I am off...

Sorry fans, no blogging for the next week. I just won’t find time or effort when I am busy sunning myself in the Caribbean. I am very excited for the honeymoon, it’s everything I need and want right now: time with Jess, time not at work, time with some close friends, time to celebrate my 30th birthday, time to catch up on puzzle books and movies, time to finish up getting fat for the winter so I can start to get skinny again, etc.

Yeah, next time I’ll post I’ll be 30…another decade. Man I am old! My metabolism crawls, my hair grays and my body aches more. Awesome!

Also I have some new blog ideas coming up so stay tuned.

Please check out the Taming if you are into grad school music right now. If you aren’t sure what music you are into, check this! I’ll work on my top songs of 2006 on the cruise. Rock on!

FOOD!!!

So this morning I woke up in a good mood! I went to PDQ and filled my mug with coffee. Same as usual (actually today it was mostly decaf.) But today the roast seemed so much better. It was the perfect roast and a great cup of coffee, I am so sad that it is finished. I might have to rock mostly decaf again but I am guessing that batch was just roasted a little different than other batches. Someone asked me if I was going to ride today. Huh. I haven’t even thought about riding despite the 40+ temps we’ve had lately. My new gut probably wouldn’t fit in my bib shorts anyways.

We leave tomorrow for our honeymoon! It’ll be some serious cruising. It’ll be the last bit of fun before hitting the grind of work, training and dieting. Dieting? Yes dieting. I’ve decided to eliminate ranch from my diet starting on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for at least a month. For those who eat with me this will come as a shock, can he do it? I figure no ranch will equal less fries and less other crappy foods and make me less likely to go out. I gave up potatoes for a month last year which helped out but it’s time to get even more serious this year. It’s on this note that I introduce my riding and eating stats for 2006:

Workout:
I played basketball 108 times.
I ran 524.9 miles
I swam 34,100 yards
I rode 4112 miles in 259.25 hours for an average speed of 15.86mph (includes mountain and cyclocross riding.)
I also rode 6.75 hours indoors, most of them during spin class.
Additional working out included about 6 dodgeball tournaments, 1 flag football game, many amusement and water-slide parks and some yard work and walking dogs.

Food:
I ate out 270 times (5 less than last year.) 20 of those were at JT Whitneys, 17 at Taco Bell and 10 at McDonalds. The 270 includes every time I ate purchased food, even if we just went out for some ice cream or for Brat Fest.

Best of 2006:
Best Meal: Spudmania, Jungle Jim Burger- Jungle Jims, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
Best Breakfast: 2 Chocolate glazed donuts, vanilla coffee, Dunkin Donuts, Kissimmee, Florida
Best Burger: Melting Pot, Dotty’s Dumpling Dowry, Madison, WI
Best Appetizer: Spudmania - Jungle Jims, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
Best Mexican Food: Tamales, Pike Market, Seattle, WA.
Best Pasta: Never-ending Pasta Bowl, Olive Garden
Best Fast Food: Chicken Quesadilla, Taco Bell
Best New Food: Cheesesteak, Dave & Busters, Columbus, OH- This cheesesteak is so good, I don’t even want to eat other cheesesteaks anymore…will be going to one in Chicago soon.
Best Wings: “Hot” Quaker Steak and Lube, Middleton, WI
Most improved: Panera Bread, Pizzeria Uno
Most downgraded: Taco Time, I hate to say it but many have went out of business and I had a bad experience this year. If I get to go to a real west coast one again it’ll likely get back up there but lately I’ve been disappointed.
Places to go in Madison: Tumbleweed, Dottys, JT Whitneys, Hubbard Ave Diner, Quaker Steak
Places to avoid in Madison: Fuddruckers (only went once, pretty half-ass,) Macaroni Grill (getting more expensive and less tasty each time I go,) Hooters (I foresee Hooters not being in business much longer,) Hawks (overrated.)

Notable restaurant virginities lost: Chick FilA (overrated,) Jack in the Box (underrated,) Kidd Valley (gross,) Krystal (good,) Potbelly (pricey,) Ruby Tuesday (pretty awesome,) Taco Del Mar (great.)

Other notable stats:
Waffle House- 2
White Castle- 2
Tim Hortons- 2
Taco Time- 1
Sonic- 3
Long John Silvers- 2
Jungle Jim’s- 2
Fuddruckers- 1
Dunkin Donuts- 2
Cheesecake Factory- 2
Checkers- 3

So there you have it. I’d love to hear your opinions and comments and questions!!!

Some Saturday Photos!

Here are some photos from Saturday! If you have more please post them to some site like kodak gallery and send me the link so I can share them!!! My blog must really love Vale and Beth as it threw that photo down two times and won't let me delete one!

