Welcome!

I'm glad you found your way here to the new blog.  As you can see, the design is a little different, but it's still the same guy behind the scenes writing.  I'll be tweaking the design a little until I get it set to something I like.  In the meantime, enjoy the new blog, and stop by the old site, where I'm cooking up something good.

How I Met Your Mother, Part 2

So you heard about how I met Mary, but what you didn't know was that we started seeing really quickly that we clicked in just about every way.  I realized that she was the kind of girl that I had been looking for for a long time.  So we got to talking about marriage, kind of in that half-joking-but-not-really-joking way at first, and when we realized that we were both serious about it, we knew it was no longer a matter of "if," but "when."

Now fast-forward with me to several weeks later (that's how long it took to design the ring and have it ready).  Mary knew the ring was coming, but she had no idea when.  She had almost caught me receiving an email from the jewelry place saying that the ring was ready and that I could come pick it up the next day, so I quickly made up a story saying that the ring had been delayed and that they were very sorry but bla bla bla and it would be another couple of weeks or so.

The next day I picked up the ring and went to her house.  I was kind of nervous because, let's be honest here, who isn't nervous the day they're planning on proposing?  Mary's mind was elsewhere, though, so for now I was ok.  I had thought of some ideas on how I was going to do it, but I was also going to go with the flow and be spontaneous if the situation came up.  It was a nice day outside, so I talked Mary into going to the beach at Corona del Mar and the Montage resort in Laguna Beach, a private beach and favorite of ours.  So we drove down there, walked around, and took some pictures, then climbed up on this big rock at the Montage to watch the sunset.

As we sat there talking, I turned around toward her, trying to be subtle, on both knees.

"Whoa! What are you doing?  Sit back down!  You're making me nervous!" she said, having picked up the hint somewhere that something might be coming soon.

"Would I make you more nervous if I did this?" I asked, as I got to one knee.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"

I reached into the hoodie I had to my side and pulled out  the ring box, and asked her to marry me, and she said yes!

The date is February 11, 2011, just over a month away.  I couldn't be happier or more excited!  I always thought it was cheesy when people used to say this, but I think I finally understand how good it feels to say that I am marrying my best friend.