Saturday, 03 April 2010 at 22:39
Lyssa and I are really married now - we've combined our collections of gaming books into a single bookcase.
Here's the end result.
In descending order, the most represented gaming systems in our library are
Mage: the Ascension,
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,
Vampire: the Masquerade, and
Werewolf: the Apocalypse. The two shelves of miscellaneous games stand unto themselves.
More under the cut...
Sunday, 01 November 2009 at 22:40
Friday, 13 March 2009 at 17:53
Lyssa's finished uploading the final batch of wedding pictures, the pro shots taken by Tara of
Green Tara Photography. You can view the two albums
here and
here.
Friday, 26 December 2008 at 16:32
At long last, the photographs I took while
Lyssa and I were on our honeymoon at the Wintergreen Resort. You can see the gallery
here.
Friday, 26 December 2008 at 16:06
Tracey has e-mailed me two sets of pictures that she took at the wedding - you can see them
over here.
Saturday, 22 November 2008 at 22:51
For unknown reasons, I just lost the previous draft of this post, and so have had to start over. That includes a number of edits that made the text more coherent to read. Please bear wth me.
The reason I haven't been writing much lately is because what little time I have that isn't taken up by work has been spent running hither and yon, having what are popularly termed 'wacky adventures'. Things haven't slowed down much for Lyssa and I since we got married; in fact it's rare that we have an evening at home to ourselves that isn't taken up by cleaning or putting stuff together.
Two Fridays ago at
PEN Faulkner Lyssa, Hasufin, Mika, Sarah, and I got together after work to attend a special reading given by Toby Barlow (who wrote the novel
Sharp Teeth
), Max Brooks (author of
The Zombie Survival Guide
and
World War Z
), and Grace Lee (documentarist and filmmaker behind
American Zombie
). The reading and Q&A panel were chaired by author Matthew Klam, who somehow managed to keep everything on track that night. Each author read some of their work, or showed an excerpt from it in the case of
American Zombie. Everyone had a slightly different take on the cultural phenomenon of the zombie: Brooks looks at it from the all-or-nothing post-apocalyptic survivalist view, Grace Lee wondered what it would be like if zombies were real but some were almost as functional as people, while Barlow completely bypassed the idea with a free verse novel about werewolves.
More under the cut...
Monday, 17 November 2008 at 20:16
Lyssa and I are back in DC after a lovely weekend honeymoon in the mountains of southern Virginia, courtesy of my cow-orkers.
I'll get around to posting the pictures I'd taken, reviews of restaurants, and what all happened up there later this week. It's going to be a busy week and I don't knnow when I'll have time to write. Hopefully, later this week I'll hammer out a few thousand words.
Enjoy the oncoming winter weather in your area, and good night.
Oh, and be careful, everyone. Winter is coming, after all.
Wednesday, 05 November 2008 at 14:25
I've just finished uploading the pictures that
Elwing took at the wedding - you can look at the album
over here. The images are kind of big, so if people are having problems viewing them please comment and I'll resize them again.
I've also updated my
.plan file. As always, there is some NSFW content, so use discretion.
Tuesday, 04 November 2008 at 15:16
Given everything happening in the days since Lyssa and I got married, I'm still catching up on lots of things, most of them work-related though there are a few things rather closer to the homestead that were unfortunately pushed to the back burner. I covered
last Monday, but not what happened during our second day off... because we have neither the time nor money to take a proper honeymoon at this time, we decided to spend the day as tourists in Washington, DC. Though we live so close to the nation's capital it's a rare day that we actually take the time to see the sights and explore.
