Less than 50 hours

At 7:00 A.M. pacific standard time we hit the 50 hour mark untill the ceremony begins. All is well, I met Emilia's Sister and Bother-in-law Yesterday, and today we wil meet again for a couple of hours. :-) Her Mom and Dad should also be in town too. :-) a few more things need to be implemented, but all-in-all, we are on track. Still need the RJ 45 from Jason, but my clothing is cleaned and pressed. :-) Lock and Load!!! Soon I will be Mr. Ramey.

120 Hours till it begins

As of 9:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time (PST) today, there are 120 hours till the wedding begins. (9:00 A.M. PST=5:00 P.M. for you British folk, 7:00 P.M. for you Finnish folk, and 10:00 P.M. for you folk in Kazakhstan) Still looking for jobs, still trying to figure out how to take care of my teeth, but after that, all is fine. We have some stimmy ideas for a couple of projects that will manefest after the new year. Stay tuned. On the home front, we have started the gargantuan job of blending Emilia's and my shtuff together. We will probably not come close to finnishing by the time her family comes into town tommarow, but we can at least get her apartment to a point of minimal functionality. We can actually se patches of floor n' shtuff. This is goodly. :-) Have a wonderful day, and we shall see y'all at the wedding.

Jody

spider solitaire and phone book mishap

Well, I haven't written in a while, and that is because I have been busy, or because I have been playing spider solitaire on the computor instead of playing on the internet on the computor. I actually have been fairly busy. The current project is to get all the stuff moved from Jody's storage unit put away (or at least mostly away) before I have six people arrive for the wedding.
What else? Well, Jody's phone book disapeared, so he is looking for ways to get in touch with people before the wedding. Which is on saturday of this week. At 9 am. Rehersal will be friday night at 6pm (for any of those out there in the wedding party that may not know exactly what is going on) And hopefully, if you are reading this, and are in the wedding party, you will get in touch with Jody.

moving and organizing

Yesterday, Jody and I, with the help of my good friends Sheri and Sheldon, moved Jody's belongings out of his storage unit and into my apartment. It is now very crowded in there, but we hope to be organized before we have to move again. Jody's Bass (instrument like a chello, but larger- not a fish) is lying on the kitchen floor. I think that it should be called Pinkerton, but we have not discussed it. I also want to learn to play it, and Jody says he can give me lessons once things calm down and there is space to walk at home.
There are now ten days till the wedding. Soon, family will be arriving in town. I don't know where to put them, but I am looking forward to seeing them.

11 More days after today

Hello humans!!!! above you see a picture that I drew on the plane going to England a couple of weeks ago. It is the same picture, both views. It was drawn specifically to be two diferent things, a human, and an animal, depending on which angle you view it at. Since the plane ride there was so good, I could actually concentrate on something other then the pain in my head, and the spinny feelings that swirled through my brain (at least for a short while).

For those of y'all who are praying folk, Em and I still need jobs, and my teeth still need restration, or to have about $7,500-$10,000 worth of work to deal with the root canals I need, before the infection goes to my brain and I die or something. (note: Em and I did not pay for the trip over to England to speak..others paid our expenses) Please agree with us in prayer that a good job comes our way soon, and that a method of dealing with the teeth comes even sooner. We have even called organizations that help poor and homeless with dental care, and they are wanting a pile of money to pull all my teeth out. (Cheeper than root canals, and by the time we save up the cash, it will probably be what will have to be done to save my life) Toothless Jody...?

On a hapier note, Em and I are moving more of my shtuff in to our home today, and we made some progres toward Webcasting the wedding yesterday, so all seems to be progressing well. We should be able to get out evites for those watching the wedding live online soon. Stay tuned.

Pics From England

After emilia and I went to mass today, we picked up the England pics and took a peek. (For those who have not read earlier posts, Em and I recently went to the Autscape conference in Radstock, England, and spoke on the subject of Autism and Courtship) Some pics came out bad, others not so bad. for those of y'all who might find them interesting, I have included a few for your pleasure. This pic of a bird at Hyde Park was fairly bad, but the bird was so ugly it was cute, and I found him to be quite stimmy, so I included the pic anyhue, even though it does not do him justice:



and this next bird at Hyde Park (London) was watching us:



and for those who think I do not take the purely tourist-like photos, here is one taken at the observatory in Greenwich, right at the Prime Meridian. It does not get more tourist-like than that...jump to one side of the line you are in the eastern hemisphere, jump to the other you are in the western hemisphere:



When made it to Radstock, we had a little play time, and I celebrated in the beautiful fields with dance:



and spent time at the Jollife family monument:



Other times were spent hanging out with beautiful women:



but the most important message (Tee Hee) came from a sign on the road into Ammerdown Centre, the retreat center that the Autscape conference was held at:



there were other pics, and Emilia might include some of her own, but there is limited room, so I am stopping here. Hope you enjoyed them.

