dear mr. mraz,

this letter is to inform you that you have been removed from the “you suck” list.

the reason for the removal is based on my attendance at your concert on october 27, 2008, at the filmore in denver, colorado.

initially, i must admit that attending the concert was not high on my wish list. we had just gotten back from our honeymoon and had jumped full force in to work. we worked a haunted house through the weekend, and spent most of the previous sunday cleaning up. it was monday. the stars weren’t in alignment. you were on my “you suck” list. so many, many reasons.

but i love my wife and would do anything for her, so being by her side at your concert was an easy choice and a noble sacrifice on my part. besides, we already bought the tickets. well, she did. i lost about 15 minutes of time. i remember a weird smell, then i woke up with a printed receipt laying across my chest.

in any case, we were on our way. if it wouldn’t ruin my driving record (knock on wood), i would have prayed for a small fender bender. or maybe a never ending detour around the city. or a blizzard. alien abduction? but E.T. was a no show, as was the snow. there were no detours, and (fortunately) my fender remains unbent. we made it to the venue, got in the line that went around the block, waited our turn to get in (read: the sooner we got in, the sooner it would be over).

the opening act was fine. no death cab, or decemberist, but they are no longer opening bands. the beer was flowing, the people around use were obviously unaware and had no problem stopping right in front of us to enjoy their view but ruin ours. the opening act finished, and the roadies did their thing. a screen projected text messages sent in from the growingly buzzed crowd. and then it began…

…and it didn’t suck. it’s pretty painful to admit. my music is awesome, and for sure i didn’t consider this my music. i listened to a bunch of your songs, you know, the way you listen to the safety briefings on the plane but don’t actually know how many exits there are on your particular plane or whether the life jackets are under your seat or the seat in front of you. the melodies were nice, and they seemed to fit whatever product they were used for on the television. but with little choice, i actually listened to the words. and i heard them. and i found that, before long, i was there at the concert instead of wishing i were somewhere else. and then, too soon, it was over. there were no more encores, no more songs, no more supporting bad (that were all amazing, as well), no more talking to the crowd and making them (us) feel like you were talking just to us, no more obama images projected on the wall, no more duets with the girl from the opening band, no more polaroids, no more pictures, no more panties and bras being thrown up on stage. but, as corny as it sounds, i left with a new appreciation for the music and you left with a one way ticket off the “you suck” list.

so indeed, mr. mraz. live high, live mighty, live righteously, and take it easy.

regards,

david

i’ve had these board PCs at work for awhile and never had a chance to work on them. i took them out of the box this week and found that they needed power supplies. i took one from kerri’s old computer and brought it in to work, only to discover that without having the board plugged in to a motherboard, there was no way to turn on the power supply itself. i did a little research and found out that there was a piece of equipment we could use to close the circuit and turn on the power supply. fortunately, we had the equipment in the lab…a paperclip.

i was happy to not have blown up the lab when i plugged the power supply in, and i have since wrapped up the paper clip with electrical tape, just in case.

i’ve really been trying but, obviously, it’s crunch time…

according to our fancy countdown clock, there are just over 11 days left before the wedding. i think for the most part we’re in good shape. i just sent out the e-mail to everyone with the itinerary for the weekend, including the world premier of vickerat (Lord, help us). i’ve got some clean up to do on the vows and next week we have a lot of prep work to do, but i think the big stuff is taken care of. it’s really been a ride, and kerri has put so much in to this weekend and in to our special day. i’m ready for it to all unfold and to finally marry the woman of my dreams!

last week i flew out to the east coast for work. it’s my last trip as a single guy! well, not single, but unmarried. and, thankfully, the next time i get on a plane it will be on our way to fiji! i was going to say “at the airport” but i’m going to be at the airport a lot over the next two weeks with everyone coming in to town. mom’s coming out for the first time since i moved here, and she’s bringing grandma. there are a lot of people that can’t make the trip, which is sad, of course, but i’m trying to focus on the happy side with the people that can make the trip.

on a side note, we’re prepping the house for everyone to be here. our sliding screen door was a mess, and we wanted to replace it before everyone got here. i swung by lowes today and they had one of the type we needed. since it was missing some screws and was technically not something that store carried, the guy sold it to me for $1.00. i took the screws from the old door and viola! ok, not viola, since i still have to get it rolling smoothly, but it looks a heck of a lot better than the old door did. our mentally challenged dog likes to run in to it; this one was advertised as heavy duty but the dog is extra heavy duty, so…
what else, what else…we had rain at the end of last weekend, and the mountains wound up snow-capped (most has melted). getting things lined up at work for my vacation. living the dream, as always.

i think that’s it. i keep threatening to work on the creative writing side of things. i found a gadget for igoogle called the “Writer’s Unblock Tool” which gives you some random lines with which to start a story. i think i want to do one of those either before i go to bed or first thing in the morning; make it part of the routine. i need to find a way to get the camera back out, too. i know we sort of have a lot going on, and i have to be okay with that without feeling like it’s an excuse. of course, i imagine that i’m going to be motivated to take pictures in fiji and australia. maybe, just maybe.

