Chantal and Curt's Wedding Website

Pain and Perseverance

I have broken and dislocated my elbow, dislocated one shoulder three times, broken a collarbone, chipped a bone in my ankle, had stitches or staples in at least eight places, and torn both groin muscles on a freak teeter-totter accident, but nothing could prepare me for this ill-timed injury - breaking my right pinky finger four and a half weeks before our wedding.  You can see the carnage in the accompanying photo (may not be appropriate for small children).

Though I have a broken bone and it happens to be in my finger, Chantal refuses to let me call it a "broken finger."  She prefers to say, "He just chipped a bone in his finger," downplaying the significance of the situation.  This could possibly be because she thinks I'm a big baby, but I tend to think this is her way of dealing with the pain and masking her emotions.  Behind closed doors she has been oh so supportive, though I'm not permitted to let my finger split touch any part of her body.

How did it happen?  The usual.  I was playing basketball and someone through a pass to me while I was cutting to the hoop.  I try to move before I caught the ball and didn't watch the ball into my hands, instead trying the unorthodox maneuver of catching the ball with the tip of my finger.  Ouchie.  Jammed fingers are pretty common in hoops, so I didn't think much of it, but took myself out of the game to get some ice on it.  It swelled up something fierce, with some nice bruising, and after a week it was still somewhat swollen and very tender to the touch.  I broke down last Thursday and got an x-ray.

So what the heck does this have to do with our wedding?  (Chantal asked this while I was holding up my x-ray to my computer screen to get a good photo of it.)  Well, my doctor told me to wear a split for a week and come back to check with him this week.  I have to wear the split to prevent "finger droop" and I may potentially have to wear it for as long as six weeks – that would be through our wedding and honeymoon.  Kind of a drag.  Also, depending of what the doctor says, I might not be able to play golf the Friday before our wedding.  Even more of a drag. 

I'll find out more after talking to my doctor on Thursday.  In lieu of flowers, please send gifts to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

(I've experienced a touch of deja vu with this situation.  When Jake and Kelly got married about a decade ago, I was their best man.  A day or two before their wedding I had purchased a butterfly knife and after owning it for about two hours, sliced open my finger.  Luckily, the emergency room was walking distance and I headed over there to have about six stitches sewn into my finger, having to wear a bandage on it for their wedding.  In a strange coincidence, I had the same nurse for my next emergency room trip when I broke my collarbone.)

[4/14 Update - Turns out I have to wear a splint for at least the next 5 weeks.  Lucky, that covers our entire wedding and honeymoon period.  Ug.  And sorry, but no hand shaking at the wedding!]

Permalink

Curt Relives Spring Break in Cabo

A couple of weekends ago I had my first bachelor party in Cabo San Lucas.  We happened to go in mid March, which coincidentally enough, is spring break.  Though I had never been to Cabo, or Mexico, for spring break, some of the items from my actual spring breaks in college found their way to Mexico.  Of special note was Fun Island.  We had Fun Island with us in 1993 on a houseboat trip to Lake Mead.  Lewis, for reasons only known to him, had kept that same inflatable disk for 14 years and brought it to Cabo, where we sadly left it behind in the pool at our villa.  Chantal commented that she thought Lewis' gesture was "sweet and touching."  Though I'm sure flattered, I doubt that's what he was going for.

And that villa, as Rebecca would say, was amazing!  It was called Villa las Flores and was about three-quarters the way up the hill facing the Pacific Ocean.  I got to sleep in the master bedroom, which was about the size of our apartment in Oakland.  I know that in the past I may have used hyperbole here or there to make a point, but I'm not exaggerating.  It was huge!

I'll spare you all the details (I'm not stupid), but we had a great group of eleven, all of with which I went to either high school or college, and in Mike's case both.  We did all of the typical things a group of guys in their mid-thirties would do in Cabo for a bachelor party during spring break.  We had an emotional book club meeting (Tuesdays with Morrie), went on sunrise nature walks on the beach, volunteered at a local orphanage and then sat around the fire pit each sharing with the group their biggest hopes and fears for the upcoming year.  Who am I kidding.  Someone was taken out of their bed and thrown into the pool, we smoked Cuban cigars, we stopped by Costco on the way into town to buy cases of beer and tequila, someone made a tee-shirt with my face on it, and one guy did his best Nacho Libre impression wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and running around yelling, "Fear the Rooster" for no apparent reason.

Thanks again to Mike for organizing the trip and for all ten of you that made the trip.  What a blast!

Permalink

What Color is My Parachute?