It was a chilly day as we stepped off the Metro and headed for the
Newseum of downtown Washington, DC, a six-storm interactive museum of news, media, and journalism. You can't miss it if you're downtown - the facade is mostly steel and glass, there are glass cases out front that display the day's front pages of over a dozen major metropolitan newspapers, and inscribed into the gargantuan marble tablet that makes up part of the building is the text of the
First Amendment. As you walk in you'll have to pass through the metal detectors at a minimum-security checkpoint (a commonplace sight in DC anymore) and pay $20us for a ticket, but it's well worth the trip and money. Chances are you'll only see a fraction of the museum on any given trip - Lyssa and I were there for an afternoon and we only saw the bottom floor and part of the ground floor. On display right now are copies of every Pulitzer Prize winning photograph since the beginning (so far as I can tell) along with some of the cameras used to take those pictures, and on the bottom floor is an exhibit describing the relationship that the
FBI has had with the news media since the roaring 20's. Artifacts from many famous cases are on display there, including the personal effects of John Dillinger, a replica of the Unibomber's cabin, and the electric chair used to execute the man implicated in the death of the Lindburgh baby. There are also exhibits dealing with counter-espionage cases from the Cold War and six segments of the Berlin Wall, complete with one of the guard towers, which was a downright unsettling thing to behold, I don't mind telling you.
On display in the giftshop is one of
Datamancer's custom steampunk keyboards - the Aviator, if I recall rightly. Cost: $2000us.
More under the cut...
Sunday, 02 November 2008 at 21:46
I've just gotten around to putting up the photographs that I snapped on wedding day. Rather than try to describe all of them, you can see them
here.
Sunday, 02 November 2008 at 21:21
As wedding favors, I made seven pairs of cufflinks using gemstones purchased from
Fire Mountain Gems.
Here are some photographs of them.
Sunday, 02 November 2008 at 21:13
I've finally made the time to edit the photographs taken from a Segway during
my bachelor's party. You can look at the images
here.
Friday, 31 October 2008 at 14:36
Wedding Ceremony for Lyssa and Bryce. Oct 25th 2008
Welcome
Officiate: Friends and family, tribe and loved ones, we are gathered here to celebrate love in all its forms, but especially the love that makes a commitment between two people. This kind of love is not afraid to make promises. It is not afraid to work and to struggle. It seeks not only to be but to continue. It is based not only on the pleasures of the present but on the hope of the future. Lyssa and Bryce have invited you, their loved ones, to gather to share this moment of love and joy with them today as they celebrate their commitment to each other and begin a new story in their lives, as husband and wife.
More under the cut...
Friday, 31 October 2008 at 12:07
The first batches of pictures from the wedding are online. Firstly, Lyssa's gone through the several thousand images that Bladeless Axe gave us and picked out the best. You can see them in her Picasa albums
here and
here. I've also put together the photographs sent to me by my mother and Judy, organized them, and put them up
here.
If anyone has any more photographs to contribute, please let me know and I'll link to them.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008 at 00:15
To preface what I'm about to write, I never thought that I would have missed so many details pertaining to what happened a few days ago. Shortly before the wedding, Lyssa gave me a piece of advice from her friend Michael: stop every few minutes to take a mental snapshot of what's going on around you, so that you'll have more to remember from your wedding. I didn't really do that until after the ceremony was over, and thus much of what happened was lost to the peculiar entropy that steals moments of our lives from us as we grow older. If there is one thing I regret about getting married, it's that.
This is possibly the most difficult post that I've ever written. I've been working on it for days, scouring every last processing element of my brain for details to add and revising every paragraph numerous times. I expect that I'll re-edit this post not a few times in the future as memories pop up and are added or revised slightly.
As you've no doubt already read here or elsewhere, Lyssa Heartsong and I got married on Saturday, 25 October 2008. After much deliberation throughout the year we finally settled on the
Stone Mansion Restaurant in Wexford as the location for our wedding (well, not really -
'lex and Marlise got married there in December of 2007 and we liked it there so much that we decided to get married there too), and partially so that our biological families could more readily attend. The drive up to Pennsylvania early on Friday wasn't all that eventful - we left around 1000 EST5EDT from northern Virginia after a whirlwind of packing and multiple time-checking, thus beating most of the traffic on the beltway, and arrived at the house of Lyssa's family by 1430 EST5EDT that day. We stopped off for a short period of time to stretch our legs and scan our e-mail for the address of the hotel we'd be staying at and then hit the road once again. Unfortunately, our mobile connectivity is still pretty limited these days so we connect whenever we can.
