Title courtesy of Dashboard Confessional. Great band, enough said.

OK, so here's the story of our engagement photo shoot.

The weather report was calling for rain all day yesterday since about Friday. No matter how many times we checked, it didn't look any better. Tuesday morning rolls around, and sure enough, its cloudy and raining outside. We start praying that it'll clear up. Around 9:30 or 10 AM or so, the photographer calls me and says that the weather doesn't look good, it doesn't look like its clearing up, so maybe we should just reschedule. I get a little upset, since I took a day off of work for this (and to get my car inspected before I turn it in at the end of the lease, another story that pisses me off even more! But anyway), and now its canceled. I say OK, I'll talk to Missy and we'll find a date we can reschedule. I sit at home and play XBox with my little brother waiting for the car inspector to show up.

At about 11:00 AM I look out the window and notice that its not only dry as a bone outside, but its also bright, the sun is shining and its not that cloudy, if at all. So I frantically start calling the photographer and leaving him messages. At about noon he calls me and I ask if we can give it a shot and pray the weather holds out. He says sure, why not. So we meet him at the place at 3:30 and the sun is still out, but the clouds are starting to come in, plus its hot and humid as hell. Sure sign that thunderstorms are on the way.

We commence with the picture taking and I must admit, he's a fantastic photographer. At least in the way he was shooting us, we haven't seen a single picture yet, but we're really hoping to soon. The whole shoot was a mix of us walking around and talking, with him shooting us as we were being casual, and a mix of us posing this way and that all over the place. Oh, and the place, beautiful. And it better be if we spent $120 for a photo permit that no one really bothered to look at. Check it out, Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, NY. Awesome.

Anyway, so we're walking all along the grounds, taking pictures for about an hour and fifteen minutes straight, sweating to death as well. I can only imagine what its going to be like to take pictures in August! Thankfully its in the morning and we can only hope for a cool morning. So we head back to the cars, and the sky over the place we started shooting at an hour previously, is starting to look very dark indeed. We get in the car and go, and maybe five or ten minutes later, it starts to rain and pour. How's that for timing? Awesome, if you ask me.

Once I have some pictures, I'll post them up.

Alright, I'm out. Not feeling too well, as I think Missy gave me a little cold she was fighting all weekend and I got no sleep last night, sat through a five hour meeting/briefing at work and it was my first day in the office in like a week and a half. I'm tired.

Title courtesy of John Mayer. Its an amazing song, and its kind of a counterpoint to another song of his, City Love. I can't wait to see him again this summer at Jones Beach. It'll be like the seventh time I've seen him in concert, if you count the John Mayer Trio as seeing him, which I do. It'll be Missy's third, and she's only known me a year and a half, so thats a lot of John Mayer in a short amount of time. But its all worth it if you ask me, the guy is an amazing musician and an insane guitarist.

So, its raining today, which wouldn't be such a big deal, if we didn't have our engagement photo's scheduled for today! Outside no less at a really beautiful arboretum that we had to pay $120 just to take photo's there. I'm waiting on the photographer to call me with his opinion about what to do, but I think Missy and I are in agreement to just take them. Pray that the weather holds out, or just do them inside. It'll be one less thing on our wedding to do list, and rescheduling would be a pain in the ass, and we'd rather not. So pray for anti-rain people. Pray hard!

Otherwise, it was a pretty good weekend. We got a lot accomplished. Invitations went out in the mail on Saturday and since Monday was Memorial Day, they'll start arriving in local people's mail today! That's pretty exciting, if you ask me. People are now officially invited and hopefully they'll come. But not all of them. 360 people is too much for a wedding if you ask me. If 100 don't come, that'll be fine with me.

Missy and I had another dance lesson on Saturday, and I have to admit, I kind of enjoy them. Missy is freaking out, because as a perfectionist, she's having trouble with some of the steps. I have to admit that her part is way harder than mine. I'm leading, and she's the one that has to do all the crazy turns and spins and stuff. I just have to keep up. But its fun, and we still have plenty of lessons left to work at it, so I'm not too worried. The instructor has started to choreograph a routine for us to do for our first dance, which should be cool, because we don't just want to get up there and sway for two minutes or so with all eyes on us before everyone else gets invited up to join us.

