How I Spent My “Wedding” Day

As most of you know, yesterday was the day I had spent over a year stressing out over and planning every meticulous detail about. Therefore, I was concerned that it was going to be a huge letdown to not have any of that happen and would be moping all day. Not because I think that we should still be getting married (I do realize that it’s for the best, and I am over the heartbreak for the most part), but because so much time, energy, money, and excitement was put into something that just wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, my best friend Sabrina had other plans for me.

She showed up Friday night, with a bouquet of tulips in hand.

Then we went and hung out at the Opryland Hotel. A local high school’s prom was apparently that night, so we ate dinner and commented on the prom dresses we saw and joked about going to put on fancy clothes and seeing if we could pass for high school students.

The next morning, we headed down to Franklin, where we had lunch at Logan’s. (By the way, their mesquite grilled chicken is really good.) She had told me before I had gotten ready to make sure my legs were shaved, and I discovered why next. She was taking me to a spa! I got a 30-minute Swedish massage, which was great and relaxing. Afterward, she took me out to Chili’s for molten chocolate cake.

It was a pretty great day.

Later that evening, I went out to the art crawl with Wayne and got lots of free (albeit, cheap) wine. I was pretty exhausted after all that, so I just came home and went to bed.

I’m thankful to have great friends to keep me distracted. And I will note that it would have been raining and we had no backup plan for the outdoor wedding, so I’m sure I would have been more stressed out if the wedding hadn’t been called off, haha.

A post about my trip to Virginia (or: why airports suck).

I got back from Virginia this morning. I was supposed to get back yesterday, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I had a great time hanging out with Sabs!

I arrived on Wednesday after two uneventful flights and a boring layover in Charlotte. Matt was at home to watch Kaleb, so we decided to hit the mall. I was looking for a cute pair of pink heels to wear with a pink dress I bought for our engagement pictures. Didn’t have much luck.

On Thursday, we tried a different mall. I had more success and found a cute pair of strappy sandals at Payless on sale for $10. Woohoo! We also had some very yummy soft serve ice cream (mine was chocolate and peanut butter twist).

After grocery shopping on Friday, we hit the town that night. Matt drove us to downtown Norfolk where we went to an Irish Pub to drink wine. Yes, I know how much sense that makes, but we had a lot of fun drinking our white zin. I got to bring out my Scorpio-ness and scare a guy, which was fun. We met some nice people while waiting for a cab as well, and one of the guys tipped our driver to make sure we made it home okay. There are still some decent people left.

On Saturday, we drove out to Virginia Beach. I had forgotten how much I liked jumping waves. It’s probably been at least 10 years since I’ve been to a beach. We weren’t there very long though (just enough to make my freckles really come out) because Kaleb was getting a little fussy. Saturday night, Sabrina and I started up a game of Arkham Horror, but never really finished it because we were both exhausted.

She drove me to the airport on Sunday. I had a connecting flight in Washington DC. My flight there was pretty standard. However, this is where all the fun begins. When I was choosing my flights, I decided that I didn’t want to have another layover in Charlotte. I always have layovers in Charlotte; 90% of the times I’ve flown, that’s where I’ve had a layover. So I opted for something different on the flight back and chose DC. It was really neat flying in because you could see all the recognizable monuments and buildings.

I got to my gate, which apparently was a gate for a ton of places that required small planes that you had to get on a bus to get to. It was super crowded but I finally found a seat and continued playing Mario Kart. Eventually, I figured it was about time for the flight to be called, so I got up to stand around the escalator. Finally, the board read: “Nashville - Boarding” so a bunch of us went down the stairs. They said they hadn’t actually called the flight yet and to go back up the escalator. So we did. Then they called the flight. Back down. Made it onto the bus with about 5 other people. Then a guy gets on and says there are bad storms in Nashville and we need to wait 60-90 minutes. Ugh.

So we do that. About an hour goes by, I get a pretzel dog because I hadn’t eaten all day, and then a new time comes up on the board. My cell phone is dead, so I start trying to work up the courage to ask to borrow someone else’s phone so I could call Ben and tell him the new time to pick me up. Just as I’m doing that, an announcement: The flight to Nashville has been canceled.

