We're gearing up for the honeymoon, and well, its a lot of stuff to take care of. I've never really been outside of the country (Bermuda doesn't count), so I'm not sure if I'm accounting for everything. I'm sure I'm going to end up in Santorini and be like, "Damn, I should have brought / done / asked about X before getting here, but here I am and now I'll pay through the nose for it."

*I've called up my credit card company and bank to tell them I'm going abroad so they don't get suspicious that I'm sudddenly spending money in Europe. My credit card actually already did put a hold on my account when I started buying plane tickets between the Greek Isles. On the one hand, its good that they have fraud prevention like that in place. On the other hand, that call was 10 minutes of my life that I won't get back.

*I've asked about the best way to get euros, and the expert consensus is to just use the ATMs over there. Apparently, you get absolutely wailed on at the airports or US banks with the exchange rate, so you just bite the bullet with the random fees that ATMS (and my own bank) hit you with.

Luckily, Landis and Charles were nice enough to give me some euros to play around with. I discovered this colorful paper currency is of different sizes according to their denomination? Where am I going, backwards world? Next thing you'll tell me their system of measurement is based on multiples of 10, instead of 12 or 16. Crazy!

*I've tried to figure out cell phones over there, although I guess I don't really need one. Work apparently could set me up with one, but that would mean work might call me (although this is doubtful). I'll just use my blackberry for communications I guess, and if I need to call home I can use a landline or buy a disposable.

*Plugs are weird over there, right? I am searching for a plug adapter. Maybe the hotels will have them for me?

*The flight is approximately 9.5 hours. That is the longest flight I've ever been on. What the hell am I going to do on a plane for 9.5 hours? I guess I could read a couple books (I do have "The Soul of Baseball" by Joe Posnanski, but that will only take up ~4 hours I bet).

My best hope is that the plane will be like the one Ben and I took over to Vegas in March. That plane was friggin awesome. Each seat had its own personal TV (this wasn't JetBlue, it was Delta), and you had on-demand TV shows and movies. Ben watched Quantum of Solace, and I watched two episodes of House. Even cooler was that there were games you could play, including a crappy casino simulator thing that had craps and blackjac. And the best thing was there were two player games like Battleship and Chess, and you could link to any other seat on the plane and play against each other! It was probably the quickest flight to Vegas I've ever had.

*I asked Kim this, but she wasn't helpful. Should I plan on doing laundry during the trip? Or at least plan on having someone do my laundry? I don't want to pack two weeks worth of clothes. One week sounds about right.

Here are some teaser pics from the wedding photographer.

Not bad. I did a good job picking out the photographer.

*Sometimes at weddings, a big circle will form on the dance floor, and people will wait for a bold person (or people) to enter the circle and show off some dance moves. As the groom, it was expected that Kim and myself would enter the circle at some point.

I'll admit that I am a terrible dancer. Everyone knows this. My rhythm is limited to guitar hero. So it is always a debacle when I'm out there. And even more of a debacle when people want to actually watch me dance.

So, as the circle formed, I knew what I had to do - look foolish out there for a little bit, and then retreat. But before I could do this, a little kid ran out. One of Kim's little cousins. He is like 7 years old. And he friggin started break-dancing like you see on TV. And he finished it off with the ol "handstand while slowly moving your legs move" that basically brought down the house. It was incredible.



And then people started looking at me and Kim. How could we possibly follow that up? We couldn't, we just kind of moved about for a bit and got out of the way.

And that's when Laird followed up with the worm. Across the floor he went, and then back a second time. It was awesome. The only possible follow up.



*Ben's sister got belligerently drunk. I have a vague recollection of her violating me - I think she pushed me over onto a bed, mounted me, and then just started beating on me. This may have been in response to something that happened in beer pong. This would have been late night, so I'm not completely sure.

*Even more out of control was Ben's dad. At the reception I made him promise me that he would play beer pong and hang out with us at the hotel. The result was incredible. Highlights include:

1) Approximately 100 punches to my and Ben's shoulders.
2) An intense hatred for anyone who prefers whiz cheesesteaks over provolone. This led to two hours of whiz ranting and bashing. For example, if you missed a shot in pong, inevitably he would say, "That looked like a whiz shot. You need more prov!" He also bet Miller a provolone steak that he would hit a particular shot. He missed.
3) He kept picking on Fishman, calling him "Professor Nonsense" and saying things like "Fishman has completely lost control of the situation." We all enjoyed this.
4) Somehow, he and Kate beat Marty and Tim in beer pong at the bar (inspired by Marty constantly calling him "old man.") The father and daughter team retired as champions of the table.
5) At the brunch the next morning, Kate's eye seemed to be twitching. She was in bad shape. Ben's dad, however, seemed relatively fine. However, Mrs. Elliott and Tom (Kate's husband) were not happy with us for keeping Kate and her dad out so late. I think it was well worth it though.
6) Also, he was supposed to have bloodwork done on Monday. I doubt that occurred, but if so, the results were probably hilarious. He also put down both a Pat's and a Geno's before leaving Philadelphia that Sunday.

Saturday MVP candidate.

I might make this my new computer background.

