Waking up to a nice morning in Hawaii is such a nice feeling. We went down the elevator to the complimentary breakfast and what do we see? Pouring rain. I'm not exactly surprised that there's rain in Hawaii, but still c'mon now, a few minutes made that much of a difference? Right now it's not raining anymore, so I'm hopeful it'll stay that way.

shop shop shop, I got some souveniers coming back home with us. I knew that there's a huge Japanese community here, and boy are there a lot of Japanese people here. It really is like an addition to the culture of Hawaii, what with the Japanese language all over the place here. Oh, there is one notch against our hotel room, in that the walls aren't very sound proof. Well time to go to sleep, complimentary beach breakfast and the Polynesian Cultural center are waiting.

yay I'm finally in Hawai'i and at our hotel. What's kinda funny is that we almost didn't get on our hotel shuttle. Our hotel has got a great view of waikiki beach, and it's generally a sweet suite (hehe). We're off to go walk the city streets, have dinner, and shop around. This is exciting for me since I've never been to Hawai'i before. Aloha!

The last time I took a plane ride, all I had to worry about were pointed objects and taking off the shoes. Now however I had to deal with the rules regarding liquids, and what I have to remember are the "3-1-1" rule. No liquids over 3 ounces, all liquid products in one 1 quart ziplock bag, and 1 baggie per person. We didn't know about that rule prior to arriving at the airport, so there was no reason for us to have ziplock bags. As luck would have it though, I did have two ziplock baggies in my carry on bag.

We are currently in San Francisco on a lay over, and I've got to comment that damn are there a lot of Pilipinos working at the airport here. Also as much fun as it was flying over, through, and under clouds, I have to also comment that it's unfair that San Fran has so much more clouds than back home in So Cal.

Recently, people have asked me if I "feel different" being a married man. The honest answer I give them is that with somebody like me, who has been with my girl for almost ten years, things don't really feel that different. There are some obvious changes though...

I can now start a sentence with "Me and my wife..."
I can now call her "wifey" and in turn she calls me "husbee."
I can now say "sorry I can't hang out with you guys, 'cuz the wife is waiting for me."
I changed my myspace and Friendster status to "married."
and ofcourse now I have a wedding ring on my ring finger, which incidentally enough I almost lost. I was enthusiastically clapping really hard at one point, and then "shwoosh" my ring flies out of my hand. Luckily I found it with no hassle, but I probably should get it tightened. I swear, months ago when we first bought it, it fit my finger nice and snugged, but now it's kinda loose. Maybe I'm actually losing weight.

From Friday to Monday, me and my wife (see there?) will be in Hawaii for our Honeymoon trip. I'll be doing sporadic short blog posts using my LG enV's limited web browsing capabilities, so no random links for Friday and Monday like normal. People have asked why we aren't taking a whole week off? First off, my wife's job relies on her too much, that when she takes days off, she has even more work that needs to be done when she comes back. So the sooner she returns the better for her. The second reason is, we honestly really miss our dogs, who we've been away from for well over a week now.

I'm still awaiting the photos and videos from the wedding, but as soon as I get them sometime in the next two weeks, I'll post some stuff up here for you all to see.

Never forget the events that happened six years ago today....

Also take a look at this link -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ktgl0tcsXg

Random Talk Is Cheap

internet people (video)

How to break up with your girlfriend in 64 easy steps (video)

typhoon (video)

kung fu remix (video)

untangling head phones (video)

trampoline wipeout (video)

peanut butter jelly live (video)

banana record (video)

impatient kitty (video)

figure 8 trailer race (video)

The wedding went great! I even enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. Admitedly, I wasn't really feeling the wedding jitters that is usually stereotyped, but at the same time I also wasn't as excited as I probably should be prior to the event. That all changed when I was standing by myself up on stage waiting for the wedding party to walk down that aisle. Looking down at the audience, filled with family and friends, all in attendance, pretty much there for me and my girl, really touched me. At that time I said in my head "wait, hold on, they are all here for the two of us?"

The ceremony was the sign that this wedding was going to be great. My friend; also one of my three best men, was put to the task to precide over the ceremony as the officiator. He did the Joey wedding speech from the TV show "Friends," and we all enjoyed it. He also ended it with a "by the power invested in me by the institute of WoW (world of warcraft)" which was  also awesome. The ceremony went by at a quick pace of something like 10 minutes, which is what we wanted because we ourselves aren't fond of long ceremonies. In fact, some of the people told us that it was probably one of the best ceremonies they've been to, because it was so short.

