T-9 Hours: 300 Pounds of Fabric

The Stone House, our wedding venue, is lovely. It is also, however, being a recently refurbished stone and wood structure, a little drab. Since gray, brown, and slate weren't our wedding colors it needed a bit of sprucing up. Since poppy, fiesta, and mango instead were our colors, it required quite a bit of sprucing up. This was accomplished primarily through pounds and pounds of technicolor fabric, most of which was all then conjoined together. Here's a list of some of our more prominent decorative items:

Garlands - I think this was initially supposed to just be one strand of our three primary colors of reasonable length. By the time all was said and done it had morphed into three strands of a gradually transitioning three-color-ombre approximately forty feet long a piece. Although I have no idea how the objective changed so much, the result of mission creep was in the end my favorite part of the decor. Most importantly the federal cat inspector, Lettuce, gave it her paws up of approval after multiple rounds of inspection. (As an aside, I am grateful we were able to get the garlands inspected in Sacramento as the Davis cat inspector, our own Planty, typically insists on multiple taste tests. Pagey and Dorian Gray were happy just to sit on it.)

[So, we originally thought the fabric garland would be a cheaper alternative to floral aisle decor. In the end, after multiple fabric shopping trips and dozens of hours, mostly by my mom, cutting strips of fabric, removing strings, and tying the fabric to the garland... nope. It took more money and time than anticipated. We used 16 shades of Kona cotton solid colors as the base, and then added 1-3 "fancy" fabric (shiny, glittery, tulle, satin, chiffon, organza, etc.) for each base color. They turned out gorgeous, but we're not entirely sure what to do with them now.

There was one strand on each side of the aisle, and the third strand was a late addition and a different style. See, the venue originally told me that the patio would be modified so that the parking lot would not be visible, but it soon became clear that they were done modifying and the parking lot was very visible, which greatly displeased me. I started brainstorming visual barriers, which was a challenging and long process with false starts, but in the end we went for draped canvas and, at my mom's urging, another fabric garland with long hanging strips. This created even more work but helped us plug an unsightly gap on the patio and looks great in photos. Also my coworkers enjoyed playing in it.]

Lights - Next to the garlands -- and of course the floral arrangements -- the additional lighting we installed and arranged for the reception were probably the next biggest investment of time and effort. Every pillar, arch, unadorned wall, and sleeping hobo had to have some sort of illumination attached. This was in part due to the fact that bottom floor of the Stone House is usually a dance floor with limited baseline illumination, but also because fairy lights make everything better [and it worked]. We would have light wrapped the Ring Beagle too, but she has a penchant for eating small plastic objects and emergency room visits for swallowed batteries was not written into the wedding program.

Vetrap Gauze - Every table needs stuff put on it -- this is why potpourri exists -- and in the case of weddings, it's table runners and candles the table gods demand. The tables at the Stone House were actually a beautiful natural wood which we really wanted to leave largely unadorned, but nevertheless sacrifices were called for, so sacrifices were made [well, Scooter doesn't realize that table runners and candles are wedding imperatives... but the beautiful wood spared us from needing tableclothes, hallelujah]. Given our science-y / medicine-y / campy-y theme we went with white and brown gauze for table runners and vetrap bows for votive candles. The gauze was complicated a bit by the fact that it turns out gauze manufacturers don't invest a great deal of effort in being consistent with their colors and the vetrap was similarly complicated due to limitations in selection and supply. Like so many of the minor details in decor, though, I'm sure few people noticed, and of those that noticed fewer cared, and of those that cared fewer remember today. And to those remaining few who noticed, cared, and still remember, well thank you for thinking so much about our wedding!

Jello Petri Dishes - Pretty much as they sound. Petri dishes full of jello. Not jello shots 'cause that's just silly, and not Penicillium, 'cause we couldn't find any. Color titration complements of Liz's mom.

