Cross-Posting and Starter Blogger

I am posting this in my Multiply page, and if all goes well, my blogger sites should be able to capture this as well. I'm actually debating if i should just discontinue some (if not all) of my blogs that have been inactive for a while now.

(I'm a semi-blogger--if ever there was a thing--I know)

Currently, my very first attempt at blogging was this blog labeled the dragon who did which got it's name in response to my then girlfriend's (and now wife's) blog , dragons don't land here. These are both hosted in Blogspot.com.

After that, I created a blog that I wanted to specifically focus on my mountain climbing experience. (My wife and I got into the habit a few years ago). So there came dragon trails, my first attempt at a photoblog hosted in the same platform. I really thought that will go well. Unfortunately, not as much as I had hoped.

I started out one other that I deleted recently. I came across Blogspirit and created a story blog related to my Dungeons and Dragons RPG gaming hobby. I wrote two fictional adventures following the characters that my friend's and I were playing at the time. The concept didn't stick however, as the game went too fast for me to write the stories and publish them too.

My wife and I even started a pre-wedding blog which we have yet to update. We've been married for five months now.

So that's it. A series of failed attempts at a life of a blogger. Whether things get better now, as cross-posting options are becoming available to me, or everything ends up dead in the waters just like the rest of the other blogs i started, i do not know.

Already i have recovered some of my old posts from the old blogs, and merged it with Multiply. For now, that's a start.

Farewell to Flickr?

I am in the process of migrating my photos from Flickr to here. It's nice how I can do it in bulk.
These albums have gone from Yahoo to Flickr, and now here.

Hope its stays for good this time.

Important details

I guess here are the important details everyone should know:

Wedding Date : Sept 1 2007 (we originally wanted Sept 8 then we got Sept 30 but then there was a mix up and we got Sept 1 which i think is perfect)

Church : Sanctuario de San Jose (It took us 3 days and 10 churches before we decided on this one. It wasn't even in my list of possible churches. Completely out of the blue, neal and i heard the name from the events people in Oasis and he just got possessed by this urge to visit it. so we drove all the way back to greenhills and when we saw it, we just fell in love with it. It's the only church we both completely liked. It feels different too. Really expensive. Trust me they make the aircon count. Details are still unclear regarding everything else but at least we have a church)

Reception : C3 (Hmm this was a bit trickier. After a lot of visits to places that ranged from no-wonder-its-cheap to no-wonder-it-costs-that-much to are-you-crazy to i-never-knew-the-price-could-go-that-high. Notice that most of them are not cheap. However it was a great choice. The place is close by to the church. It's the nearest one i think. The food? Oh well let's just say nobody diets on feb 14 which was when we ate there for a fantastic valentine's dinner with a chocolate buffet and live piano and violin/flute performance. Did I mention the chocolate buffet? They even have choco leche flan served in soup spoons... and iced tea served in tiny glasses because they are soooo delicious. I'm so looking forward to the food tasting.)

Photographer : Lee Llamas ( He's somewhat connected to my sister whose best friend's barkada is Lee Llamas' brother. ) He's a good photographer, one of the few whose shots I actually liked and when neal and I talked to him, he was great with ideas. He even gave us the Corregidor idea. Anyway will post pics when i can.


Tasks right now:
Too many to mention. I'm looking for great souvenirs, getting ready for a fitting this sunday, finalizing guest, entourage and godparents list while still deciding on the proper color theme.

Wedding coordinators (hopefully not from hell )

Neal and I found our wedding coordinators: People Style Enterprises. A bunch of people who are can actually understand our wavelength. They're pretty cool and flexible since they are our age. Our contract's going to be finalized soon and their work will begin. Big sigh of relief. Check out their video at YouTube here.

Lucky 7

It's September. We celebrated our 7th year anniversary of getting together yesterday. It was dinner at TGIF, and 7 gifts for her: three blouses of different designs, a journal, a Kenny G. cd compilation, a pair of black lingerie, and a black thong hidden in a small box with three pairs of dangling earings. While the CD raised an eyebrow, I am hoping that the thought made a difference.

I still can't believe that more than 7 years have passed since that one fateful evening at a friend's place. She was celebrating her birthday with the theme of a highschool prom night. Everyone at UP Quill had to get a date. Due to some fortunate circumstances, Pia and I went together. It was casual at first, we both had crushes on other people. So it was a safe arragement. Somewhere between midnight perhaps we danced. Well, she asked me to while I was brooding on some corner because my crush then was getting intimate with her partner for the evening. I can't remember how long we danced, but it was long. We held each other close as the slow music took me away from everything else.

After the dance, we decided to take a walk to a nearby park, leaving everything behind. during the walk, I held her hand. It was the right thing to do. We talked, shared stories about what we like to read and watch. I can remember seeing her smile. She had a a smile that makes one smile back. I felt something then.

The morning after, I wanted to spend the day with her, even had to cheat a bit when a few of us decided to go watch a movie and had to take two cabs to get there. I coersed her to share the cab ride with me. during the movie, a comedy, I held her hand again. Then I took her home.

While I can still vaguely recall the events of the following days, suffice to say that it ended, or more aptly started with me struggling to telling her how I felt, and she telling me how she did. And on one rainy Sunday afternoon 7 years ago, we shared our first kiss. And I knew then that she would be the one for me.

While the past 7 years went by with a lot of sharing smiles, of sharing tears and overcoming personal problems, of fighting and making up and out, we held strong. Despite any problems we have faced, we continue to hold on. And while I may not be perfect, far from it, I remain forever hers. I would gladly spend the rest of my life with her.

