neurological dryer lint

today is our huge group presentation in IS550. tony and i spent a good deal of time last night getting it together... but i'm more worried about the actual development of the project, which is due thursday, and of which we have very little done. lots of coding, little time. argh.

tonight is POD/Blindside though. that's going to be ridiculous. meeting the band is going to be ridiculous. i can't even tell you how insanely excited i am to talk with the blindside guys.

more insanely exciting, though.. i appear to be engaged.

weird, because i've known that i'd marry renee since before we were dating. something just told me it would happen. i never really questioned if she was it or not, because it was like breathing oxygen. you just do it, you don't think, hey, this air thing might not be right for me... wonder if maybe pure nitrogen would work?

so in my mind it's not super different from before, and being married, in that context, probably won't 'feel' different mentally, either. as i explained to her, it's like reality is catching up with my mind. we've been together three and a half years, been friends for seven and a half. it's a good, good feeling.

the proposal went pretty much as planned. big ups to the guys from our area that went down to rockbridge for lots of encouragement. mad big ups to simon, meagan, theresa, and debbie. simon was out helping me light candles (or try to... grrr) before it happened, and it was way mellowing to have someone else around helping out... and then the chicks, who pulled renee out of club and convinced her that they were helping debbie 'surprise her husband for their anniversary'. which got renee down to the waterfront, where i was waiting. i may put up an HTML version of the photo album/storybook i made for the occasion. it feels like the geek thing to do, you know?

anyway. had some music playing off the laptop, a bunch of unlit candles, and her. read her the story, got on my knee. took out the ring. opened the box. this is what progressed.

Me: "renee rogers, you are the l-"
Her: "wait, hold on a second."
Me: (panic) "... what? hold on? what? i can't hold on!"
Her: "wait. i have a bug in my eye."
Me: (looks in eye, sees gnat) "oh. well just... it's on your lower lid -"
Her: " - i know, i'm trying - "
Me: " - there, it's on your finger.. no, you missed it - "
Her: " - no, i didn't get it - there, is it out?"
Me: "no, it's still in there - here, let me - "
Her: " - no wait, i can get it - "
Me: " - it's to the left more - "

This went on, in a sitcom-like fashion, for another minute or two. once the gnat was surgically removed, i continued. and all was well.

it was fun the rest of the weekend, hearing everyone's orders to have a short engagement, wait to have kids, yada yada... married people like to give you unsolicited advice, which i didn't mind too much, because everyone who did was someone i respect immensely. mikey, hamrick, remember kristi (reed) bradshaw? she has a second kid... she was the first one we saw afterwards. that was pretty cool.

anyway, that's the story. real life has snuck back into the room and started annoying me again. but it was a nice departure. got a long week of coding ahead of me :)