Photo Booth - What does one do with over forty feet of multicolored cloth garland? Well, you repurpose it for a photo booth of course. Since photo booths are inexplicably expensive and we had veteran photo booth industrialists in the family, we were able to have others do it on the cheap. The perfect way. Space was limited, though, so in the end the booth got stuck in an awkward corner in the bar. This was further complicated by a somewhat lengthy distance between the camera itself and the video monitor people used to take the photos, and perhaps a bit too much wine on some individuals' parts, such that the picture quality wasn't always great. But, hey, it was one of the few things that didn't go over budget. And that's even counting the 24 karat gold-plated PVC pipes holding the whole structure up.

T-20 Hours: Flowers for Hours

Flowers, flowers, flowers. Any good wedding has a bride's weight worth of flowers, and our wedding was nothing if not a good wedding. Being a Pizza Inferno wedding, however, we had to take it to the next level. Gold plated flowers! Flowers on fire! Flowers that shoot laser beams from their stamens! Flowers don't weigh very much, though, and even a slender bride's worth of floral arrangements can start to add up cash wise. The solution? As with everything wedding-wise, DIY. And by DIY we of course mean have friends and family do it. 😁 Thankfully we had an excellent flower supplier, Maisie from Soil Sisters, who sold us buckets and buckets of freshly picked blooms straight from their farm just a few miles outside of town; an excellent work crew of poorly paid Keeneys, Shadi, Crabtrees, McCormics, and Jenkins; and an even bajillion pieces of refurbished scientific glassware to serve as vases acquired from a no-questions-asked second hand science warehouse in Sacramento.

The final result of our collective labors, including buying a sorting the glassware, sanding the glassware, transporting the glassware, and finally filling the glassware with flowers, was a beautiful bunch of floral arrangements that might I say made for a very fine wedding.

Including some gorgeous bouquets and boutonnieres (actually made by Maisie):

A lovely garland of marigolds to adorn our birch tree wedding arch:
[arbor and garlands assembled by Jenkins... arbor provided by us. We brought a ton of stuff to that patio.]

Beakers and flasks of flowers out the wazoo:

Test tubes of buds out the ying yang:

And a few choice centerpieces:

In a perfect wedding world, which does not exist, there would perhaps have been some fern fronds and fiddleheads thrown into the mix, but, personally, I think this was more than good enough.

[Flowers are one of the few, maybe the only, aspect of the wedding with which I am fully satisfied and would not change a thing. Except maybe more photos of them, but that's not the flowers' fault.]

T-1 Day: Practicing the Most Important Day of Our Lives Once

Nevada City is an evolving mix of old nineteenth century nostalgia, rugged rural California, hobo-chic hippy, New Age crystal-toting mumbo jumbo, and modern development trying to capitalize on it all. Our rehearsal dinner site and attached airBNB, Reiki Kitchen, appropriately captured all of it. The beautiful, verdant garden patio was to be the focal point for our meal, but an unexpected early cold front -- September is usually the hottest month, they said! -- meant everything got moved indoors. Thankfully there was a beautiful altar of buddhas and knick-knacks perched above everyone's heads in the side dining hall to really set the tone instead. Kathleen, the friendly but slightly flighty venue owner, had a prepackaged decor which simplified the planning. Emily, the nice but often hard to get in contact with caterer, provided a delicious meal. My parents generously provided the funds. And all we had to do was show up and enjoy. Never to be satisfied with good enough, however, Liz insisted on bringing some greenery to spruce up the place. We chose about three dozen tiny succulents. And by succulents I mean mostly tiny cacti. Perfectly sized to fit in the palm of your hand.

The rehearsal itself took considerably more planning and the plans broke down accordingly. Apparently there was a forty-six car, train, plane, space shuttle pile up on I-80 E leading to an additional couple hours beyond the usual couple of hours it takes to get to Nevada City from the Bay Area, so a good portion of the wedding party was late or absent. The portion that did make it on time spent their free time spreading filthy lies, telling me they had forgotten the Best (Wo)man at the airport. The wedding rehearsal was therefore pushed back an hour, the traitorous members of the wedding party were flogged in accordance with frontier justice, and my Best Woman was replaced by Butternut Beagle, who behaved as a true lady. We nevertheless mostly got it done -- which was good 'cause I had no idea how a wedding procession was actually supposed to go-- and we then headed across town, a good quarter of a mile, for dinner.