I'm not entirely sure when we got to the Marriott in Wexford - I'd lost track about halfway there, to be honest. I do recall realizing that I was running on empty by the time we got there - I hadn't really had anything to eat all day so my blood sugar was just about exhausted. For this reason, my travelogue gets a little fuzzy... Laurelinde met us at the hotel and helped Lyssa and I offload all of our stuff from the TARDIS; she'd brought the remainder of it in her vehicle, which has just as much trunk space if not more than my car. We met up briefly with Hasufin and Mika, and shortly therafter with Jean, who'd flown down from New England. Because most everyone was staying two doors or less away in the hotel, all we had to do was walk outside and knock on the next door over if we needed something. We piled into Laurelinde's car and drove a couple of blocks down the highway to the Italian Oven for an early dinner or late lunch, depending on how you look at it. After an appetizer, some salad, and a fistful of breadsticks I was feeling more like my old self, and upon getting back to my hotel room laid around for a while catching up on my reading to relax. Things didn't really start happening until around 2000 EST5EDT that night when we convened for the rehearsal dinner.
Rehearsal for the wedding ceremony was held in the private room of the Uno's in Cranberry, a couple of miles down the highway in the opposite direction. We weren't the first to arrive - most of Lyssa's family was waiting for us in the bar when we got there. I spent some time messing around with the electronic jukebox on the wall (you have to love a device that has
300 BPS 8n1 by Information Society in its archive (which happens to be a recording of a modem transmission), though I wasn't feeling particuarly evil that night) but due to karaoke night my $5us was wasted. We only had to work out a couple of last minute logistics, such as where everyone would be entering, where everyone was supposed to stand, how we'd actually enact the handfasting, and practicing lighting the unity candle so that we wouldn't catch ourselves on fire. Neither Lyssa nor I practiced our vows at that time because we felt that we should only recite them during the wedding ceremony and not beforehand. Once we'd gone through the ceremony we settled down to have a late dinner with our respective families, our respective parties, and a couple of friends who attended also. There were so many people there that night that I wasn't able to keep track of them all, though I tried. I do recall that Forge was the last to arrive after driving in from the central US, and a few of us had gotten lost on the way up since Wexford has changed a great deal since we graduated from high school. We didn't see Zard until just before the wedding the next day.
The rest of the evening was spent with Hasufin and Mika at the hotel bar unwinding enough to go to sleep on Friday evening, sampling brandies and discussing amino acid synthesis at low temperatures, of all things.
More under the cut...
Saturday, 25 October 2008 at 23:52
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold! Come on, Lyssa - we've got work to do!
Saturday, 25 October 2008 at 00:21
Lyssa and I get married at 1500 EST5EDT tomorrow.
To quote a certain messiah, "Whoa."
Monday, 20 October 2008 at 23:16
I roused myself from bed far earlier than I'm accustomed to on Saturday morning, around 0800 EST5EDT or so, for what is traditionally the most memorable event prior to one's wedding.. the bachelor's party. While most of the groomsmen weren't able to attend on Saturday due to their lack of proximity (most of them live at least one state, and usually more than that away from the DC area), the festivities were well attended by close friends from nearby. Shortly before 0900 local time most everyone had assembled on the doorstep: Jason and Jarin arrived first, followed by Grant and Hasufin a few minutes later. Joining us some hours after that would be Chris and Kash due to the logistics of meeting up somewhere and sundry problems of travel in the DC metroplex. Starting off the day, and also giving Chris an opportunity to get within spitting distance of the city we took a quick jaunt down the street to the local Starbucks to pick up coffee and get a breakfast sandwich or two.
Say what you will about Starbucks (gods know, I bitch enough about them), but they have some really tasty breakfast food if you get there early enough.
For the day's outing Hausfin had rented a silver minivan which carried a "bring it back in a shoebox" insurance policy. When you get a bunch of fairly adventurous and inventive geeks together, generally speaking it's wise to take such precautions. As I plugged my GPS unit into the power jack (which were, at one time, referred to as 'cigarette lighters') Hasufin phoned up Chris to figure out where he was and after making arrangements to meet up with him at our first destination we set course for downtown DC and the kiosk of
Segs In the City, an outfit operating in a number of cities on the eastern seaboard which rents
Segway Personal Transporters for the purpose of going on riding tours. Their rates are emminently reasonable - $50us for one hour, $90us for two, $150us all day, guided tours available and recommended. Reservations at least 24 hours in advance are required.
