Like getting married!

Finally after a little over a year of being engaged Jamie and I got married on September 19th at an amazing ceremony in Butler, PA with both of our families and a bunch of our friends. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing the whole thing was.

Some highlights of the event that I remember, and am pretty sure I’ll always remember.

• Jamie walking down the isle to a guitar and flute rendition of Portal’s “Still Alive”. It was a complete surprise and I remember thinking it was both the funniest and most awesome thing for her to come down the isle to. She loved the song in the game when I happened to play it with her around, and then loved singing it in Rock Band.
• The reception party. My sister and a lot of my family and groomsmen helped her to put together an amazing setting. My mom has since asked me if we would’ve changed anything, and honestly we wouldn’t. The decorations were beautiful, totally our style and everything just looked great.
• Jamie getting a keg of Magners for me. She knows how much I love drinking Magners wherever we are and it was an awesome surprise to come down to the meet and greet before the wedding to find a keg of Magners all for me [and eventually others]. I drank as much as I could of it that night, but in the end we wasted some of it because we just ran out of time to finish it. Nonetheless it was a great surprise and a lot of other people ended up enjoying it quite a lot too.
• Jamie’s dress. My mom asked me what I thought of it and I replied “Boobs”. It sums it up best I think, but really she looked gorgeous and every time I kept looking at her that night I had to smile and remember that she was mine for the rest of our lives. Damn I’m lucky.
• A movie like sing-a-long to “That’s Amore” by everyone, and I mean everyone at the reception broke into song. It was awesome.
• Our vows. We both wrote our own, and mine weren’t really done until about a few hours before the wedding, but in the end both it, and Jamie’s were perfect.
• Seeing Auntie get drunk and enjoy the party. Auntie is awesome, easily my 2nd grandmother but she always hates having her picture taken. I could tell this was a great event when she told me that I could get as many pictures with her as I wanted. You bet your ass I got a ton of them with her.
• Photobooth pictures. We rented a photobooth because it was something Jamie really wanted, and for the longest time I wasn’t sure about it. Thankfully as usual Jamie was dead on and looking at the pictures and the comments people wrote in our guestbook on the flight home was awesome.

That’s about the majority of them that I remember, but really Best. Wedding. Ever. It was so awesome we’ve both said repeatedly since then that we wish we could do it all over again and have that much fun again. I told her in 50 years we’ll do it again and party it up 70′s style!

Now we’re planning for our honeymoon in New Zealand which is going to be amazing, once I get done planning it.

Oh and if you so care you can head to our wedding website and view the whole ceremony here.

Of course before that happened EA released Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 that I worked on and it got a lot of great reviews, the online portion I worked on got a lot of praise as well and we got a ton of people playing it still. So that was a great success as well. Overall work has been amazing and everytime I go into work I’m still amazed that one of my dream jobs actually came true.

Another amazing thing that happened, because of Jamie’s connections. I got to spend Tuesday of last week drinking from the Stanley cup! It got mentioned briefly during out wedding that they were going to have the cup for a day and it was a shame I couldn’t make it. Turns out I could because I was already coming back to VA for my 10 year HS reunion on Saturday, so I took a few more days off and drove up to Pittsburgh and on Tuesday hung out with it for most of the afternoon. It was amazing and everything I hoped it would’ve been.

So that’s been most of this year and next is already shaping up to be pretty awesome as well. Sure I’m not getting married again, but I have to say that I’m loving life right now. Can’t believe I married the woman of my dreams and have the job of my dreams. I’m lucky and boy do I know it.

January – Was still at Sapient and just got pulled into doing the godawful Doral site. That was an eye opener because it made me realize I really really didn’t want to be in the advertising industry. I still have some friends there, and they do some good work, but it’s not for me.

February – Most of February was a blur because I was trying to finish up things at Sapient and I believe around this time I started to realize more and more that I needed to find a new job because I was miserable at Sapient. Jamie was still working at the Shelter and doing decent there.

March – Had another birthday and I seem to remember right around that time is when I started to get a 1st, then 2nd interview with the Zeta people in Vancouver. By the end of the month I had an offer on the table and put in my resignation on the day of my birthday at Sapient. That was a fun birthday mostly because of the prospect of starting a new job, and also because the party Jamie threw was awesome. Though in true ‘good’ party fashion I remember everything up until a certain point, but damned if it wasn’t good before that point.

April – In the beginning of the month I started to get into the groove of working from home, which turns out I liked, or at least liked then. I think somewhere in the middle of the month Jamie lost her job and was put in limbo because the Zeta job was only supposed to last a few months before we moved up to Vancouver.