We also went and picked out tuxes, so now I have to pass along the info to all the groomsmen about where to go to get measured and what code to give them. Fun times.

And that's about it. Pray for no rain people! Pray hard!

Title courtesy of Boston. I've never heard the song, but the title fits, because this week, I'm en fuego. On Fire!

Despite the fact that I'm away on business/training, and it would be so easy to just eat out at the Chili's right around the corner from my hotel, I've stayed away from stuff like that. I've been good about eating stuff I got at the supermarket for breakfast and dinner, or more like breakfast and breakfast since I've been eating breakfast food for dinner (its my favorite thing to do!) I've controlled myself with the lunch, and especially the snacking. The training facility laid out a make your own ice cream sundae thing for a 2 PM snack yesterday and I passed it up. Me?! Pass up ice cream. Its a rare occasion, trust me. Although I did have a spoonful of M&M's, but that won't kill me, right?

On top of that, I've hit the lame excuse this place has for a gym or fitness center twice a day since I've been here, doing about 40-45 minutes on the elliptical, sweating like a pig and burning a nice amount of calories, thanks to my handy dandy, trusty heart rate monitor. I hope the scale is highly favorable when I step on it when I get home. I was going to take mine with me so I could see my day-to-day progress, but I forgot, or ran out of room, or both.

So only a day and half more up here and then I can drive home for a nice, long four day weekend! I'm taking Tuesday off as well. Volkswagen is coming to inspect my car before I turn it in at the end of the lease, and if they manage to do it fast enough, I may bring it down to the dealership on that same day to get rid of it. Hopefully! I want to have it turned in, the plates given to DMV by the end of May, so that I can have it off of my insurance by June 1, so I don't have to pay for it! That's the plan at least. Hopefully it'll work.

And that's about it. I really haven't done anything fun since I've been here. There's a huge mall across the street from the hotel, but I've been trying to save money, not spend it, so I've avoided it like the plague. I'm not going to drive into Boston with my GPS on the fritz, because who knows where I'll end up, so I've just been hanging out in my hotel room, watching TV, exercising and sleeping. I brought my guitar but I've been really lazy about bringing it out. I know I should. Maybe today after class, before Grey's and packing for tomorrow's departure.

Alright, that's about it out of me. See ya on the flip side.

Title courtesy of Boston. I warned you!

Anyway, I made it to Burlington, MA yesterday afternoon, despite the complete and utter uselessness of my built in navigation/GPS system in my new car. Its one thing after another with that car, and it all stems from the fact that they put the GPS in after the fact, it wasn't factory installed. Its not even an available option on the trim level of the car I got, but they put it in anyway because I wanted. I swear, I think it was overzealousness on the part of the sales guy just to make a sale. They promised me it would work perfectly, and it hasn't for a week. So it'll go back to the dealership again. I brought it in a week after I got it because the USB port wasn't working, so I couldn't plug my iPod in to use it in the car. They told me they had to replace the NAV unit head. So this would make problem two with the NAV unit. One more and can you say lemon law?

Anyway, thankfully there is still Mapquest, because I used that to get up here, and the fact that I had been up here already last year. I don't think I'm going to be venturing into the city though, not with my GPS on the fritz. I don't trust trying to get around without it.

So my hotel room is pretty interesting. There's a mini-kitchen in it. So, instead of wasting money eating out all week, I found a supermarket and went shopping for quick little things I can make in my room, which mostly equate English muffins, eggs and Canadian bacon, but hey, it beats dropping like $20 a night on food. I get reimbursed $45 a day for per-diem, so if I don't use it, that's money in my pocket. I spent about $55 on groceries, so I make that back in a little more than a day. Not bad if I do say so myself.

