I don't know what my officiant would charge, since she is comping me as a return on referrals when I worked in AC. I sent her five or six brides who wanted beach weddings. Regardless, she will be getting a Ben in an envelope day of as a thank you.

Been at the airport for a bit - a long (three flight) day to get to Boise. I should add the flights out of BNA, out of DTW, and into MSP all look to have modest VDB potential.

I spent a summer working for them once. :-:

My car turns 10 next March. It'll turn over 100K in the next couple weeks. Last year was my lowest-mileage year - only about 6K or so, because I was just making the round-trip to ORD once a week (25 mi rt), plus errands around town on the weekends, basically. This year will be my highest, since my commute is now 75 mi/day.

I'm a little OCD about keeping my phone/devices charged up. Since I've got an iPhone, an extra battery isn't an option, but I've got an external LiIon power pack I can plug in to top it off. Everything I've got, I've got a USB tip to charge it with.

My wife's the opposite. She was excited to get my old iPhone 3G when I upgraded this week. Less excited when I told her she should get in the habit of plugging in the charger at least every other day, if not nightly. I even made it as simple as possible - the chargers are right on the counter where she drops her keys/purse when she comes home. And still, her battery dies. I'd consider going with a contactless charger if they had enough range that she could just set her bag down on the charger.

And hey, BOI's not too bad of a place. I used to go to a little town about a half-hour east of Twin Falls a few times a year for work - great views of the mountains and the Snake River.

The Shetland Isles are beautiful. The runway at LSI has a road in the middle of it. I got to drive on said road. That was pretty :cool:.

Driving a manual transmission on the "other" side of the road wasn't too bad so far. Which is to say that I haven't killed anyone or anything yet.

Travel with a power strip in your carry-on and you will become the most popular person in the terminal. I always do it because at the minimum, I've got a laptop and a phone to plug in and those would take up an entire wall outlet. The Samsung power stations seem to be getting more and more common, thankfully.

I've heard that an officiant isn't technically supposed to "charge" for doing a wedding, but of course that doesn't stop you (well, technically the best man) from giving them a thank-you envelope on the day of. And $250 was the figure that was being thrown around.

I'm excited - ID will be my 49th state visited and OR (Whitman National Forest) will be the 50th. I'm willing to delay crossing these last two states off my list if I can get a VDB for doing so ;)

Sound yummy! Thanks. I had responded once already, but I deleted the message?? So, if it did show up, oh well, oops.
Don't worry about planning, I'm sure it will turn out fun.


This is for anyone who has children in elementary (4th/5th) and intermediate to high school...
If the school offers AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination, in my opinion, it is really worth checking out. It's an elective in the middle grades and high school. The purpose of AVID is to help empower students and equip them with skills and knowledge that will enable them to be competitive in the global world. It promotes college education and all around seems to raise the rigor of instruction and expectations at a school. Our school is an AVID school, and I am most excited to see the progress and the potential that we have if we truly implement the ideas that are embedded in the system of instruction. Anyway, that is that for me. I'm just super excited about things in our school system that really help our kids reach their full potential and advocate for children who are sometimes lost in the system because of influences from their home environment, etc I wonder if there are any teachers out there who are familiar with AVID and have an opinion?

Ok, I really better go. The computer finished updating.

Funny little gchat

:D

$100 and a couple of SPG50's. LOL. :D

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Congrats^ You are buying the box a round to celebrate??:D

If I were having an actual wedding ceremony, not just a civil make-it-official, I wouldn't feel right having an officiant that didn't have an existing relationship with at least one of us. The message would seem kind of hollow otherwise - I mean, the basic precepts for a good marriage are virtually the same all around, but still...it would be weird to be addressed by someone who had little to now knowledge of who you were, where you came from in terms of all sorts of things, etc.

Of course, ideally, the officiant should know both parties, though admittedly that's harder these days because people are generally marrying people who grew up in other cities/schools/etc. We're having the pastor who was at my church from 7th grade-college, who knows me and my family at least well enough, and who's a Yale alum to boot, so he says it'll be fun to return to the old place. I feel bad for tjtenor4 though - he's trying to get in touch with one of the former clergy from his parents' church, who is also a YDS alum, so that we could have co-officiants. Some field trips to the BOS area will be happening next year for service planning...

It's equally bad at funerals. It was quite obvious at my great-grandmother's that the preacher had never met her. Seriously? If that's the case, then let someone else - a friend or family member - deliver one or more eulogies. If you have an imported preacher, sure, they can lead a prayer or blessing or whatever, but don't go on and on like they had a meaningful relationship with the deceased (this is particularly :rolleyes: if you get lots of basic facts and statements about them just wrong).

Black Friday for me:rolleyes:. Although I knew the dreaded pink slip was preprinted for me for sometime the email summoning me to HR this morning was tough indeed. After 35.5 yrs at the same place it isn't something you really can prepare for. I'm status quo until Sep 24th and do have a very long severance period with full pay and benefits so I'm looking at a lot of travel coming up really soon:D Then I will decide what I want to be when I grow up:rolleyes:

The judge that married us went to high school with my Mom and has known the family for years. Such is life in a small town. :rolleyes:

In other news, have the knee imprints been removed from your dash?