oh yeah ... The Tickets Are Here!!

Ok, I obviously was distracted yesterday -- I can't believe I forgot to mention this...

My U2 tickets are here!!!

Yes, those beautiful general admission (GA) tickets are now in my possession. I actually picked them up yesterday. How appropriate -- I finally receive my U2 tickets on St. Patty's day. So the countdown continues (225 days!). My sleeping bag is ready. And the madness begins!

Our Web-Powered Aussie Wedding

The bouquet was perfect. The music was picked. The dress was white. The bride- and groom-to-be were in place. My family was ready with special words for the happy couple.

... But over 3000 miles separated this family.

Teresa and Mat were married earlier this evening in a beautiful ceremony, surrounded by family and friends. I say "beautiful" because ... well ... it sounded beautiful as I listened to it on the phone. I'm still waiting on the screen shots Lizzie is going to send to me.

"What?!" You scratch your head and wonder how on earth this wedding took place. Well, I am proud to say that my family experienced our first truly high-tech wedding. My parents participated in the wedding via webcam, and I listened on the phone. Since the messaging system (I think it was MSN or maybe Yahoo IM) only allowed one-to-one video conferencing, I was unable to watch the ceremony. But Mom and Dad saved the day by calling me right before it all began and placing the phone in front of the computer speakers so that I could listen to everything.

"Can you hear us America?" These were the first words I heard, the soft Australian accent present in the celebrant's voice. The wedding sounded beautiful. I could hear clearly my sister saying her vows, Mat saying his. My parents spoke loving words, read excerpts from the Bible, recited Spanish prayers, and Lizzie read a Cherokee poem about love.

The wedding progressed, then the traditional "wedding stuff" happened. The cake was cut. The toasts were made. The bouquet and garter were thrown. The family was positioned in front of the web cam so that the family on the other side of the ocean could take screen shots. You know ... your traditional wedding occurrences. :)

So, as soon as I get them from Lizzie, I'll put some pictures up here and also on my website. Thankfully, the wedding was also videotaped, so I'll get to eventually see the ceremony. For now, I'm really happy that I was able to listen to it.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

And the U2 countdown begins...

We knew they were coming. We just didn't know when. We knew tickets would go on sale. We just didn't know if we'd get General Admission tickets like last time.

Well, I am happy to say that I have successfully purchased a General Admission ticket for the October 29th U2 concert at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. Yeehaw!

What does General Admission mean, you ask? Well, let me explain. General admission tickets are those that let you in the floor area just in front of the stage. During the last tour, we faithful fans showed up at the arena the evening before, prepared with sleeping bags and blankets, and when the time came for the arena doors to open, we were the first to sprint down those concrete stairs and onto the floor, taking our place at the very front of the stage.

How did she acquire this ticket ... this magical key to the most wonderful place on Earth, you ask? Well, I used to belong to the original U2 fanclub called Propaganda, which went belly up before finishing out our subscriptions. Well for those of us former Prop members who were also paid members of U2.com, we got first pickin's of the tickets for the 3rd leg of the tour, when they finally make their way to the Lone Star State. (My ticket experience was *much* better than that of the many fans who tried to get tickets for the first leg of the tour. You've probably read about the whole fiasco in your local paper since it made the news worldwide. Because of all the problems, the band decided to revamp the whole pre-sale process, and obviously, this new procedure worked.

So, the countdown begins!

234 days and counting...

TxDLA

Welp, I just came back from the Texas Distance Learning Association conference in Fort Worth, Texas. I had a good time, but I've definitely learned a few things to keep in mind for next year. For one thing, next time, I'm not going to sign up for quite so many classes to help with. My manager asked that we sign up to help "moderate" classes, which means handing out evaluations, helping the presenters with handouts, etc. So, when the time came to sign up for moderating the various classes, I got all excited b/c I got first pick at what classes I wanted to moderate, and I signed up for around 10. Well, the problem with this is that if anything comes up or I'm tired or I have a headache or whatever, I can't just skip the class and go up to my room. Yeesh.

But the good part is that I got to get into several popular sessions that were full, and I did sit in on some very interesting discussions, so all-in-all, it was definitely worth it. Plus, we stayed at the Fort Worth Renaissance Worthington Hotel (*hold your pinky out!*), which was a really nice place located right smack in the heart of downtown Fort Worth.

Roy and I had a really good time the first night I was there. He drove with me over to the hotel, and since I was carrying my luggage, two laptops, a computer monitor, and a partridge in a pear tree, he was nice enough to help me take all that stuff in. After I got situated in my room, then we went out to eat at a Cajun seafood restaurant called Razoo's (sp?), which was great! Then, we watched "Hitch" at the movies (good movie, btw -- romantic comedy), and just walked around a bit. We had a great time. Roy had to work that next day, so he left after leaving me in the hotel.

One of the great things about staying in the hotel (and I know this sounds silly, but...) is that the room had cable! We don't have cable at home, in part b/c I don't trust that I won't watch tv instead of studying. So, what do I do in the evenings while I should have been focusing on studying? I watch the Weather Channel. *sigh* I wish I was kidding. Yes, I fell asleep more than one night listening to the calming voice of Jim Cantori telling tornado tales at midnight.

Well, I must start unpacking. Although it was fun, it sure is great to be home.

Roy's Commute

Greetings all! I have got great news -- Roy was offered a job a few days ago by a company here in town called Real Page. He has been doing PHP programming consulting for the past couple of weeks as a temporary consultant for a web design company called Carrollton Web Design ... also located here in Carrollton; however, he was quick to complain that his morning commute was going to be a horrible 15 minutes once he starts at the new place. *sigh*

Here's what his blurb on the Carrollton Web Design site says about him:

PHP & MySQL Programmer / Handsome Hunk

Roy graduated from Angelo State University with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science. The wide variety of programming languages under his belt are an excellent addition to our versatile array of custom applications.

Ok, so I added the "Handsome Hunk" part. But it should have been there in the first place. :)

And we're back!

Wow -- posting two days in a row. I have to say -- I'm more diligent in posting to this than writing in my journal. Usually, I'll write something one day, then wait a couple of weeks (sometimes months), then write again. This is actually really convenient. I'm impressed.

Anyway...

So, yesterday evening, I had to drive up to school and meet with my advisor to discuss my graduate degree plan. Grad school is strange in that it seems to go by so quickly. (I say that now, but check back with me in a couple of months.) Undergraduates have (at least) four years to figure out what they're going to take; however, here I am only in my second semester, and I'm already figuring out what I'm going to take in order to complete my degree. It's actually kind of strange thinking that after this semester I will be halfway through.

Last night, in my Web Authoring class, we learned something really useful -- how to use cascading style sheets to control web layout. Roy (my sugarplum) has been trying to get me to use then when working on my website, but I've never really had the time to learn how. Last night, I came home gushing about how great/easy/convenient it was, and he was kind enough to not say the classic "I told you so".

A really cool site that uses cascading style sheets (css) to completely change the look/feel of is pages css Zen Garden. This site is really cool b/c the html code on all the examples are the same; however, with changes to the css, the examples are complete different ... and really cool!

Here goes nothing

Hello all. I'm not sure what all the hoopla is about blogs, but I figure I might as well give it a go and see for myself.

A little info about myself...
I live in Texas. Computer geek ... kind of. Oh, and I'm a huge U2 fan.

Ah, my first blog posting. How very exciting.