More wedding blog posts coming soon - Got tied up last night and this morning in Albany getting sworn in.

I think the format will be a couple stories per day - and if I'm wrong about any of the details (which is likely, due to alcohol / not being there / my imagination replaced boring details with funny ones), please note it in the comments.

*Ol Gibbers was quite a piece of work on Saturday night. Apparently, Gibbs was trying out some newfangled dance move, and he basically fell cartoon-style. Hard. Right on his back / tailbone and wrist.

While he was falling he managed to spill his entire drink all over his pants, basically drenching himself in booze. However, he impressed everyone by getting up immediately after the fall and proclaiming that he was fine. Less impressively, he vehemently claimed he did not spill his drink, which was refuted by the empty glass and soaked tux. Sarah suggested that Gibbs go to the hospital for his nearly broken wrist / bruised tailbone, but he declined. I've heard he is still feeling significant pain in those areas today.

Gibbs then blamed the "slippery" floor for the fall, saying he will make sure he has carpet as his wedding.

Later that night at the hotel-bar after-party, Gibbs was ranting about how much he hates France. He then passed out mid-conversation. Kate was forced to slap him awake (in the face), to which Gibbs woke up and then spouted some nonsense about how he was fine.

*Another story in the "man that guy was WASTED" category involves Fudge. On Friday night, a bunch of us were playing drinking RPS (we didn't have solo cups for pong available). Miller was, as usual, crushing everyone in his path. Fishman wasn't doing bad either. Fudge was... well he was lying on the bed with Anna, occassionally making some random comment that would elicit a "shut up fudge" from the rest of us in the room.

He got up and demanded to play RPS. I'm not sure if he played Miller or Fishman, but I stupidly bet on Lacker. The foolishness of my pick was apparent as Lacker's first throw was "scissors," although we're not entirely sure because he only threw out one finger. He lost pretty quickly and that was another 10 bucks down the drain.

Anna eventually left for her and Fudge's own room, leaving Fudge sleeping on a bed reserved for someone else. Fish and Miller tried to get him to go back to his own room, but he refused. Also, Lacker was too drunk to remember his room number. This necessitated Fish and Miller carrying Lacker downstairs to the front desk (the hotel employees refused to give out his room number over the phone), where he produced ID and the front desk told him his room.

After hearing his room, Fudge declared, "I thought that was my room number!"

*Near the end of the wedding, Berde, Fishman, Jesse, Charles, and Allister all demanded that I get on a chair and they raise me up, Jewish wedding style. I was reluctant, as they were wasted and there was a definite strength and height disparity in the individuals who would be holding up the chair. I was coerced into doing it, and not surprisingly, it was a debacle.

At one point, I was forced to bail out. FORCED. I landed for the most part on my feet, and everyone declared that I jumped off (and theoretically not because the chair was basically tilting almost 90 degrees forward due to Fishman weakness). To those people I say this - what was I supposed to do? Let the chair fall and I land on my face? Of course I'm going to bail out if things go bad. I mean, here's a picture of one point, and I think I even held on to this one. Look at that angle!!!!

Wedding = Defeated

Call this wild speculation if you must, but I don't think patrons of the Lee/Nguyen wedding are welcome at the DoubleTree Philadelphia any time soon...

Selected pictures and random stories coming soon. If you have any stories that you'd like to share (and I either wasn't there or maybe too drunk to remember) please email them to me.

Countdown to Married Life: T-Minus 2 days

At some time shortly after 11 PM tonight:

[Doorbell phone buzzes]

Evan: Yo?
Doorman: Everything alright up there?
Evan: Yeah.
Doorman: I got a call from a neighbor saying that you're shooting some dice.
Evan: We are.
Doorman: [pause] Oh.
Evan: Its like 11:30.
Doorman: [sympathetic] I know... They said that their daughter is trying to sleep...
Evan: [pause] I can like put a towel down or something...
Doorman: Thanks!

Man I hate my neighbors.

Despite my fantasy basketball team coming up just short in the championship, I did manage to wail on Ben 3 straight times in 1-1 craps.

Countdown to Married Life: T-Minus 4 days

Kim gets multiple bridal showers. Why don't I get at least one groomal shower? I like to get gifts as much as she does. I could use a couple boxes of baseball or basketball cards, maybe season 5 of The Wire, etc.

I remember back in high school when I got my school ring. Although most people wore it on their right hand, I wore it on my left because I didn't want it to mess up my bowling. And that continued with my ring for Duke as well. And now? Well I'll have that wedding band soon enough, but it actually belongs on my left hand. Bowling: 1, Marriage: 0.

Countdown to Married Life: T-Minus 5 days

We applied for our marriage license today at City Hall in Philadelphia. This was one of the last times we could get it, because it is only issued 3 days after the application. I guess that is to prevent spur-of-the-moment weddings. It was fairly quick and painless though, except for the $80 fee. Isn't charging that fee infringing on some Constitutional right of mine? I wouldn't know since I got a B minus in Con Law, the equivalent of a real-world D.

