Hopped up on sweet tea and candy…

Ok boys and girls, it’s meme-lub time! (Don’t ask … I’m hopped up on sweet tea and Halloween candy, LOLOLOL! )

I snagged this from my lovely sis-in-law, Christy:

And how old might you be?
I might be 32 … but then again, I might decide to be 29 again this year!

Where were you at 3:02 AM this morning?
In bed, where were you?

What was the first thing you thought this morning?
10 more minutes, just gimme 10 more minutes!

What did you do last night?
Cleaned, did my nails, worked on a website, had a horrible headache, watched the CSI marathon
(not necessarily in that order)

What do you hope to do this weekend?
SLEEEEEEP!

Have you ever told someone of the opposite sex you loved them?
Yep, I do it every day.

How’s your heart lately?
As the song goes, “Same as it ever was.”

What were you doing this morning at 7am?
Sitting down at my desk at work and reading emails/newsfeeds.

What were you doing this afternoon at 12 PM?
Eating and reading emails/newsfeeds.

What was the reason you last cried?
My feelings were hurt.

Have you ever talked to someone when they were drunk?
More than I’d like to admit.

How many red lights have you ran?
You mean “have you run’? I don’t know, but not too many I hope.

What was your favorite grade?
Let’s not go there, k?

What were you doing at 12:00 last night?
Are you stalking me?

What’s a sure way to catch your attention?
Yes, but if I tell you what it is, you’ll do it just to annoy me.

Have you ever, in any way, been betrayed by someone you trusted?
Yes.

Is there anything that you are craving for right now?
Chocolate!!

When did your last hug take place?
10 minutes ago from my beloved hubby. :mrgreen:

Do people ever make stupid mistakes when spelling or saying your name?
Every damned day.

Have you ever started a sentence with “No offense, but…”?
More than I’d like to admit.

Do you drink tea?
Every damned day. :grin:

When was the last time you saw a cop?
Lunch.

Did you ride in someone else’s car today?
Nope.

Who is the best person in the world?
I have to choose just one?

What would you do if a teacher of the opposite sex hit on you?
Put him in his place.

Right now do you prefer a Strawberry Milkshake or a Banana Cupcake?
Banana cupcake — with walnuts!

Is your phone within a meter radius of you?
Yep.

Wait…are you a guy or a girl?
A guy must’ve written this …

What are you wearing?
Black long sleeve tee, my fave Jack tee (Nightmare Before Christmas), dark blue jeans, boots.

You know, the usual …

What color is the thing you are sitting on right now?
Black.

Are you doing this just because you’re bored?
Nope, I need something to distract me from the baseball game playing in the background. :roll:

What season is it right now? Do you like it?
Fall. No, it’s too f@%$ing cold!

Was last New Year’s Eve enjoyable?
Yup.

What’s something that’s bothering you right at this moment?
This quiz is too damned long, LOL!

Would you ever become a vegetarian or even vegan?
Nope … been there, done that. I like meat. :wink:

What are you doin right now?
Eating dinner.

What is your desktop picture?
Don’t hurt the web.

Can you swim well?
If the occasion calls for it.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes.

Would you rather go to Tokyo or Paris?
Tokyo!

How about Melbourne or Rome?
Rome.

Do you have a guitar in your house?
Technically, yes … Jessie’s Barbie guitar. You want it? :lol:

Are you listening to music right now?
I wish.

Do you wish you were somewhere else right now?
Another time and place, maybe.

How long can you go without your mobile phone?
Not very.

Is your bed made of metal or wood?
Both.

Have you ever been to a big concert?
Yup.

Have you been mistaken for a celebrity?
If you count local celebrities, yeah. Someone used to mistake me for Luka back when she was hot shit (or not?).

Have you ever hooked up with a celebrity?
No, but then again it would ruin the fantasy.

What school do you attend?
I don’t.

Where do you want to live?
In a bigger house.

Games, and Gaming

Had a great time at the FSU game, though was a bit dismayed to find that my Utterz posts weren’t going through. (still figuring that out) Had other technical difficulties: I found that my camera’s rechargeable batteries have pretty much gone kaput … so most of the pics I took were on my Helio Ocean. (Have GOT to get me a new camera!) We got in late Sunday afternoon, picked Jessie up from her mother’s, then pretty much crashed. I’ve been having headaches the last couple of days (first ones since the wedding, really), so I took it easy yesterday — outside of doing a little “shopping.”

Jim and I had decided instead of giving “traditional” wedding gifts to each other, we’re upgrading our machines. After all, UT3 is due out in just a couple of weeks!

