Jen took a drive on her lunch break today.

She went to the Tewksbury Town Hall to the Town Clerk’s office.

She picked up our marriage license.

I asked her if it was pretty.

She said no, but it looked legal.

Hear that lovely readers? We’re legal!

Or at least we will be when the priest signs it 39 days from today.

I know this is totally unrelated, but I feel the need… it’s a compulsion, really… to close all posts from now on with:

Go Bruins!

Watch the highlights again and bask in the glow of the warm warming glow of the Bruins taking a three games to none lead over the Canadiens.

Mike the Bass Player was at the Celtics game last night. I had the Bruins on the tube and twitter on my laptop and had a sporadic commentary going there while texting score updates to Mike. Meanwhile Jen was working on the couch next to me. I hope I didn’t bother her too much with my fanboy goofiness.

In the third period Jen and I did some honeymoon work. We bought tickets to two baseball games. One is a weekend game in San Diego with honkin’ good seats at Petco Park, or whatever corporate bullshit name they gave it today. The other is a weeknight game in the bleachers at Dodgers Stadium.

I cannot wait!

We are down to 39 days left until the wedding. We still have a lot to do, but I am reaching the point where I am equal parts excited about it and just wishing it would get here. I want to be married and I want to disappear with my wife for a couple of weeks.

I cannot wait!

But I have to wait, and while I do you can wait with me and together we can read this cnn article about former Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell telling a UFO conference that aliens exist, we are not alone in the universe, and that Earthly governments are covering it all up.

Awesome! Queue the X-Files theme song!

Yeah, you heard me…

Game three in Montreal…

Lets!
Go!
BRUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I pulled out of the driveway a little earlier than normal. 7:01am. I pulled into a parking spot at work at 8:00am. 59 minutes for a drive that usually takes about 70-75 minutes.

Must be April school vacation week! WOOHOO

Today I was cruising along on route 62 in Concord, MA and I saw a company of about 6 Minutemen marching down the road. So the 18th century Massachusetts Colonial Militia has been called to duty?

Must be Patriots Day!

Today is the day people in Massachusetts celebrate the start of the American Revolution. They day of the proverbial “shot heard ’round the world.”

British troops marched out of Boston to take out a munitions dump in Concord. They were met at the old North Bridge crossing the Concord river by a militia unit. Shots were fired. The proverbial “shit hit the fan.” The British troops headed back to Boston under almost constant attack from other militia units along the way. 15 months later the 13 colonies declared their independence. Eight years later the British government recognized the independence of the United States of America. 200+ years later people in the state of Massachusetts get the day off.

Some of them at least. Not me. This is the one holiday I don’t get off. It’s okay though, the office is more or less dead, and the Red Sox are playing at 11:00am and the Boston Marathon is underway. Lots of news to follow today. And there is that little added bonus of next to no traffic on the ride home. I like that.

You may be wondering why there is no camera phone evidence of the Minutemen I saw on the road this morning. Well, sadly I was listening to music on my iPhone and couldn’t get the camera up and running fast enough. I had a tiny bit more luck when I saw three deer on the side of the road. I pulled over and aimed the camera as they started to run away. If you click on this picture and see the full sized shot you can sort of see them.

Always fun to see interesting wildlife during the ride in to work.

The Bruins are playing tonight. Game three of the best of seven game series. They lead 2-0 over the vile cousin pokin’ Montreal Canadiens. The series moves to Montreal for games three and four. The Bruins will be without the services of Milan Lucic who was suspended for one game for a hit to the head. I haven’t seen the play, but I guess it was a punch, not a high stick. That’s good at least. They will also again be without Matt Hunwick who missed Saturday’s game with a removed spleen. They dude had his effing spleen removed, and the team is hoping he might make it back into play if we are fortunate enough to advance to the next round. Yes, hockey players are definitely tougher than anyone else on the planet. Navy SEALS might have one up on hockey players in the tough department, but that’s probably it.