[I, on the other hand, went pretty nuts trying to coordinate a small group of wedding party participants and a large group of hangers-on, who were minimally committed to the task at hand, and more interested in getting wine, moving inside where it was warmer, talking to the venue people, chatting to each other, etc. This is when I became truly worried that our best-laid plans for timing, blocking, and coordination would be for nought. Also when I became a little short with our beloved relatives, but I was desperate.]

Dinner, after multiple rounds of negotiation and high level mediation, in the end consisted of a buffet of salt and pepper tri tip, chicken provencal, stuffed portabello mushrooms, rosemary roasted potatoes, seasonal roasted vegetables, garlic green beans, grilled vegetable couscous, and two salads whose ingredients almost led to an international incident. Presumably it was greens and other bits of an unremarkable entirely forgettable nature. This was complemented by a dessert buffet consisting of vanilla cream puffs, cheesecake bites, chocolate covered strawberries, lemon bars, and mini chocolate cupcakes. It initially seemed to me like a lot of dessert, but in the end it turned out to be just right. Although polls have closed, it remains unclear which dessert was the favorite. I personally thought the cream puffs were most delicious, but I hear cheesecake bites may have the led in early exit-polling. I blame gerrymandering. [The guests I asked all voted for cheesecake bites. We probably tossed enough food that night to feed 15 Nevada City hobos.]

The rehearsal dinner also had a special guest, as is custom in the Sierra foothills. The Pumpkin Bride, as local tradition tells it, arrives via stage coach every fall to wish newlyweds a prosperous future and bountiful squash harvest. She not only came and regaled us with her folksy gourd stories, but stayed through the evening as our guest of honor. To the Pumpkin Bride!

Said to be one of the most beautiful pumpkins in all the land.

This shirt may in fact already be in the trash. Unconfirmed. [Please note that the bride's father acted independently, and the bride had nothing to do with the gifting of this shirt.]

T-2 Days: Wedding Prodrome

At the time of my proposal Liz and I had been together three and a third years. We had been inseparable for almost the same. Given this history, our generally laid back attitudes, and our initial grand matrimonial ambitions, our plans for our wedding were built upon a one year to one and a half year timeline. Too many couples are stressed by the experience -- too stressed to enjoy it -- by trying to get things done faster. Why not slow things down to actually enjoy being engaged? Unfortunately, almost immediately after our engagement we received the terrible news that Liz's dad had fallen ill with an inoperable tumor that was, in all likelihood, a terminal process. Thus what was originally going to be an eighteen month engagement quickly became six months, and the leisurely process became something of a forced march. Nevertheless, through hard work (mostly Liz's), ample use of vacation time (mostly mine), and the assistance of family and friends (mostly Liz's mom), it was now two days prior to the wedding and it appeared everything was on track [Liz: kind of on track?].

As we approached Nevada City, a lovely old Gold Rush-era town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, some residual thunderstorms were still rumbling through. It was a beautiful, gray, overcast fall day. We had spent the morning filling Liz's Ford Escape with bags, garlands, broken lab glassware, three foot long sparklers, and a host of other DIY decor; had secured our nervous and moderately medicated beagle into the front seat; and had dug out a spot in the back for our sick gray tuxedo kitty, Dorian Gray, who had a few days prior received a terminal diagnosis of metastatic disease. We were as we usually are: a traveling band of pets and props, detailed plans, nervous excitement, and perhaps too much luggage, heading towards the official start of our combined future. I cannot speak for Liz who was a bit more emotionally invested in putting on a good show, but at that moment, on that day, all was going pretty much according to plan and, at least in the small world of our upcoming wedding, all was relatively well [Liz: err, not so much]. Despite the busyness that had led up to this day which had dulled many of the emotions we may have otherwise experienced, I was happy and I was excited. We checked in to our heavily shall we say "Eastern"-themed airBNB chosen because of its pet friendly renting policy, unloaded our supplies at Liz's mother's rental a short walk up a steep hill from our wedding venue, had dinner, practiced some dancing (no amount of practice was going to make me a good dancer), [Liz: don't forget about my anxiety/grief/exhaustion breakdown in the evening], and had a sit on our BNB's back patio love seat under a pile of blankets with our cat and our beagle. The wedding was upon us,battle stations!

