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The honeymoon - Paris

Cheryl and I celebrated our honeymoon recently. We were in Paris for a few days followed by a Mediterranean cruise for 10 days (ahh bliss and gluttony! you know you’re jealous). I promised myself that I wouldn’t touch a computer too much. I did end up touching the computer for the occasional email update to family when there was an affordable internet connection (which ruled out the cruise).

Anyway, I’m sure that most people are dying to know (the g-rated) details. I’ll try and post a few entries about the whole experience.

Paris was amazing especially when you’re there for 6 days! You can walk everywhere and if you can’t walk there’s the train system (which is a great train system) so renting a car isn’t really necessary. Cheryl rented an apartment using VRBO which was ultimately cheaper than a hotel. Giovanni (our ‘landlord’) even gave us a quick run through of the map to help orient us to the city (although our French was poor at best; we mostly understood what he said - kinda).

If you want to stand out like a tourist, do the following: wear jeans, Nike runners and your regular comfy vacation gear. I guarantee you will stick out like a sore thumb. Apparently Parisians are all about looking good even when it’s just going out to get some bread for breakfast. I kid you not!

As a tourist, you’ll do all the regular attractions: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, cruise down the Seine river, Arc de Triomphe and the amazing art in the Louvre and Museum d’Orsay plus many many more places. You can look it up on any travel book or travel website out there.  I recommend doing a quick bus tour to get an overview then pick which sites you want to spend time with. We were there for 6 days; so we had a lot of time to visit and revisit all these amazing sites.

However, our vacation highlights were all shopping. Cheryl and I are notorious for shopping (as my twitter updates can probably attest to). So we set aside 2 days for shopping, one day at Rue Champs Elysees (the street that leads up to the Arc de Triomphe) and another at La Vallee Village (oh outlet malls; we can’t tear ourselves away from your deathly grip). Rue Champs Elysees had more high-end stores like Luis Vuitton and other french names that I can’t pronounce without going bankrupt. La Vallee Village wasn’t really that much cheaper but where else can you find a Paul Smith outlet store?! I’d travel 30 minutes outside of Paris for that! Wouldn’t you?

I’m slowly splicing together some video we took. Here are our some of our Paris videos. Enjoy!

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

12:19 pm 4 Comments

Wedding FAQ

The rumors are true. My status has been updated from single to married on facebook and every other social networking site known to man.

I wanted to update my blog before the new wife and I traveled off on a romantic honeymoon to make sure that people (all 3 of you readers) didn’t think I died in a fashion related accident. I also wanted to just answer some of the emails that I’ve been receiving so a Q&A/FAQ/BBQ format seemed to be the best way. Ok here goes:

So when did you get married?
Aug 16, 2008 (08, 08+08, 08) heh! 4 8’s! Beat that Aug 8, 2008 people!

How did the day go?
The day itself went by very quickly. My usual answer is “Oh man, at the end of the night it felt like I had just woken up an hour ago.” I had a lot of fun since all of my friends and family were there to celebrate with us. I wasn’t stressing out since our awesome helpers were all there with the to-do lists that we created for them. The most important thing was that everything was on schedule (apparently early too)! The most perfect and fastest day of my life.

I heard you had some kick ass food! Did you?
Ask someone who actually ate, cause Cheryl and I didn’t. We didn’t even get to taste the crab or the salmon puff pastry. I personally had 3 bites from my plate and I re-heated a plate that our awesome helper put in our hotel room the day after. But it wasn’t quite the same. If anything you should ask Aileen and Melanie.

Who made your giveaways?
Our giveaways were mini-cupcakes made by the always awesome Paula of Aeyracakes. Cheryl, Aileen, Laurie and Anna Lizza assembled and glued every-single-box (notice: my name wasn’t in there, thanks girls!)

That band was awesome! Who were they?
My one (major) splurge.  They were awesome, and probably the reason why so many people enjoyed the night (even people who didn’t dance). They’re called Famous Players Band and they usually make their rounds at the Commodore and PNE.  They told us that they gauge the crowd and play to their tastes. Apparently, we had a lot of 80’s children in our wedding.

What kind of shoes did Cheryl have?
Really? *sigh* She wore Manolo Blahniks. Mine were rentals, thankyouverymuchforaskingaboutmine!

How many people did you have in your wedding party?
Our wedding party was big. We had a total of 19 people (including Cheryl and myself). 7 grooms men and 7 bridesmaid, with 3 little people (flower girl, ring and coin bearer). We barely fit in our 20 person limo.

And how big was your guestlist?
Total? 247 people. It’s small for a Filipino wedding. Our buddy has a guestlist of 600+ people!

