Wedding Gift

My wife and I were married in June of 2005. She put a whole lot of work into it and it was really a beautiful wedding. At the time I had been working part-time for a web design and CD business card company. The owner did a lot of video work and he offered to video our wedding free of charge. After the wedding, we honeymooned in Scotland and then promptly moved to Boston so my wife could begin her master's program at Harvard.

A few months went by and I asked my former boss about the video. He said he hadn't had a chance to edit it yet, but he would get to it and send it to us. A little more time goes by and I ask him about it again and he says he still hasn't finished. I tell him to just send me the raw footage and I'll get it edited or do it myself. He says okay, and that's the last I hear of it for awhile. So again I email him and he replies that he sent it months ago when we last talked.

So now I'm pretty upset. It's the only video of our wedding, and now it looks like we're never going to have it. I regret having him do it, but there's really nothing we can do about it, except hope that it will show up one day.

Fast forward to last week. A day or two before my birthday, my best man, and best friend from high school calls me up. He had just gotten married in Hawaii, (sadly, we couldn't make it) and he tells me that he finally was able to get the video from my bachelor party on to a DVD. He was sending it to me along with video and pictures from his own wedding. A week or so later I get the DVDs and I pop them in the computer to watch the video.

The footage from the bachelor party was fun. We didn't do anything too crazy. Just a few guys being stupid, hanging out, and having fun. But when that stuff was over, the video cut to our wedding. Apparently, my best man had given the camera to my mother who video taped the entire wedding! We got to see the dancer at the beginning and all of the vows and ring exchanges and all of our groomsmen and bridesmaids on that wonderful day. We were thrilled to put it mildly. We had thought we would never be able to watch it again, and here we were seeing us get married all over again. It was really exciting. My wife insisted I call and thank my best man right away, and I agreed.

So props to my best man! Mad Dog, you know who you are! You're the best, and now it's on the internet so it must be true. I'm really going to make an effort to see you sometime soon as it's been too long. Blessings on you and your wife for years to come.

The First of April

Today is my birthday. No joke!

I was born at 12:01 AM on April 1st. I sometimes suspect I was born on March 31st at 11:59 PM, but the doctor couldn't resist writing 12:01 to make me an April Fool's baby. I don't know if I will ever be able to verify this.

Surprisingly, I can't remember having very many April Fool's pranks being played on me personally. Nothing that really sticks out anyway. I mostly get the response when I tell someone when my birthday is, "Oh, guess your birth was a joke!" or some variant. But I've never had a prank or joke played on me.

Today I went to work, and tonight I'm going home, so I'm not doing anything special for my birthday like a party or anything. I really don't mind. I'm pretty content to stay home and take it easy. My wife and I may play World of Warcraft together, which I actually consider a superb present that she plays with me now. I am recording the event in my warcraft blog, Good Morning Azeroth! Which is funny because now that we play together, I play more in the evening to late night than in the morning.

So, Happy Birthday to me, and thanks to everyone that made me possible and has been part of my life these last 27 years. Couldn't have done it without you.