Jim’s pretty much got his stuff picked out and we’ve started ordering parts, but I decided to “go lighter” … I’m getting a laptop and will be shedding my box. (Shocked, I know! )

I still love my alien green case, but I decided that for the amount of money we’d be shelling out, I could get just as decent a machine as a laptop — and a laptop is mobile. I’d be able to cart it with me where needed and it would make my load MUCH lighter when packing up for LAN parties!

I have *SO* missed my LAN parties, and let’s face it, PCs are heavy!

Now that a new UT is coming out, I’m itching for some FPS action. I’ve been eying this beauty on NewEgg:

ASUS F3 Series F3SV-X1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T7300(2.00GHz) 15.4″ Wide XGA 1GB DDR2 667 160GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

The graphics card is decent enough for some medium/high gaming and design/dev works, but I’ll have to double up on the RAM as it will be running Vista. (and we all know how MS OS’s like to suck up memory!)

I’ve been playing the UT3 demo in my spare time (or what little I’ve had, LOL!) and can’t WAIT until the real thing hits! :twisted:

UT3′s Specs:

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
• 2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
• 512 Mbytes of System RAM
• NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
• 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended System Requirements

• 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
• 1 GBytes of System RAM
• NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
• 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Back to Tallahassee

Jim and I are headed down to Tallahassee in just a short bit for the FSU vs Duke game. This week is FSU’s homecoming, and I’ll be sporting another team’s jersey for the first time in a — well, EVER actually. :lol:

Also, I hadn’t had a chance to post about this just yet because we’ve had so much going on, trying to get back in the proverbial swing of things … my position at UAB has finally opened up. I had an interview yesterday with Staffing and Monday my application and resume will be submitted for my position. Barring any unseen problems (hopefully none!), my status will change from Temporary to Permanent. The biggest difference between the two is: 1) absolutely nills the chance of me being transferred to another part of the campus (i.e. I’m permanently there, which is a good thing!); and 2) I’ll be able to start attending school. I’ve been looking forward to that for a LONG time. Now all I have to do is decide what field(s) to pursue.

Of course, Jessie thinks I’m nuts to actually want to go back to school! LOL!

I wish I still had mine!

One of the things I’ve come to regret over the last few years is getting rid of my old NES system. When I first bought my home, I basically threw out anything that wasn’t “absolutely necessary” … among the things abandoned was my Nintendo game system and all the controllers.

This makes me wish I had kept it! :cry:

Wedding pictures

These were taken at the ceremony by my brother, Jeremy, and his wife, Christy:

From what I understand, our photographer will be done with the pictures that she and her husband took in a couple of weeks.

This set has been provided by John and his lovely fiancée, Miranda. These were taken at the ceremony and reception (and even features evidence of *ahem* my car’s “defilement” ;P).

These are pictures of the “morning of” that Jim had taken:

These are honeymoon pictures I took with my Helio Ocean:

And here is the link to the honeymoon pics Jim took!

If anyone else has pictures, please feel free to hit me up so I can post and share! :grin:

Wish I had found this earlier!

The wedding, and all that preceeded and followed

I’ve got a lot to recount, but I’ll try to keep it semi-organized. I think the best place to start is the couple of days leading up to the wedding … (I will finish my vendors write-up later!)

The Preparation

Jessie, my mother, Jim’s mom, and I spent the Thursday afternoon before the “big day” putting the wedding favors together. Jessie helped me stuff white Chinese-style take-out boxes with a bit of candy and a magnet and cut a slip of ribbon for each. Once our mothers had shown up, they helped us close and wrap each box with the ribbon and seal each with a small sticker which matched our wedding invitations and other wedding-related paraphernalia.

In hind-sight, we should have taped the boxes shut, thus sealing the ribbon and helping the stickers “stick” better. (Because they did a real shitty job sticking, I’ll tell you that!)

The moms helped me load up the car with the wedding favor boxes and Jess and I headed back to the house to prepare for the coming day. I had enough sense about me to take off Friday — Lord knows I would have NOT been able to work if I hadn’t! (working Thursday was hard enough!)

Friday morning I packed up most of everything that we needed. I met Jim for lunch in Hoover and we hit a few stores afterwards for supplies. Then back to the house to load up the car and head to the hotel to check in. The room we rented for the night was great, we’re seriously thinking of staying there again … the staff was very accommodating and it made everything a LOT easier because it was right down the hall from the banquet hall where the reception was to be held.

Friday afternoon I began decorating for the reception. I was supposed to have some help, but the party backed out at the last minute. Luckily, my maid of honor, Teresa, came to my rescue and helped me setup everything that I needed. Jim and I met with T and Jim’s best man, Jeremy (a mutual friend that we have both known for years), for an informal rehearsal then we all went out for dinner.

