The RuthNix Nuptials

i had the opportunity to serve mr. brent nix in a non-custodial position at his wedding to one sara (spelled without an "h") ruth (spelled with an "h"). i obviously leapt at the opportunity to participate. special note: sara's name now has no "h"'s whatsoever.

anyway, we showed up on friday and had the opportunity to see something i NEVER thought i would see. of course, i am referencing seeing stephen on an ATV

here brent catches a ride in to town in mark's "uncle jesse" truck.

brent was not being rude, but instead uses his tongue like a snake to sense the environment about him. it is not, however, biforkated as is plainly obvious in the photo.

we had the rehearsal dinner that night and got to listen to some really intriguing conversations.

drew did his "upper hand" toast and managed to avoid using the phrase "on top," a personal victory for mr. allvine.

i should mention that hendersonville was a lovely place and that after the rehearsal dinner we heard some pretty cool bluegrass at a cabin that brent and his dad had built. my only complaint with the bluegrass band is that nobody yelled out "man of constant sorrow!!!" which i would suspect is the bluegrass equivalent of yelling "freebird" at most other musical events; except, quite obviously, for a rap event. i don't think rap has a signature concert song. if i had to vote for one, though, i would vote for "mo money, mo problems."

the wedding was nice and the reception was at what i'm sure was a historic house. i really liked the mushroom caps and we all danced quite a bit. it was a good time. i didn't really take many pictures, but i did get this one.

somebody yelled out "cool, lap dances!" but i don't know who did, and i think that whoever did was crass.

i did, however, take some videos. here's one that probably warrants a youtube post. stephen disects a young woman(whose name has been redacted)'s story about him blowing her off at a birthday dinner for our same sara nix (formerly ruth). while her description was wrought with emotion and her sense of injury was obviously heart-felt, i remain agnostic on the incident in question.

here are some other random videos from the pre and post wedding.

there is no video of anyone drinking anything out of a bottle hidden in there tux. if there were, courtesy would prevent me from posting it here anyway.

oh, if you don't know brent and sara well, here they are.

i took this pre-wedding photo for them. they were excellent models.

brent and sara's wedding. a good time was had by all, and i am very grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of the event.

OKC Memorial

Julie and i stopped by the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing when we were out in OKC for a client meeting (which, by the way, didn't go too well). Anyway, it was really weird to be there, though i have to admit, the couple of trips i had made to the WTC site previously had anesthesized me a little bit for this. Being in college, I didn't really experience the OKC bombing like i did the WTC disaster.

What DID really spook me, though, was the chairs that were out there. Each one represented a person who died in the explosion, and the little ones represented the children that died that day. Thinking that each little chair was some kids life was a little more sobering than even the wall of momentos outside. So, here are the pictres i took.

But first, the gear shift in my rental car.

i have no good reason for including that one, but i did.

here are the pics from the memorial

Brent-fest

sooooo, we had a little weekend for mr. brent nix in celebration of his imminent coupling with one sara ruth. so, we headed up to john's lake house. not the new one, the new one's not finished yet. thankfully they still have the old one. i think if i ever have a lake house, i too will make sure i have a spare; just in case i need to host an event and my regular house is unavailable.

anyway, the first night consisted of dinner at the toccoa river restaurant and then some beer pong at john's house, finished off by some late night jumping off of the dock and nearly burning the house down while cooking bacon after shotgunning beers.

john dressed up REEAAALL nice for the beer pong.

we had fun discussions like this one where stephen relays how john robbed him in nicaragua.

it wouldn't have been brent's bachelor party if brent didn't trot out his scottish accent..no wait; actually it morphed into english that time. weird!

then it was on to the beerpong.

beerpong is a damn fine game, and this was a great incarnation of it. you line up your cups like bowling pins. you try and ring the cup, and when a cup is rung, that cup is drunk. good times!! the first bit of that clip features tim rattling home an amazing shot. truly the greatest beerpong shot that my eyes have ever witnessed.

afterwards we were all pretty drunk, and then stephen's cell phone apparently looked at tim the wrong way. this led to stephen's cell phone getting stabbed to death.

the next day (after we got brent some waffle house) we played some golf and then went out on the boat

here i am cruising on the boat.

poor tyler. we kept him out past his bedtime on friday night. ergo, tyler took a lot of naps on saturday.

all in all a good day, and we finished it up with a night out in the bar at some random conference center. here's the always necessary "team photo."

and finally, we did a little more skiing on sunday before heading home.

it was a great time with great friends, and a fun send off for brent. thx to john for hosting. next update: the wedding!!