matt

My 3 day weekend is over, but my 5 day weekend is beginning tonight! It's such a weird feeling because I feel like I should be depressed since today is my first day back at work after the weekend, but then again tomorrow I'm off for the rest of the week for Christmas so I'm quite conflicted.

After work today, Marissa and I are driving up to Georgia to spend the weekend with her family. They will have a Christmas party at some point (I think Saturday). As I'm sure you're all well aware, my birthday is on Friday so I'm sure we'll go out to dinner. My pick will have to be El Ranchero since it's my favorite Mexican restaurant. Aside from that, I think we'll exchange Christmas presents on Christmas morning and possibly go to Christmas mass tomorrow night. Should be a nice weekend relaxing up there.

Yesterday my folks and sisters came into town for the day. They had a stopover in Port Canaveral on their cruise so we "celebrated" Hanukkah by doing a few things. First we drove to Orlando and I had a quick falafel lunch and then we went to Disney. My mom and sisters got manicures and pedicures while me and my dad went to Epcot for a few hours. My dad was so hellbent on going to Epcot and getting some German food that he bought a one day ticket for about $80 and only spent like 3 hours in the park. He was happy, so that's what mattered. Afterwards we went to Citricos at the Grand Floridian for dinner. I picked Citricos since my family is a fan of up-scale dining and I hit a home run with that pick since they were raving about it the rest of the night. Afterwards I drove them back to Cape Canaveral and dropped them off.

For Marissa and I's Hanukkah gift, my folks are chipping into buy us a 42" LCD tv. The issue is we couldn't buy it yesterday since we had no room in the car so we decided to buy it online. The problem with that is the stupid web site refuses to let me pick the TV up despite the fact there's like 20 TVs at the store. I can't just go to the store to buy it because I don't have my folks' credit card. I'm contemplating just going there and giving them the sob story and hope they'll take it but I doubt it. The reason I want to buy it today is I'm worried this particular deal won't be available when we return from Georgia. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Why is there a light in the fridge but no light in the freezer? Why wouldn't I need a light to see things in the freezer? I'm fairly certain it's dark in there too.

Song of the Day: The LeeVees - How Do You Spell Channukkahh?

I'm sure this is jinxing myself, but I'm proud to say that I'm in the best shape of my life, physically. Over the past few months, I've been regularly at the gym exercising and I'm at the point where I'm not afraid to put on any clothes I own for fear of me not fitting in it. I used to really hate having clothes in my closet that I knew I liked but honestly could not fit into anymore. Thanks to my determination, I've been able to drop a little weight and when I put clothes on in the morning, the thought of "Will I fit into that?" doesn't go through my head and quite honestly it's a great feeling. I motivated myself to work out shortly after we moved down to Florida for a number of reasons but I've gotten to the point now that I'm doing it for myself. Sure, I like looking good for Marissa and impressing others but after all these months of going to the gym, I still motivate myself to go because I want to keep myself in the shape I'm in and I'm really proud of that.

Speaking of me, with it now being December, this means it's officially "The Month of Matt".. This is the best month of the year because so much of this month revolves around me. First and foremost, my birthday is this month and then of course you have Hanukkah where more love and kindness come my way. Besides, it's not like someone else of infinite fame was born this month with some sort of holiday to celebrate it.

Tonight I'm going to Epcot with Marissa, Glenn and Erin to see Candlelight Processional. We got uber-VIP seats from Disney and it ought to be an enjoyable experience to see. I've seen the show before but these seats allow us to see the show without waiting on line with a million other people and I know Marissa really likes it so it's all good. The one thing I don't like is at the end when some song plays and everyone stands up. I know it's a Christian thing so I don't know if it's wrong or whatever. Any who, should be a good time.

Song of the Day: The LeeVees - Latke Clan

So I'm in a bit of a mental bind. Wednesday night begins Yom Kippur, a very solemn holiday for us Jews. It's no fun at all and consists of fasting (no food or drink) until the next evening. As you can imagine, it stinks. A lot. The problem is what to do about work. When I worked at UNH, an email would go out earlier in the month and I'd get the day off but no such policy at ISI. Instead, there seems to be nothing said. I think I'll go talk to my boss today about it and see how it goes. Basically, I want a day off without taking a personal/vacation day or an unpaid day. I don't think I ought to have to use one of those days up for this. Plus, I've burned through all my days off from my wedding so it's kind of more odd than usual. Hopefully my boss will simply tell me to take the day off and just not tell HR or find out some loophole. Alas, we shall see.

Speaking of Yom Kippur, I need to find a temple to go to on Wednesday night. There is a synogogue up the street from me but I've never been there and typically one needs to buy tickets and/or be a member of the temple. I'll give a call or something today and see what the deal is. I have a feeling I'll be praying at Temple Matt Hochberg (which also doubles as the guest bathroom).