May – Jamie and I took a trip up to Vancouver to visit my coworkers and also look around the area in the hopes we could find a decent place to live in eventually. It’s also where Jamie had a little rough time our first day over there. Otherwise the trip was awesome, and we even got to meet up with an old friend of mine in Seattle and his then gf/now fiancee. At the end of the month we went to Jamaica for Jamie’s little sister’s wedding in Jamaica and man was that awesome.

June – This month was somewhat of a bummer simply because not a lot happened. I worked, Jamie started working part-time at the gay paper [I think it was around this time] and that was about it. I think also around this time I might’ve started to realize that working from home was fun, but it also wasn’t conducive to me being productive.

July – This was a huge month. But only right at the end because it’s when I proposed to Jamie finally after a long time of knowing she was the one, but not having the right moment + ring to do it. Thankfully by this time I had both things set and popped the question while we were up in Pittsburgh for my family reunion. The rest of the month however, went by with not a whole helluva lot of fanfare.

August – I just remember that now is when we started to try to go crazy finding dates and venues to have the wedding in, even though we had both promised ourselves we wouldn’t go crazy right off the bat.

September – By now the 3-month trial period at Zeta had long since lapsed and I was starting to figure they weren’t in that much of a hurry to get my work permit and move me up there. However Jamie and I did the necessary paperwork to try to start the whole process of getting a work permit. Turns out that it wasn’t nearly as easy as we thought and we’d find that out. We heard back from the Canadian Embassy about my work permit and were informed that we needed a lot more information. Most of which could be provided by Zeta but we weren’t sure how to proceed. While we were trying to figure out what to do an old work buddy informed me of the fact that they were looking for some help up at EA in Orlando. I didn’t think I would actually get the job but figured I’d be stupid to not try for it at least. Jamie’s birthday was at the end of the month but instead of being able to really celebrate it here, we could only go out for a few hours because we had to catch an early flight up to Pittsburgh to look at potential venues that weekend. Thankfully by the end of the weekend we found an awesome venue, picked out a date and were a helluva lot happier and less stressed out than before.

October – By the first week in October I had gotten an official offer from EA and while it was a bit of a paycut from Zeta I knew I had to take it because making videogames has always been something I would jokingly put in the ‘If you could do any job, what would it be?’ list. I put in the 2-weeks at Zeta and started a whirlwind process of finding a new place to live and eventually starting work there by the 20th of the month.

November – Was spent mostly getting used to living in Orlando and everything that came with it. Work wasn’t too crazy but that was because I was still trying to get a real understand of just what I was doing there. Right before Thanksgiving I got a call from my mother about my dad going into the ER, turns out he had gotten two subdural hematoma’s and needed to have surgery to relieve the swelling in his brain. It was a bit touch and go in the beginning, but thankfully by the time the month was over he was better, but still not back to 100%. Thanksgiving was a low-key affair that Jamie and I spent at our new place in Orlando just hanging out because frankly after hearing what happened with my dad I wasn’t in much celebrating mood.

December – Jamie’s dad visited the first week of the month and that was nice. It was also one of the few times in my life I’ve seen two men over the age of 40 smack-talking with some 10 year old kids at a Go-Kart track. Work got better and better as I started to find my groove. Our final trip of the year was the trip to Pittsburgh and Ohio to visit the family for Christmas. This year was a bit different because I wanted to spend a few extra days with my dad since work was completely closed for the annual Christmas break period. In the end it was a good thing because Christmas Eve my grandma had to go to the ER because she could barely hold herself up. Seemingly like dad she took a turn for the worse, before seemingly doing a 180 and making a surprising recovery. As of this moment I believe she’s still in the hospital, so I keep hoping she’ll make more of a recover but she’s 96 so who knows.

This was a year filled with two new jobs, a new hole in my dad’s head, a new ring on Jamie’s finger, and a new town to live in. If that doesn’t make for a crazy year I don’t know what does, and 2009 looks like it’ll be even bigger and better!

All of that went out the window when we saw our initial complex, while they didn’t have the 3/2 layout open for viewing [the previous tenants had literally just left the day before and there were workmen cleaning/touching up the place] she did show us to a 2/2. We did a walk through and then went back into the leasing office to talk about specifics of if/when a 3/2 would open up.

I was due to start work on the 27th and ideally wanted to move into our apartment during the week of the 20th so that come the 27th we’d be completely settled into the apartment. Some of that went out the window when the women in the leasing office told us that there was one 3/2 opening on the 19th of the month and it was within our price range. This seems good, however the downside to this was that we had to take the keys from her on the 19th, which means we’d be moving this weekend which was a bit sooner than expected.