i got to the hotel room tonight and turned on the tube. every news channel, cnn, msnbc, headline news, was covering the “lipstick on a pig” comment that obama made. between the personalities on the television, like glenn beck and lou dobbs, and the guests on the television, you would swear that it was the most important thing going on in the world today. i guess mccain put out an add that put 3 clips together trying to tie the comment to obama being sexist (look! a picture of a kitten, a picture of a politician with a hammer, and a video clip of someone saying something about a dead kitten = the politician killed the kitten with a hammer!). sadly, the media covers this stuff because it sells. the politicians do this stuff because it works. and the general public eats it up.

it makes me proud.

ah, another really early morning.

the good news is that it was productive. i’ve been up for a few hours and finished updating the website for the school, just in time for the first day today. we did a bunch of updates over the weekend, and we went up to help kerri get her space ready…hanging stuff, moving stuff (because i’m so super strong). it is actually a pretty cool space, and i think i was just as excited as she was to go through the process of getting it ready for a new year.

while we were there, a potential new student came to audition. a big change kerri made to the school this year was basically making it audition-only, which will be good especially since her mom moved back to california. the class sizes will be smaller, the kids that will be there generally want to be there, and she’ll have more control over really the whole process. so this new kid comes, and she has to sing, tell a story, and learn and repeat some basic dance steps. oh, and she was like 7. it would be like me going to a job interview having to build something on the spot in java (which i could totally do because i’m a genius).  but there is something about that world that both fascinates me and scares the crap out of me. doing the guitar and working on the singing and all that for the wedding, i mean, that’s really putting yourself out there. there are aspects of it that are very similar to interviews in the business world, for sure. you can get a sense at someones work ethic and attitude from talking with them, and you can get an idea if someone can be a team player. you can see if someone can sing, can learn to sing, or if it’s really just too late and maybe they should focus on a different path. but i just imagine it as one of those things where the parents are telling these kids “oh, you sound amazing!” and then they get there and get “um, yeah, not so much.” it’s like the american idol people, i imagine, except, you know, real. for that, there is no real comparison to my world. it’s not like i grew up with my mom saying “you’re the best little coder ever!”. but having a connection to that world and to be in wonder of it all is one of the many gifts that kerri gives me. in the two years i’ve taken pictures for the school, i’ve seen some amazing performances, i’ve seen some kids break, and i’ve seen these kids be shining examples of many of the attributes i wish i had, and that just don’t exist anymore in the business world around me.

oh, and the little girl was invited to join the school.

i think that’s it. we had another pre-marital session last night which for some reason seemed to focus on me, so i’ve been thinking a lot about that stuff. and being behind in everything (again). and trying to find a way to solve it all.

on a positive note, according to our good friends at dave and kerri dot com, there are 32 days and 9 hours until the wedding.

who needs sleep?

a busy night. we went to our third dance lesson to work on our wedding dancing. of course, i’m a natural. got home, played the guitar and worked on some of our songs. finished the night with a few self portraits. i want to get in the habit of shooting almost every day, and the self portraits are good because i don’t have to go anywhere and because it lets me work on understanding light and flash better. of course, the downside is that my self portraits are pictures of me. but once i work past that, it feels good to shoot.

ok, i guess 5 AM isn’t THAT early, but it seems like i’ve done this a few times this week and i don’t think i like it. today i have a 6AM work-related call with some east coast folks. we got up early on saturday (although not early enough) to go get some pictures in eldorado canyon state park. it’s not really the early mornings i mind so much, though. it’s the combination with the late nights. this week, i blame that michael phelps character and the usa and chinese olympic teams. and whoever invented time zones. i blame that person, too. and my best man. he arranged a going out on saturday that directly caused a very painful sunday. yeah, buddy. you’re on my list, too.

in other news, taking self portraits and trying to experiment with flash is impossible with my a.d.d.  i need a new plan.

without getting in to all the details, the engagement shoot we had was less than desirable. kerri and i decided to put together our own set of shots in our book for the wedding. no pressure, right? i hadn’t lifted the camera in a few weeks, the wedding date is getting closer, and we can’t rely on pictures we already had…we have to take new ones.

even after just talking about it, i was getting motivated. we came up with some (hopefully) creative ideas for some themed shots for the book, and went out last weekend to roxborough state park for our first set. here are a few of our favorites.

i’m going through some old family pictures for the montage we’re putting together for the wedding. among the several (very embarrassing) pictures of me was solider dave.

an old friend was in town tonight. his name is A.C., and for some reason i had all of these thoughts running through my head of cheesy things to say that were a play on his name. for example, today broke our stretch of 90+ degree days, so the “air conditioning” reverence was obvious. along the same line were all of the “cool” memories that it brought back from my first life after the army with all of my “cool” coworkers and all the “cool” things we did, like drink a lot of “cold” beer.

actually, i think that was all i really wanted to say. i rushed to the computer to write that when we got home, and that was all that came out. i was loosely thinking about the time in my life, mostly about the cool things we would do after work and just the atmosphere around the time, and it makes me glad that i had that time. i met some life long friends during that time, and people that i could not and would not want to imagine my life without, even if our lives have brought us to different places in the country or world. there were a lot of things about that time that i prefer not to remember, but i’m just glad that there are good parts-indeed, “cool” parts-that have survived the years and the miles and bless my life every day.