I try to remain calm and get in line to get a new flight assignment. I borrow the phone of the lady behind me and call Ben to tell him not to go to the airport just yet and that I would call when I had more information. I finally get to the front of the line (after some confusion and a nice guy from Crossville let me cut in front of him) only to be told that the only other flight to Nashville leaving that day was already oversold, and would I like to be put on the 8:40 flight the next morning? This is where I’m really holding back my freak out. I ask if there’s any other option, and they say that there’s a flight with a connection in Philadelphia that leaves earlier but I would get to Nashville about the same time. I ask if they pay for hotel and get told no, they aren’t obligated when flights are canceled due to weather. Meanwhile, everyone is talking about how their friends and family say that Nashville has nice blue skies. Whatever. I take the 8:40 flight and get a piece of paper with a number to call to make a hotel reservation for a “discounted rate.”

I make my way over to the line of pay phones and call their 800 number. I get told that the chosen hotel is a Comfort Inn for $89 for the night and they have a free shuttle. Okay. Whatever. A bed is better than sleeping in the airport. So I think.

I have no working phone, so I can’t call the shuttle line since it’s not a toll free number. I make my way down to the hotel shuttle pick-up spot and wait, hoping someone else decides to go to the Comfort Inn as well. After about 30 minutes, I am in luck. Another lady asks if anyone is going to the Comfort Inn and I (probably much too excitedly) exclaim that I am. She lets me use her cell phone and I call Ben to tell him the new plan. I ask him to call my boss in the morning so that no one is wondering where I am.

We finally all arrive at the hotel and check in. I get put in room 405. Note to anyone who may be traveling in the area: do not get room 405 in the Comfort Inn - Pentagon. The first thing I noticed when I walked in the room was the smell. It smelled like wet towels. I guess, like mold. I don’t know. Whatever. I had a bed. I would get used to the smell. So I called Ben and left a message on his voicemail with the hotel number and my room, so he could call me back and I wouldn’t have crazy long distance fees on my bill (that one tiny voicemail was $4). He calls me back and I finally let myself freak out so I can stop being so tense. He calms me down and tells me to order a pizza and that he would see me tomorrow. So we hang up and I order a pizza.

Over the next few hours I discover that the hot water tap on the shower doesn’t work and the toilet doesn’t flush properly. I decide to just go to bed and discover that the TV will not lower below a certain (not so quiet) volume. I sleep fitfully. Which is a good thing because I discovered the next morning that the alarm clock doesn’t work either.

Finally, I get up and get on the shuttle back to the airport. Some more waiting around and then on the bus and on the plane. I feel like it’s too good to be true and that they’re going to make us go back to the terminal, but we finally take off. I arrive in Nashville at 10 am, and finally get to work around 11:30. Ugggggh.

So yeah, it was a good trip with the exception of US Airways and the unexpected and uncomfortable Comfort Inn. Pictures are up as usual.

Kaleb Matthew Sloffer was born today!

I received a call from Matt at about 7pm tonight saying that Sabrina had given birth to Kaleb. He is 9 lbs, 9 oz. Everyone is doing great.

Edited to add: I added some more photos to the Nashville folder, from Movies in the Park and the Summer Solstice party at Nashville Shores..

RIP, Mr. TiVo.

I came home from work today and turned on the TV. Seinfeld was on, so I started watching that. Sabrina called me, so I talked to her for awhile. College Championship Jeopardy came on. At some point, I looked over at the TV screen and it was black. Maybe I accidentally sat on the remote and turned it off. I checked. The TV was on. Hmm. Maybe TiVo was being weird. I unplugged him, waited a bit, and then plugged him back in. The “Almost there…” screen came up. Then rebooted. Then the “Almost there…” screen. Then a reboot. Repeat. Repeat. I was scared.

Then Frances called me, so I told Sabrina I would call her back, since I hadn’t talked to Frances in awhile. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out why TiVo is scaring me. As much as I can figure out, he’s had a hard drive failure.

Now, I’m sure most of you know, the sweat, blood, and money that I have poured into TiVo in the past two and a half years. I upgraded his hard drive to a nice 120 gigs. I reworked his silly series 1 box into being able to use the Internet instead of the phone line. And all of this I did, using a faulty motherboard on my old desktop. So I spent many hours yelling and throwing things to get it to work.

So, what are my options? I could get a new hard drive, maybe a bigger one, and try to salvage the stuff that is on the drive. Or I could get a new TiVo.

If you haven’t looked at TiVo lately, they’ve come a long way. My series 1 box….records stuff. That’s about it. With a series 2, you can download the files to your computer, burn them to DVD, set up recordings online, check the weather, etc. I go to TiVo’s website just to see how much that would set me back, since I figure a new nice sized drive would be about $80.

