permanent domain. this time i'll tag, categorize, and seo my posts. question of what i'll do with the domain besides blog and whether i have the motivation/web skillz/server maintenance ability to keep going.


ning - requires non-authors to log in, not really a blogging platform

tumblr - awesome for photos/artists. possible as muffy picture platform.

facebook - no

twitter - like writing haiku alone in a forest

wordpress - the wedding site is on wordpress. requires a server. tons of time. tons of web skills. you kno 99% of the plugins are centered on monetization? blogspot just has adsense.

typepad - not free


oh but blogspot is so user friendly.


btw this is pretty cool: visual search engine searchme.com

Pre-nups are funny

The most common piece of marriage advice I get is to sign a pre-nup. I did some research.

Reasons to Sign a Pre-nuptial Agreement & How they don't apply to me

1) Substantial wealth or assets. In theory by my age I should have a stable well paying career, substantial investments, possibly own a home and certainly own a car. So I'm about 1/5 because I am substantially invested . . . underwater. Pretty far underwater.

2) Have my own business. No.

3) Have kids from a previous marriage. Have already provided for Muffy in event of divorce or death, so not applicable.

4) Expect to come into an inheritance. Used it up already. And then some more. And after that, I graduated and couldn't get a job. Working on using up my siblings' shares now.

5) Gave up a career or lucrative job to get married. I like this one. It's a good story. I suspect it's what a lot of people think when I tell them I moved up here without a job. Until about two seconds into the conversation when they realize that none of the following words applied: lucrative, job, or career.

6) Concern about being saddled with your spouse's debts/future lawsuits. This is actually applicable because C has a lot of school debt. Years ago we used to share a credit card account. Found out today I was still on the account, which is still his main CC. In a legally blond moment, realized that cutting up the card doesn't close the account. So here's the question...is it better to let your spouse ruin your credit b/c he doesn't pay his credit card or student loans, or is it better to ruin your own credit by filing for bankruptcy because you just don't make very much money?

It is concerning but I'm not sure a pre-nup protects me in a case of debt load 1 (10-20% chance of him defaulting) versus debt load 2 (80% chance I'll never make my share of the cost of living). So anyhow, no prenup for us, but I'm guessing we're the last of our generation to skip this step. Only because normal people a year older have jobs/assets.

Infinite Cats

C's gone but I still have Muffy. And inside today I feel like a Muffy.


Too bad I had to interview for a non-legal job while feeling like a Muffy. My interview went something like this:

1) Why don't you have a job already
2) Why should we hire you
3) What special skills do you bring to the table, that we won't find anywhere else
4) Tell me how you're a good fit for our company
5) Re-answer all the questions we sent to you before (interview 1), but this time in your own words (WHAT??).
6) Sell me my product.
7) Sell me a random product.

If I was an interviewer, that is how I would conduct the interview. Unfortunately I was on the other end.

Accomplishments

C's here for two weeks. Lots of things got done.

Got a cake. Did our food tastings. Ordered invites. Visited florist. Hired the photographer.

Played tennis. Fixed my resume (still jobless!). Started a garden. Made purple velvet cupcakes. Ate lots of Chinese food. Met assorted friends (all with jobs).

Next week....Help with taxes. Check out future residence. Wander SF. Visit ceremony site. Plan out ceremony.

Either Wedding Vendors Suck and/or I'm Retarded

Collected conversations with wedding vendors, proving how I suck at wedding planning.

Dress lady: You should look at some wedding magazines or websites, get some ideas.

Me: Too commercialized for me. I don't want people to think, god this wedding sucks and yet she spent so much. All the food in the world can't take the suckage out of a sucky wedding.

Dress lady: It's true, the best weddings I've been to were just outdoor picnics or potlucks.

Me: It's funny, I hear the same thing. Yet here I am.

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Me: So do you have any examples of your work?

Florist: No, I keep meaning to take pictures but I never do.

Me: Do you have a website?

Florist: I haven't gotten around to it. But if you bring me pictures I'm sure I can do a good job. I can't guarantee that it'll look exactly the same, but it should be close.

Me: So you have no examples or pictures of your work?

Florist: I've been doing this for years.

Me: Do you grow your own flowers?

Florist: No, roses cost too much to grow in California. We source them from local farms.

Me: Where?

Florist: Not from South America, that's where the grocery stores and Costco get their flowers.

Me: So where do you get your flowers?

Florist: Local farms nearby.

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DJ #1: So it'll be $1200 base price.

Me: What's your Saturday price?

DJ #1: The same, Mother's day is a really popular day for weddings, that's why we don't give a discount.

Me: Can we go over the difference between you and an ipod again?

DJ #1: Sure! (sales spiel)

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DJ #2: Mother's day is one of the least popular days for weddings. Your guests will probably want to leave by 9pm. They want to go to bed so they can go to work the next day.

Me: The reception doesn't even start until 7-730. Half the guests are from out of town. They probably need to take off half of Monday, I think they'll stay longer.

DJ #2: Ok, well then, they may stay until 9.30pm. From my experience, people don't stay that long.

Me: I want to play Golddigger at my reception. He's our favorite artist and that's our fav song.

