22 Days And Counting

So, I can’t sleep because I have so much work to do, and I’ve been meaning to update this way more. My picture taking has sufficed my memory jogging requirements. (aka the Nikk chronicles)

Man, where has the last 2 years gone? Two years ago (come the 15th), the love of my life and I officially became a couple. I had been infatuated with her for many months prior, I was just to chicken to make my move. Finally, with the threat of loosing her forever, I dove head first into a journey that would become my life. 5 months in, and I somehow convince her that she should move in with me. Sucker… B-)

And now, we are 22 days away from being Mr. and Mrs. Folts! I can only speak for myself, but “Hell Yeah!”. We’re perfect for each other! Somebody who I can confide in, someone who I can be myself around… and that somebody… that one-and-only someone… is Christine.

Anyways, just wanted to start off with happiness before I get into the complaining. B-)

Wedding planning is the most epic pain in the ass known to mankind. Every time you think you are almost done, you realized you forgot a bunch of stuff you still haven’t done. Every time you think you have paid everything, another random expense comes up. Elope……

I’ve spent that last few nights finalizing plans, and getting everything together for our honeymoon. The “light at the end of the tunnel”. I think we have everything worked out. It does however look like the Athens excursion we wanted is booked (I read online that they sell some to people who want to buy prior to departure, and another bunch for the people who decide late and book on the boat itself).

For those of you who have no clue what we’re doing for our honeymoon, we’re going on a 12 day cruise through southern Europe! Rome, Sicily, Rhodes, Athens, Ephesus, Istanbul, Naples, and back to Rome. A last hurrah if you will, as we plan on having kids right away (she started prenatal vitamins already… woot).

We are staying one night in a 4 star hotel in Rome as well, as by booking the cruise through PriceLine, we got a $140 credit toward the “name your own priceĀ®” hotel reservation. We bid $60, they added $140 to that, and now we are going to sleep like royalty! It’ll be nice to actually be able to relax, as we haven’t had a single un-eventful weekend in as long as I can remember… (yes, my memory sucks, but regardless, it’s been a really really long time).

I just purchased my wedding band through my company Gemvara! It is going to be super duper awesome, as I know they make awesome stuff, as I work there. I also bought my god daughter and niece presents from Gemvara so they can remember being in my wedding. (Though, Avery is pretty young)

Speaking of work, works been crazy busy as well, I have lots to get done before I go on my vacation of epicness. I haven’t taken one day off this year so far (that I haven’t made up over a weekend), as I’ve been saving vacation days! I worked most of this past Saturday so I could enjoy what might be my last ever hosting of a Marathon Monday party. <tear>

It turns out, Tim McGraw (the famous country singer) and I share the same 8th Great Grandfather… pretty epic. Tim McGraw was on Ancestry.com’s “Who do you think you are?”, and they trace his line back to a Jost Hite… I haven’t played around with that line in a while, but from what I have down, Jost is both of our 8th great grandfathers. I actually found out about the episode because my cousin’s wife Becky mentioned that she is related to him… which means, Chad and Becky may be first cousins 8 times removed, or is it 8th cousins… well, whatever it is, pretty incestual. B-) Anyways, there was a lot of great info that I didn’t have about him that they have in the episode.

I’m really excited about the wedding. I can’t wait to see everyone, and just let everyone have a good time! We’re going to attempt to Skype and/or broadcast (and record) the wedding so the people who couldn’t make it will be able to feel like they took part… if nobody watches it, at least we’ll have it on tape. B-)

As you can see, I’m pretty scatterbrained. I should probably be getting some sleep… Hopefully I’ll keep this updated once every month or so. I’m sure once we have a child, I’ll be writing a ton!

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Go team Gemvara

Gemvara Raises $15 Million in Capital for Custom-Made Jewelry | Tricia Duryee | eMoney | AllThingsD.

Yay for my company, Gemvara! We’ve been working hard and it has been noticed! We are out to change the jewelry industry, and now we have the means to do so!

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Bye Bye Blogger

So, I after falling in love with the ease of WordPress while setting up my uncle’s blog, and Blogger discontinuing support for FTP publishing, I decided to move my blog to use wordpress instead.

It’ll take me a while to get it all pretty, but once I get wordpress all working, I’m going to work on revamping my site as well (time pending). I’d love to make it use Code Igniter after using that to create our wedding website.

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Fire Chief David Foster

Hey, so I set up a new blog and website for my uncle David Foster who happens to be an uber experienced Fire Chief. I went with wordpress this time because I had heard so many good things about it. It was my first time setting up a wordpress account, and I can now see why there is all the hype… it is simple! My only gripe is that I couldn’t figure out how to get google analytics integrated into the hosted version. Oh well.

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Gemvara Launched

My co-workers and I have been working night and day at my startup to try and release an e-commerce site in less than 2 months… version 1.0 was released today!

The site allows you to customize jewelry to your hearts content. Over a thousand designs, selectable metals, and 16 gemstone choices. Each piece can be over a million customized combinations… Best of all, we have Free Fedex Shipping.

Gemvara – Customized Jewelry

Check it out and let me know what you think!…… Time for a nap .

