Week Without Weddings

My busy wedding season is over. But I've got lots to fill the time...

Work kinda boiling over
I'm on three projects now, all of which very pressing to some degree. On the upside, I get a week off next week whatever happens.

Decent weekend
Had the crew over for a BBQ on Friday. I'm determined to get as much use out of that thing while I still can. Went pretty well, I think. At around midnight, it was only Paul (who is fortunately in town for the next few weeks) and I who remained. Did the Peter Easton in hopes of karaoke there, but as it turned out, only very cheap pints of Guinness, which is still a great silver medal. Then mozied down to Kelly's for the gold. Shut the place down and headed back to my place for a 4am BBQ. I cooked burgers, he swatted spanworm moths. It was a good team effort.

Saturday I headed to the Duke for a pint with Richard. Had a chance encounter at the Duke with Dan, who was in town. Met up with his crew later and had a couple of drinks. The night would have probably gone further had they not all decided to go to Junctions. Fuck Junctions. The highlight was the ultra-efficient "ejection of poison" one of the b'ys had in the alleyway. Only myself and Dan heard anything, and we just thought he spilled beer.

Dave vs. Firewood
Not too long after hauling half a cord of firewood through the house and stacking it, I saw an ad for some scrap wood from a contractor that makes baby barns. So I gave him a shout and bought it off him.

The good: Man, that's a crapload of wood.
The bad: Goddam, that's a crapload of wood.
The ugly: Gotta find the time/means of moving over 150 cubic feet of wood through my house. It's making more urgent the completion of...

The Shed
...which is progressing. Two walls done. Hopefully another banged out tonight. And I guess I'm going to have to finally decide upon a door width before I bang out the front wall. I'm looking at 4' since, even if a little wide, it means less cutting.

Congrats Jon & Jessica!

Two more friends tie the knot. :) I think things went off without a hitch. Just like a cell phone: great service and fantastic reception. Highlights include:

1. Successfully shooing off the firewood guy so that all of us groomsmen could get ready at my place.
   
2. Getting photos done at Jess' parents' place while knocking back a few cold ones.
   
3. Delivering a speech without being booed off the podium.
   
4. Sucking back cheap drinks at the Mess Hall.
   
5. Dancing like a fool for the rest of the night, both at the reception and at the Sundance afterwards.
   
6. Passing out on my couch in a tux.
   

The day after was the gift opening. The morning was pretty intense, which involved dealing with the deferred firewood delivery, and orchestrating the delivery of the bridal party's gift to the opening (thanks to Stef and her van-driving father!). It was a pretty food-oriented event... somebody made a seafood chowder that was tantamount to heaven-in-a-bowl. I sucked back yet another cigar at this thing (that makes three in a month. Is this now a habit?) with da b'y's outside -- the conversation should have been videotaped I think, and made into a TV show.

Oh, and a brief mention of Friday night, since it was action-laden too. Went on a boat tour with the rest of the bridal party and some of the CFA's right after work. Then headed to Kelly's for (you guessed it) karaoke. It was the last time I'd see J&L before they took off to Boston, so we made a big production out of it. Good times.

Productivity update (this almost became another 'all-booze' post):

• My shed floor is practically done. Just gotta pop in a few more screws. Would have done that last night, but again with the rain.
  
• Got my tub resurfaced! A bit of caulking to do, and a couple of days drying still remains.
  
• Still staining coffee table legs. To my horror, one of them had a lot of drip down the side so that had to be redone. This is a brutal process: stain one face of each leg, wait 8 hours, restain, wait 8 hours, then do it for each of the 4 faces.
  

Hmmm... a chronologically distorted post. Kinda like a Quentin Tarantino flick, except without all the acclaim.