alzheimer’s news of the day

alzheimer’s news of the day:

My paternal grandfather died of Alzheimer’s so any progress on combating it is always an encouraging.

our wedding year: save the photo

Last weekend Rosie and I headed into the studio of her friend Megan for a photo session. We needed to take some engagement photos (one of many things I didn’t realize was a thing prior to popping the question) and pictures to use for our “Save the date” cards. Our plan for said cards was to snap a picture at the Fox in front of a poster display and then Photoshop in a fake movie poster of ourselves with the relevant information.

If you live here you know how nasty the weather was last Saturday. So we decided to skip the Fox and just shoot in Megan’s studio. In addition to the shooting we did for engagement photos and our poster idea, we also played around for about a half hour or so with light drawing (google image search it and you’ll see some neat examples). We all liked how these experiments turned out (at least on the camera’s little screen) so we may abandon the movie poster idea.

Now we’re just waiting for the CD to come in the mail. At that point we then dig into Photoshop and see what we can do. I’ll upload some of the best pictures as soon as I have them in hand.

(Sidenote: As we are having to foot the majority of the cost for the wedding ourselves, our guest list will, by necessity, not include many people with whom we’d love to share the day. After the wedding (and, hopefully, the honeymoon) we’ll have a massive party so that all who weren’t there can give us gifts, I mean, celebrate our union. So if you don’t get an invite, it doesn’t mean we don’t like ya!)

our wedding year: registry

A week or so ago, Rosie finally convinced me we should go ahead and start up our wedding registries. We had planned to set one up on Amazon and, because of her great love for the place, at Macy’s and a third place to be named later (probably Target).

In setting up the Macy’s registry we discovered they were holding a “Sip and Scan” event at Lenox this past Thursday. I didn’t even need to ask her if she wanted to attend. Once we got down there and signed in, they handed us a free tote bag (made by Victorinox so a decent quality item) with a bunch of flyers and ads inside along with a free wine bottle opener called “The Bunny”, clearly a knockoff of “The Rabbit”, but still better than anything we had at home.

Aside: The free gift item was particularly amusing for us. A bit over a year ago, before I moved in with Rosie, we needed a corkscrew at her place. So we set out to buy one. We couldn’t find one that wasn’t ridiculously expensive. We did finally find one, but ever since, anywhere we go, we find corkscrews, even in places that we looked before. So showing up for our first real wedding event and being given a free corkscrew? Priceless.

They then handed us a Palm-based Symbol barcode scanner (I’m a geek, I notice these things) and set us loose. After sampling some of the hors d’œuvres and a bit of aimless milling around we started scanning up a storm. OK, we didn’t go crazy with it, but got a decent amount of items registered.

At one point, I took a look around at the other couples and had the feeling of being in an exclusive club. All of the people there, as varied and unlike us as they may have been, are our peers in one very significant way. That’s part of why I’m going to try and be a bit better about blogging this year. This experience is completely new for me and, hopefully, something I’ll only go through once.

All in all, it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening.

credit where it’s due

Wow. For the past couple of days I’ve been getting calls from an 800 number I didn’t recognize. Figured it was some marketing thing so just haven’t been answering. Finally took a moment to see what it was and if I could I’d chop up my credit card right now.

It seems that my credit card company wanted to warn me about the CARD Act which takes effect in February. The one aspect in particular that they thought I needed to know about was the ban on allowing over limit charges. Apparently they consider it a feature not a bug. They gave me a lovely example of how it is great if I’m in an emergency, like running out of gas, and need to go over my credit limit to fill my tank. Ye gods, how will we ever survive without that option?

The woman on the phone then assured me that I could keep the ability to go over my limit and, as a bonus, they would be dropping the over limit fee by $10! So that $5 of gas that keeps me on the run from the zombie hordes would only cost me $34 instead of $44 (plus interest of course). She seemed a little surprised (which surprises me) that I declined and asked to have the “feature” removed. Are there really that many people who agree to this offer?

So if you have a credit card, make sure to check before February and be sure they don’t opt you in to keeping the over limit “feature” (unless you really want it).

have a dose of happy news

Do you like Neil Gaiman? Do you live near Decatur? Then clear your calendar for December 14th.