Your wedding seemed to have gone without a hitch, what advice would you (and Cheryl) impart to other brides and grooms?
Good question, I think I’ll ask my wife to help contribute to this answer. (1) Get a wedding book with a thorough check list (the larger check list the better). (2) Be engaged for a year and half (the year and a half timeframe really helps space out the different to-do items and opens up vendor’s schedules) but if you can’t it’s all good. (3) Plan to be finished 1.5 weeks early (it doesn’t have to be exactly 1.5 weeks, but generally early). Since Cheryl and I had quite a bit of out of town guests we knew that the week of the wedding there would hardly be any time to do anything. So we made sure that we were done before that 1.5 week cut off point. So our last week was spent enjoying with out of town guests and with generally smaller non-stress type of tasks. (4) Get awesome helpers (pick people for their expertise). Really, its no different from any project management gig out there. Pick people who are good at what they do. We were blessed with soo many people who were willing and awesome. (5) If you are the bride, ensure your fiance knows as much as you, so that he can answer all the questions from people on the wedding day while you’re blissfully enjoying everything.

I would also like to add: book your spa/massage appointment the night before the wedding. Not only does it enforce the “be finished early” point but its nice and relaxing (plus it keeps you from getting hijacked by the boys and taken out for poker and drinking - like what happened to me).

One other things, we also used Google docs to manage our guest list and it worked amazingly well since you could share the list between your families.

What other advice can you offer up?
Just enjoy the day. Once you get to that point, you can’t really change anything. You have to leave it to the people you’ve entrusted and your own coordination skills. I mean, really it’s just the first day of the rest of your lives together so what is one little tiny mistake.

Do you feel any different?
Not really. Cher and I practically lived together since we got engaged. So I already knew that she likes to steal the blanket, bleed into my side of the bed and hang her bra on the bedroom door knob waaaay before we got married. heh!

6:27 pm 8 Comments

Geek holsters… oh hell no.

Honestly, I’m the last one to be giving men any fashion advice. I’m still learning myself (I was going to back link to my other post but I accidentally deleted it - sorry). However, I do have enough fashion sense to tell you geeks that once you have trouble bending over because of the multitude of belt-situated holsters is when you have lost the ability to attract the opposite sex *.

This weekend while shopping in Seattle, I had a sighting of a man with so much holstered gadgets that he had trouble bending over when he dropped coins paying for an over-whipped Starbucks drink. Finally, when he did manage to bend over, the gadgets lined up on the front all snapped from his belt creating a HUGE scene as he nose dived for his precious electronics. This, my friends, is not a pretty picture that screams machismo.

So to avoid this situation, get a cool messenger bag to house all of your various electronic equipment (try to stay away from the man-purse or murse those things just scream loser snob). If there is one or two items then a good jacket (with many pockets) can act as a carrying case for your gear.

Having 1 small hidden holster clipped to your belt is fine except when wearing the following **:

• A suit
• Pajamas
• Lingerie
• Swimming trunks or Bathing suits
• Clothes… period

* Note: Maybe you have given up trying to attract any sort of woman/man for any sort of relationship (or you’re in one where your significant other doesn’t mind the public embarrassment) in which case, go ahead!

** Note: Cheryl (my fiancee) says that even writing a blog post about holsters already makes me a geek. She also says that a holster worn anywhere is NEVER ok (regardless of how functional it is ***). Even when you’re sleeping or dreaming. (I think we get her point).

*** Note: Apparently also defending the functionality of a holster also makes me a geek.

8:52 pm 1 Comment

Post rewrites resulting from ThirdTuesday

Last night, I attended ThirdTuesday with John, Marco, Mel and Tanya. I also met Rebecca, Duane, Monica, and Raul (hows that for name dropping?). A cool bunch of people with nice ibooks, cameras and 3G iPhones.

The topic last night was with Jeff Young. A new media lawyer that explained the intricacies of the law as applied to blogs, photos, copyright, trademark and patents. It was really interesting and got me thinking about rewriting some of my own post about Rogers. I really don’t like the idea of getting sued for millions of dollars for defamation, so let me do a quick rewrite of my previous post:

• Offers very expensive, limited-time and unreasonable data plans = kicks babies for fun
• Cannot be compared with the AT&T because they offer unlimited data plans = eats puppies
• Has a monopoly over the GSM network in Canada = stabs kittens every Tuesday

Rogers kicks babies for fun.
Rogers eats puppies.
Rogers stabs kittens every Tuesday.

9:47 am 5 Comments

An open letter to Rogers Communications Inc.

Dear Idiots,

How did you manage to screw this one up? The iPhones we’re going to sell themselves! An announcement from apple with 3G phones even had some non-apple people waiting for it (some even sold their unlocked iPhones in anticipation). It was going to be epic! The crushing blow to your competition. Apple did all the hyping and marketing for you.

And yet, you still managed to screw it up. Let me tell you bluntly what I was waiting for:

$60 regular plan + $35 unlimited iphone data plan = $95 (+ taxes, my soul, and system access fees)

The fact that your cheapest data plan only accounts for 400MB of data is ridiculous. You’ve obviously never used google maps or youtube before. I’d burn through 400MB just waiting for someone at a coffee shop watching Kristy Yamaguchi and Mark dance the rumba.

This morning I sat infront of my laptop staring at your rates table debating if I would jump on the bandwagon (and trust me, it doesn’t take much for me to jump on the wagon). I just want to let you know publicly that I will not be getting a new 3G iPhone at least until I see you come to your senses and offer an unlimited data plan.

Thanks for continuing to screw me up the ass (even rapists use lube).

Ritchie

10:33 am 2 Comments