It didn't take us very long to get kitted out with bicycle helmets and Segways; it actually took longer to acclimate to the highly unusual control interface and learn how to maneuver on them. Ironically, it took Hasufin and I longer than everyone else given that we had more experience riding them from The Last HOPE earlier this year. After running a couple of laps each around the cul-de-sac in which the Segs In the City kiosk was located, we headed for the sidewalk to start a two hour tour of downtown DC, zooming along the sidewalks on highly unconventional personal vehicles. Unfortunately, Jarin sat out this part of the trip, in part because Chris hadn't caught up to us yet and he wanted to wait for him to arrive. As luck would have it, of course, Chris arrived not two minutes after the rest of the party departed.
More under the cut...
Thursday, 09 October 2008 at 23:04
Another quick post to let everyone know that I'm not dead, just busy enough to not really get any sleep and tired enough that I'm having a hell of a time making sense.
Those of you who are trying to figure out what in the hell I was trying to say, or why I was completely missing the obvious in comments should know that taking time to think is a luxury I don't have right now, and to that end I should probably just stop trying for the time being. Those of you who know what I'm like when over-tired or sleep deprived should start laughing now.
At any rate, Greene County mailed out our self-uniting marriage license a few days ago, and it was recieved in the post today. Unfortunately, upon inspection it appeared to be missing a few important things, such as places where the witnesses and the people getting married should sign, as well as exactly who is supposed to sign where. We placed a quick phone call to 'lex Pendragon and asked him to e-mail over a scan of his own wedding license for comparison, which was picked up later this evening. As near as we can tell, the notarized piece of paper is the same as the notarized piece of paper that 'lex and Marlise have, save a couple of obvious differences and the lack of a few blank lines. Rather than chance it, Lyssa's going to call them back tomorrow and see what she can get done in the way of having a less legally ambiguous marriage license overnighted to us. For my part, I've got the ears of a few lawyers in the state of Pennsylvania, though I've been asked nicely to not bring them into action just yet. At this point in time, that would be like bringing a mass driver to a knife fight.
In other news,
Abney Park's first music video, done to the song
Airship Pirates may be watched
here at Youtube or downloaded as a Quicktime file
from here. It appears to have been filmed during their show at the Edison in California earlier this year.
Trust me, grab the Quicktime file, it looks better.
The sick betta in the living room doesn't seem to be getting any better; the infection's spreading and the medication I've been putting into his water every night doesn't seem to be helping. I'm pretty sure that we're going to lose him before the wedding. Sorry, little guy, I'm trying. Really, I am.
Off to bed.
Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 15:31
Work and life's kept me too busy to post much lately, so I'm trying to play catch-up in between driving all over creation for work and finishing preparations for the wedding. To that end, I'll try to outline everything going on, not only so that I can square away everything going on inside my head, but possibly to help others in the future, should they find my website.
First off, Lyssa's bridal shower was yesterday afternoon. Her parents, sister, and aunt drove down from Pennsylvania to set up and cook for the party. Lyssa and I have been going bonkers all week cleaning up the apartment in stages to make it more or less presentable. This includes dusting, cleaning the floors, mopping the kitchen (and almost braining myself at least once in the process), and going through the library to find books that could be gotten rid of... to make room for the books that were brought back from the homestead as well as those which had been piling up on top of the already-shelved books for weeks. So that they could prep for the party, Lyssa and I had to clear out for a couple of hours. She and Laurelinde took off for parts unknown yesterday morning while Hausfin, Mika, and I.. well, also took off for parts unknown. Specifically, we visited the leather store that Hasufin buys his raw materials from, wandered around the farmer's market not too far away from same, and found ourselves having one of our "ray of sunshine" discussions in the car on the way home, this time on the topic of biological warfare.
Hey, when you live far enough away from the nation's capital that, in the event that something
did happen all you'd have time to say was "Aw, shit." it's a reasonable topic of discussion.
More under the cut...
