It finally happened!  I’m married!  Nicole and I have set up a website where you can keep tabs on the new Barnard family.  The website URL is http://www.rnbarnard.com.  I’ll continue blogging here at nitecrawler.net, although it’ll probably be as frequently as I have been lately.  Maybe after life calms down and we enter into a normal married routine I’ll be blogging more frequently.  We are working on a “trip report” for our honeymoon that will be available on the rnbarnard.com website fairly soon.

I’d blog more right now about the wedding, but I’m at work, so I probably shouldn’t.  In brief, it was awesome!  We had such a great time and it was so cool to see everyone there.  I only wish I had more time to visit with you all.  We’ll just have to set up times to hang out now to make up for it.

I know that there are some people who read my blog who did not actually get an invite to the wedding…I’m sorry about that.  We maxed out the capacity of the reception site way before we thought we would.  That is to say, there were a lot of more people that we wanted to invite, but we were just not allowed to fit any more people into the room.  The invitation list was probably the hardest part of planning the wedding.  Hopefully you won’t hold it against me and we can find a time in the near future to visit and catch up.

Thanks to everyone who helped make Nicole and my wedding so successful and memorable!

And let me just say…Italy is an awesome country to go visit.  I highly recommend it.  Check out our website in about a week to see the full details that we wrote up about it.

Wow, I haven’t done a blog post in 50 days.  Which means that 50 days from TODAY I get married!  Nicole and I have been crazy busy working on wedding stuff like invitations, decorations, flowers, and all that fun stuff.  It’s coming along quite nicely though, and we’re both still extremely excited about it and not feeling overly stressed about it.

In other (but similar) news, my project at work has entered crunch time.  It’s getting hard to balance everything that I need to get done at work, at home, and for the wedding, and then still have free time.  But so far things are working out alright.

Nicole and I have started watching a new TV show called New Ampsterdam that we find pretty fun.  It’s one of those shows about a detective (John Ampsterdam) who solves murders.  The twist is that he can live forever (until he finds his one true love).  He has lived in New York since before it was New York.  He changes jobs every 10 years or so and has had many wives and families (remember, he’s trying to find his true love.  I guess he’s had a lot of close-but-not-quites).  It’s a pretty fun show…definitely not the best one out there, but still pretty entertaining.

Oh, my laptop died a while ago!  That’s the 2nd HP/Compaq that’s bitten the dust for me.  They seem to live for an average of 2 years from my experience.  So I got a new laptop.  It’s a…brace yourself…Mac!  That’s right, I bought a Macbook Pro.  And I love it!  It’s so great!  I can’t believe it took me this long to make the switch over.  It’s a solid machine with great hardware.  It’s not bulky or heavy.  And Mac OS X is just leaps and bounds better than Windows XP and Vista.

Just 100 days left until Nicole and I get married! The wedding preparations are coming along pretty smoothly so far. Most of the big stuff has been taken care of or we at least have a good handle on. We’ve got a photographer, the venue, lodging for out-of-town guests, and Nicole’s wedding dress. We’re meeting with the caterer this coming weekend and we’ve talked with a few florists. The invitations have been started and we should be getting most of the rest of the paper needed for them this weekend.

This has been a great process to go through so far, and we’re having a blast with each other picking things out and planning the various things that we want to do for the ceremony and reception. I’m sure these next 100 days will go fast as we continue preparing for the biggest day of our lives.

Thank you to everybody who has helped out so far (especially our parents)! Without all your support and help this could have been a much more difficult process.

So I thought I would offer to you what I believe were some of the highlights of the year:

Best Music Album of 2007:

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
While the lyrics of most of the songs in this album are a bit depressing, the music sounds incredible. Almost every Arcade Fire song produces a very full and rich sounding experience that leaves you wanting more. If you like this album, then you will love their previous one called “Funeral.” I believe that Funeral is even a better album than Neon Bible.
Runner-Ups:
Pela — Anytown Graffiti
Editors — An End Has a Start

Best Movie of 2007:

The Bourne Ultimatum
To be honest, this wasn’t the best year for movies. After my last year’s favorite “The Prestige”, I was hoping for another mind-bending thinking movie and I didn’t really see one this year. The Bourne Ultimatum was an excellent conclusion to the Bourne trilogy, however, and so it wins my award. Usually sequal movies aren’t nearly as good as the originals, but all three Bourne movies carried the same level of
excellence that the first movie set.
Runner-Ups:
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Ratatouille
National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Best New TV Series of 2007 (from Fall 2006 to Summer 2007):

Planet Earth
This one surprised me. The amazing visuals the film crew captured has my jaw drop every other minute. It took them 5 years to film this show and it’s almost completely in HD quality. If you are thinking of a reason to upgrade to HD-DVD, this is it. They filmed things that have you scratching your head wondering “how on earth did they film that? Is that on this planet? It looks alien!” I love this show and plan on watching it over and over.
Runner-Ups:
Jericho
Flight of the Conchords
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Best Gadget of 2007:

iPhone
I love my iPhone. Love it! It has changed how I operate. I can look up maps when I’m lost. I can check my e-mail while standing in a shopping line. Texting is fast and easy. I use it as my alarm clock, music player, calculator, note taker, and camera. Oh, it works as a phone too!
Runner-Ups:
I can’t think of anything!

Best Video Game of 2007:

Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4 demonstrates how next-gen games should be. An excellent story accomponied by excellent graphics and an excellent multiplayer experience leaves me easily giving it the best video game award.
Runner-Ups:
Halo 3
Bioshock
Crackdown

Best Thing I “Discovered” in 2007 That’s Been Around for a Long Time:

KEXP Online Radio
So I never really tried online radio before, but after work clamped down on having iTunes installed on computers I became desperate. I loaded up my iPhone with a bunch of music, but it only would take about a week until all the music on there became stale. I wanted new, I wanted fresh. I wanted…online radio. KEXP, a local Seattle radio station, has the best online radio system I have ever seen. You can start listening live, or pick up at any moment you like that’s been on the air within the last 2 weeks. It’s a great system and now I can listen to new music!
Runner-Ups:
Salad Dressing
Sweatshirts

Best Event of 2007:

Getting Engaged!
This was a huge year for me. Why? Because I met the woman of my dreams and I’m going to marry her next year!

Runner-Ups:
Meeting Nicole
Dating Nicole
Moving into my house

Do you have anything to add to these lists, or do you have another category to add? Leave a comment below!