Short Post Tonight...

It's hot... as in 96 degrees during the daytime, no relief in the shade, looking for any excuse to go to an air-conditioned store, wish it would just rain and rain and rain hot.

Krypto seems to be getting nervous around fans today... and I don't know why.

I'm still on the mend from my surgery last week. Jessi and I have now been married a week!

Read the latest issue of Alter Ego (No. 60), which focuses on Showcase #4 and the Flash, but of course there's other stuff, too. Good stuff!

Did I mention I got and read ESSENTIAL GODZILLA as a get well present? Interesting series, that, and one that I'd never read every issue of before. Next up on my reading list is ESSENTIAL NOVA, which will make this the first Essential I'll read that not only have I read all the original issues of, but I've probably owned all the original issues of at least three separate times! Sheesh.

Hopefully I'll have more to talk about tomorrow.

Jon

This 'n That Time...

Been a while since I've done one of these posts... and I figure, hey, gotta have something for those of us stuck at home and not going to San Diego and looking for things to distract us while we're not going to San Diego...

I'm Not Going to San Diego

Just figured I'd let you all know that. As much as I'd love to go, it ain't happening. Of course, it's all a money thing. Maybe next year, maybe not (considering how long it's been since I've gone to any comics show, who knows?).

Enjoying This Show More Than I Expected

Anyone else watching NBC's "America's Got Talent"? Jessi and I were late starters to this show, which is similar in many ways to "American Idol," save that any kind of talent that's entertaining to watch could qualify.

So far, it's mostly singers who are making it through the semi-finals, which I can't honestly say I'm surprised about. Some of these people are very good, indeed... and those who perform as a group couldn't get into the American Idol auditions, because that's all about solo performers.

Those solo singers who tried out for AGT? What a waste of their time, IMHO. No need to bring that much copying from American Idol, you know?

Let's see if I can encapsulate what this show's done so far: Firstly, they did auditions all over the country, and the three "Celebrity Judges" decided if they would go on to the semi-finals or not (the three judges are David Hasselhoff, Brandy, and Piers something, the British Guy Whose There To Be Simon For All Intents And Purposes). There were singers, musicians, acrobatic acts, jugglers, magic acts, a few animal acts, and some stuff that's pretty much undefinable.

The semi-finals took 15 of the performers who made it that far, each week, and let them perform again. There are at least three weeks of semi-finals, with a different 15 again. Oh, and only 10 of them actually got to perform, so for five of them who were told they were going through to the semi-finals, guess what? Not happening.

Did I mention that the semi-final episodes are two hours long? And that there would be plenty of time to let all 15 acts perform their three minutes if they'd just cut out some of the padding?

Anyway, so 10 of the 15 perform in two hours, the judges have to pick one unanimously to go on, and then America gets to vote for their favorite of the remaining nine. So far, Jessi and I have been able to pick both the judges' favorite and America's favorite two weeks in a row.

Now, as much as I've enjoyed this show so far, I do have one or five nitpicks about it:

1. In an attempt to make each episode have a variety of acts, the singers are getting an advantage. Wednesday night's episode had Piers wanting to put through a non-singing act for variety with the finals... yet instead of trying to make each of the semi-final episodes "themed" with similar kinds of acts, so we could get the best of each kind of act, they're all mixed up -- and the singers have a definite advantage! I say that next season, they should put all the jugglers on the same episode, and let us choose the best of those.

2. Some of those acts should've never gotten this far. There was this one act Wednesday of these five or six African-American girls singing and dancing to "We Are Family." Honestly, they weren't good enough for television -- they were barely good enough for some local city's talent show at this point -- so why did they make it that far? Maybe they did a great job with their audition, but like a lot of other acts, I couldn't see how they made it that far. What were the judges thinking passing them through this far?

3. Some of the "weird" acts should've been in this. The day after each semi-final episode, they have an hour long "live" episode in which we find out who America picked, and part of the padding is we see five "weird" acts that didn't make it. Tonight, one of them was this guy who played music with crystal glasses filled with water -- and damn, this guy was good! I would rather see him perform than some of these other acts that went through (like the horn-honking performer, for example).

4. What they're looking for seems ill-defined. The winner of this talent competition wins one million dollars. OK, that's all well and good... but what the heck are they expecting of the winning act? Should the winner be capable of filling in a 10 to 15 minute spot, or an hour-long spot? Let's face it, there's a big difference between a circus act (which, honestly, some of these acts are) and a headliner act. One performer who didn't make it through the first of the semi-final episodes was a ventriloquist with two puppets who was not only extremely talented, but both Jessi and I thought was hilarious. If we found out this guy was performing around here, we'd get tickets to see him in a heartbeat. Would we buy tickets to see any of the two acts who made it through the cut this week? One was an Asian-American singing group called "At Last," and while they were very, very good singers, they were basically an a cappela boy-band type of group, and I think I'd get tired of their style after three or four songs. The other group was an acrobatic act that would probably fit in really well at Circ D'Soleil (or however you spell that)... and I can't see spending money to see them, either.