Other than that, there isn't much to report. Gonna head out and hit the tiny little fitness center, if you can call it that, in the hotel. I went last night, but forget a towel, and almost sweat to death in the 25 minutes I was on the elliptical, with my head almost going into either the ceiling or the fluorescent light that was directly under me.

Adios for now good people.

"Listen all of y'all, its a Sabotage!"

Title courtesy of The Beastie Boys. Not bad for a group of white Jewish kids from the Five Boroughs of New York City.

Unfortunately sickness sabotaged the last few days of my week and a bit of my weekend. I got violently sick with some kind of 24-hour stomach bug Thursday night that had me violently vomiting for much of the night. That's always fun. I managed to make it to work on Friday, but left early, at about 3 PM to go home and rest. Thankfully I was feeling better Friday night and have been OK since. Then, Missy started feeling bad last night, and she's just now getting better. She was as ill as I was, thankfully no upchucking, but she didn't feel so hot nonetheless. Thankfully, again, she's feeling better now too.

Its a good thing that I got better when I did, and she got ill when she did, because we had a busy Saturday. In the morning we were signed up to a do a special 75-minute spin class at our gym. They were holding it outside, in the parking lot no less! Missy had e-mailed the instructor saying I might not be able to make it because I was so sick for two days, but when I was feeling better she e-mailed him and said, "Daniel Larusso is going to fight!" Which he got a big kick out of when we saw him before class started.

After the super spin class, I had my weekly guitar lesson which went really well. And after that Missy and I had our first dance lesson to prepare ourselves for the wedding. Honestly, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I don't think I'll be watching Dancing With The Stars in the near future, or ever, but it was fun. I'm all about not looking like a fool in front of 300 people in any way, either by dancing or playing the guitar.

And that's about it for the weekend. I'm working a half day tomorrow and then driving up to Boston for a training class. So get ready for a week of Boston themed titles!

Title courtesy of the All-American Rejects. A decent band. I hear them all the time in spin class, so I thought they deserved a mention.

So far this week I am back into the swing of things in a big way. I've been good with the dieting, although its only been less than 48 hours, so I'm taking it one day at a time. And the exercise has been good. I have every intention of hitting the gym this afternoon, even after busting my ass at a spin class this morning. Two-a-days at the gym really help with my progress. My short term goal is to lose as much as I can in the next two weeks as we're taking engagement photo's the day after Memorial Day. Obviously the bigger goal is to lose as much in the next two and a half months. I just need to be disciplined, and I think I'll be OK. But like I said, after two days, so far so good.

The wedding planning is moving along. We sent the envelopes off to the calligrapher last week and we're hoping to get them back by the end of this week so we can stuff envelopes and send them out right after Memorial Day weekend. Then the fun begins. Then we get to see how many of the 360 people we're inviting will actually attend. We're hoping for about 260, that would put us on par with what my brother had at his wedding. Missy was supposed to call around and find out about dancing lessons this week, because we sorely need them. And of course, we're still trying to get in touch with our ever elusive and impossible to get a hold of Rabbi so we can talk ceremony details, and so he can get to know us a little better before he marries us, as well. I think we may just have to go to services on a Friday night or something and stalk him.

And that is about all that is going on over here. Fun times. Its going to get very crazy very soon. I can feel it!

Stay tuned for further developments.

Title courtesy of Pearl Jam.

I really just needed the 1/2 part to have a connection to the post, but whatever. I need the 1/2 part, because I basically just slept away 1/2 of a day just now.