I am going to force my Jenny to watch this game with me tonight. Maybe we can find some wedding prep stuff to do during the commercials and intermissions. hehe

In the early going, the Red Sox have won four in a row to bring themselves out of the AL East cellar and back to a 500 record. They are still in third, and even worse they are still behind the Yankees, but things are improving. Keep winning guys, another 20-30 in a row will feel good, and don’t scare us like that again!

Go Bruins!

I can't make fun of her slow 2G iPhone any more.

I mentioned this before, but here’s the background. I didn’t want a bachelor party. Jen didn’t want a bachelorette party. Mary, the maid of honor, suggested we get all of our friends together and all go out together for one fun night. We agreed. It was a great idea.

Mary and John the best man took care of everything. They invited our favorite people and made reservations at a swanky Italian restaurant in the North End, and then got us tickets for a show at the Improv Asylum.

The dinner was fantastic. They put us all together at one long table and fed us until we were ready to burst. Everything was delicious.

The Improv Asylum was great on it’s own, but before the show started some one noticed some one walking through a backstage door who looked remarkably similar to an old friend. When Mike the bass player and I were in high school we had a band. It went through a few incarnations between our sophomore year and through my first year or so of college. The keyboard player in that band was Jim Zaroulis. The keyboard player at the Improv Asylum last night was Jim Zaroulis. We got to catch up a little on old times. It was an added extra treat to top off a great night.

Here are a few pictures…

The Bachelorette gets ready.

Roving iPhone reporter catches some hubbub on the drive in.

Ummm… Happy Easter?

Our friends at dinner.

We had spectators watching us eat. Note the couple in the window.

A Pano attempt.

The restaurant.

Marisa, Michael, and Lisa… who weren’t quite in the dinner pictures. I missed a few others too.

The happy couple in the dark at the improv asylum.

The stage. Jim Z. is in this picture on the keys in the back.

A failed attempt at a group shot in the dark. Camera Bag helped a little.

(oh yeah, and the Bruins spaked the Canadiens in game 2. It was a perfect night all over the place.)

At Ristorante Fiore with all of my best friends.

I didn’t really want a bachelor party. Jen didn’t really want a bachelorette party. Mary the Maid of Honor suggested we replace those traditions with one night out for both of us and a bunch of friends. Basically do both parties at the same time.

That sounded good to us.

Tonight is the night. We don’t know where we’re going. We only know that it’s in Boston and we shouldn’t wear jeans. You all will see tweets and posts and whatnot as the night goes on.

In closing let me show you the house we found. It’s in Concord right near Walden Pond. We should be able to move in any day now. Sweet!

Just a quick recap on Friday. I took the day off, Jen took a half day.

We went to the town hall in Tewksbury and applied for our marriage license. It’s all legal like now. hehe

We went to a 3pm meeting with our coordinator at the reception hall and she didn’t show up.

We went to my parent’s house to wait for the coordinator to call us. Fortunately Lisa and Mary were both there too and both baby Patrick and Sarah were able to take our mind off of being pissed off at being blown off for a couple of hours.

At 7pm we finally got a very appologetic call from the coordinator and we went and had our meeting. The whole time line has been sketched out. We now not only know what is going to happen during the reception, but we know approximately when. Good stuff.

Then we celebrated with ice cream. mmmmm ice cream.

Then Jen saw the first house centipede of the year.

They tell us that house centipedes are good to have around because they hunt like crazy and eat all other bugs (including spiders… does any other bug eat spiders? I don’t think so). Unfortunately they are also the vilest most evil looking creatures on the face of the planet. More horrible looking than even a crab with the head of an insurance salesman. (Yes, that was a Woody Allen line)

Last year I sentenced all house centipedes that invade our half of the duplex to the most horrible death I can dish out.

Tonight’s execution was carried out with enough enthusiasm that the windows are still rattling a half hour later.

Go Bruins.