sw’as

Every day, Scott Adams becomes more awesome in my mind. No kidding, he is a genius.

From the daily dose of Dilbert through the formula for happyness and onto biting, sarcastic political commentary, he’s the total package of humour + intelligence.

I strongly suggest you subscribe to the unofficial Dilbert feed as well as the Dilbert blog feed.

This afternoon^[1] was one of those afternoons when you step out of the office and everything is gorgeous. It’s as though that little box chock full of beautiful stuff which the world usually keeps mostly hidden away has just exploded and there’s beauty just dripping from everything.

Looking out my window and watching the clouds roll in from the south-west it strikes me that I don’t have an umbrella at work and I don’t particularly feel like getting wet. Normally storms make me very excited, but this isn’t really a storm, more just an afternoon shower. As the rain eased, I take my opportunity and dash out the door for my trip across the Goodwill Bridge to the bus station^[2].

The second I open the door I’m hit by the smell. The smell of rain on a warm afternoon has little comparison; I’m almost sure it’s my favourite smell. As I’m moving down the stairs as fast as I can I catch little glimpses of the outside world which is producing this wonderful smell. A couple walking down the stairs on their way home from a stressful day at uni (not likely); a few bike riders cruising along and quickly acquiring a soggy feeling between their arse cheeks and a trail of water up their backs; the paving, now illuminated by the water; the light spots of rain still falling on to the glass roof above; and the guy who hasn’t noticed any of this because he’s too engrossed in the music coming from his headphones and the magazine in his hands. I hit the bottom of the stairs and I’m now definitely free of the office and on my way home. The scene is glorious. The sky is light but filled with deep grey clouds and the trees and grass are a saturated green that only seems to appear after summer rain.

I already know that this is one of those days where it’s simply impossible to miss noticing the joys of life, and just as I’m nearing the start of the bridge my MP3 player on random spits out Hotel Song^[3] by Regina Spektor. I don’t think I could have chosen a song to better suit the scene^[4]. The river looks great this afternoon, much better than it often does. The bright sky is being reflected, and as I move out from under the freeway I look toward Southbank to see the sun, just hiding behind one of the deep clouds that are scattered around the sky. It giving the cloud a spectacular outer glow. Beams of sunlight can be seen descending on parts of south Brisbane and West End behind the lager office blocks and apartment buildings that now define the Southbank skyline and mostly obscure Mt Coot-tha.

Having taken in the view to the south-west I turn to my left to take a peek toward the Captain Cook Bridge^[5]. An intermittent, but vibrant, rainbow stretches across the sky from somewhere near the Story Bridge right over the river to somewhere south of The Gabba.

As I continue my journey across the bridge with the rain lightly falling on my face I start to take in some of the people in the scene. There are still bike riders cruising past with wet backs; people stopped to take photos of the sky; and a group of Asian tourists taking photos of themselves under the rainbow. Coming toward me I notice a girl from a distance who is wearing bunny ears. Thinking it unusual, I take a little more notice of her as she passes than I do with most. She seems kind of distracted and maybe a little sad or angry. She passes by without leaving me any clue as to why she wears the ears. It’s a strange encounter, but somehow it adds to the scene, makes it feel more dynamic, if that’s even possible.

Nearing the end of the bridge there is a wedding party having photos and it makes me think of Laura, who I’m hoping I catch in a half hour or so at the bus stop where she’s leaving me the car and heading into the city on the same bus I’ll be catching out. I get to Southbank and immediately notice the deep purple of the bougainvillea in full flower. Trying to take in as much of the scene as possible I almost run into part of it. She looks at me as though I’m a little crazy, but that’s ok, because I probably do look that way.

As I walk up the hill toward the end of Southbank, I’m getting close to the end of my stroll, where the beauty of the scene gives way to the overcrowded and polluted bus station. What the scene loses in beauty, it usually gains in interest as I get the chance to observe the many and varied people who call this city home. But there are still a couple more good feelings to help wind up this part of my journey home. As I wait to cross the road I look up just in time to see a kid jump right in the middle of a huge puddle, much to the disgust of his mother. The musical accompaniment to my journey is being nicely rounded out by The Panda Band with Fools ‘n’ Sharks. Just after crossing the road I catch a whiff of the jacaranda flowers and they look wonderful too. It makes me think of exams.

This is a quick profile of a tiny part of my city, Brisbane, on one of its better days. But most days are good in Brisbane, it’s just that the beauty doesn’t always hit you in the face, sometimes you have to remember to notice it.

