Man...this is apparently busy time, as far as traveling goes, of the year at work.

Let's see...trips scheduled:
Canton, OH next Thu-Sat.
Hanover, PA next Sun-Tue.
Miami Beach Feb27-Mar2
Ft. Lauderdale (separate trip) two weeks later.

Lots of miles and Marriott points, at least. :) And that's always good...

I like the travel, though. It's cool. Plus, I get to "hang out" with members of the industry. I'm being treated to dinner in Hanover, and I'm treating the president of the company near Canton to dinner then. So it's nice to hobnob with the folks in the industry--something that was obviously 30 times more difficult at my last job. I felt lucky to just SEE Jon Gruden at an Indianapolis Hooters with other coordinators, coaches and PR hacks...also, it's nice to get out of the office frequently. It's tough to sit in a cubicle day-in and day-out, staring at a computer.

And, of course, it's made all the better when I can go to Florida twice in three weeks in the middle of winter here. :)

But it does keep me on the move...a lot lately.

Houston, we have a date.

Mark May 6, 2006 on your calendars, (when you get them,) folks. That is the date of our wedding.

Interesting to see that we're not the only ones preparing this far in advance...Our first two choices, April 22 and 29, were already booked at the church. We could have booked a noon wedding on either of those days, but screw that...then what (other than drinking at a bar) are folks to do for the five hours or so in between the ceremony and reception (I hear the Bird's Nest rents out their back room...). In fact, we just missed getting April 22, because it was booked on Monday. That kinda sucks, but what can we do? Nothing, really, except accept (how about that word usage?) that this is where we're at.

So now we go hall-hunting...let the fun begin! The good news is, I'll get some free meals out of it, anyway... :)

My preliminary guest list stands at roughly 150-160. That's just MY list. Obviously, there will be some paring down...and our preliminary wedding party stands at 6-7 couples (other than ourselves)...we have too many friends, damn you all! ;)

Whatever, we'll see what happens...

Thanks for all the congratulatory messages and whatnot...they are really appreciated, even if I don't get to respond to every single one... :) Thank you all!

For those of you who weren't at Gina's party or haven't heard yet, I pulled three surprises yesterday (for most people).

The surprise party everyone knew about (except Gina)...so there was that. But earlier in the day, I proposed to her in front of Cloud Gate (the bean) at Millennium Park (thank you, city of Chicago, for dragging your feet in terms of tenting it for final polishing or whatever). She said yes (or else I probably wouldn't be posting this... ;) ). That was a surprise for her as well as for many, many others.

There was speculation and whatnot, but no one knew except my family...not even her family. So they were surprised too...as were many folks.

Thanks to everyone who helped pull off the party...it allowed me to handle all the details I needed to handle at one time. It wasn't easy, but I'm definitely capable of this kind of "production," that's for sure...and now people know that to be true. :)

We're shooting for April of '06, for those of you scoring at home.

But for now, I'm going to "relax" a bit...I need it. :)