The Wedding

Christy and Dan’s wedding was certainly my favorite wedding I’ve been to so far. Sure they’re both great friends of mine, but there was something more to it. Perhaps it was that so many people attending were good friends of mine. Perhaps it was that both Christy and Dan were very chill during their wedding so it was a low stress affair. Perhaps it was that I was in the wedding party and didn’t screw up any of my responsibilities too badly. Or more likely it was all of the above plus all those little intangibles that transform a good night into a great night.

Of course before the ceremony they needed to get some pictures of me (and a few other unimportant participants in the wedding, but I’m sure it was mostly about me.) Then there was marriage ceremony in Christy’s Catholic Church. They skipped the mass because Dan’s side of the family wasn’t catholic. I think it’s nice that the church gives the options to skip mass. I though they would have been pretty insistent on the sacrament of communion, but evidently not. There’s not much to report on here. Nothing cool like lost rings or any fainting occurred. Then Dan and Christy did a smoochy-smoochy in the church and it was all over.

After this, us important wedding party folks headed out to the Edwardson Christmas tree farm for more pictures. The photographer was pretty cool about everything, but I could tell she was gritting her teeth a little when it came to the pictures with their dogs. I suppose it makes sense that photographers don’t like rambunctious dogs since it makes taking pictures a little less predictable. To me that little unpredictability just made the grueling task of pictures a little more interesting.

Then it was on to the reception for a night of great food, great conversations, and great dancing. One of the things that made this night great in my mind was that I shared many friends with Christy that showed up at the wedding so I had no shortage of people to chat with. It was great catching up with old friends. Then we ate dinner. I had prepared a toast which I gave after dinner. Below is something similar to the toast I gave, but I’m sure it’s not exactly the same.

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This night started about three years ago when Christ and Dan met at Glacier National Park. I had the pleasure of spending the summer there with them. It was certainly one of the best summers of my life, and yet looking at them it seems to have turned out even better for these two.

From the beginning I knew that at the very least these two would be great friends. And everyone here tonight knows it turned out to be even more than a great friendship. From the beginning they had signs of just "clicking". Long conversations that had that smooth organic flow that can only exist between people with similar beliefs and interests. When together their eyes were a little brighter, their smiles a little bigger, and their laughter a little louder.

And then the summer ended...

You should know that Glacier Park is a beautiful and magical place. There must be hundreds if not thousands of relationships started their each summer. But when the people leave the park and that magic behind the vast majority of these relationships fade. But not these two. Even a few thousand miles did not dampen their love for each other. In fact the love between them has continued to grow since leaving Glacier, and I am sure it will continue to grow for the rest of their lives.

I would like to propose a toast to the love and dedication between Christ and Dan Chen that has lead to this marriage and will be the cornerstone of their happiness for the rest of their lives.
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Then there was the wild night of dancing. I have very little sense of rhythm so I pretty much flail about on the dance floor, but I do enjoy my flailing. I have started to incorporate new dance steps into move repetwar. These moves are named “patting a canoe”, “sweeping the floor”, “ski poles”, and so forth. The dance floor was certainly dominated by a few groups of young people. Thinking back I’m not sure if other people didn’t join in because they didn’t like to dance or because they were scared off by my mad dancing skillz. I hope it was more about what they wanted to dance than being intimidated by the group of unfamiliar faces out there dancing. Well to make me feel good I’m going to assume it was that they just didn’t feel like dancing. About a quarter of the way through the night Eric got a little over enthusiastic in his dance steps and sprained his knee. After that he used a good deal of liquor to keep the knee working. I was a little worried about it the next day when he could hardly walk, but now a week later it’s getting better and everything looks like it will turn out fine. I could also tell you about how a bunch of uncouth yahoos “decorated” Christy and Dan’s car with silly string and balloons, but I choose to plea the fifth.

After the reception a bunch of us went to Perkins. For those not familiar with the greatness of Perkins it’s a cheap chain restaurant with greasy food in Wisconsin where drunk people often go to eat after partying, and I can attest that some of the people I went with were certainly a bit tipsy. It was a good way to wind down the night. And by the end of this I think I was tired enough to sleep on an airplane (this would be quite a feat for me).

Christy and Dan are now on their honeymoon to the hurricane infested Caribbean . Last I heard the weather was great and I can only assume they’re enjoying themselves. I’d like to congratulate them on their marriage and thank them for the awesome party!

Wisconsin Week

I spent a wonderful week in Wisconsin just bumming around with my parents and friends.

Here I am enjoying a boat ride in the bay of Green Bay.


My mom and I went to Sandy Dunes and found this huge tree.


Just one of many pictures I took of the puppies!


Then we went up to Door County to fool around for a day.


Eric almost always wins at mini-golf and this outing was no different.


I got to go to a Packer game. I’m pretty sure Dan and I were the only ones in the stadium cheering for the Jaguars.

The best part of the whole week was the Christy and Dan’s wedding, but I’ll cover that event in a separate post.

Vacation!

I'm heading to Wisconsin for nine days. The highlight will be Christy and Dan's wedding, but I'm sure there will be a lot of things to report about when I get back.

Volunteer Appreciation Day

This weekend I went to Camp Resolute in Bolton with my little brother, Devon. It was sponsored by BBBS. In a word, awesome. It was a day full of swimming and games.

The best part was a huge trampoline raft in the middle of the water and attached to it was this half blown up cylinder. One person would sit on one end and a second person would jump on the other end of it sending the first flying. By the end of the day, when I had the optimal jumping form figured out, Devon was probably getting about 8 feet of air which was more than anyone else. The most important things for optimal launching are big weight differentials and a big jump. It also took some time to figure out where the best place to land when jumping. The only regret I had was that I was too heavy for anyone to lunch me into the air :-( If only Eric had been there...

Team Change at Work

For the past year and a half I've been on the Applications Research Group (aka the ARG) at ATI/AMD. I did a lot of little projects while on this team, but the big project I worked on was an OpenGL ES 2.0 emulator. This emulator helps mobile phone developers start writing games before next generation phone hardware is back. It was a sweet gig, but I did come to miss my old driver work on the OpenGL driver. So I requested a transfer to the OpenGL ES driver team and yesterday I made the move. I'm rip roaringly excited about this new job. I get to do all the low level programming I miss, plus the manager has told me I get to keep doing publications and talks which is something I enjoyed from the ARG. It's the best of both worlds. Plus it looks like this new job will involve more travel, and I do like to travel. It's pretty much my ideal job at AMD. Later!