I've been tasked by the most wonderful woman in the world with a myriad of wedding related projects to accomplish.  These include things like buying a tux, finding a place for my groomsman and others from which they may rent tuxes, getting the ceremony music set, getting visas for our honeymoon, etc.  Unfortunately, events out of my control may have conspired to have me miss all of my wedding related deadlines.  I need to find a new career.

You see, GetActive Software, the software company with I helped co-found nearly seven years ago, was recently purchased by one of our competitors, Convio.  It was a friendly acquisition and has felt in many regards like a merger.  Now don't start congratulating me on my big pay day. This is no YouTube deal.  With our lack of business acumen, we actually have revenue, so it's just a stock swap and Convio isn't public, yet.  It means that if Convio goes public I may get something for the effort.  For now, I'm just getting a pink slip.

Actually, it's not quite that dramatic, as I'm staying around through June 30 to help project manage the integration of the two companies.  I'm currently the VP of HR and Convio has a perfectly capable VP of HR in their Austin headquarters and there can be only one.  Besides, since I've run the client services department, been the company's accountant and held several other jobs over the years, there really aren't many things for me to do.

Maybe it's time for me to put those public policy and public health degrees to work?  After all, I'm still paying for them a little each month and it's time they pay me back.  I'm not exactly sure what I'll do next, but in the midst of all of this wedding planning, I need to find the time to start doing some informational interviews in different sectors.  I could always go back to politics or an advocacy-based nonprofit.  Work at a think tank or a foundation sounds interesting to me, as well.  How about a full-time blogger?  Ask me again in a few days and I'll probably have other ideas.

I guess the reason I'm posting this is in an attempt to head off having to explain what I'm doing 100+ times over our wedding weekend when the explanation simply won't be short and to the point.  I hope to have more clarity by then, but I'll probably still be trying to figure it out.  The only thing I know for sure is that given that most of my vocational interests seem to be pointing towards positions with more modest compensation, Chantal and I may have to start economizing on the things of luxury in the future, such as front doors, ceilings and color in our clothing.

Permalink

Debbie and Kirsten get their due

The other night we had Debbie Krackeler and Kirsten Olsen over for dinner (as well as their significant others Tom Krackeler and Colin Cahil).  Over some braised chicken thighs, carrot puree and the soulful tunes of Jack Johnson’s guitar, Debbie, Kirsten, Chantal and I for the first time exchanged our points of view of Chantal and my epic introduction.  Some interesting things came out of this conversation:

1. I believe that after I gave Debbie medical advice regarding Tom’s broken collarbone, broken while body-surfing in Mexico, that she made it her own personal mission to find me a soul mate.  Debbie contends that she’s always thought I was good guy and was regularly thinking about good matches for me.  I guess I can’t argue with that.

2. When Debbie first asked Kirsten if she was dating anyone, she replied, “Why?”  After Debbie described me to her, she indicated that she was dating someone.  Sounds like she took a pass on me.  Hmm.  I’m not sure Debbie was packaging me in the best light.

3. Apparently, I made some joke in an email to Debbie about being game for a “double-blind date” even though I may be the placebo, or something like that.  Unknown to me, Debbie forwarded that to Kirsten, who forwarded it to Chantal.  Chantal thought it was funny, the first time.  You see, when we finally introduced ourselves via email I used the same joke, thinking that she hadn’t heard it before.  Chantal didn’t think it was a funny the second time.

Anyway, after dinner we bestowed upon them a tremendous honor.  Given their pivotal role in our relationship (and despite Kirsten’s lapse in judgment), we asked them to “MC” our rehearsal dinner.  Look how excited they were!  We’re currently thinking that we have only a few toasts at the wedding and more of them at the rehearsal dinner.  Therefore, we’ll need someone to introduce the speakers and manage the clock with grace and aplomb.  Debbie and Kirsten, start your planning…

Permalink

Analyzing our Site Traffic

I know that you are all wondering the same thing - how much traffic is our website generating.  What?  Hasn't crossed your mind?  To be honest, I'm a little surprised.

Luckily for us all, I've discovered Google Analytics and since October I've been tracking visits to our website.  I have to admit, it's a pretty easy (and free) tool to implement.  Just put a code snippet in our site's wrapper and that was about it.

As you can see from this chart, we average about 4.4 page views per unique visit and have had 387 unique visits since the beginning of October.  Digging through the data a little more, I was disappointed to see that 74% of our visitors are first time visitors, meaning that the vast majority of visitors do not come back for seconds.  Now, if each visitor is only looking at 4-5 pages, it means that the nooks and crannies of our fabulous wedding planning are being overlooked by the 282 different individuals that have viewed our site.

What else have I learned?