Akure just asked me how long the reception lasts, and I honestly have no idea. 11? 12? I recall talking about this with Kim on multiple occassions, but I don't remember the outcome. That is the case for pretty much everything. Order of dances? When speeches are being made? How many layers our cake has? I am... aware that there will be cake. And speeches. And dances. That is all the information I can provide.

The best term for this really is "Legal Fail."

So I did my NY and NYC taxes a while back, and it took a long-ass time for the state to process my return. And this irritated me, as I was expecting like $950 bucks back (hey, its free money!)

I got a letter from the state yesterday. It said that I had screwed up my return. But in a good way! Apparently, I had not taken some NYC School credit or something. So I actually was owed a little over $1,000! They directly deposited that amount into my bank account.

I can't remember that ever happening to me - a tax entity refunding me more than I thought I was owed. Pretty sweet though.

Even more on the idiocy of using / leaving in Kyle Farnsworth to face Jim Thome, from a guy who used to write for Baseball Prospectus. He seems pretty bitter, which is of course the recipe for good writing.

Dammit.

Why do I care?

Because I have Gil Meche on my fantasy baseball team.

Oh I have Joakim Soria too.

One final Vegas story that I forgot about:

On the first day there, I had developed some sort of headache from pausing my drinking (me and Ben had a few drinks on the plane, and apparently I wasn't pounding beers fast enough when I got into the room). I asked if anyone had any asprin or motrin. Ben said he had some.

He disappeared for a bit and came back into the room. He then threw the two pills and a tampon at me. Everyone started laughing.

But then I stated the obvious comeback, as Ben had not thought through his plan quite far enough...

Evan: Why do you have a tampon in your bag?!?!
Ben: Uhh, it's Kate's. We shared a bag on a trip!
Everyone: [Laughter shifts from at Evan to at Ben]

Other Random Vegas Stories

1) Ben and I love playing this stupid Monopoly penny slot machine. It is called "Jackpot Station" and is fairly addicting. Of course, you seemingly never win on it (its almost as if it is set to provide less than 100% return). But we go back to it all the time anyway because the bonus feature involves going around the monopoly board, picking up free spins, and picking characters to get either multipliers or wild reels.

Well, by the last day we were each down approximately $200 on the machine. This included me getting wasted on Friday night and playing two machines at once (with the help of Al and Marty) and Ben just losing $40-60 every morning. I proposed we take one last crack at the machine before we had to head to the airport. Ben reluctantly agreed, and we sat down.

My machine was hot, and I had quickly turned $20 into over $60. It was quite odd. Ben on the other hand, was facing hilarity. Ben managed to get a bonus feature. His first roll was a "4", landing him on "Income Tax." As you can guess, that does not net you many spins. His second roll was nondescript, giving him also a paltry number of spins. And for the first time I've ever seen on this machine, none of his free spins gave him any money at all. So his total for the bonus feature (and this is really how you make the bulk of your money on these machines) was ZERO. It was AWESOME. Ben just sat there shaking his head and cursing the machine.

His next bonus feature was a little better. It was only the second lowest total I'd ever seen. It gave him 10 pennies. Still, he miraculously ended up $20 on the morning, meaning that both him and I will find our way to the monopoly machines again (at the Borgata) and probably lose another $100 or so per trip.

2) On the first night, I got into an elevator to head down to the front desk to complain about our non-functional room keys. The elevator made a stop on the way down, and in walked a guy whose lanyard nametag thing said "CEO MillerCoors North America." He looked at me and chastized me for my tallboy of PBR. I didn't really have a witty reply.

3) Mark somehow hit a SEVEN-WAY parlay, turning 5 dollars into $380.

4) Fudge wore this blue tie-die shirt for basically the entire trip. On Friday night on the way back from the strip. Goozh, Ben, Mark (I think), and I were in a taxi back to the Gold Coast when we saw Fudge, Al, and Gibbs walking along the road. They had inexplicably decided to walk back from the strip. We told the taxi to slow down as we were about to drive by them, and Goozh yelled out "Nice tie-dye shirt QUEER!!!" It was INCREDIBLE. We were dying. And it turns out that they had no idea who screamed that that until we informed them later. It became the phrase of the trip.

And on a related note, as Fishman, Fudge, and I took the escalator up to the bowling alley, two old women made fun of Lacker's tie-dye shirt as well.

5) Ben lost a lot of money because of this seemingly innocouous and unlikely play at the end of the Duke/Binghamton first round game:

0:27 Martynas Pocius made Three Point Jumper. Assisted by Greg Paulus

I just looked it up: Pocious is a 15% three point shooter this year.

6) Just throwing this out there - Fall Vegas. NFL, College Football, Baseball.

Never has a job been so perfectly tailored for me.

Legal Related Finishing Move Names (some already noted in comments to ATL post):

1) Motion to Dismiss (obvious, but "motion" makes it sound like the outcome is in doubt)
2) Summary Judgment (obvious, but strong)
3) Doc Review (submission move)
4) 12(b)(6)
5) Motion to Quash
6) Class Action (tag-team finisher)
7) Stipulation (just sounds nasty)
8) Cross-Examination
9) Preemptory Strike (for a finisher that comes out of nowhere)
10) Permanent Injunction

I think I'd go with either "Summary Judgment" or "Permanent Injunction."