We figured we’d look it over until we went to the complex literally next door since a friend of mine who lives in Orlando had recommended it to me saying that a lot of his friends lived there and really liked it. Well we looked at a few of their 3/2′s and really, they weren’t that good. Sure they had some nicer amenities but the actual units themselves weren’t near as nice as the ones we initially looked at.

After realizing that we quickly went back to the initial complex and told them that we’d take the 3/2 that was opening on the 19th. So now we’re in get-shit-packed mode and trying to pack as much as we can now since Jamie is busy working most of the week. We’ve managed to get a lot done today and I figure as the week goes along I’ll pack up more and more of the electronics stuff since right now that’s most of what’s left unpacked.

If anyone has extra boxes and packing materials, feel free to send ‘em my way!

Well this is another one of those, except this one has even bigger and better news than usual. In the past two months a few major things have happened.

• I proposed to Jamie in July
• We’ve since figured out a date and venue
• I just recently [as of yesterday] accepted a new job to work in Orlando for EA Sports on the Tiger Woods series of games

As you can figure from those almost all of them are big huge momentous things. Most notably the marriage thing. I’ve known for a while that Jamie was the one for me, and knew I wanted to propose to her in a neat and special way. That way was during my family reunion in Pittsburgh and thankfully she said yes.

From then we started to look at venues in the Pittsburgh area since it’s really important for my Grandma and Aunt’s to be at the wedding and they’re on the older side so they can’t travel too far. About a week ago now we took a mini-trip up to Pittsburgh to try to find one after narrowing it down between a few online. Imagine our surprise when after going up there we end up picking a venue that we had initially written off because their website was so terrible. So let this be a lesson to people with businesses out there, make sure your website isn’t terrible so you put your best foot forward for people!

We had just gotten that settled when I was informed last week that after going through a few rounds of interviews at Electronic Arts in Orlando that they did indeed want to bring me on board the Tiger Woods team as a UI developer/designer. So it seemed as if last week everything was turning up aces because I couldn’t believe, and still almost can’t, that I get to actually help make videogames. Sure it’ll be hard, and the hours can be long at times, but it’s something I’ve always said I wanted to do and never really thought I could.

Hell it was only 5 years ago I was waiting tables endlessly and somehow I went from that, to making videogames. Pure. Fucking. Insanity.

So now we’re in the process of getting a move up to Orlando sorted out and are heading up there this weekend to stay with a friend of ours and look at potential apartments. It sure as hell is exciting times over here.

Ok maybe Sunday was but that didn’t really count as it was our first full day in London and we took the opportunity to sleep to a sane hour and then try to figure out just what we were going to do for the rest of the week.

Monday however was a day full of travel and fun. We were going to initially take a train to Wales to visit a friend of mine and see the Welsh country-side since neither of us had been. We would’ve done that had we not tried to price the train and seen that it comes out to about £106 per person, or the equilivent of $212 per person per leg, so for us to travel on the train it would’ve been nearly $800.

I nearly shit my pants because I wasn’t expecting it at all. A friend had told me about the trains in the first place, and they were cheap then. I didn’t realize they were akin to airline tickets you had to book months in advance otherwise the price skyrocketed. After asking around again someone put us onto buses, or coaches here, and we gave them a try. At £62 for both of us it was a helluva lot cheaper.

So we went to Victoria station trying to find where the buses were, but again our trip of near misses and inability to read signage continued and we back-tracked into the train station because we thought we had missed where the bus station was. Turns out we hadn’t gone far enough this time.

Then after attempting to buy tickets we were told we had missed the 11:30 and had to wait an hour. We figured since we’ve got an hour I’m going to grab something to eat because I was starving and starting to become a dick, and also attempt to get my phone figured out.

Turns out I shouldn’t have even bothered with trying to get my unlock code from my US carrier as it didn’t do shit. Instead I should’ve taken it to the dodgy mobile shop near Victoria station paid them 10 quid to unlock it and all would’ve been done.

So in the end I didn’t waste much money as I used a Vodafone sim-card since I had already bought some top-up minutes earlier.

Having that settled meant I could actually call my friend in Wales and tell her what was going on. She understood our problem but mentioned because of the coach ride there wouldn’t be much daylight to see some sights. We understood but not like there was much we could do.

After doing the 3 hour coach ride to Wales we arrived and were immediately greeted by my friend Llinos, who I also found out I had been saying her name wrong entirely. But that’s because I had only heard it said by English people who also got it all wrong. We put our bags in our shit hotel and proceeded to be led all around the Welsh country. We got to see Penarth a pretty town on the water-front, got taken around Cardiff to see both where the Millennium Stadium was, and some of the other newer buildings there. And then went to where Llinos’ home and home-pub were at. It was great fun to sit there, have some good fish and chips and then drink a few pints while watching shit football.