Well, right now, they have a deal where you can get a refurbished series 2 TiVo for free with a year’s subscription. Well, of course, I’m going to have TiVo for a year. I can’t live without it. So, I ended up ordering a free TiVo, which should be here in about a week.

But first, let’s have a moment of silence for TiVo #1.

I suppose most of the recordings on there are replacable. There will be reruns and whatnot. It’s just going to take a few months to find that great episode of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and I’m sure they’ll never show that little animated short “Drink” on there again, but maybe I can find it online.

Or, if anyone knows if there’s a way to maybe transfer recordings from a potentially bad hard drive from a series 1 TiVo to a series 2 TiVo, let me know.

More pictures from Sabrina’s wedding and honeymoon.

Here’s the ones I promised that Sabrina sent me.

The wedding:

The honeymoon:

June, already?

Sabrina and Matt’s wedding was beautiful. Pictures are up in the photo gallery, as usual. Brina sent me some of the pictures she had too, and I might get around to posting some of those as well.

My car died last week. Some belt broke and it died on the way to work. Cost me a pretty penny to get it fixed and, therefore, I cannot afford Bonnaroo this year. Chance thinks we should all set up a tent at the Manplex and create our own Bonnaroo. I wonder if we could get Mars Volta to come…

Ben and I will be going to Atlanta on the 25th of this month for Dear Friends - Music from Final Fantasy. That should be pretty cool. I haven’t really played much of the games (hey, I’m working on FFVII!!) but I do enjoy the music a lot.

Then in July I start summer school. Ew. And then in August, fall semester starts. My two month reprieve from school is not long enough. Thankfully I will be graduating in December. That can’t come fast enough. Please donate to my “new car OR buying a house” fund.

Not a whole lot going on…

Otherwise I’d update more often than I have been.

Classes start tomorrow, but I prefer not to think about that a whole lot.

I’ve got some things I need to do for Sabrina’s wedding. Like get my measurements done and pay for my dress before the end of the month, make her programs, write a toast, plan a bachelorette party, etc.

I have plans to redo some stuff on this site whenever I can find some time. Okay, time really isn’t the issue. I’m just lazy.

And the biggest news I have right now….Trent just finished the newest Nine Inch Nails album, the band is rehearsing, and tour dates are going to be announced “in the near future” according to the website. Yay! Now if only Tool would hurry up and finish their new one…

I’m sad.

Today was Brina’s graduation. She’s leaving for Seattle on Monday, so today was the last time I am going to see her for awhile. I just feel like I’ve lost my best friend or something. I know that we have been living four hours apart for the past four years, but that was just a drive away if we really needed something. Now she’s going to be on the complete opposite side of the country.
Anyway, pictures are up.

I need to cheer up. I’m seeing APC tomorrow.

Yay! A release date!

The Sims 2 finally has an official release date! It’s September 17. That seems like forever away. Especially since it was supposed to be out in March. I’ve already created like 10 Sims with Body Shop, including reasonable likenesses of me and my friends. So apparently now I have four months to tweak them.

I went out to dinner with Brina, Matt, and their families last night. Afterwards, we went back to Matt’s house. Brina and I attempted to play pool. Heh. I am so out of practice. Anyway, she had sunk all her balls and was working on the 8-ball while I still had yet to hit anything in. But I made an amazing comeback and somehow won. Apparently I remembered how to play about halfway through. We attempted to go out and do something after that, but we were all too tired. Anyway, I took some pictures, which I will probably put up when I get back to Knoxville tomorrow night.

Two more days till APC!!

Okay, now that I’m (somewhat) more alive…

This weekend was pretty fun. Brina came in on Friday and we went out to Bailey’s and some places on the strip. We met up with one of our old friends from high school and hung out with him.

Saturday was, of course, the board game party. For some quick recaps: Ernie is never drinking jager again. I still can’t find the missing Jenga piece. Egyptian Rat Screw is very addicting. I’m really good at Scene It’s alternate movie titles. Never play Twister for longer than like 10 minutes at a time. Ouch. Colonel Mustard in the dining room with the lead pipe (I won). Life is a boring game.

And my mouse is smart. I had one trap go off, but no mouse. And the cheese was gone from another one. Grr. If he was so smart, he wouldn’t have let me see him in the first place!

I would also like to add that I hate it when I figure out that I’ve been lying to myself about something. So annoying. Everything is just so complicated.

Spring is here.

I know this because my left arm (and ONLY my left arm) is bright red. Aren’t sunburns great? And when this goes away, I will have a nicely tanned arm. If only the rest of me were so lucky to be hanging out of the car window for several hours in the middle of the day.

