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Good golly miss Molly, but I’ve been a busy boy of late! I bet you’d just love to have some more detail to go with that sentence too, wouldn’t you? Well, here’s what’s been going on so far in July.

I ate barbequed or grilled things for seven meals between the 1st and 5th of July. Yay Summer, I guess. If you do the math, that means I was eating grill-food for far more than 50% of my non-breakfast meals during that span (and I did manage to avoid BBQ breakfasts).

On July 1, August Home celebrated its 30th anniversary. As a result, I got to hear a bit of the history of the company, and it sort of cracks me up. Our CEO left Meredith on June 30, 1978, and on July 1st he decided he still liked eating and whatnot, so he’d better figure out something new to do. Yadda yadda yadda, now I have a job too.

On July 3, the UPS guy delivered a very awesome, very large present from myself (and Amanda), to myself (and Amanda). We’re now the proud owners of Rock Band, which is a ton of fun.

Hannah and Tono also came over for dinner, drinks, and some Rock Band action on the evening of the 3rd. We had brats (one of my many grilled meals) and ate out on the back porch, which was great until the mosquitoes figured out where we were.

The 4th of July rocked in all manner of rocking. Amanda and I woke up and headed straight down for a bit of Rock Band fun, then got ready for the day. Then we met up with a bunch of friends (Hannah, Tono, Megan, Klay, Sara, Julie) and had a free grilled lunch courtesy of Meredith. And then we headed to the fantastic and huge 80/35 concert and had a fantastic time. We managed to see four bands in action: Public Property (a local band), Ingrid Michaelson (really funny), Andrew Bird (so good, I nearly cried), and The Flaming Lips (pictured above, rocking). It was, all told, and incredible experience. After the concert, we headed downtown for drinks and got to bed way too late.

We got up way too early on July 5th and drove north to Minneapolis to attend the wedding of Amanda’s friend Nicole. Originally, I was a little miffed to be spending my Independence Day weekend at a wedding for a girl I’d only met once before, but I ended up having a good time, and Amanda and I took lots of mental notes for our own wedding and reception plans. I discovered that I really like Black Russians, and it’s become my new cocktail hour drink of choice.

We got back into town late on the 6th. Grandma and Grandpa drove Miles back up for us (they’ve had him nearly every other weekend ever since we got back from Europe!). They also brought us Arby’s, which was pretty nice, since all I’d had to eat so far that day was cookies and gummi bears. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The 7th and 8th were pretty low-key (which we needed at that point). On the 9th, we toured a reception hall that we liked a lot. The only negative, really, was that it’s a ways out of town, and we were originally hoping to have our reception in the downtown area somewhere. But the place is very pretty, so we may have to compromise on that one.

On the 10th we went to a Tweetup, which is a gathering of your friendly neighborhood Twitter friends. We only stayed out for a few hours, but we had a really good time, and met several new people. We also got to hear a live poetry reading, which I hadn’t done since college.

Ahh, the 11th… how’d it get to be Friday again already? We went out to Friday Fest with new couple-friends Tigon and Ben. We ended up having enough to drink that it seemed perfectly logical to ~keep~ drinking after the Fest bit ended, so we headed downtown to El Bait Shop. Ben is a huge fan of beer, but he’d never been to the Shop to witness their 160 Taps of Glory, so we figured we should remedy that. And after that, we headed back to our place for a little Rock Band action. On the way home, we stopped by a liquor store for even more drinks, and Ben bought a bottle of Iowa-made Templeton Rye. I gave it a try, and discovered that it’s easily my favorite whiskey, so I think we’ll be getting a bottle soon as well.

We were pretty lazy for most of the day during the 12th except a run to the Woodsmith Store for supplies, but that evening we headed to Lindsay Rees’s place for her third annual July barbeque. It was my third year in attendance, which made me the only true veteran there aside from Lindsay herself. We had drinks (well, I did – Amanda was driving, so she mostly behaved herself) and chatted, listened to music, played cards… all the fun mid-July barbeque stuff.