Had a great time! And it was exactly what I needed … to get out and unwind!

After Teresa and Jeremy left, I tidied up a bit in the banquet hall then joined Jim in our room sometime after midnight. I’ve always had a hard time sleeping in strange places (such as hotel rooms), but luckily my migraine meds knocked me out about 45 minutes later, so I was able to get a few hours of sleep.

Pre-wedding Events

I think I got up around 5 and by 6 was back in the banquet hall obsessing over every little detail (again!).

Now, I had set a schedule for myself and had reminded Jim of this several times. Around 6:30 he tells me that he wants me to come help him get the wedding cake. :shock:

I seriously could have slugged his ass right then and there. :lol:

I think he picked up on my “hostility” because he mentioned on the way back that I didn’t “look too happy” with him. I didn’t say anything and he laughed and kept patting my knee telling me it would “be OK”. I looked over at him and said “You DO realize that this puts me behind schedule? I have a schedule to keep today and I’m already behind. I’ve got a LOT of shit to do today!!”

God love him, he put up with my bitching and ranting and crying and pitching fits and STILL married me! :grin:

So anyways, we get back to the hotel. My aunt and one of my cousins showed up shortly after with food and more decorations in tow. Next, Teresa and Jim’s mother showed up with Jessie. By this point, I was running WAY late and had to frantically wolf down a couple pieces of toast so I wouldn’t starve (you guys should KNOW by now how bitchy I get if I don’t eat!!!!), then started on my make-up and hair … then realized that I had forgotten to pack my hair brush!

Jim’s mom and Jessie ran by the house to fetch it for me while I finished my makeup and told Jim where they had gone. Luckily my sister-in-law had done Jessie’s hair (REALLY PRETTY!) and this saved me a lot of time and headache. Of course, by this time my parents are in the banquet hall talking to Jim, my aunt, and everyone else there. Teresa was taking pictures and my father suggests to Teresa that she should get my picture because I’m running around with my hair up in curls and barefoot in a tshirt and shorts.

I could have slugged him too! :evil:

So Jim’s mom and Jess get back with my hair stuff and I get my hair finished and squeezed into my dress. I ranted about “how fat my ass is” while Teresa and Jim’s mother and everyone assures me that I looked great and stop worrying. Jim rushes in and gets his suit on just in time for us to leave and head for the gardens … and were pretty much the last ones to get there!

Yeah, yeah, I know … the bride and groom CAN be late and the wedding CAN’T start without us, but I’m obsessive and being late didn’t fit on my ‘schedule’!

The Ceremony

With a quick word with Brother Carl, we pretty much got under way right then. I was able to scan the crowd around us partially and saw a few faces who came for the ceremony but didn’t attend the reception (thank you for coming!). The ceremony seemed to fly by and I’m proud to say that I didn’t cry until after it was all over and had started hugging guests.

Our photographers, Samantha of His Hands Photography and her husband Corey, were wonderful and took plenty of pictures. Hopefully they’ll be done pretty soon and we can get some posted to share with you guys. Until then, I *do* have this to share with y’all … this was taken by my brother, Jeremy, and his gorgeous wife, Christy:

You can’t see a whole lot of me, but doesn’t Jim look handsome?

After the photos were done, we all headed over to the hotel for the reception.

The Reception

We had a lot of food and fun. Our buddy, DJ Vez, worked the turntables and did a fabulous job keeping the mood light, making announcements, and keeping things moving along when needed. Jim’s best man, Jeremy, gave a very sweet toast. Before we knew it, it was after 2, and we needed to get packed, changed, and out of the hotel room — and not necessarily in that order!

The Departure

We hurried and luckily, our folks and Teresa chipped in and helped us get organized and loaded. Unfortunately our gamer buddies decided to “decorate” the car in shaving cream and toilet paper. Samantha, our photographer, cheerily told me, “I have photographic evidence. I’ll email you!” The hotel staff also had a good chuckle about it … apparently they all watched via the security cameras and were waiting for me to beat the tar out of each and every culprit.

I think I handled it pretty well … I ranted, fumed, and stormed back to the hotel room furiously slinging my dress and several curses (in 3 different languages!) in my wake.

Yes — for me, that is “taking it well”!

And yes, I am still mad at you assholes for covering my car in shaving cream! (Just you wait until I see you lot at the next LAN party!)