Four Years Gone

Four years ago today, give or take a few months, I disappeared from blogspot and, some say, the world. Where did I go? What did I see? What brief, poorly composed comments did I have to share on the matter?

I was busy. Busy with a lot of things. Work. Naps. Stuff.

I was also busy meeting the most wonderful woman I have yet had the privilege of meeting, Ms (Dr.) Liz Carbone. We've been together almost four years now, married for almost two weeks, and I'll be honest, I didn't much miss the blogging. Nevertheless, since the underlying premise and reason for my blogging still stands -- to archive my memories before dementia sets in -- I will take up the quill once more.

And to begin? A short tale of an unconventional wedding. :)

How To Research and Become Famous and Be Good At Everything

Children are always coming up to me saying, "Mister! Mister! Tell us how to research!" And I always tell them, "you're not tough enough, kid. Come back when you got the goods!" Finally, today however, as I approach retirement in twenty to thirty years and contemplate my legacy, I've decided to share my secrets. Research secrets!

First things first, choose a fact you wish to learn more about. Just one. A single fact. Two is too many. A detailed summary of facts is not correct -- you're not writing a review article -- and a layman's explanation of a complex series of facts is wrong -- you're not writing pop-science. Pick just one, single, fact. Before you starting choosing, though, let me make it clear that this fact cannot be your favorite fact, it cannot be a revolutionary or particularly earth shattering fact, and, really, it probably shouldn't even be a fact known to anyone outside your specialized circle of peers and some post grads in Belgium. The good facts have all been taken or require a multimillion dollar grant. Do you have a multimillion dollar grant? The fact can be from a subject you care about -- we're not unreasonable -- but that will be your only concession. Cherish it. This fact you will spend the next one to two years of your life learning.

Now that you've chosen the fact you wish to learn you will next have to write up multiple, detailed, technical iterations of why you wish to learn this fact; how you want to go about learning the fact; how you will keep your learning of the fact secret from others; what financing you will receive in learning this fact; and how learning this fact may affect the children, elderly, incompetent, and pregnant around you. You should also include a list of people who have also said things about your fact. Make sure that list is standardized in some random but highly regimented manner. After you've written a sufficient number of drafts of why you want to learn the fact you will then be asked to wait a number of months prior to being given clearance to finally in fact learn the fact.

The next step is preparing a spreadsheet to record data about your fact. This is necessary because the process of learning a fact requires a long drawn out process of reviewing multiple different medical and technical records to identify a dozen different variables which you will then record at least a few hundred times. Make sure the spreadsheet makes sense before you start, though, because if your spreadsheet doesn't make sense now it certainly won't make any sense when you come back to it after a few weeks or months of doing other real life things. And make sure your definitions are concrete, precise, and consistent with the definitions used by other people who have said things about your fact because if not no one will believe it. They'll say your fact was not well designed. Don't worry too much; though, whatever you do now will in the end matter little because at some point you or someone you know will inevitably find a better way to learn your fact half way through thus requiring you to go through the records and spreadsheets and data again. Likely one cell at a time.

Now that you have the spreadsheet as you want it you may begin the actual process of looking at the computer screen thousands of times a day over the course of an endless number of months you will never get back in order to extract the information you need to make your fact. It is likely at some point you will accidently place one datum in the wrong datum column without realizing it and have to spend hours trying to figure out what went wrong, and it is similarly likely that at some point you will realize one of the records you are using to collect data doesn't even have the information recorded correctly. Don't lose heart, though, you'll be far too invested at this point to seriously consider giving up.