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Meet The Folts Family

Well, I noticed that I rarely write anything in this thing anymore, and I blame it on my Flickr account. I use this blog mainly for me to remember things, and since I have so many pictures of things now, I have nothing that I need to write…

I’ve been overwhelmed lately… A September end date on my current job has required me to actively seek my next gig… Stressful, especially since I really really enjoy what I do. There is one company in particular that I am waiting, rather patiently, to hear back from that I think I’d absolutely love to work for… .

Next week Christine and I are flying South. She’ll get to meet the Folts Family! I’m uberly excited, and just hope that she doesn’t get scared off… ha ha… especially since we have decided to live together next year. (big step I know, but she’s practically been living at my house for months).

The whole trip involves us flying to Atlanta, driving to Homer, LA… then, driving to NC, then back to Atlanta, then flying home… 2000+ miles in one week, and Christine only has a permit… (which might be expired)

Regardless of lots of driving, I really am looking forward to the entire fiasco. Look for pictures mid August.

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Irish Brawl

Well, it has been months and months since I last posted anything on here… What has happened since the last post? Tons. Be ready to be bored:

I nearly got in my first drunken bar fight this St. Patrick’s day. We were at a local bar called Harry’s and some loser was being very physical and loud toward his girlfriend. It got to the point that I somehow became brave enough to go over to her and ask her if everything was ok. “Even if it wasn’t, who’s going to stop me?” says the overly-grumpy popped-colar type of guy… Adrenaline going, I respond “Me!”, then I asked her again if everything was ok, she said yes, and insisted I sit down. Well, the waitress comes over and tells me I shouldn’t get in a fight, she obviously doesn’t know me well, because if she had, she’d know I’m a complete wuss and would never take the first swing, in hopes that it wouldn’t escalate to that. I kindly asked her if she would have the bouncer come and make sure things were ok with the abused lady, who was still being yelled at and pushed around. The bouncers make it over, and tell the guy to stop being so physical/loud as it is disturbing other customers… for about 2 minutes he was quiet, then he started up again… The bouncers then proceeded to kick him out.

He stood outside staring right at our table, Ben looks over at him and smiles and waves, as the uber ass points at us, and slides a finger across his throat in a threatening manner. So, we proceed with drinking, and having a fun Irish celebration! However, another guy, MUCH MUCH larger than the guy that was kicked out, comes up to us and fakes an apology, and then invites us to “join him and his buddy outside”. Having nothing to prove, as I already got him kick out of the place, I kindly explained to gigantor exactly that, and thanked him for the invite.

The guy continued to stare at us through the front window for another 30 minutes, when finally, him and his “buddies” left (I assume it was only because the last T was passing)… The saddest thing about it all, is the girl was right by his side as he left… I don’t get people some times, but at least I can sleep well knowing I did something, even if minor.

A few minutes after we see them leave, we decide it’d be safe for us to leave as well, so we left, thanking the bouncer (and making sure that if we were jumped outside, that he’d help), then power walked home.

There is a lot more I need to write about, as I’ve been a major slacker over the last many months. Well, and being very busy, and having taken plenty of pictures, I knew I’d remember the things that have been taking place, so hadn’t felt the urge to write anything.

Not only have I been immensely bad at updating my blog, I’ve also been very poor at keeping in touch with old friends… Been missing them a lot lately.

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4th of July

Almost all my coworkers, my best friend, and I all celebrated the 4th together down town atop my best friend’s roof. She lives in Beacon Hill while overlooks Boston’s firework display. The were really cool despite the lack of wind to clear the smoke up. While we were waiting for the fireworks to start, we played poker. It was quite a feat because we were crowded around a coffee table in a small sized room. Regardless, it was a lot of fun (well, except I also lost $5).

On Tuesday I have 10 relatives coming to visit me. Including Honey And Papa, The Fosters and The Moore/Mohrs… I can’t wait, it has been to long since I’ve seen them all. I worked extra last week so that I can take some time off while they are here (considering I am lacking PTO due to the Australia trip, and want to save what I still have for My Sister’s baby… oh by the way, I haven’t mentioned that because I wasn’t suppose to but now I can! My sister is pregnant! YAY! She is due on Christmas Eve, which is when I was due as well…) Anyways more on that later, I’ll probably have quiet a bit more pictures next week.

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Doug’s Birthday

This past weekend Josh, Sara, Tanya and I drove up to Dover NH to surprise Doug on his birthday. We trekked all our camping gear with us, and then headed out to the white mountains. It was pretty damn cool. I got to use all my new backpacking gear as well, which was an added benefit. Jager had his backpack as well. When we got to the camping spot I started feeling sick, both a stomach and a headache… which alone suck enough. Some Advil and water later, my headache was gone and I only had to deal with my stomach ache… So, I decided just to start eating marshmallows (Yummy marshmallows!) and surprisingly it seemed to have worked. Placebo effect?

On the way back we stop and bought steak tips at a little one-of-a-kind store in NH… they just happen to sell the best steak in the world. Yesterday we BBQed it up and watched Boondock Saints… What a great movie.

Anyways, check out my pictures (courtesy of Josh because I left my memory card at home by accident); they’re in the Flickr section of my site.

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Hot

Talk about heat… I moved up here to get away from it, but my car thermometer read 106 today… of course, it was sitting in the sun all day, but still, that is ridiculously hot…

Anyways, I added a “Flickr” section to my site and uploaded all my images I have… the main purpose was for backing them up, but figured it wouldn’t be bad to have them on my site for people to see either. Everyone kept asking me for pictures of this and that, now I can direct them to them.

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