bill gates is a nerd
There was a great interview with both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs a few weeks back at a tech conference called D5 that really was interesting to see. They reminisced about the past, the future, and each other which was pretty entertaining. However, it really showed you how Gates is a socially inept nerd and Jobs is a good salesman.
I don't often say "wow" to myself at the end of an article, but this article was really good to read;
http://investment-blog.net/2007/06/14/bill-gates-goes-back-to-school/
Take a few minutes to read through it, I think you'll all find it interesting.
married! and other .. stuff
So I am vowing to get better at updating this thing.
Here we go..
Since my last update on April 19th, I took a couple days off to give the
house a thorough cleaning and prepare everything before we went to Vegas.
We ended up leaving on Thursday (a day earlier than expected) so when we
arrived at
Friday was fairly relaxing with us getting phone call updates from
everyone on their status as they drove, flew, etc.. to sin city. Dan and
Marcella met us for breakfast at the buffet, Lori, Kaelyn, and I got the
marriage license, and then we pretty much hung out until the evening. Rae
(maid of honor) and Jeremy (her husban) got there with a ton of stuff to deliver to the room
so I walked out and helped them carry in more booze than any three people
should realistically have, over to our room. Then Chris (best man) got there
and we coordinated how we were going to get things from him. After that
everyone got ready and we went up to my parents' room for some drinks and family
time. I got to meet Lori's Aunt and Uncle for the first time, and Kaelyn
entertained no less than six relatives who had never met her before, as well as
all the ones who had. After that it was on to the rehearsal dinner which
was a good time had by all, except Kaelyn, who was pretty cranky. After
dinner we took her upstairs to sleep and everyone young came over to our room
(we got the suite, so we had room) for a bit of a luau themed party. Rae,
Jeremy, and Chris did a great job setting up, and everyone had a great time.
The big day was Saturday and I really didn't have much to do. My job
was simply to hang out, eat lunch with Lori, then go to the bar, hang out some
more, and then shower and get dressed. A few delays along the way had the
three guys showing up exactly on time (rather than early as I'd intended), but
everyone else was late so we still looked early. The ceremony was short
and sweet, we vowed, lit candles, and kissed our way to man and wife. The
best part for everyone was when Kaelyn squealed for the first time when we were
pronounced man and wife.
After quite a bit of picture taking we got to dinner which was really
great. Lori wasn't feeling well, which was a shame, but after a quick
costume change all was corrected. We cut the cake, ate our food, watched
our best man / maid of honor speeches, made fun of Eddie being in a suit, and
headed out. I have to brag about one part; "the dance".
Lori had mentioned a couple times she really wanted to have a first dance, but
the private dining room we'd booked was not exactly big enough for a dance
floor. So I came up with a slow Elvis song "Can't Help Falling in
Love", and Chris and I brought various types of battery and AC powered
speakers so that in the middle of his speech he could get us up to dance.
Lori got her first dance, which I have to say was a good way to earn some
brownie points with my new wife. Anyways back to dinner. The food
was great, and everyone seemed to have fun. Aside from having to ask an
uninvited guest to get the hell out, it was a great night.
Lori and I packed up our haul, shoved it in Kaelyn's stroller, and headed
back to the room for the babysitter we'd hired. Unfortunately Lori still
wasn't feeling well so we somehow got out of the huge babysitter bill (it was
supposed to be a four hour minimum, she only charged us for 30 mins) and Kaelyn
and Lori both slept. Lori sent me off to entertain our friends downstairs
at the bar, and most of the younger folks hung out until about
Sunday we said by to various groups of folks, which ended in lunch with some of my family and hung out until a walk down the strip got us some M&Ms (and Kaelyn a stuffed M&M) and then dinner at the MGM Grand's Diego with Andy/Randy/Dan/Marcella. I had a giant margarita, Kaelyn had Sangria spilled on her by the waiter, she countered with Cheerios all of the floor, and we had some amazing mexican food. We had a great time yet again, and then decided it was better to take the monorail back to our hotel rather than walk back. We all slept in, packed up, bought some souvenirs and headed back to M-town.
Thanks to everyone who came and enjoyed it with us!
It's been six weeks now, and nothing enormous has changed. We mixed
and matched some benefits, insurances, I started wearing a ring (yeah it's
odd), and Kaelyn and I have both got the plague. Kaelyn went from barely
being able to move in a crawling motion on the wedding to being able to crawl
quickly and pull her self up on just about everything. She's moved up to
the next daycare room (where she and I don't have immune systems built for yet
- hence the plague) where she is learning extremely quickly. She can feed
herself food now, and has started to eat some of our food. Well, when we
eat mac and cheese with hotdogs she can at least. It gives us an excuse
to make some fun food! She's got two teeth now and is a very happy baby.
Work is wearing on Lori a bit with her long commute, and my work has been
hard as I had to lay off my first employee this past week. I've had
conversations with our CEO where I didn't get nervous, been forced to give a
last minute 30 minute speech in front of 50 people where my voice didn't waiver,
but I'll tell you I had one shaky voice telling someone they didn't have a job
anymore. That's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, especially
when I know him as well as I did. I don't think it changes my mind about
enjoying management much, but it definitely weighs on my mind.
Lori is taking a break from school right now to catch up on life, and I'm
going full steam ahead with non-stop classes since I now get free tuition as a
spouse and she has some downtime. My last two classes have been really
tough on us as they've sucked quite a bit of time from my schedule. I had
a crappy team (30% of your grade in each class is team work) in this last class
so while I was sick I got to be up until
In my five minutes of spare time I've been reading heavily about personal
finance and tricks of the trade to make a few extra bucks. Now that we're
married we're trying to figure out all the details on financial plans.
We've had a pretty good general idea, but now it's time to move on them.
As always, balancing the things we want to do with the house with keeping a
responsible amount of saving is an interesting game. I'll lay out some of
the details I've learned on here in the next few days because I think some of
them are really interesting.
I'll also hopefully get off my butt and get some of the pictures that have
been backing up on the website. Look for more soon.