After photos taken with family and the wedding party, we were ready to enter the reception hall (to the music of "Canon Rock"). Since we aren't really very good at dancing, we then immediately began our first dance (to Shania Twain's "You're still the one"). We were hoping for maybe a half a minute to a minute of embarassment, but it went a little longer despite our wishes. My friend who is also the DJ of the wedding, was looking the other way, as we tried to signal him to stop the dance already. Luckily we got the attention of his wife, who got our pleas of help.

The video montage that I slaved over for hours making, was shown afterwards. The funny story there was when I was making that video, I was severely lacking of sleep at the time, and it caused me to mistakenly put down Sept 9, 2007 instead of the 8th in one of the title cards. Lucikly I did catch that glaring mistake before I made the officially final cut. The video seemed to do well with the audience, so all that work was worth it.

My best men went and did their toast, and once again was able to pull through with the funny. From analogies to football, some Metallica related inside joke references, to personal touches, they once again did an excellent job. I was very proud of the guys, as they really pulled through for me. The maid of honor also did her toast, although she went with the more traditional route of what a toast usually is, which is a stark contrast to what the groomsmen did. I'll start the gender war right now by saying the guys kicked the girls ass in this category! boo yah!

Mingling with the audience, taking pictures, pretty much took most of our time, to the point that we didn't really have enough time to eat our food. It's too bad too, because I think I actually liked what we had. Especially the cake, which was delicious. I think the only things I really finished were the alcoholic beverages. We ofcourse also did the "greet each table" thing, which had one memorable goof, when we accidentally skipped one table. At that point, we didn't care about doing something embarassing anymore, especially after the first dance incident.

Garter toss, the bouquet toss, all went by quick. I kinda fixed the results of the garter toss a bit though, by having been told beforehand where and who to toss it. I know I know, it's not as much fun, but hey it's my wedding. At the bouquet toss, things weren't "as fixed" as mine, especially when my female cousin actually ducked away from the bouquet, when it clearly went straight for her. The re-do went for the maid of honor, who my girl was kinda shooting for anyway.

The money dance was also an expedient but enjoyable experience, although we opted to forgo the pinning the money on us. At one point however, the guys opened up my jacket, vest, shirt, and stuff dollar bills in it, provoking me to strip dance. I played along to the idea to a point, because hell no am I going to strip. We also did a hot potato game for the center piece, and we told the audience to use this custom made bag of M&Ms for it, which apparently people have already started to eat earlier. Some people just had to be creative to what they were going to toss around.

Towards the end of the reception, when a good amount of people have already left, I was finally able to convince my DJ friend to play some rock music; which at that point was mostly pop/dance tunes. Metallica's "Enter Sandman" started off the trend, which prompted my male friends to actually pick me off the dance floor for an impromptu crowd surfing experience. Unbelievable guys, I was concerned about falling on my head, but it was definitely all sorts of awesome. Later on, we started creating our own little slam dancing mosh pit, which just further validated the rock and roll wedding for me. Rock music, crowd surfing, and a mosh pit, that's right MY wedding.

Lots of great unexpected things occurred, and we even had moments where people were actually dancing. Considering that one would normally not expect much action on the dance floor in an Asian wedding, I was surprised. My friends were even able to get me to do some disco moves, which I so would rather not have done (like I told them, LAME!), but I'm sure the alcohol helped a bit. With friends and family showing support, things were indeed a lot easier for me to do stupid things like that, but hey, I'm suppose to just let loose at this party right? To think, that I originally wasn't expecting too much from my own wedding, to end up having a great wonderful time. In fact, I recommend it. =)

This is it. The BIG day. It's really starting to feel like I'm entering a new phase in my life, as opposed to just making my relationship with my girl "official." Looking forward to the future seems to be what I'm feeling right now, but this past week has reminded me a lot of where I've been. Going through old childhood photos for the video slideshow that I'll be showing at the wedding, gave me a treat to see who I was five, ten, twenty plus years ago. I saw old friends, family, and familiar places that I've for the most part lost touch with. It was very nostalgic. Just recently, I even encountered a high school friend of mine that I haven't seen for over twelve years now. That was completely unexpected, and further connected me to the past that was. Other friends and relatives that I haven't spoken to in ages have also been contacting me, and it's almost like a lot of elements from my past are converging to this momentous day of mine. This week has been a great memorable week, and to top it off with my wedding is just... perfect.