Backing up. Missy and I went to her cousin's wedding over the weekend in New Jersey. We drove up there Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel for the night. We got dressed up, her into her prom dress of all things, and me into my brand new tux that I'll be wearing for our wedding in August. I must admit, we looked damn good, and that tux fit perfectly and was very comfortable. We boarded some shuttle buses that left the hotel at about 7:00 PM and headed to the catering hall where the ceremony and reception were being held. It was a nice outdoor ceremony, with candles and lights in the trees and the party was a lot of fun. I just have one, major, complaint with the whole thing though. It was way too long! The party lasted until well after 2 AM. That's just too long. The really crappy thing was, the buses wouldn't take us back to the hotel until the party was over! And worse yet, even when the buses were boarding, they wouldn't leave until there were full. How much does that suck? Sadly, I was ready to leave the party at midnight, but was basically trapped there until much later. I even took a nap at the table at one point and was woken up when dessert was being served.

So, by the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 3 AM. We went to bed and woke up at about 8:30 AM. Why do early? Easy, not only was it Mother's Day yesterday, but it was also my mom's birthday, and we had to leave Jersey to make it back to Long Island for the Mother's Day/Birthday plans we had with my family. We got back to Missy's place at about 11:30 AM and I took a nap for about an hour and a half. Then we got up and got dressed and headed to Beth's parents house, where we were all meeting to go to an early dinner at their country club. Dinner was very nice and filling. It was a whole weekend of overindulgence, but what can you do? After dinner we headed back, ran an errand or two, and then climbed into bed at about 6 P.M. to watch Cars on cable. I was fast asleep between the hours of 7 and 7:30 PM. I didn't wake up until 3:30 AM or so, and only because i needed to hit the bathroom. I went back to bed and didn't get up until just a little while ago, at 7 A.M. So about 12 hours of sleep later, and I'm still tired from this weekend.

Fun times all around.

Title courtesy of Nine Inch Nails. Enough said.

So, the window of time between now and my wedding is getting smaller by the day. I know, that's real philosophical and stuff, but it seems like time has just flown by this year, and I know the big day will be upon me before I know it. We have less than three months to go, and things are starting to heat up. Thankfully the wedding drama has been kept to a minimum, for the most part, but nothing was too bad that it caused massive arguments or anything like that. But, still, less than three months to go. Its a little scary, I must admit, but I'm really looking forward to it, of course.

We actually got a lot accomplished in this past week and weekend. I made appointments with our photographer for our engagement photo shoot and with our video people to do our pre-wedding interview, which is also the engagement story. I went this weekend and tried on my tux that was ordered for me, and after a few alterations to it, it should fit nicely. I even got a pair of shoes to wear, and got another backup pair shined. I got fitted for a tux for my friend's wedding. Brett walks down the aisle in less than a month, and its a good dress rehearsal for us, because we're getting married at the same place he is, and using the same photographer. I just sent out the addresses to the calligrapher, and hopefully we'll have the invitations back promptly, so we can mail these suckers out. Then there's no turning back! But its all good. I can't wait.

That's about all for now thats going on. Sadly, nothing of real consequence, just more wedding stuff. I'm sure it will consume my life for the next three months!

Adios people!

Title courtesy of Fall Out Boy.

Yeah, so I've been a little busy lately. Sorry! Too much going on and I forget to post. My apologies.

In the past few weeks both work and wedding planning have taken over my life somewhat. I was in training last week for four days in the city, so that meant waking up crazy early and hopping on a train. Fun times. But, the training was good, and it beats going into the office sometimes.

OK, so onto wedding planning. So, in the past few weeks we have done a lot. We picked out our wedding bands last weekend at the family jeweler, which is awesome. One less thing! We also picked up our invitations, which can out equally awesome. We've gotten all of our addresses together, and booked our calligrapher, so its just a matter of time before the invitations go out. And then there's no turning back! I'm actually really excited about that. I can't wait to see who's going to come and who isn't.

Today I called a bunch of our vendors to make follow up appointments for various things. I booked our engagement photo's with the photographer and our pre-wedding interview with the video people for what they call "The Engagement Story." Its the first part of our wedding video, and it'll be ready for us to show to everyone at the "rehearsal dinner," even though its technically not one, just a dinner for out of town guests. But honestly, rehearsal dinner is easier to say.

I'm trying to think what else there is to say, but I'm drawing a blank. So that's it for now. Peace.