First day of rehearsal

Today was the first day of rehearsal. It all went really well. I was overly nervous - as always. I get so worked up about crap like that. Oh well. I didn't embarrass myself and that is all that really matters in the long run.

In other news, I am about to add the DVD labels and created DVD cases for our Wedding Video. I have given up on it for a little while. As per usual, it has been pissing my off with all of the little details that always go wrong for me. But it will finally be done tonight!

I feel a little bad

I am trying to finish with the Wedding Photographer. I know, it is way way after our wedding. It is a very long story and not very interesting. So, all we had left was a picture DVD to be mailed to us. I sent an email with our address to mail the picture DVD. When you hear picture DVD what do you think. A DVD with all of the pictures on it, like getting the negatives. When I met with them the first time I asked about negative and the response was they are digital so we don't have negatives, but we will give a DVD with all of the pictures on it. I feel that my assumtion was correct to think that they would be data files. They emailed me back saying it is a pictures slide show - for those who don't know it would be like a video, not files you can use for anything else. I responded with a question like statement something like above. I received three emails today from him. When I opened my email I started at the most recent mail (bad idea) and read the last response. It was a short and sweet email that said he will replace the picture DVD with a High Res. File DVD and mail it if it is okay with me. So I responded - perfect! Not knowing that he had already had an argument with me, and I had won - without knowing it. The first two emails talk not offering High Res. Files available until this year and the next with a copy of the original package stating picture DVD. Weird. But I won without knowing it.

Actually finished this time

Before, I had declared that I was done my wedding video. Sure I put the disclaimer that I might have a few things to add. Well, yesterday I actually finished it. I burned it to a DVD and gave it a watch last night and found everything worked as planned. YEAH! So now I will set it to burn a handful of discs today before work! I am very excited, and kinda sad, that it is complete. I like watching bits of my wedding every day. But I think that 1 year 1 month and 18 days is long enough after the wedding to have completed the video.

Video Update

On Thursday, before we left for Regina, I finished (for the most part) my wedding video. I had a couple of things that I wanted to add to my video, but had finished the video that other people would want to see. However, I finished on Thursday and was to leave for Regina straight from work on Friday. So I decided to take my external hard drive (thank you for the Birthday present Logan). Take it to Regina, I would have the finished video there, and burn the DVD from our home computer. It took longer than I thought, and spent at least an hour at home creating the DVD and set it to burn. 3 hours later I received the message "Can't complete final command. DVD error" and it spit the DVD out. I tried again and go the same result.

All that work to meet my deadline, and it didn't matter cause I couldn't leave a burnt copy for anyone. I really don't care though, I am proud of it, and DVD's are cheap. I will be sending a copy to all who might care. If they never watch it, I don't need to know. So if you are on the list of people that might care, watch your mail boxes.

The countdown is on

I have a new deadline for my wedding video. We have a family reunion on the 26th ish of Aug. That is my new deadline to finish the beast. I think I can do it! At least, I hope I can. I really don't like missing deadlines - especially ones I have set for myself. No time to blog - I have work to do.
Stag/Stagette - check
Getting Ready - check
Ceremony - check
Dinner - check

All that leaves is a bit of stuff between the ceremony and dinner, and the dance. But our videographer buggered off for a couple hours during the dance, so I have about 5 min of video. This is do able.

(ps - Day 2 as a broken record was way worse than Day 1. Day 1 was more of a shock and awe effect "did that really almost happen again, we will do anything..." Today "does that ban mean me?" - Yes moron, it does!)

My little video

I have been spending time at the computer again, working on the wedding video. I don't know why I love doing it so much. I get frustrated and upset when it doesn't work, it takes hours to put together a very short piece, and no one really appreciates all of the work I have put into it. And still I love it. I love that I can be the perfectionist that I am - and no one is around to judge me. Sadly, I did not make my own deadline. I had hoped to have it done by my anniversary, but since I had to re do everything that timeline had to be thrown out.

My birthday present from Logan was an external hard drive for the computer. We have now added 300 Gbs of space. Now that may sound like a ridiculous amount of space, but yesterday I moved all of the video and photos I had on the computer to the new drive. We now have 48 Gbs on the computer again. That is huge. Video takes up so much space and makes it move very slowly. So everything now runs smoothly, making the editing move faster and me just a happier camper in general!

I like my sparkley ring

I love my beautiful engagement ring (and wedding ring too!). Especially when it freshly cleaned and it glitters in the lowest light. Today I stopped by People's for my twice a year inspection of my setting. What a weird little ritual. It makes sense, the diamond is only being held in by four little prongs and you wear it everyday. Hit it on one to many things, the prong moves, the diamond falls out and People's has to buy you a new diamond. But what are they really learning from the 30 sec they spend looking at it. At least they clean it!


