Well, this is it

It is the morning of my wedding day and I'm pretty calm in advance of what is going to happen later this afternoon. Brownie and Skaus came over last night, we played some cards, drank some beers, watched the Astros/Braves and Bruins games and I was in bed and asleep by 1:30. I woke up around 9:00, read the paper, ate some leftovers and here I am.

If this was three years ago, it'd be just an ordinary October Sunday. But it's not. Today is the day that my life changes forever. A bit overdramatic? Maybe, but I think that this occasion warrants a bit of drama. It's hard to describe how I feel, nervous? Certainly, but not as much as I thought I'd be. Anxious? Definitely. This is the one feeling that is churning in my stomach.

As I'm sitting here writing and contemplating and thinking about the events that are going to unfold in about five hours, things are beginning to come into focus. By 3:50, I'll be in the back of the church waiting until Fr. Brian tells me and Jay that we can come to the front of the altar and wait for Aly. All of my friends and relatives, as well as Aly's friends and relatives will be watching us and no one else.

Then we'll have the mass. Then it's off to get pictures. Then they announce us, we have our first dance, we cut the cake, I dance with my mom, she dancs with her dad. The normal stuff that goes on at a wedding, which I'm sure you know, but this exercise is more for me to envision what's going to happen in the coming hours.

After that, it will be over. Thirteen months of planning, petty fights, minor annoyances, will be done. There will be nothing for us to do on the weekends, no rushing to pump something out on weeknights. I think this is what will put the bliss in wedding bliss.

So far, the strangest thing of today has been the myriad phone calls I'm getting ... all asking the same question, "Are you nervous?" If that's not a clue that something big is happening, I don't know what is.

Ok, now that I've got some wedding jitters out of the way, a few pretty cool things have happened to me over the last week to ten days that I haven't really written about because I've been completely slammed with wedding stuff, school stuff and work stuff. I'll start backwards and try to jam everything in ... before I have to start getting ready.

Friday night, we had the rehearsal dinner at Skipjack's restaurant in Boston. We had a great time. The food was excellent, the company was tremendous and it gave me and Aly and opportunity to thank our friends and family for being there for us. I wrote a short speech about each of the groomsmen before presenting them with their gifts (a money clip and an autographed copy of "Why Not Us?" by Leigh Montville). It was tough to make it through the words, but since I had it written out, Aly was able to pinch hit for me in the tough spots.

During the dinner, we found out the Red Sox were dumped by the White Sox in three straight to end their season. Sort of predictable, but a bummer none the less. When I come back from the honeymoon, I will give my post-mortem on the team, the year and who might be staying and who might be packing their bags.

Thursday night, I was home pretty late. For the last week, I've been getting into work early and staying as late as I could preparing for the next two weeks of me not being around. From September 9 through October 31, I have a total of 27 shows that will be happening all over the country. It was a big-time pain in the ass making sure that everything was done correctly and that everyone will be covered. This was the biggest worry on my mind, and at 7:15 on Thursday night it felt like a tremendous yoke was taken off my back.

That moment that you leave work to embark on a vacation, is the best moment ever.

Speaking of work, old friend Tom Abarams emailed me Friday morning asking if I was still interested in teaching. The school that he's at is fairly desperate for teachers. It's an intriguing idea, good thing I'll have time to mull this over.

I started the web design portion of my classes this week. For the next month or so, I'm going to be doubling up ... classes on Monday and Tuesday. That is going to suck, but I will be finishing up the program a few months quicker, so I just have to keep that in the back of my head.

Ok, I'm just about done with this ... I do want to apologize for a lack of updates here and especially the cartoon. The last two weeks have been absolutely insane, and I promise that when I get back to normal, I'll have the same once a week cartoon ready every Wednesday morning.

I'm out. See you on the flip.