patrickdaley.com

Pictures finally posted.

http://www.patrickdaley.com/?page_id=225

As I approach my one year wedding anniversary I realize I am woefully behind in getting videos/pictures posted online. Greece is posted and the “pre-wedding” pictures are posted. Ceremony/limo/reception/post-reception to follow. Videos soon, too.

http://www.patrickdaley.com/?page_id=225 (pictures)

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=928302297677 (band – reception)

www.patrickdaley.com

For some reason I’m feeling particularly stifled tonight.  Drawing now seems like some long lost art, I don’t write enough, and I haven’t touched a guitar in far too long.  I look around and realize I’ve been placed inside an upper middle class suburbia where the walls are too steep to climb; I know there’s something on the other side, but how do I get there?  Oh well.  At least I have an excuse to stay up late since the Badgers are playing in Maui tonight and the game just started.

I have been noticeably absent online latey, and for good reason.  Cindy and I tied the knot on July 11 and a few weeks after that we closed on a house.  We’ve been living in the house full time for about two weeks, but it’s still a complete mess.

Wedding Highlights

- The UW Marching Band leading us into the reception and then lighting the place up for twenty minutes.
- No ting-ting-ting with forks. To get a kiss a table had to stand up and sing a song about love.
- A normal first dance that was followed by an Irish dance that we worked on with an instructor up here.
- Spotted Cow on tap!
- Special table tents that we made depicting locations that we’re fond of, for example, some people were sitting at the Camp Randall table or the Terrace table.
- We took our engagement pictures and made a yearbook style book out of them and that was our guest book.
- Everyone going to Ian’s on State Street at midnight!

To see wedding pics, go here:  http://www.expressiveonline.com/

- Click “open this window”.

- Click “ordering and info”.

- Click “online ordering”.

- Click “7/11/2009 Cindy and Pat”.

- Enter your e-mail and enter “cindy” for the password.

To see some house pictures before we moved in, go here:  http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=t1brsbe.7cjrcxu6&x=0&h=1&y=-fdcod&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button

I’ve got almost too many projects to list right now, the biggest being a complete gut of the finished part of the basement.  At the moment, though, I really need to stay focused on getting unpacked.

Football season is about to start.  Packers should be in pretty good shape, but I’m not too thrilled with the Badgers prospects.  Quarterback is once again a big question mark for Bucky.  Not good.  I wish Phillips could start for the rest of his college career; the last time the Badgers were any good was when they had Stocco or Bollinger who both started multiple years.

Ok, so I do have a few side projects i’m trying to tackle besides unpacking. I’m providing the below information for anyone else who has a Cavalier with bad light sockets, which seems to be a common problem.  I’ve got new rotors and brake pads, too, but just need to get the brake caliper bolts off, which are stuck on really tight.  Tonight I replaced the rear light sockets, which were corroded and melting bulbs like crazy.  The replacement sockets I ordered came with bare wire (no connector) so I had to cut out the old sockets and solder in the new ones.  I don’t have the part number in front of me, but it’s what shows up on Autozone’s website as a replacement light socket for a 2002 Cavalier.  The socket doesn’t fit into the tailight assembly nearly as nicely as the original one although after a little bit of coaxing I got it to work.  Hopefully the new bulbs last a long time because the whole tailight assembly has to come out now in order to replace a bulb.

I’m also wiring up the entire house with Cat6 and RG6 and I’m going to have a rack in the basement for patch panels, a switch, drop amp, etc.  Right now the cable drop enters the house in a horrible spot, the living room, so I need to relocate it so that it comes into the basement and from there it can feed the rest of the rooms in the house. I don’t blame the previous owner for doing this, but he basically just drilled a hole in the living room floor underneath the cable outlet, ran it into the basement, and distributed cable into the rooms where he needed it by drilling holes up through the floor.

1 – Wedding two months away.

2 – House hunting.

3 – Busiest time of the year in the Legislature.

4 – Studying for a computer certification.

Throw in trying to maintain a workout routine and there’s not a lot of time for much else.  Already looking forward to the fall……

On top of wedding planning we’ve decided to add house hunting to the pile.  Interest rates may be the lowest we’ll ever see for mortgages, it’s a buyer’s market, and there is an $8000 credit for first time buyers like us so it seems like the rational thing to do.  We’re in the process of interviewing realtors and we went to some open houses today to give ourselves an idea of what kind of space we want.  We’re primarily looking in the Uptown/Nokomis/Highland Park area.  We’ll see what happens.

The alumni chapter had 350 tickets for the Wisconsin at Minnesota basketball game this past Wednesday.  Neither team disappointed by bringing their best Big Ten style of play, with a whopping 23-16 Minnesota lead by the half.  No matter what you might think about the Big Ten conference, our basketball teams definitely know how to put up massive points.  (Sarcasm).  Seriously, 23-16 at half?  A final of 51-46?  Both teams plugged right into the stereotype on Wednesday night.  It was a tough, not often pretty, grindfest between two bubble teams.  Both teams will probably slip into the tournament, but so what?  The Big Ten will send maybe six or seven teams and five of them willl probably be out after the first round.  For the Badgers, they’re just not happy playing anyone who wants to try to put up more than 50 points.  (Think Texas Corpus Christi in the first round of the tournament).

I turned 27 yesterday and feel like I’ve turned the corner coming out of college.  The reason being is that the kids who will be graduating in a few months (on the four year plan) are the first class that I’ve had no overlap with.  I graduated in May of 2005 and they started school in fall of 2005.  Scary.  I’ve also realized that if we want to start having kids that’s probably something we can put off for another five years and that’s about it.  Scary.  I’m four years out of undergrad and still haven’t taken the LSAT or GRE.  Scary times three.  Maybe I’ll coin the phrase “1/3 life crisis” because I feel like that’s where I’m at right now.

So how does this work, is it stupid metric or stupid English?

My Sony LCD has 6mm threads on the back of it, which is generally fine since 6mm bolts aren’t hard to find. The problem is that I need 6mm eye bolts so I can run a chain between the tv and the wall. The tv is on a stand; I’m not trying to mount it, just to save it from a crash to the floor. (Bucky is obsessed with trying to climb behind the tv and took out my front right speaker when he tried to jump on top of it, sending the speaker and its stand crashing to the floor). I tried Menard’s and the world famous Seven Corners Hardware with no luck. I could order some online of course, but that’s pretty frustrating when you already have your tools out and a mess on the floor. Looks like I’ll be grinding down some 1/4 inch eye bolts with my dremel…

I’m spending some quality time with my good buddy, Snow, this weekend before he heads north for the summer. Today I went skiing at Afton (the finest skiing the Twin Cities has to offer) and tomorrow I plan on starting my day with a snowshoe along the Mississippi River. I love my winter sports; I think I’m destined to live in the mountains.

I’m finally engaged to the love of my life, Ms. Cynthia Bush. I popped the question where it all began at her family cabin down by the lake at sunset. I wanted to do it yesterday on our seven year anniversary, but scheduling conflicts kept us from being at the cabin this weekend. Expect a wedding sometime next summer (hopefully). Today we went to the Science Museum to see the Star Wars exhibit and had dinner at Ruth’s Chris.

Pictures: Star Wars pictures have been posted. Yes, they’re dorky.