OK, enough about that.

Surgery Update!

I'm recovering just fine from the emergency gall bladder surgery that's delayed the honeymoon, thank you. Yesterday, Jessi took me to the office so I could say hi, share some photos from the wedding, and reschedule the vacation time that this week was supposed to be.

I'm getting up and around very well... although my endurance is greatly reduced. Today, I tried to go with Jessi and the dogs for their walk, as I normally would, and barely managed to do half of it (and this wasn't even half of what we'd normally do anyway). Of course, the heat around here today might've had something to do with it. Either way, I felt very drained this evening.

I'm still planning on going back to work on Monday, however!

Honeymoon Update!

Since the honeymoon will now be the third week of August, we're changing our destination... Coeur D'Alene, ID was supposed to be 90 degrees in mid-July, we don't want to think how hot it'll get in the middle of August! So now we're planning three days and two nights in Port Angeles (not that long a drive from here), and some shorter day trips to some attractions that aren't more than a few hours away.

Maybe we'll go to the amusement park next year!

Comics Reading

I've been managing to keep up on the new comics lately (it helps I'd only been getting 52, Justice League Unlimited, and Teen Titans Go!), but this week I added the new Justice League of America and Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters to my pull list.

So far as 52 goes, I'm enjoying it... although I'm thinking at some point, I'll have to re-read all issues to date in a row to see what I haven't picked up on yet.

Justice League of America #0? Really enjoyed that one, too -- not only for the hints it gives us of what the post-IC JLA history is, but also for the very cool retro JLA logo on the cover!

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters interests me so far, too -- although I find myself wishing we could get more of a complete story in the first issue of a new book, and not spend the entire thing doing set-ups for the first few arcs!

th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

Jon

Wedding Photo Essay!

So as promised, here's the photo essay on the wedding!

I believe I've mentioned before this was held at Oddfellow's Park in Olympia, WA. The Oddfellows is an interesting group, and we thank them for graciously providing the perfect setting for our wedding (we're strongly considering joining them ourselves).

Things began on Friday with some pre-set-up, mostly involving some of us bringing stuff over in advance – such as the beef and shrimp kebabs I prepared – but perhaps most importantly was the arbor which our friend Larry (who's basically Jessi's "adopted father" for all intents and purposes) built for us:



In the picture above, you can see Larry and his wife Sibyl (who is, naturally, Jessi's "adopted mother") with the truck, having just brought the arbor to where it'll be set up.



And this photo above, Jessi and I pose with Larry and Sibyl – I think you can figure out who's who.

After getting it out of the truck, naturally, we had to set it up so it wouldn't blow away in the wind or anything…



…so Larry, who's a very handy guy to know, put some stakes into the ground and tied it down real good!



Larry reminds me a lot of Stan Lee… he's got a lot of charisma. He doesn't really look or sound much like Stan, admittedly, but when I talk to him, I'm certainly reminded of "The Man"!

The weather on Friday really showed off the view of Mount Rainier in the distance:



Unfortunately, the next day (the actual day of the wedding), the mountain was mostly covered in clouds.

Here's a shot of Jessi and I from the day before the wedding, taking a break from the set-up:



I'll tell you what – that day I got more comments on my "Let It Be" t-shirt than I have every other day I've worn it!

Here's a shot from Saturday, as we were getting the benches set up in front of the arbor… hmm, starting to look like a wedding's going to take place, doesn't it?



My mother, Edith, was in charge of the flowers on display at the ceremony itself (although not the bouquets). Unfortunately, the flowers she was growing for the arbor weren't blooming yet, but she came up with a more than acceptable alternative. Looks nice, doesn't it?



Here's some shots of the entire spread, with all the flowers in place:





The guitar you see here belongs to Jessi's friend Erik, who played the music for the ceremony.



In the interests of full disclosure, all these shots with the flowers are from after the rehearsal, as my parents were running a little behind (I think traffic was heavy coming down from Tacoma that day).



Mom really did a great job with the flowers, don't you agree?



With the exception of the grapevine on the arbor, all these flowers are actual living flowers, not cut… most of them are still in these same pots in our backyard (we've been giving the smaller pots as gifts to those people who helped us out the most with planning the wedding).



And here's my beautiful bride, getting her hair and makeup done for the event:





Some closeups of the flowers Mom prepared for us… I should mention here that most of these photos are courtesy of our good friend Paul, who kindly took on the job of "official wedding photographer." Other photos were taken by my mother and our friend Kathy (who made Jessi's dress), and a few other people too – I'd credit each photo if I knew for sure who took which one!









These flowers are the bouquets made by Jessi's friend Jacci, who did an excellent job – this was her first time doing "bouquet balls," and she learned how to make them from a webpage!



We'll definitely get in touch with her for all our future bouquet needs!