Jody

a new park

Yesterday, Jody and I went for a walk in a park that we had not yet explored. We brought a couple of little tupperwear-esque containers, anticipating that we might find some ripe berries. It was a pleasant walk, with some lovely shade in some spots. We did also find a lot of berries, but not very many that were easily accessible. We picked and ate, and picked and saved, and it was a good adventure. We also got a fair bit of work done on my place, organizing and clearing out spots to put the things from Jody's storage unit that will be arriving on Monday. My next goal is to get the computor area nice and tidy- hopefully today.

14 days after today

Or, for those who like it by the hours, at 8:00 A.M., Pacific Standard Time (PST), there will be 337 hours till the wedding begins. (8:00 A.M. PST=4:00 P.M. for those of you in England, 6:00 P.M. for those of you in Finland, or 9:00 P.M. for those of you in Kazakhstan.) We do not have much to go to finnish the wedding plans up, being that we got the guest books yesterday. Monday, Bernard and I are going to see if we can make our new webcam work with the system at the church, and assuming that is possible, we can start sending evites out for those who will only be able to attend the wedding via computer. We still have not develloped our pics from the England adventure yet, but sooon we will have some pics up. For those of you who might find this interesting, here is the tube station at Kings cross, in which we bought our tickets to Heathrow, in which we already had our plane tickets, so we could fly home.

yesterday's outing

Yesterday, Jody and I went out to Gresham by MAX. We had a nice stroll in the historic downtown area, and through the park as well. There we found a plethora of berry bushes covered in ripe delicious berries. Jody says that one of these days we will go on a berry picking expedition, and freeze some berries for fall and winter. Ariel is keeping me company at the computor as I type. She likes the computor a lot. She managed to change the walpaper and the web settings single pawed (I don't know how exactly- stepped on some important keys, no doubt)
We reminisced about our walks through Hyde Park, and talked of our schemes and dreams for the future. It was a lovely day. Today we may have the opportunity to work out the web casting puzzle, and that will be nice.
I have two appointments at PSU today, and I may also stop in on my advisor's open office hours. She will be teaching Syntax in the fall, and I have heard so many bad things about the subject that I have started to study early. I am fortunate to be taking the class from her, though, she is an excellent professor.

Tuesday to do, 18 days

Today we meet over at Jantzen Beech in the continued quest to find a web-camera for web-casting our wedding.
What else we will do, I do not know. It should be a good day- it looks now as if it will rain. That will get some of the allergens out of the air, and keep it cool as well.
We have 18 days until the wedding- that is one and a half dozen days.
On monday of next week (21st) there will be one dozen days left,
and from the following sunday (27th) there will be half a dozen days left,
and from that wednesday (30th) there will be half of a half of a dozen days left.
One could also say that from the middle of the 31st there would be half of a half of a half of a dozen days, but that would be carrying things a bit too far ;)

travel updates

I just got an e-mail from my sister, she will be flying in with her husband, Kris, on the 29th. We were hoping for more time together than that, but it was not possible to get earlier flights because of the holiday rush. I am glad they were able to find at least something. It will be wonderful to have them here- they have not yet met Jody, and I feel certain that they will really like each other.
The contingent from Bozeman may be caravaning in at roughly the same time. Mom and Dad are planning on continuing on from here to southern California to see Mom's folks, and Ruth hasn't met any of the family down there. If they decide to continue on and then fly back, they will need to keep their time here on the short side, as Ron doesn't have much in the way of vacation time.
They are already helping out with the wedding from afar. Mom and Ruth Ann are putting together the bouquet and repairing the veil.
We picked up a wireless web-cam to webcast the wedding, but there seems to be a glitch with that- the camera we bought has wires (odd) and Jody's Mom is helping figure that one out.
Things are moving along, and pretty soon everything will be in order.

