Marriage License Procured

Got the marriage license yesterday... We now have 60 days to get married.

And btw, I needed to know more than just where my mother was born...

Had to know where my father was born - no idea
Where he currently lives - somewhere in FL
His occupation - no idea
etc...

Same questions for my mother...

Final question from the license lady: "Are the two of you related?"
My answer: "Not yet."

At first she had a quizzical look on her face, then realized what I meant...

From Bad to Worse...

My brother visited today to watch some football and pick-up some stuff...

While here, he announced that he believes Chet is on his way out of the picture. Why? Because Laura is currently at Bike Week in Ocean City, MD... with another man. Now to be honest, I have no idea what the room arrangements are.

Chet is spending the weekend at home (which happens to be my sister's house).

My brother describes the man as the stereotypical big bearded motorcycle guy.

Since I have not met the man, I should not be too quick to judge. However, my brother does not paint an appealing picture.

'06 NFL Kickoff Weekend

This past weekend was pretty good.

I've been getting the DirecTV Sunday Ticket for a couple of years now, but this year was the first year I got the package in HD. I've had HD cable for a couple of years running, so I have seen local games and other programming in HD. I know how amazing HD is compared to non-HD programming, but I've just never shelled out the extra money to get the Sunday Ticket in HD and the receiver/dish necessary to support the package.

I justified it in years past because in the beginning there weren't many games broadcast in HD -- I would look at the HD broadcast schedule before the season started. The first year I could get HD, they had a maximum of 4~5 games a week in HD. Yesterday, all but 2 games were in HD.

Yet another thing that made yesterday terrific -- No school work to either do, or put off doing. Have I mentioned that I'm finished?

The only real football related problem was that my team (the Buffalo Bills) lost. I became a fan back in the 90's with Thurman Thomas and Jim Kelly -- regular season Jim Kelly, post-season Jim Kelly stunk -- Andre Reed, Don Beebe, and the whole K-Gun offense.

Nowadays, they just stink. They have a guy named Losman playing QB. Yesterday he lived up to his name... taking a sack in the endzone for a safety as the 4th quarter was winding down, and thus losing the game for the Bills. I'm not sure what the coaching staff sees in this guy, but I can assure you he stinks. On top of that, I'm forced to watch the play again and again on every highlight or sports show on TV... I think ESPN has the play running on continuous loop.

Traci's teams (Patriots and Saints) are a combined 2-0
My teams (I also like the Packers) are 0-2

Honeymoon Locaton

Last post for today...

For our honeymoon, we will be spending 7 glorious nights in a honeymoon bure in Fiji. Specifically at the Namale Resort!








Now, to exercise those little grey cells upstairs, check out this word problem:

We leave for our honeymoon from LAX on a Sunday and arrive in Fiji on Tuesday.

We leave to come home at 2pm on the following Tuesday and arrive at LAX at 10:30am on Tuesday... We arrive before we leave.

Figure that math out.

More Wedding Stuff

Everything up until now has been moving along swimmingly... So of course, something had to go wrong.

First, (not a big problem) to get a marriage license in PA you need the following (might not be a conprehensive list of everything needed):

Driver's License or Passport - CHECK
Social Security Number - CHECK
Mother's Maiden Name - CHECK
Place of Mother's Birth - CHE... Uh-Oh!

I have no idea where the lady was born. It really wasn't something I ever thought I needed to know, so I never asked.

99.9% of the people reading this are thinking "Just ask her. Duh!". But for those of us who have been disavowed by their parents, we realize that that is not an option.

So, when pressed, the lady at the prothonotary's office said the state of PA will take the "best guess" at at least the state she was born in. I'm pretty sure I know that, so CHECK!

Now the big snaffu...

Traci and I are not having a band or a DJ -- neither of us are big dancers so why have something that we are not going to enjoy? We're paying for this, so we get what we want.

In lieu of those musical options, we opted to have a string quartet play at both the church (no organist) and at the reception. I contacted a local high school with an exceptional string quartet last spring, and made the arrangements.

Couple of weeks ago, I sent an email to the contact person for this quartet, asking for her address so that I could mail her the payment, and be done with it. This past Friday, I received my reply. She informed me that they are cancelling.

That's right. 6 weeks to go before the wedding, and I have no music. So much for planning ahead, or counting on someone to keep their word. The excuse was there was a conflict with a school event. The only thing I can think of is Homecoming.

While I appreciate their desire to attend this Rite of Juvenile Passage, they made a commitment to me months ago. However, what can I do? Call mom and dad? Yeah, that'll work...

So, I am now scrambling to find a quartet to play. Something must be happening on October 14th, as 3 out of the 4 quartets have other commitments. The 4th hasn't gotten back to me yet.

The Suburban High String Quartet will not be receiving a Christmas card from us!

My New Name -- Revealed!

The wedding date is quickly approaching, and with it the pending name change on my part.

Some of my ex-workers took a big interest in this, and made a game of it. Like all such things, the fervor had died away. Occasionally the subject will come up again, but nothing regular.

So, it is with much fan fare, that I finally reveal the name...

Ricard K! Zootlanter

Pronounced:

RIC-ard (like Jean Luc Picard)
k-BANG (in UNIX land, the "!" symbol is pronounced BANG)
ZOOT-lan-ter

In all reality, I never had the intention of using this name, but I would joke with Traci about it.

I, however, honestly plan to change my name. For 2 main reasons:

1) I LOATHE being named after my (insert expletive) father!
2) Even if I liked my father, I don't like being named after somebody. I am my own person, not a clone of someone else. Why then should I have their name?

To accomplish this, I am only changing my middle name, thus enabling me to drop that stupid "II" off the end of my name. My new middle name will be:

Kohl

My older brother (never mentioned here yet) can keep the name and the "Jr." designation he has if he wants, but I'm getting rid of that name.

In a later post, I will detail what I have to go through to complete this name change process, but suffice to say, it's not the same process a woman goes through when she gets married... I have to petition the court, have a hearing, fingerprints, etc...

More on this later.