And then on the 13th we got up decently early, moved all our furniture out of the bedroom, and painted that bad boy. It ended up taking all day, because we were painting using three different colors (the ceiling is one color, the three walls another, and an accent wall a third), but I think it came out looking really great. Of course, the paint was still drying when it was time for bed, so we ended up sleeping on the futon in the basement last night. Tonight, we’ll pull off all the tape, put everything back in the room, and snap some pictures. So expect a post covering our handiwork in the near future.

And as for this week… it’s looking more sane and sedate. Which is good. Our only big plan so far is we’re going to a midnight showing of The Dark Knight with a bunch of Twitter friends on Thursday night (technically 12:01am Friday morning). And as a result, Amanda and I are going to take Friday off from work to have a nice, relaxing day to ourselves. Unless something really cool comes our way, of course. :)

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at work. It makes me miss Jeremy all the more, I can tell ya. Admittedly, a good 80% of what I’m doing now would have been my projects anyway, but that extra 20% on top isn’t doing me any favors.

Nor did it help that I caught myself a case of strep throat last week, and had to spend a couple of days at home. Well, a couple of half-days. I couldn’t afford to take full days off with as much as I had to get done, so I just quarantined my cube and talked to people at a distance. I wasn’t the most productive guy those days – web development is hard with a 102+ fever – but it was certainly better than had I stayed in bed all day.

Point being, I’m really starting to look forward to this coming weekend. I could use a break. Amanda and I will be heading down to Kansas City for the weekend, visiting friends and family. It should be a good time. And that of course means that Miles will be spending the weekend with the grandparents, which I get the impression that he loves and they tolerate surprisingly well, so it all works out.

In case you hadn’t noticed yet, I’ve posted a few of our eurotrip photos on Flickr. So far I only have Paris posted, but I’ll work on getting Amsterdam up there in the next week or so.

Amanda and I are starting to get more of the details of our Eurotrip planned and finalized. I realize I still owe a couple of posts on how we’re getting over there, and what we’re spending, and so on. This is not those posts. But I promise they will come soon. :)

The map above shows our general travel plans. We’ll land in Paris, spend a few glorious days and nights there, and then head northeast to Amsterdam to spend several days with our friends Anne and Luke. After we’ve had our fill of the ‘Dam, we’ll head southeast to Munich and spend a couple of days (and more to the point, nights) in the land of Good Beer. Mmm. After that, we’ll be heading west again to fly out of Paris.

So far, we have a hotel in Paris and a basic itinerary planned for the city (we have a list of things we’d like to see, but haven’t decided on which days to see them). We also have a somewhat less planned-out list of what we’d like to see in Munich. Tonight, I think we’re going to try to sit down and find a hotel and/or hostel for which to sleep off our hangovers in Munich. After that, we just need to decide whether we want to stay in the same or a different hotel for our last night in Paris.

And once we have that decided, the big parts of the trip are planned. We still need to decide if we want to buy our bus tickets for our international wanderings at the time or in advance (I’m guessing in advance), but considering at last check the bus schedules hadn’t even been posted for mid April yet, we’re doing okay on time for that one.

It turns out, I have a birthday coming up. In just seven short days, I will be 26 years old. I know: it kinda boggles my mind, too. I didn’t see this one coming.

I don’t remember the age at which my birthday stopped making me all excited, giving me butterflies in my stomach and keeping me awake at night with eager anticipation. It seems like it was quite some time ago. I think I was vaguely excited to turn 21, but even that wasn’t anything all that special. As I recall, I stayed in with my best friend and my girlfriend and had a few drinks — inadvertently missing a family party I wasn’t anticipating in the process. But that was the extent of the celebration.

As a kid, of course, I got excited like everyone else. I made lists, both in my head and on paper, of presents I was hoping to get, people I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do on my special day. There was always a cake, and usually homemade ice cream, and family would gather and sing “happy birthday” and I would blow out the candles at the end. Classic birthday stuff. I would open presents while people watched and ooh’d and aah’d as the boxes were opened.