I was at the mall for a doctor's appointment. A physical to be exact. That is another weird little ritual. So I have a new doctor for the second time in my life. A female for the first time. However, my doctor is on holidays so I got her "sub". A nurse asks you to get naked and a stranger will walk in to touch you in all the places you don't really want a stranger to touch. I do have to say having a female doctor is much different. If felt a little more comfortable because with the male doctor it gets a little awkward at "please lie down with your legs spread and I'll call the nurse. -Buzz- Shirley can you please come in here". And then Shirley comes and stands at your head to make sure everything is on the up and up, but you now have to make awkward conversation with two people who aren't naked with their legs in the air!

But everything is fine. I'm right in the middle of the goal weight, for people who are at my height - which also happens to be in the middle of average. My blood pressure is right in the middle of average etc. It seems that I am just an average person in every way. (by the way we are very happy to see that my blood pressure is normal, as the last two times it was near low!)

On the up side of the physical she did not require me to give blood this time as she did not feel it necessary. That makes me very happy, as the smell of those small, sterile rooms makes me dizzy and nauseous. And no pee in a cup. Just the pap for me today! Yeah!!

The mysteries of technology

It has been a while since I posted anything. But I have a tragic tale of whoa as my excuse.

Not so long ago, I mentioned that I was re-editing my wedding video. I have spent all of my extra time on the computer - importing video, watching, cutting, adding effects and transitions and the like. Two days ago I devoted the computer to rendering my finished video of the ceremony (I have also finished the getting ready stuff). The rendering took 4 hours of computer thinking. Yesterday I created a DVD to give it a whirl and make sure it worked before removing it from the computer. It finished burning - and it didn't work. I realized that I burnt it on the wrong disk (who knew there was a difference between DVD-R and DVD+R, okay, I did but that is not the point here). So I burnt another copy and could not have been happier when I put it into the DVD player and my menu jumped up on the screen. My arms shot up into the air in celebration. Logan heeded the warning, "don't get too excited, they usually don't work the first time for you."

Whether he doomed me to failure with his pessimism, or I just have to learn everything the hard way, I don't know. But the video worked, except that it was a teeny, tiny square on the TV. You could have fit 8 of my videos on our TV. I nearly cried. Hours and hours gone.

Okay, no bid deal. Just go find out where the problem is. 6 hours, 1 glass of wine and a lot of frustration later, Logan, our friend Jason and I came to the conclusion that the program I used to import the video can only import in an analogue format. The brand new, super fantastic editing program I use is digit. The imported video is just smaller in size than if I could get it straight from our digit video camera.

It is at this time I would like to once again curse our STUPID videographer. If he would have just given me the source files from the raw footage video he gave me, all would be well. But no. "I'm Luke, I'm dumb, I'll give you your footage in a file type your computer won't read!"

So, now I get to start all over again. And the worst part is, I have spent all this time teaching myself how to use this professional quality editing program, but I won't be able to use it.

Back to square one!

Emotions got in the way.

Nearly a year after the wedding I am finally sitting down with all of the video I have collected to put it together. When you ask most people if anything went wrong on their wedding day, they will have a story. For me, I had so many great people helping me that it was damn near perfect. My only regret - MY emotions getting in the way when I got to the mic.

I had everything planned and put together, except a speech on paper. It was in my head, of course, but when you get up in front of all of those people that are there because they love you. Wow. Nothing beats that. So, sure enough, I nearly loose it. Logan saved the day with a little humor - but I no longer could put two words together. There were so many people that I wish I would have thanked publicly!!!

To make matters worse - I have been watching the raw footage from our extremely stupid videographer. I am seeing things that I never would have had the chance to see. There were so many people doing things I had no idea were even going on. So here is my short list of thank you's that I wish I could have said in front of everyone while I had the mic.

Nicole: my stage manager. You really pulled everything together. I can never thank you enough. And after watching all that you did - you really were everything I had hoped and knew that you would be!

Alexis, Danielle & Nicolle: You lovely ladies arrived to the dinner and were in there right away to help light the millions of candles that I had laid out and expected one person to light (above all of the other things that I had asked her to do). I thank you. I had no idea.

Jesse, Ben & Jason: Thank you for helping clean up the church! And Ben for helping strike the lights at the end of the night!!!



Uncle Gord & Auntie Shelley: For helping us find our place in Calgary (a GREAT place might I add) and help us feel comfortable there. Especially for making Logan feel not so alone for the 8 months while he was there by himself!




And perhaps my biggest thank you:
To the Zubick Family: You showed up days early. Were involved in making every aspect perfect. From Brad running out to get whatever it was we needed. To Kathleen making those decisions that just needed to be made and getting the job done!! And my beautiful little ones who helped more than some of the big kids! To Patrick for being the best program boy ever (there is a great shot of you on the video doing your thing). To all of you for averting the program crisis when they mysteriously made it back to our house after the rehearsal! And for all of the countless things that I got to see you help with on the video - and for the millions of other things that I did not see. I don't know what I would have done without you guys!!!!!!!!

It really touches the heart to see so many people going out of their way to help make our day the perfect day that it was!