Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Over a month? Damn!

It has been over a month since my last blog. I'm probably not going to get any offers to blog for ESPN.com at this rate! So here is what has been going on.

The siblings graduated within a week of each other in May. As always, the graduation ceremonies were enlightening and wonderful. Get real. We started with Kato's at CSU. Her commencement speaker was THE WORST commencement speaker I have ever experienced. And I have been to several college and high school graduations. The guy was a hippie, liberal, hermit, retired psychology professor that lived in the woods west of Fort Collins. He was old, he mumbled a lot, and he took WAY, WAY too long. It was so bad that at some point, you couldn't hear him in Moby even if you wanted too. Everyone had completely tuned him out and were having side conversations. Terrible, terrible speaker. I can never figure out why they don't have better commencement speakers. They always go for the "elite" alumni and former staff that are out of touch, don't have a clue, and can't annunciate. My goal is to get connected to the people who select commencement speakers so that I can give the commencement speech at my brothers graduation (which will be 4-8 years from now). I could burp and fart into the microphone for 10 minutes and it would still be more rewarding to the graduates than some of the other speeches I have heard. Speaking of my brother. . .

Mullen's graduation was the following Thursday. Chew's graduation was much better. It is a full Mass at Boecher (that spelling doesn't look right) Concert Hall. It is the usual pomp and circumstance, but much more bearable. And we didn't have to sit through a horrendous commencement speech! In August, Chew heads off to CSU. I think my family has a slight love affair with Fort Collins! He's going to live in Braiden Hall and he's hoping to get a degree in Biomedical Science. He is excited (as expected) and my parents are looking forward to being empty nesters for good. I'm guessing some traveling will be in their future. They might just take off right after dropping him off at the dorms!

Now back to me and Sarah. . . apparently, we are getting married in a couple months. Two months and 5 days, to be exact. Things are moving along, but there are so many little details that you just don't think about. Last night, we stuffed most of our invitations, so they are almost ready to go. We only had a couple typos and one address that we forgot to change. One of Sarah's former coworkers printed all the addresses for us. It was a huge help and one less thing for us to worry about. Other than that, things are moving forward. We have a long laundry list of things that we need to get done this week. We are to the point where we have to start writing all the remaining checks for the church, the flowers, the photographer, the DJ, stuff like that. Thankfully, we have been really good about budgeting, and we will be good to go on the financial end. I know I have said this before, but I am continually amazed at how much cold hard cash goes into a wedding. It doesn't help that Sarah and I both have pretty large families! But we want them to be there, so that makes the financial burden a little easier.

The rest of my time has been one of four things: working, softball, sleeping, and eating. Not much else.

Work is going well. I am fortunate in that my company is getting a ton of work right now. I (until just recently) was basically booked full time on three separate projects. Since we just hired another lower-level engineer, I'm only booked full time on two projects! As a result, I have been working a fair amount and I have been busy when I am in the office. I don't care what anybody says, being busy at work is 100 times better than not having anything to do. It makes the time go that much quicker.

I'm still playing softball 4 nights a week. I have two games left in my HDR league, so that will open up my Tuesday nights after next week. Our Friday league is starting to wind down, so I will be down to just Sundays and Mondays pretty soon. It is a blast, like always, but it will be nice to open up some extra time to just relax (meaning work on the wedding).

And this is for you Timmay:
Rockies: 46-46, 6.5 games back in the NL West
After losing a series in Milwaukee, the Rockies took the first game against the Pirates to bring their record back to .500. They almost lost a 9-1 lead, but pulled out a 10-8 win. The late relievers (Hawkins, Julio, Corpas) pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings to put a stop to the Pirates late rally. Tonight, Josh Fogg takes the mound for the Rox as they try to win that elusive road series victory.

Twins: 49-43, 6.0 games back in the AL Central
The Twins swept the A's in Minnesota to start the second half of the season. After a inconsistant and streaky first half, the Twinkies look to find some consistancy in the second half. They started off on the right foot with good pitching across the board and a productive offense through the whole series. Up next is a three game set with the AL Central leading Tigers.

Maybe if I used this blog thing more often, the posts wouldn't be so long. I'll work on it. And I still owe you all some pictures of the house and Sarah's car. We did just get new furniture, so I think now is a good time to take some pictures of the pad! Hope everything is well with all of you.

Mike