Someone asked me recently how I knew that I want to marry Pia. I answered, that when one wakes up every morning and look for someone beside him, and feeling incomplete when she's not there, that's when you know you are ready to spend your life with her. I would want want nothing else in this world but to spend the rest of my days with her. Seven years may not be that short a time to know this truth, but I would spend 7x77 more years if I had them, together with her.

Wedding plans full steam ahead.

I've just realized that now that it is 2006, ny wedding really is just a year away and we still don't have anything. No plans, no money arrrggghhh. It's making my head spin. Aside from planning to spend just 100k on the wedding (a mighty task i'm sure), plus the honeymoon plus the house/apartment plus the appliances... Hmm. I wonder if we are ready most of the time. Though neal and I have now decided to stop spending unnecessarily and we plan to officially open the account this week.
He's decided to officially tell my folks about our engagement on my birthday and we plan to make it official (ring and all) by then as well.
I'm nervous and scared and I feel kinda weird. However all I do know is that I do want to marry him. To go home with him and just be with him. I guess that's the only thing keeping me sane right now. I do like it when he panics when he thinks about the wedding and says "I'm screws..." (don't ask me where he got that expression)
Life goes on.

That is the question right now. I've been with neal and have known his group of friends for almost 6 years now and they never struck me as the marrying type.

Now, ever since johann got engaged, it seemed as though they suddenly matured. Yesterday, I was talking to them and they seemed bent on being the first to follow johann. Of course we can't compete with that because we already agreed that we'd have the wedding two years from now.

Tin's excited for us too. Johann suddenly gave me and neal a wrapped present yesterday and inside it was a portfolio and a copy of the latest Metro Weddings. My first ever wedding magazine. I can't wait till saturday when we first try to get involved and get shocked by all the prices O_O hehe.

People have been helpful to us in our search for the engagement ring. I wish we can find a good and honest jeweller. I'm excited but not hurrying. Neal's still a bit worried that i can't hide all the wedding stuff from my folks. Ah well they have to know sooner or later.

It's a good thing neal's parents are happy and excited about our wedding.

Neal's mom even told him she'd give him money because the eldest should have a grand wedding. She has one condition though -- he has to marry me.

Isn't that sweet?

Stag Parties

Brides-to-be have worries over the infamous bachelor ritual called stag parties.

This is where your trust on the husband-to-be is put to the ultimate test.

If you look at it from their point of view, the husband-to-be has not said "i do" yet and this is his last chance to do something before he gets tied down.

I think if he does do something during the stag party, not even the chains of marriage will stop him from doing it again and guys who get drunk enough to do anything stupid during those parties or give in to peer pressure should not get married. Maturity and fidelity are traits a guy should have before he even decides to get married, they are not magically "learned" during church ceremonies.

Guys also have to understand that when they say they will "just look and not touch" the strippers, they are also sending a message to their wives-to-be that they are not sexy enough or beautiful enough to satisfy him. More often than not, women have insecurities because they think their husbands-to-be need to see something beautiful, something they can never have before settling down with what they can have without paying for it.

I'm not saying that all brides-to-be are completely innocent at bridal showers. Both parties have to know their limits. Your partner should NOT have to ask you, or threaten you or cajole you on how to act. That would just put a strain on your relationship when it should be getting stronger.

Talk to each other. Know what your partner wants and for goodness sake, keep your friends' and relatives' opinions out of the dicussion. If you're old enough and mature enough to decide to get married, everything else should be easy including having a stag/bridal party or what should be contained in the party.

Don't give each other a my-friends-will-be-organizing-it-i-dont-have-a-say crap. If you tell them you don't want strippers but they still hire one, don't attend. If they lie, you can always walk out whenever you want. Nobody will sue you and it might be better than not getting married at all.

If all else fails, BRIBE his/her friends. Not your partner.

You should know what kind of friends your partner has by now. Are they the type to throw wild parties or do they have meaningful conversations while getting drunk?

For example, my friend is getting married next month and since her husband-to-be is the first in the group, they were all excited about his stag party. Since she knew they were hard core gamers, she bribed them with the new Eberron book and a chance to go gaming all night as a substitute for the stag party.

For adventurous people, ask their friends to go mountain climbing. Anyone who can convince a stripper to perform on top of a mountain probably deserves an award. Or tell them you'll hold a major beach party at Boracay where they will get to meet more babes compared to one stripper.

Hope that helps. ^_^

I want to see neal's side on this issue.

don't know what to do

A few more things to consider.

Since the wedding is soooo far away, the only things neal and i are partially concerned with is the engagement ring and the budget.

we need to know what our budget should be which is why we are going to the perfect beginnings fair this saturday.

the wedding sparkles taught us that a good photo coverage and avp coverage is 100k and an engagement ring with a .25 carat diamond can reach 46k!

Here we were thinking a great wedding can be pulled off with 200k.

My sister gave me the following rules.
1. she's the maid of honor or she'll kill me
2. her dress needs to show cleavage (thats all i can tell from the way she described her dress)
3. definitely sto domingo church (ill post pics when i can)

things we are sure of:

1. we love green and we want it as a theme color, mint green to be precise.
2. honeymoon at kota kinabalu -- nature tripping, climb mt kota kinabalu and rest at the beach (heaven!)
3. discovery weekend (probably a year before the wedding so sept 2006)
4. definitely choose churches and a place for the wedding reception before any supplier

tin did mention using percentages instead of actual amounts for the budget.
they did theirs : 40 % reception, 30-40% clothes, 5% invitations, 5% flowers and hair and make up.

this weekend bridal thing is the last im visiting till september. i promise myself that and i'll probably have to stop thinking about it because obsessive tendencies are catching on and it's way too early.

after this week i'm gonna concentrate on my new job, masteral classes and neil gaiman in july!

then tin's wedding will come and i'll probably be back here.