1. Ok, so the clock has ticked over midnight, so it was actually yesterday afternoon. [↩]
2. Walking across the bridge in the morning is usually my favourite part of the day, and this morning was no exception. [↩]
3. I’ve just noticed people are tagging the song as ‘anti-folk’ whatever that is. [↩]
4. Except potentially, Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues [↩]
5. The north-east view isn’t usually quite as interesting, but from certain spots you can see the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. [↩]

…I’ve let things slip so that I now have far too many things I want to write about in a good amount of detail that will no longer be worth writing about by the time I get around to it. But I’m going to try.

I got married! Yay!

You may have noticed a couple of pictures that have crept in down the bottom of the page there^[1]. Many more are on their way, but I need time to sort the many thousands of pictures provided by the magic of digital photography and many friends.

To cut an awesome and long (but potentially boring) story short and inadequate, the day was (as it’s supposed to be) perfect. Nothing went wrong. Everything went right. It was pretty damn cool to be able to throw such a huge party and invite 140 of our closest friends and family. I hope to be able to do it again some time.

I can’t say enough about the venue (Sirromet) where the food was brilliant, the service outstanding and the scenery [some other superlative adjective].

There should be some further wedding report when I find the time, but right now it’s nearly 10pm and I’m so ready for bed.

1. If you read this thing in an feed reader of some kind, and I know at least one of you does, then you’ll miss the updates to the photos, unless you also subscribe to my photo stream feed. [↩]

Today is exactly three months out from the big day. It seems barely a few weeks since I wrote the six months out post, and it sure doesn’t seem like we’re that much more prepared. The only big thing we’ve accomplished is booking a celebrant, which basically means all the big things are sorted. A large percentage of the people I talk to about how the preparations are going seem to ask me if I’m nervous. I’m not. I don’t know why I would be. If I were I think it would probably indicate some level of uncertainty about the decision, but there isn’t any. Sure there will be nerves on the day, because I want it to go well, but not because of the ‘getting married’ bit.

I started writing my speech today and I’m thinking already that I may have left my run a little late, especially since my usual public speaking advisor probably doesn’t want help out with the speech this time. The groomsmen are locked in as Aidan, Nathan, Tony and Nathan and I’ve established the Groomsmen’s Mailing List. Aidan, Tony and I are hitting the suit hire places tomorrow morning.

Lydia (who is getting married herself in just 30 days) has agreed kindly to make our cake and we’re very happy she has. We are putting together the ceremony next week while Laura has holidays and I’ve started collecting ideas for the invitations (although I know Laura started doing this months ago. Maybe we should attempt to reconcile our ideas soon).

So what’s left? Well, heaps really and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something but these things, at least, are still to be done:

• Buck’s^[1] party
• Hen’s party^[2]
• Ceremony
• Guest list
• Invitations
• Music
• Cake design
• Suits
• Table settings
• Menu
• Seating arrangements
• Arranging an MC (but we have one of you in mind so watch out)
• Website (yep, I really am a geek), and
• All the stuff I’ve forgotten.

Speaking of music (and I’m getting slightly side tracked here), we asked my probably soon to be cousin in law Bec (no pressure Dan) who is an exceptionally talented and credentialed violinist to play at the ceremony, and she was kind enough to agree. We haven’t decided what we’d like her to play yet, but we’ve been looking so we can give her plenty of notice. One of the pieces of music Laura has mentioned that she likes is Pachelbel’s Canon. I did a quick bit of research into Pachelbel’s Canon and my findings are presented below.

Interestingly, it’s not actually a canon^[3], but even more interestingly, it could be considered the very first one hit wonder of all time. I’m amazed at just how many times and in how many different ways it has been covered, adapted and rearranged. Some notable artists who have incorporated or been influenced by the cord progression presented in Pachelbel’s Cannon include: Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, Kylie Minogue^[4], Pet Shop Boys, Green Day, Oasis, Coolio, Back Street Boys/N Sync, Vitamin C^[5], Phil Collins, The Polyphonic Spree, Britney Spears, Mattafix, and more.

That concludes the side track and this post (which, in itself was a side track from all the other, more important things I was doing).

1. There was an argument around here some time back about whether the apostrophe should be before or after the s in Buck’s party. I think I was arguing for after the s, though if that’s the case I’ve now amended my opinion. And we didn’t even start on whether Buck should be considered a proper noun in this context and therefore deserve a capital, but I think I’ve probably got it wrong again. [↩]
2. But that’s obviously not for me to worry about and I’m going to do my very best to avoid running into Laura on hers the way Tony ran into Jiselle. [↩]
3. A contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration (e.g. quarter rest, one measure, etc.). Thanks again Wikipedia. [↩]
4. Believe it or not, probably one of my top five favourite pop artists. I’ve been tempted many times to buy that big glossy Kylie book I see occasionally (and usually discounted) while loitering in the music section of book stores. [↩]
5. With Graduation (Friends Forever), which was released in our final year of high school making it the played to death song of choice for our graduation. [↩]