Moving right along … did you know that most car washes will not let you use their service if your car is covered in shaving cream? Neither did I. So we drove down the interstate with the car covered in … you get the idea. Around Alabaster, we pulled off to pick up a quick snack and to hose off the car at one of those “do it yourself” places. It was pretty much the only place that let us use their stuff.

We drove down to Jacksonville and pulled off at a Super-8 for the night. (I’ll spare you what I really thought of the place … this post is getting long enough and I still have a whole week to cover!) Sunday morning we checked out early and headed to see Jim’s Aunt Dorie. She was a really sweet lady and it was good to get to meet some more of Jim’s family and see where he spent his first few years (before they moved to New Orleans).

The Disney Experience

At this point, we had originally planned to drive to Orlando and stay at another hotel. Our reservations were with Disney’s Pop Century Resort, and we weren’t due to arrive until Monday. Because we had made great time, we decided to drop by to check everything out and see what our chances were of checking in early. It turns out that we had come at a good time, and were able to get the extension and even get the room that we had wanted.

I will say this: staying at a Disney resort is nice! You have shuttles that run to all the parks every 20 minutes from the time they open until well after closing (to ensure all visitors have been collected). There’s no “continental breakfast”, but the cafeteria in the resort was open before dawn and closed well after midnight.

The only gripe I have is that they did not have any sweet tea. :cry:

Other than that, it was FABULOUS! When we checked in, Jim mentioned that we were on our honeymoon and that it was Jessie’s first visit. Jim and I were given “Just Married” Disney buttons to wear, and Jess was given a “First Visit” Disney button and a ton of stickers. We were also encouraged to get the “bride and groom” Mickey ears (this was also suggested by a friend of ours). We eventually found these in Downtown Disney shops and saw them around the Magic Kingdom and MGM shops as well.

The bridal ears are white, with a long white veil attached. The groom ears set is actually a tophat with Mickey ears attached. They are ADORABLE! I hope to have pics of us wearing ours soon. :mrgreen:

We wore these practically everywhere and just about every Disney employee, from the resort workers to security and Disney police, to shop workers congratulated us everywhere we went. We even saw several other couples wearing the ears and would congratulate them in passing. I was totally loving it! :grin:

We spent most of Sunday and Monday shopping at Downtown Disney and playing around the hotel. Jessie instantly fell in love with their pool, and pretty much every day she would ask when we’d go swimming again. LOL! That girl loves the water, and they DID have a very cool pool!

Tuesday we spent in the Magic Kingdom, rode a few rides, and saw a lot of cool stuff. Wednesday was MGM Studios, and pretty much the same thing followed then. Thursday we took it easy — we went back to Downtown Disney for more shopping, then chilled out in the pool. Friday we checked out. Jessie did NOT want to leave, LOL!

We had originally planned to spend a couple of days more in Jacksonville and see more sights and come back Sunday, but we decided to cut it short because Jim and I knew that it would be best to have a couple of “recovery” days before heading back to work and school tomorrow.

And me getting sick Friday pretty much sealed that deal.

Luckily, I’m feeling MUCH better today, but may have to work from home tomorrow. I still have a low-grade fever, and besides, I’ll need to take some time to finish up a few wedding-related things that I still haven’t finished (paperwork — oh joy!).

Our wedding announcement was in the paper this weekend — I have half a mind to call our folks asking them to save copies of today’s paper for me.

In Closing

I had originally meant this post to be shorter, and I left out a LOT. You know me — once I get going, I can type on and on for hours! I hope to have pictures posted soon. I ended up forgetting my camera for most of the trip, but got some great shots on my Helio Ocean. Jim took his camera everywhere and took several hundred pics … hopefully I can sweet talk him into allowing me to share on here.

I would like to personally thank everyone who has contributed, attended the wedding ceremony and/or reception, called and emailed sending thanks and well wishes, and helped out in any way. Jim and I deeply appreciate it. Hopefully soon I can do a full write up of all the vendors and resources used in planning the wedding, reception, and honeymoon. We were lucky to have such a beautiful ceremony and I don’t think the reception and honeymoon could have been any more fun. To those who couldn’t make it: we missed you and hope to see you again soon.

Thank you for being there for us,

Nicki, Jim, and Jessie

Back to Normalcy

Just a quickie post to let everyone know that we’re back. Unfortunately I have spent the last 2 days of our honeymoon/vacation sick, so I won’t be posting the pending novella of the “wedding what’s and who’s” and other happenings as I had originally planned. BUT I do hope to do this within the next few days … just let me recover from my “vacation” (and this damned cold) first!