I'm very proud that yesterday we finally used my health insurance that work gives me. Marissa is off her parent's gravy train of aid and needed to fill a prescription so we used our health insurance for the first time. Okay, this isn't a big deal but I'm finally getting something out of the few perks I get at work so it made me happy to see something coming of it.

Song of the Day: The LeeVees - Holiday

As promised, I wanted to quickly talk about our honeymoon. The cruise was quite nice and we had a great time. I had a fear that Marissa might get sea sick on our cruise and because it was her first cruise, I didn't want to take a chance so we got her Bonine to take. The problem was it made her kind of sleepy so after 2 days, she stopped taking it and lo and behold....she didn't yak! Our stops along the cruise were a lot fun generally. Labadee was nice, albeit sort of rainy (and we love labadoozees); Jamaica was beautiful at our Sandals beach break excursion; Grand Cayman was too expensive; I think we both want to move to Cozumel because that's how much we loved it here.

We had a very relaxing and fun time on the cruise and had some fun moments. In Jamaica we were in the ocean and I lost my wedding ring. It fell off but luckily for us, we stopped moving, looked down and saw the ring on the ocean floor and were able to get it back. We were very, very lucky. There was also sushi on the cruise so every evening at 6:30 we descended upon the Windjammer Cafe to eat that every day and it's little things like that that made the trip. Marissa has set up a photo sharing account but as Crystal has already pointed out, I've done the husbandly thing and forgotten how to login so once I figure out how to link to our photos, I'll post a link here to see them.

Luckily for me it's already Thursday! I'm looking forward to the weekend already to completely catch up on sleep and some friends are coming into town this weekend so all the more reason that this should be a fun time this weekend. Besides, who really doesn't look forward to the weekend regardless of how many days one actually worked that week?

Weird things I've found since returning home from wedding/honeymoon:
Used socks from the bowling alley that we payed $2.50 per pair for from my bachelor party
Photos from my bachelor party that I don't remember taking

Song of the Day: Goo Goo Dolls - Without you here

I'm back! Back from getting married, going on my cruise honeymoon and going to Disney World for a few days. I wont attempt to write about the entire nearly 2 week escapade but will touch upon the highlights. I don't know where to start, so perhaps it might be best to try at the beginning. First, the bachelor party. We started out bowling and had a great time there with me, John, Ben and Brian. Brian was the designated driver and the rest of us drank a lot of beer. I bowled perhaps the worst bowling of my life (and I wasn't really drunk) but we had a great time eating and bowling. After bowling, we drove back and after almost stopping at a strip club, we went to a bar near my apartment. At this bar, we got absolutely descheveled. Basically there was a lot of drinking and I somehow drunkily walked home and then blacked out.

The day before the wedding we had our rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and special fireworks event. It all went very nicely I thought and we all had a great time. The rehearsal dinner was at Trails End at Fort Wilderness and despite our group of about 40 being overly loud, and taking up a lot of space, things went well and I think everyone enjoyed their time there. The food was good and it was great seeing a lot of my family there. It's often said to guests "it's great you could come" and I honeslty felt that way about everyone who was there because it means a lot to see family members fly down and celebrate with us.

The actual wedding day was the easiest day for some reason. After waking up and going to have breakfast with my parents, I had very little to do until the actual wedding ceremony. I went home and played games and watched TV for most of the day until I had to get ready for the wedding and it put my nerves at ease. People would ask me if I was nervous and I was without a doubt not nervous at all. I think those who get nervous haven't really thought out the entire getting married idea but I was ready for it. The wedding ceremony was set to go perfectly until....it rained. It rained before the ceremony and delayed the start but then we were thinking we'd be fine. Well, about 5 minutes into the ceremony it rained....and rained....and rained. We managed to finish the ceremony and "get out of dodge" and it was fine. Everyone told me all these reasons why a rainy wedding is a good thing but I really didn't care. The ceremony was done with and we were married and that's all that mattered. It went by so fast and was so easy for me that I was really surprised. I was paranoid I'd start crying or get really nervous right before the ceremony but I was perfectly content.

The party was a lot of fun and everyone really had a good time. Even my sisters danced, which I've never seen happen at any family function (kind of scary, really). The whole thing flew by and I couldn't believe it was over when it was over.

Blah, I'm tired of writing about this stuff for now so more later (maybe). In the meantime, I'm back and my updates should resume on a daily basis. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and getting my life back in order from 2 weeks of vacationing. I miss my friends and plain old lounging around.

Song of the Day: Kelly Clarkson - Maybe