Once you have gathered enough data about your fact to actually fashion the fact, it is time to give the data to a statistician. Or, since statisticians are fabulous nonexistent mythological creatures, rather you will stare at a statistics textbook until you find a way to crudely apply one formula or another to your numbers. After, of course, also figuring out how to force that formula through whatever statistics package you do or do not have on your computer. Statistics done you are, finally, presto change'o, through the magic of math, done with researching! You have learned your fact. Congratulations, scientist!

You're not done done yet, however, oh no. You now have to share the fact with others. There are thankfully a number of ways to do so, and you will be asked to do every one. It is typically easiest to first share the fact in the form of a Power Point presentation where you will create many captivating and mercilessly boring slides talking about your fact in a level of detail that even you do not care to know. This will give you the chance to talk about other related facts as well, but do so only briefly. Remember to never lose sight of your fact for it is the most important fact. At least for the sixty minutes or so of your presentation. If you lose focus and meander off topic people will get very upset as this may interfere with their napping.

Presentation done you will then have to create a poster for your fact. This will be similar to your Power Point presentation, but different in that you'll be forced to smash down most of what you'd like to say about your fact into the three small columns of text. Most of the poster should be figures which will keep people's attention when learning about your fact better than any actual concisely written information about the fact itself. The poster will need to be a certain size, using certain fonts, with certain esoteric color and design requirements depending on who you ask and most people won't want to be asked. The font will always have to be bigger and the tables larger which will always mean you will have to say less about your fact, but for posters what matters most is how long people stare at it. Be sure to buy an expensive poster carrying case because it'll probably be something you want to place over your fireplace mantle for years to come. It also lets others know that, damn, that man's a researcher! Or rather just a weirdo walking around with a very elaborate tube carrying purse.

Lastly, you will be asked to write a paper about your fact. It will seem to you at this point that it would simply consist of cutting and pasting all the component parts you've created to date, but you will quickly find that idea ridiculous due to the ten rough draft minimum and crippling word count limits which will effectively preclude any use of adjectives, adverbs, or relevant citations. This is assuming you plan to submit to a journal with anything resembling a coherent instructions for authors. Once everyone has agreed that the current draft of your paper is the best possible draft that everyone can concede to and no further changes that contradict other changes have been suggested you will submit it to the editors who will reply some time later with a list of reasons why the paper is terrible. Thankfully you will be given the chance to clarify and modify your manuscript once more, but only after another five draft minimum. This process may repeat itself indefinitely, but eventually, if lucky, you will find yourself with a journal article about your fact. The feeling at seeing your name as the first author will be indescribably underwhelming.

And that, children, is research. A year or two of life for a fact, a glossy poster, and a journal article that your friends and family probably won't have access to. Thankfully the ladies go crazy for dot plots.





Sexy dynamite.



As a final aside I do have sincere respect for researchers who toil endlessly and often anonymously to advance our understanding of the world. I will just likely never be one of them. Nor would I likely have thought it worth my time to have done so. To the endless march of Progress!




I also coincidentally have sincere respect for champion corgi Risk masters.

Who's the cutest little conqueror in the world?! You are! You are!

Surrounded by Turkeys

I am, literally, surrounded by turkeys. Not literally, literally. But literally in the sense that I sometimes see them at work. Which raises the question, why are they following me?

When I first moved to New Hampshire I expected to see deer, squirrels, rabbits, the usual. Maybe a moose and a beaver to round out a proper New England diorama, and that was it. Instead I found myself constantly slowing or stopping my car to avoid hitting turkeys. They were inexplicably everywhere and, judging by their fearlessness, were clearly the apex predators of whatever it is turkeys feed on. Regardless, when I left New Hampshire I assumed I'd be leaving the turkeys behind.

Instead there're here too. Every day at work I drive by them. Every day I get out of my car they're watching. Sometimes I swear I see them taking notes. I didn't know turkeys were normal fauna of northern California air force bases, but then again I never knew they just chilled wherever the hell they well please either. The only conclusion: al-Qaeda turkey sleeper cell. I am expecting one to greet me coming home from work some day. He will probably be armed.

Only Golden Eagles can save us! Or kill us all.