Anyway, I went and saw Hellboy last night. My friends made me. Umm, yeah. Please give me more Eternal Sunshine. Seriously. I’m really glad that I did not have to pay for this movie. I would be demanding my money back. It never fails to amaze me how my best friend and I have completely opposite tastes in movies. She hates Chicago and loves Sweet Home Alabama (not to mention her Star Trek obsession). Need I say more?

Not a whole lot else going on right now. Samantha, who is now six month pregnant, left for Alaska today. She went to the movies with us last night, so I got to see her before she left. Everyone is leaving. I’m not going to have any friends around come mid-May. This perhaps may be why I hope to move to Seattle.

I’ve been in search of a new wallet for awhile now. I’m seriously sick of carrying around a purse, since it basically just holds my huge wallet. I want something small that I can put in my pocket. Well, I went to Wal-Mart a week or two ago, and they had these thin black wallets with zodiac signs on them. Except, of course, they were out of Scorpio. So I go to every Wal-Mart in the Knoxville vicinity. Nothing. Now I’ve been to every Wal-Mart in the Clarksville vicinity. Still nothing. Grr. Capricorn wallets, on the other hand, seem to be in abundance. I guess I am going to have to give up this search, unless I find something online that I like.

I need sleep.

It’s been a busy (but fun) last few days, and it seems that trend will continue throughout the week.

I’m going to mail Tera off after I get off work today. Frustrating, but necessary since she won’t even turn on anymore.

I saw Eternal Sunshine again last Friday. May be going to see it again soon. Such a great movie!

Jewel concert is on Wednesday! Yay! I will be taking my stealth cam to practice for the APC concert. I will be in the tenth row at this concert, so hopefully I can get some decent shots.

Going to Clarksville for the weekend.

Brina is coming to visit the weekend of the 23rd. Going to have another board game party, hopefully.

I’ve got a paper and a java program due on the 22nd. I need to find some time to work on those.

Back from the weddings!

Michele’s was first at 2:00. I got there and went in the bathroom to see her. She looked amazing! I hung out in there and talked with her until the ceremony was about to begin. I had never been to a Catholic wedding before, I had just heard they were long. Her’s wasn’t too bad since they didn’t have a full mass or anything. And not too much sitting and standing. And it was also quite interesting the way the priest compared marriage to Return of the King. Anyway, my camera batteries died right after they lit the unity candle, so I didn’t get pictures of the end. After it was over, I told Michele congratulations once more and then ran off to Wal-Mart to buy batteries.

While I was there, I called Sabrina and she asked would I mind if I picked up some music for Samantha’s processional? She was supposed to supply them with a CD, but couldn’t find it. So I purchased Love’s Greatest Hits or something by some orchestra.

So then I got to the church where Samantha’s wedding was being held. I said hello to people I hadn’t seen in forever, and went and found Samantha and her bridesmaids. She also looked great. I took some pictures and then went and sat down. Apparently, when you buy rechargable batteries, they are not fully charged when you buy them. Cause the batteries I just bought died too halfway through the ceremony. Ack!

After it was over, I went to a gas station and got some plain ol’ alkaline batteries to use. Then I went to Logan’s where we were to meet for dinner after the wedding. It was a pretty good day.

Ahh…

Party was good. Sabrina and I were on a team for Scene It? and Cranium. We won Scene It? but lost Cranium. We were also on a team with Chris for Taboo, and we won that. They were all very close games, though (well, we weren’t that close at all in Cranium actually…but I did learn that I can’t spell that well after I’ve been drinking–especially backwards).

Brina and I went dress shopping at White Lace and Promises today. She tried on a bunch and fell in love with two. I also tried on one bridesmaids’ gown.

So, yeah…

I’m not very good at keeping this updated. But, then again, I don’t do much ‘cept sit around. My best friend Sabrina is visiting me this week. We are going to dye each others’ hair sometime. I’m dying mine the same color that I dyed it last December. So that should be fun. My mom will also be visiting this weekend. I must remember to tell her to bring Phantasmagoria. I’ve had a huge urge to play it. Don’t really know why.

Yay! Comments!

Umm…news….
My best friend is coming to visit at the end of the month. So that’s exciting.
No job yet. Dunno if I mentioned that I was looking. But I am.
Discovered I really couldn’t play King’s Quest V on my comp anymore.
Gotta clean house tomorrow. Too many pizza boxes.
Yum. Pizza.