• Our blog is the most popular page, accounting for 17% of our page views.
• Chantal's bio is more popular than mine (85 pageviews to 56 pageviews).  I'm attributing that to the finely written text and not the subject matter.
• Chantal's bridesmaids' page is more popular than the page for my groomsmen (66 pageviews to 45 pageview).  I'm attributing that to the subject matter.
• There have been 11 visits to our site that lasted more than 30 minutes.  Probably enough to read 5% of the content.
• 72% use Internet Explorer and 23% use Firefox to view our site.  94% use Windows and only 6% are on Macintoshes. 

Perhaps most interesting has been the countries of some of our visitors.  They have included Canada, Australia, Philippines, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Tanzania, Malaysia, Singapore, Egypt, Turkey, Austria, Malta, New Zealand, France & Mexico.  Now these could just be automated programs searching the web for indexing purposes or what have you, but I'd like to think it's because we have such an amazing international love and sense of humor that crosses political, cultural and language boundaries.  Why else would someone from Turkey look at our site?

Permalink

Chantal and Curtis Got Married Last Saturday

Chantal and Curtis did get married on Saturday, October 26.  Just not this Chantal and Curtis; rather, it was the imposters.

Anyway, while we didn't get married, we did return to the scene of the crime, Half Moon Bay.  In fact, literally the place at which I asked Chantal to marry me.  This bench is the one on which we sat when Chantal noticed my racing heart.  On our way back home, we returned to "our bench."  We were hoping to get a picture of ourselves sitting on it, but the couple of teenagers in all black on the bench next to us were too busy groping each other to help us out.

In reality, this weekend was Chantal's treat for my birthday (October 17 for next year, everyone).  Over Labor Day we saw this fantastic jazz vocalist at the Oakland Art and Soul festival, Kim Nalley.  Her rendition of "Mississippi Goddamn" has been ringing through our apartment for weeks.  She was set to sing at a restaurant in Half Moon Bay, Cetrella.  When we arrived, we discovered that Kim had a "leg injury" and wouldn't be there.  Ug.  At least we got have a nice dinner, though not without biblical disasters.  The table next to us somehow managed to light on fire the napkin in their bread basket, placing it on the ground and dousing it with water.  (Fire.)  Then our busboy kicked over the stand chilling our white wine, soaking a different patron.  (Flood.)  However, the swordfish was good, we got a second bottle of wine for free and our waitress gave us a homeopathic cold remedy (taking a hot bath in a tub filled with mint leaves).

At least we got a good night sleep at the Half Moon Bay Inn.  Rrrright.  You see, Saturday night was a daylight savings switch, "fall back."  So when the alarm clock in the room next door went off at 6:30 AM, it was really 5:30 AM.  Luckily, no one was sleeping next door.  After about 30 minutes I got up to try and find someone at the inn to turn it off.  Unfortunately, there really isn't a front desk at the inn, just the host table of the restaurant.  After another 30 minutes of us sleeping with pillows over our ears, the alarm ceased.  Ahhhh.  I guess the moral of the story is when facing floods, fires and other tragedies, make like an ostrich and cover your head until they go away.  Wait, that's a terrible moral.  I'm revising that.  Just go ahead, drink several bottles of wine with someone you love and sleep it off.  (Not to be tried if you are under 21, pregnant or on certain prescription medications.)

Permalink

El Nino: The Worst Kind of Wedding Crasher

We've spent many, many (did I say "many?") hours agonizing over our guest list, an experience that many of you married folk probably to this day attempt to push to the recesses of you mind.  We've basically got it set, with maybe a few tweaks on the margins here or there.  However, one name was explicitly left off of our list – El Nino.  I've spent some winters and springs with the fella and I don't want him anywhere near our wedding.  But, as I discovered recently, he is apparently planning on crashing our nuptials. 

For those of you non Californians, El Nino is this strange meteorological phenomenon that occurs every 2-7 years where the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than it ought to in the winter and we end-up with a ton of rain.  Problem is I can remember past El Nino years where our winter started off milder than normal and drier than normal, only to have it rain cats-and-dogs late into the spring.  Since we are getting married in the spring with an outdoor ceremony, you can understand my concern.

At this point, there really isn’t much sense in us freaking out over this.  I’m still trying to talk Chantal down from the fact that it’s OK that the white wine glasses we registered for are labeled as red wine glasses on the registry web site.  We’re going to be pouring "Two Buck Chuck” Pinot Grigio in them anyway, and not some cheap airplane swill, so I don't see what the big deal is.  (PS - we're still working on our registry so please, no purchases, yet!)  Can you imagine me asking Chantal if her wedding dress is waterproof or has a detachable hood?  Let’s just keep this between me and, well, me since I’m fairly certain no one actually reads this blog.  But, just in case, please pack a rain poncho in April.