Here's a shot of Krypto, taking a break while waiting for his turn in the spotlight:



Believe me, if he hadn't been dosed with some "puppy prozac" (as was his sister, KO), there's no way he would've been this calm!

This shot was taken inside the building at the site, showing the charter for this branch of the Odd Fellows (which I'd imagine you can learn more about through Wikipedia):



To save some time later in the day, Jessi and I helped fill in all the marriage license stuff with Randy, who performed the ceremony. (Shhh! Don't tell anyone!)



This gentleman is Glen, our contact with the Odd Fellows, and a kinder gentleman we could never hope to meet! It was a sincere pleasure to deal with him, and he was available to us the entire day!



Here's ceremony guitarist Erik, and an "artsy" photo of his guitar!





A few close-ups of Krypto and KO from the rehearsal:





And another shot of Jessi's bouquet, also taken at the rehearsal:



A series of shots from the rehearsal… Larry escorts Jessi, KO acts as "dog of honor," Larry's daughter Sam as maid of honor, my brother Jeff as best man, Krypto as "groomsdog," my niece Kassie as flower girl, Randy performing the ceremony!







After the rehearsal, my nice Kassie wanted to walk KO around on the leash a bit:





She wanted to take Krypto, too… but even drugged, I didn’t want to risk the two dogs pulling her all over the park!

In this shot, Jessi's trying to get KO to wear some pearl bracelets she'd made… KO didn't want anything to do with them, and so they were incorporated on her collar instead!



My brother Jeff's wife, Kristi, was responsible for decorating the bubbles we were giving out as favors (we figured mostly the kids would want 'em, but there were a lot left over afterwards!).





Between these pictures, I think you'll be able to see the very nice ribbons she got made up for decorating the bubble bottles!





Here's Kathy (who made Jessi's dress) with Randy (who officiated the ceremony):



Jessi and her Maid of Honor, Sam, getting ready for the big event:





Jeff, Krypto and I head down to the waterfront setting as Jessi's getting ready:



Jessi and her flower girl, my niece Kassie, relaxing before the ceremony:







We were able to use an RV owned by Larry and Sibyl for changing clothes in, parked down fairly close to where the ceremony was held.

Here you see some of the guests waiting for the ceremony to begin:









My niece, Alisha, with my parents' video camera, setting up to record the ceremony:



The hat on the camera is my dad's.

Of course, you know there couldn't be a wedding for me without some Superman iconography, right? So naturally, I wore my Superman watch…



And Krypto, naturally, had one of his "S-Shield" tags on!



Here's an exterior view of the RV we used for changing clothes:



The ceremony begins as Jessi, Larry, Sam, Kassie and KO head from the RV down to the ceremony area!









Randy, Jeff, Krypto and I standing up front (you can't see Erik off to the side in the first pic, but he's there, playing the guitar):







The procession begins:









The attendants take charge of the dogs during the ceremony, so we've got our hands free:









Doesn't Jessi look absolutely amazing in her dress?







This shot may have been during the "Blessing of the Rings" with the four classic elements of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water.



Vows:







Exchanging of the rings:







My niece Christi does the reading:







The Unity portion of the ceremony, wherein we pour sand from two different containers into one, symbolizing our becoming united:







"You may kiss the bride…"











After being introduced for the first time as Jon and Jessi Knutson, we proceed with the dogs up the aisle!





















The receiving line:









Our rings:





Some post-receiving line "posed shots":











Posing with my parents (I don't know why we didn't get any pics with Jessi's "adoptive parents"):



On to the reception! Jessi's friend, Tifney, was in charge of organizing the potluck, and she did a great job. Tifney's husband, Mark, ran the grill, preparing the kebabs I made, a salmon he caught, burgers and hotdogs and more!









Our toasting flutes:



Jessi and I sit down to enjoy the buffet!







Our wedding cakes, which Jeff's wife, Kristi, arranged:







For the toast, we had champagne, sparkling cider, sparking grape juice, and more!







Best man Jeff delivers his toast:

















Feeding each other a piece of cake – this first picture shows Jessi telling me not to smoosh it in her face – as if I'd ever consider doing that!









Cutting and serving the wedding cake:





My niece Andrea enjoying the bubbles:



Jeff and my nephew RJ:



Jeff and his wife Kristi:



Jessi with her "adopted mom, sisters and niece":



The local eagle showed up partway through the reception, but didn't seem interested in the event:



after the reception, naturally, we had to clean up and pack up… one of the coolers was way too heavy to move, so we were pulling out handfuls of ice and throwing it out to reduce the weight!



Opening presents (and we got some very lovely presents, too!):









So as you can see, it was a most wonderful day…

And then, as you know if you read the entry below, about 3 am Sunday morning, I started feeling some pain in my abdomen, and had to get my gall bladder removed (some fun, eh?). Here's some photos from our "hospital honeymoon!"





The surgeon:



And for our entertainment… window washers!









One more wedding shot, to wrap this up on a positive image!



Jon