And this stuff excited me. I often tried to pretend like it didn’t, play cool and all that, but it really did. And then somewhere along the line, I guess I quit pretending so much. Nowadays, I usually don’t even remember my birthday is coming. Was it not for our Spanish teacher having us write out our birthdates in Spanish last week, I’m not sure I would have remembered until a day or two prior. One of these days, I’m worried I’ll forget about it altogether. Many of my friends think this is strange: they start preparing and celebrating weeks in advance of the day, and are childlike (in a good way) in their enthusiasm.

This year, I’m making a concerted effort to ensure my birthday is something special. For starters, I’m taking the day off work. That’s pretty special already. Amanda and I are going to be spending the weekend in Minnesota for a Wurzinger family reunion (I seem to travel a lot right around my birthday) on Saturday. Sunday, we’ll hang out with her parents, and then get dinner somewhere in the city and go out for drinks. On Monday, we’re going to the Valley Fair amusement park for the day before heading home that evening. It should be a good time. A memorable time. Perhaps it will inspire me to look forward to my next birthday with a bit of that excitement I seem to have lost somewhere along the way.

For those of you who are in to the present-buying thing, but aren’t in to the coming up with your own ideas thing, my Amazon wish list is decently up to date. In case anyone was considering a scooter-themed gift, be warned that the scooter doesn’t look like it will happen until next year now. I know… it breaks my heart, too.

Well, perhaps I was a bit ambitious when I said I’d blog the next day. Next day, next week/month… whatever. It’s all pretty much the same.

So here’s my promised Seattle writeup, but it’s almost time to go home for the day, so it’s going to be pretty short and generally not funny (much like Eric).

Wednesday (trip-out-day): I got to the airport around 10:30am. I was through security and at my gate by 10:45. Gotta love a sparsely populated airport (Des Moines International (they fly to Canada, and Canada is another nation (for very small values of ‘another nation’))). Then I sat there for a couple of hours, caught a quick flight to Minneapolis, and sat ~there~ for four hours. But I bought a book and a beer, so I was okay. Then I sat on the plane for ~another~ hour and a half while they figured out how to make the plane flap its wings or whatever the hell they do up front, then flew to Seattle, landing around 8:15pm Seattle time. Justin and his new girlie Danielle picked me up, and we went to dinner somewhere along a waterfront.

Thursday: Woke up around 6:30am, got ready, and headed for the conference. The conference ROCKED. I had a really, really good time, and I hope to get out to it again next year. If you’re a web-type guy and ever have the chance to attend An Event Apart: Do so. You will not regret it. That night I went to the afterparty (hosted by (mt) Media Temple) and drank way too much. Way. Too much. Stumbled back to Justin’s place. I may have bought some sushi on the way home.

Friday: More conference goodness, though it felt less good what with my swimming head and all. I felt a little better once I got some yogurt in me, which is pretty much exactly what you wouldn’t expect to happen, but whatever works. I had lunch with more cool people (even exchanged brief hellos with Mike Davidson), attended more conference, and then went home. There was an afterparty that night as well, but I decided I’d had enough alcohol for the time being. I fell asleep on the couch around 9:30pm, woke up at 11pm, and helped Justin work on his computer until 2 in the morning.

Saturday: Toured the city with Justin and Danielle. We had lunch at the Pike Place market, visited tons of cool shops, and then headed to the Mariners game and met a couple of Danielle’s friends there. The Mariners kicked arse, winning 9-1. I got my photo taken with a digital moose. Afterwards, we all headed to Justin’s place to drink some more. I got to bed a little after 1am.

Sunday (trip-back day): Alarm went off at 4:30am. Ugh. I kicked Danielle out of the bathroom, showered as quickly as I could at that hour (read: not quickly), and Justin drove me to the airport. I flew from Seattle to Memphis (it was ~humid~ there~), ran across the ENTIRE length of the terminal, and caught a plane halfway back across the country to Des Moines. I landed around 3pm. Amanda picked me up, took me home, and we headed out to dinner.

So! It was a really good trip all around. If you’re interested in more details about the conference itself, email me. I’ll spare you the gritty details here. The same goes for any alcohol-related stories you might be interested in (brief teaser: when the open bar finally closed, I had eight mixed drinks and two shots in front of me). Life has been pretty event-filled lately, so I’ll try to update more often to keep you all in tha loop!