DJ #2: (silence)

Me: I guess it's not a good choice. I think C likes old school rap anyhow.

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Me: What's your lead time for invitations?
Vendor: When's your wedding?
Me: May 10.
Vendor: You should have ordered a month ago, we'll have to rush order.
(I delegated invites to C)
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Vendor: You know, if you don't have an officiant you won't be legally married.
Me: Oh I know. It's a sham marriage you see. We gave up on life so figured a wedding would be good for a few laughs.
Vendor: .....
Me: Just kidding. We have an officiant. It's uh...a friend (actually we don't).

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Florist #2: Where did you get your dress?
Me: We ordered it from China. It was really cheap and looks pretty nice.
Florist #2: (silence)
Me: I have a red chinese dress though in case the white one falls apart on me. It's quality.
Florist #2: You know we have an order minimum for flowers.
(I still don't have a florist)
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Me: So how experienced are you at photographing interracial couples? We have drastically different skintones.

Photo #1: I think we did a white/Asian couple once...it shouldn't be an issue.

Me: So our families are quite reserved and boring, we may have un-photogenic guests, we are not photogenic ourselves, and the friends that come aren't going to get totally drunk and dance. How would you deal with this as a photographer?

Photo #1: Well, we try to make the best of any situation, there are good moments in every wedding. Also we photoshop all our pictures.

Me: You're going to photoshop out the Hawaiian shirts, the Japanese hipsters, the possible rows of empty chairs, and the half eaten food?

Photo #1: You get 2/3 refund if you're unhappy. I also encourage you to shop around.

Tour of California

Somewhere in the honeymoon planning (99% C's expertise), we had to figure out how to see Monaco. Option 1...see Monaco + the Grand Prix, its cover fee, and the 7800 euro hotel rooms, option 2...just with the cover fee, or option 3...see Monaco but no race for half a day and then get the hell out of the area. How much would you pay to catch a glimpse of race cars?

Oh look the Tour of California's in Santa Cruz. I can test out what it's like to line up for hours to catch a glimpse of some bikes.


Went with the parents b/c dad is a big cycling fan. We're at the intersection of bonny doon and hwy 1 in davenport. Yes, it's about 45 degrees, raining, and I just stood there and waited.


Pack 1, the leaders going up the hill. They go really fast, if you have a camera, you just shoot, you can't think. Or just watch, that's easier.


After pack1 you get their drivers and their bikes and security.


Then the peloton. See I got the guy in the yellow jersey. I don't know who he is.


About 10 seconds and that's it. We headed to Santa Cruz to watch them again on the downhill. Even faster.

Now Monaco would be like this except 1) awesome weather; 2) ancient city instead of beach; 3) seats would suck; 4) trillions of people - but beautiful people; and 5) cost several hundred dollars.

So it's a close call but I think this blog won't be liveblogging the Grand Prix.

Short Post

Last post was # 300. Woohoo!

I really wanted to see a Tesla (the car). I feel a kinship with it. I know about awesome overpriced innovatively world changing yet unnecessary to the normal person items. I have one. Mine's called a Kindle. I'm the only person I've ever seen with a Kindle and I look.

So anyway I went Tesla hunting. There's supposedly one in Palo Alto and one in Los Altos. Tesla owners are probably important people, important people have power lunches. And those towns have small downtowns.

Moral of the story: I saw the blue Tesla. It was driving, went ultra fast. Could not actually confirm that it was a Tesla.

Realized in retrospect, I could just go to the Tesla dealer.

Ann Arbor Again

Assorted pictures from Winterland. More snow than I've ever seen. Including the Japan/Korea winter trip. I came back because I didn't think it snowed. Yes, it does snow.

Cat out on a "warm" day.


"Toured" the Univ of Michigan in weather cold enough to burn my face. Last time I saw the undergrad side. This time, collection of relevant grad schools in 10 minutes.

First the law quad. This is where future supreme court clerks reside.

School of business. Future investment bankers & ultrarich douchebags. C tells me those jobs don't exist any more. Well, he was right about the snow . . . but removing the bankers would destroy NYC. That's like terrorism.


Visited the mall in Troy, MI. Troy is a suburb of Detroit. It's where the rich people live. The mall has all your luxury brands, a Saks, Neiman Marcus, but people drive luxury American cars instead of European cars. It doesn't look like a recession.

P.F. Chang's is a top end restaurant. Right by the valet parking. Quality.


Snow & icicles at C's complex.


I also went to Meijer. It's like Walmart + Target rolled into one, with fresh produce too. Ann Arbor is about 500% more strip-mall like than you would imagine. And people aren't as excited by snow as you would expect.

Cats & Rabbits & Save the Date

The Wedding Website is LIVE.

If you know this blog exists, you're probably invited. Please take the Wedding Survey! And even if you think you aren't invited, you should take the survey anyway because we need help picking out a dog name.

In celebration of the fact that we finished our website and reminded the world and ourselves of the wedding, the cat-that-is-not-Yellowcat caught a rabbit.



And then proceeded to eat the rabbit. My mom made a video. Halfway through she tries to tell the cat that he's eating a rabbit. As if he didn't know.


Off to Motown for a few days.