That said, I will leave you guys with this:

1. Driving around in Florida then coming back to Birmingham left me with a real appreciation of how nice their road systems really are — and re-enforced the notion that ours SUCK ASS!
2. It’s nice to have “normal” cable again — the channel selections in the Disney resort sucked some serious ass. That’s ok though, we were rarely in the room long enough to watch much of anything (but I seriously missed my football!).
3. If going from Alabama to Florida, don’t forget to fill up BEFORE crossing the state line — gas jumped up nearly $.50/gallon once we entered “the Sunshine State”! (I guess they have to pay for those nice roads SOMEHOW … ;P)
4. Apparently Floridians don’t like sweetened iced tea, or not enough visitors ask for it. Freakin’ NOBODY in Florida (that we visited anyways) had any sweet tea! I seriously had to stick to fruit juice (hardly anyone had anything other than orange — which I hate!!!) and water. I was SO happy to get out of there, as far as eating goes, just so I could find a place that actually *HAD* sweet iced tea!!! :evil:

The Big Day is almost here!

I’ve made and gone through I don’t know how many “to do” lists and checklists in preparation of this Saturday. But, this is a good thing … as I was telling my preacher last night, I haven’t pulled all of my hair out yet. :mrgreen:

Jim and I have finalized our vows (finally!) and are planning to each make a vow to Jessie as well. (Jim’s still working on that piece.) I’ve read over the foreword that Brother Carl has written up and I think it will be a great ceremony.

My aunt has stepped up and is taking care of most of the food and beverage details. The cakes have been ordered. My and Jessie’s dresses have been cleaned and are hanging up, ready to be worn. We each have our jewelry and associated paraphernalia, ready for the “Big Day”.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I’m so excited! Part of me still can’t believe I’m about to get MARRIED!

I doubt I’ll be posting much more this week, and I seriously doubt I’ll post much (if at all) during the honeymoon. I’ll be sure to post when we have pictures and other goodies to share. :grin:

How to: Track packages on your Helio Ocean

By request, this is a short ‘n sweet tutorial on how to get updates on your package’s delivery status on your mobile device. I had actually covered part of this concept in a previous post, but I’ll bet that some haven’t thought to apply this to tracking things.

Note:

Actually, this should work for pretty much ANY mobile device, but since I have the Helio Ocean, these directions are specific to it.

Credits:

• Special thanks goes to: Thox and the countless others at the Heliocity forums who’ve posted helpful information for the Helio Ocean (and countless other topics!)
• Link Love: The FAQ — if you know nothing, start here!

Tools you will need:

• Hardware: Helio Ocean
• Websites: ISnoop Universal Package Tracking, ZapTXT

Getting started:

This works for most major shipping methods (UPS, FedEx, USPS, or DHL/AirBorne). You’ll need your package tracking number. Open the ISnoop Universal Package Tracking site in your browser. Put in your tracking number and click the Track it! button. If any data has been entered in the system, you’ll see some kind of results, and a link will appear that says “Track this package via RSS”

Note: If no data is currently available, it will say “There is no data available yet for this tracking number. Please check back later.” It may need a few hours for the carrier’s system to be updated … simply try again in a few hours.

Now open the ZapTXT website. If you haven’t already setup an account, you’ll need to do so now.

Login to your ZapTXT account. Once logged in, you should be taken to your My ZapTasks page, under Custom Zaptask, put your RSS URL in the Website/feed to monitor field. Leave the keywords blank. For Send via, check Mobile (uncheck any others). Click Next step.

Note: If you have more than one tracking number/URL, you can click Add more sites to monitor and fill in those URLs there.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky:

ZapTxt will come back with the following message: “We found the following feed(s) that match the URL(s) you entered. Which of the following would you like us to monitor?”

Uncheck isnoop.net blog and check the box by your tracking number/link. Then, under Name this Zaptask name it as you’d like. (Suggestion: if tracking more than one package, you may want to label these by the sender, or the package’s contents.)

You can leave headlines and tags empty. Under What delivery method do you prefer?, make sure Mobile is checked. Then choose your preferred update frequency under How often would you like to receive updates? — I use As soon as possible to get real time updates (or as the carrier’s system is updated with a new status).

Finally, click Create ZapTask. When prompted with a popup asking if you’re sure you don’t want to assign any keyworks, click ok.

Note:

If you only wanted to be notified upon delivery, then you could add “Delivered” as a keyword. However, I wouldn’t recommend this unless you are tracking a LOT of packages. (Most of us like to know where our stuff is!)

In closing:

I hope you’ve found this helpful. I appreciate constructive feedback and comments. If a step is not clear enough or if something is confusing, please feel free to ask for clarification in the comments form below!

Thanks! :cool:

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