Permalink

There may be French disco at our wedding

So last week Chantal's sister Rhodie picked us up from Logan on route to their parents' house on Cape Cod.  She was commenting on our glorious web site, showering me with accolades for my wit and thoroughness.  OK, she was mostly commenting on my thoroughness and openly wondering if I have a full-time job, but that's not important right now.

We were talking about the other Chantal and Curtis getting married this October and Rhodie mentioned that she had searched for "Chantal Curtis" on Google, or something like that, and discovered that there actually existed a disco vocalist by that name.  I simply had to look it up.

According to the Deep Groove Encyclopedia, "Chantal Curtis is responsible for one of better examples of French disco, 'Get Another Love.'"  Who knew there was French disco?  But more importantly, Chantal was named Chantal Noelle during her parents' "French phase," which covered the mid to late 70's, coincidentally the same time period in which Chantal Curtis was cutting her albums.  Could it be that she was named after this lavendar-adorned disco queen?  Could her parents have taken their French phase far enough to actually shake their groove things to French disco while touring the French countryside in search of the perfect Beaujolais?  Could it also explain their surprising fondness of their son-in-law-to-be?

In any event, Chantal Curtis apparently passed away in either 1985 or 1986 and may have in fact been killed by her boyfriend.  Could "Get Another Love" have been foreshadowing?  Either way, it probably wouldn't make a very good first dance song, but maybe we can slip in one of her tunes as a little tribute.  If we do, keep an eye on Don and Susie.  If you see them breaking out any vintage 1970's moves, we'll know the truth.

Permalink

Foot in Mouth Disease

This may not technically have anything to do with either our wedding or our wedding planning, but it probably does fall into the broad category of marital advice I will undoubtedly start receiving between now and, well, forever.  The advice is, which I can now comfortably give myself having acquired it through experience, "Think before you speak."

The other night we were tuckering in and I was exhausted after spending an entire day doing yard work and assorted household chores for my mom down in Sunnyvale.  Chantal was also clearly out of sorts a bit when she revealed to me in a touching tone, "I think I love you a little more every day."  I was half asleep, but not so much as to not realize what a wonderful thing Chantal had just said.

I wanted to reply with a similarly emotive statement and had the words "yesterday," "today," "tomorrow" and "love" swirling in my head.  Did I say I was half asleep?  Yes?  Good.  Well, what came out wasn't quite as I had planned.  I murmured, "I loved you more yesterday."

As you might expect, that didn't go over so well.  Contributing to the scene was the fact that I couldn't stop laughing at what a ridiculous statement I had just uttered.  I'm not entirely sure, but I think that helped diffuse most of the tension. 

Anyway, I've been hearing about it several times a day now and, well, I deserve it.  I like to think of it as a learning experience, though.  So, for those of you planning on giving me marital advice, you can check "Think before you speak" off of your lists.  I've already learned the pleasures of putting my foot in my mouth.

Permalink

Obsession

No, not the perfume/cologne with the excessively dramatic advertising campaign.  Rather, my obsession with our wedding website.  I was reluctant at first to start work on our website, not because I didn't think I could put something together; rather, because I knew that once I started, I'd have a hard time stopping.  Also, working for a software company that makes web hosting software, I knew that there would be a little pressure on me to produce something somewhere between "sucking" and "Webby Award."

Initially, it was Chantal who leaned on me start putting it together.  I was told (instructed) that I "needed to get on that" so that we could include a link to our website in our save-the-dates.  Now, I'm the one sending Chantal emails with the subject line of "homework," containing lists of content that she needs to write.  Luckily, there are few things in the world Chantal likes more than checking off completed tasks on a list, so she is a willing recipient of such emails.  (She also thoroughly enjoys creating lists, particulalry for others.)

I knew I was in trouble when I spent over 12 hours on the couch watching World Cup matches and working on the site, completely forgetting to bathe until Chantal returned home to ever so gently remind me to do so.  (Incidentally, this helped me discover that working from home on any kind of regular basis simply wouldn't be acceptable from a hygiene perspective.)  I probably spend at least an hour each day playing around with something, adding new content, uploading new photos or tweaking my site's style sheets.

At this point, we're probably only 20% done, but the framework is pretty much in place.  We still need to find better colors and decide upon a homepage design, but it's coming along.  It's probably also about time for me to give Chantal her own login so that she can start adding content herself.  I'm a little nervous about her editing anything I may write about her, but I suppose I've got to start trusting her at some point.  Why not now?

Permalink