We were brought back to our hotel and again slept like nobodies business because we were exhausted from traveling again and then cramming more sight-seeing into a day. When we woke up however we went shopping in and around downtown Cardiff which I have to say was great. Jamie found some good rugby shops, I got some Christmas shopping done and I managed to pick up the new Arsenal kit I needed for yesterday’s game. Then right before we had to catch our return bus we went up in the Cardiff Winter Wonderland ferris wheel which was fucking massive. I mean this thing was huge but we decided we were going to go in it, even if it was slightly drizzling and overcast.

We paid our £10 total for us and got to be the only people on it, course it probably helped that it was only 12pm and raining out. But we went probably at least 6 stories up and we were both scared shitless from the height. I’m ok in a building and usually have been ok with heights in rides, but this was bad because I happened to look out at the ground and that’s what kept fucking me up.

Jamie proceeded to take a lot of pictures, which will be uploaded soon and I’ll link to them. And then started to try to stand up and move around in our little cabin. I might have laughed at her when we were getting into it and she kept saying she was scared but I definitely said “Oh no you don’t” as she started to get up because I didn’t want the thing to rock.

Yes, yes I am a giant sissy.

After we got off it was right back to the bus station to catch our bus back to London. Oh wait, except that I had left our return tickets in my Arsenal magazine which I had left on the train when we got to Wales. Great now we were going to have to re-buy the damned things. Except Jamie reminded the ticket agent we had purchased them with a credit-card and he simply looked up our information and then wrote a number down on a piece of paper which we used to get 2 boarding passes.

It worked out in the end, but proved that apparently the only thing I’m good at doing when I come to the UK is drinking in pubs, and watching football matches.

Anyway we were able to catch the coach ok and got back to London around 5:15. Which was good as we were due to meet up with a gentleman who was friends with Jamie’s dad for dinner at 7pm. Now an hour and 45 minutes should be good enough to get to our flat, change and make it over but really it wasn’t. We had to get there with the mob of people during rush-hour, then iron our clothes and change because we were still wearing mostly dirty things from Wales and then travel back from where we had just come.

In the end we met him at 7:30 and all was well. We had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant called BANK, and then went out for a pint or two at the pub ’round the corner. All in all it was a great evening and some fun conversations but i have to say I’m looking forward to today and the fact we don’t have to be anywhere at any time, and we can simply go shopping when we want and for however long we want.

In this case it’s because I’m taking a trip to London, only this time I’m a] not going alone and b] not going for only 3 days. Jamie and I are headed to London for an entire week to see an Arsenal game, tour Wales, get wasted in foreign lands, and also see some of her father’s work associates.

Needless to say I’m so fucking excited it’s scary. Mostly because it’ll be my first trip to the new stadium and I think it’ll be good to show Jamie just why I’m so fucking passionate about a team that’s so far away from me.

Because I actually have a non-shit job we rented a flat in London for the week and I may actually be able to update mid-week without having to pay through the nose for some shit Orange Internet cafe.

Now it just needs to be 8pm so we can already be in NY and getting on the plane bound for London.

Though Jamie just reminded me that she’d rather it be 8am so we’re already in London, which as usual is correct.

I quit my job at Alienware about a month and a half ago now and as of Oct 1st I’ve been working at Sapient for their interactive agency branch doing front-end developement.

It was most definitely shocking to go from the corporate environment at Alienware to the one at Sapient. Instead of being so stuffy it really is a lot more open and friendly. I know last year when Halloween rolled around at Alienware maybe 10-15 people dressed up. I think about 3/4ths of the entire people in our office dressed up. And a lot of the costumes were actually pretty fucking good.

So obviously things are good there, I’m excited about my upcoming trip to London. We leave the day after Thanksgiving and are over there for a full week. It’ll be odd because I’m not used to having that much time to spend exploring. Normally it’s get in, see two games, get drunk a lot and fly home. Now it’ll be get in, see a game and get drunk, then go around London, visit Wales, go back to London and keep sight-seeing. But I won’t be lonely at all because Jamie is coming with me and it should be awesome. I’m excited because it’s her first time going out of the country and if there’s one place I love going it’s London.

Sure the shit dollar will kill my spending money, but it’s worth it I think.

And I managed to order a new computer and my last part comes in tomorrow. It’ll be nice being able to finally upgrade from my piece of shit Area-51 that still has AGP graphics.