Wedding Weekend

Not sure where to start. I don’t even think a blog can do justice to a wedding day. I guess we’ll just do a weekend recap in this post:

Thursday- We tied up a couple loose ends and went out to our last supper together not as husband and wife. After a quick stop to her parents house we were off to supper. We went to Chili’s which is always good and then went to Pedro’s to join her family for a margarita. That certainly hit the spot!

Friday- I got up early to play basketball which was fun. Got home and was still feeling ill. My heart was beating out of whack and I had been dealing with some constipation issues for the last two weeks. I went to the doctor and I guess I was stressed out as my heart was skipping beats but the doctor said it was only stress. I also got to experience an enema. It didn’t work all that well though. Anyways she said the heart thing should be gone by Sunday…and it was! We then went to get tuxes, pick up the cake, decorate, run some errands at eat lunch. We are at Noodles eating lunch and low and behold, Russ and Angie walk in. Random. I always run into random people at that Noodles though. We went home and did some last minute cleaning and then we just sat and hung out and our family and some friends came over. We then carpooled down to the Terrace for the rehearsal. The rehearsal went pretty well and I knew we could pull off a pretty cool ceremony! It was then off to JT Whitneys for some supper which was fun as well! Some people came over after to hang out (we didn’t do much) and then it was off to bed, nice and early.

Saturday- I got up early again to play basketball. It was some of the best basketball I’ve ever played and I got in a good 2:15. Then it was back home again for some breakfast and chilling. We watched Jackass 2 which was hilarious and gross! I then realized that I had a whole bunch of stuff to do and I was stressing big time. I had to burn some music for the ceremony and it wasn’t going smoothly at all. Actually I burned a disc and it worked in every player but the one in my car so I stressed that maybe it wouldn’t work. I finally found a portable disc player and it worked and then I brought the cords so if nothing else we could hook that up and it’d be fine. Of course it played in their player no problem so I could’ve saved like 45 minutes and tons of stress but such is life. We went to Arbys for lunch and then back home to get ready. I was all set! We drove down to the Terrace (we needed to be there 3 hours before the ceremony for photos all around down town) and got there to find it all set-up. Jess had arranged for her to walk down the aisle then to only me so we’d have a private moment to see each other for the first time that day. I can’t even explain the feeling when I saw her for the first time. The stress was officially gone and was replaced with another emotion, love! After that it was a whirlwind tour of photos. After 2-1/2 hours my legs, back and smile all hurt, but it wouldn’t stop me! I went downstairs to get ready and chill for a second. I also thought it was a good time to read through my vows, I wrote them before but hadn’t read them yet. They seemed pretty good! Now it was wedding time! The ceremony itself was awesome. Reverend Riz controlled everything and although I could tell he was nervous early by the time he was on the second page he was smooth and enjoying it. The rest of it was a blur, it was hot under the light with everyone watching. The readings were awesome, the music was awesome, the whole thing was just perfect! And like that…it was done. We jump on to the bus as husband and wife and were off to the reception. I let everyone else handle everything else and just enjoyed being with my wife! We headed to our house to take some photos with our dogs (and refill the cooler.) Then we went to Taco Bell, it was awesome! The quesadilla never tasted better and we got tons of looks and lots of photos…man I can’t wait to get the photos from the photographer. Finally we arrived at the reception and we were ready to party. Again the reception became a blur. So many beers to drink and so many people to talk to. I was pulled in 100’s of different directions. I do remember taking a shot that was vodka, wedding cake and cream. Guh! We danced, we drank, we ate, we were toasted to, etc. The hangover may have hung around for a day but the party stories will live forever! I also felt bad because I know I didn’t get to talk to everyone that was there. Time flew by and some people left early. And then it was last call and last song. Lots of goodbyes and a van ride later it was over, just Jess and I and a hotel room.

Sunday- I slept like crap. The excitement, the heartburn, the drunkenness, the hot hotel room, the hotel bed, etc all added up to like 3 hours of restless sleep. Finally dawn came and we were both up and ready for breakfast. We had breakfast with some of our guests and then we went back home. We were home alone which felt weird (we had 5 house guests and lots of in and outs all weekend.) That tranquility lasted about an hour and then it was back to returning tuxes, getting lunch, etc. We tried to nap during football games but I couldn’t. Finally it was New Years. I was hoping to open wedding gifts before the Packer game but I think everyone was running at about half-speed and we ended up opening them at half-time instead. Wow! People are very generous, thank you!!! We played some hold-em and I lost to my father-in-law. We sang a little. It wasn’t exciting but it was nice to hang with family…and the Packers won.

Monday- Time for all my family to leave. I didn’t get much sleep (yet again.) We got ready and went over to Jess’ parents for the Badgers game. We ended up staying for half of the Rose Bowl too and I was starting to feel really sick. Stopped by Walgreens, bought some meds and fell asleep on the couch off and on for the next few hours before getting a nice 9 hours of real bed sleep. It was nice!!!!
Photos to follow some day!!!