Countdown By The Hours

The wedding is comming, faster than we think. Here are a few mileposts to illustrate the soon-to-be affair.

On 10 August 2006 @ 11:00 A.M. there are 550 hours till the wedding begins
On 11 August 2006 @ 12:00 noon there are 525 hours till the wedding begins
On 12 August 2006 @ 1:00 P.M. there are 500 hours till the wedding begins
On 13 August 2006 @ 2:00 P.M. there are 475 hours till the wedding begins
On 14 August 2006 @ 3:00 P.M. there are 450 hours till the wedding begins
On 15 August 2006 @ 4:00 P.M. there are 425 hours till the wedding begins
On 16 August 2006 @ 5:00 P.M. there are 400 hours till the wedding begins
On 17 august 2006 @ 6:00 P.M. there are 375 hours till the wedding begins
On 18 August 2006 @ 7:00 P.M. there are 350 hours till the wedding begins
On 19 August 2006 @ 8:00 P.M. there are 325 hours till the wedding begins
On 20 August 2006 @ 9:00 P.M. there are 300 hours till the wedding begins
On 21 August 2006 @ 10:00 P.M. there are 275 hours till the wedding begins
On 22 August 2006 @ 11:00 P.M. there are 250 hours till the wedding begins
On 24 August 2006 @ 12:00 Midnight there are 225 hours till the wedding begins
On 25 August 2006 @ 1:00 A.M. there are 200 hours till the wedding begins
On 26 August 2006 @ 2:00 A.M. there are 175 hours till the wedding begins
On 27 August 2006 @ 3:00 A.M. there are 150 hours till the wedding begins
On 28 August 2006 @ 4:00 A.M. there are 125 hours till the wedding begins
On 29 August 2006 @ 5:00 A.M. there are 100 hours till the wedding begins
On 30 August 2006 @ 6:00 A.M. there are 75 hours till the wedding begins
On 31 August 2006 @ 7:00 A.M. there are 50 hours till the wedding begins
On 1 September 2006 @ 8:00 A.M. there are 25 hours till the wedding begins

On 2 September 2006 @ 9:00 A.M. beigins the wedding ceremony of Jody John Ramey and Emilia Squyres. Again, all are invited. :-) St Michael The Archangel Catholic Parish, 424b S.W. Mill, Portland, OR., Locaed accross the street from the PSU bookstore.

thursday thingys

I am putting together a good plan for this thursday. There are 23 days until the wedding. I think that today I will run errands, and go to Portland State, and work on cleaning, and work on my article for the August newsletter for DACA...
I brought back two postcards from our recent trip to England- one is of Seattle, at night with a full moon, showing the downtown area. The other is of the Abbey at Bath, at sunset/dusk...
My cats are both doing well, I think they lost a little weight while I was gone (they are supposed to be on a diet) They eat low-fat diet cat food, but somehow when I am here, they eat so much of it they don't loose any weight. A cat sitter, on the other hand, is not here to plead with for extra servings. So they were doubtless annoyed, and yet helped out by my absence...

today to do

Today is tuesday. Jody and his Mom will be meeting with Deacon Chuck to fill out a form (they sent one by mail to my parents) and I will bring in the marraige liscence and a letter from the parish where I went through RCIA.
Every day will be busy between now and the wedding, but a lot of the wedding related things are in order already. I am glad that we did not leave everything for the last minute. That would not be fun.
What will be fun is having my family come in the week before the wedding. Hopefully, the work will be basically done when they get here, but they are more than willing to help with any thing that needs to be done. And when they are here, they will have a vehicle, so running last minute errands will be no problem.
One thing Dad is looking forward to is having some meals together, going to some of his favorite eating places, especially a nearby Thai restaurant and an icecream shop called Cold Stone Creamery (they have the best-ever ice cream).

Back to the USA

Well, Em and I are back at home and all is well. When we were in England, it was another world. I have been out of the country several times, but never sharing the experience with someone else, so I was in a new frame of mind. We got to England on the 30th of July, and I was not compleatly deaf, but VERY close, in both ears. This lasted for about a day, which was not too bad when compared with previous flights I have taken. We stayed at the Lancaster Hall Hotelin London the nights of the 30th and the 31st.

On the 31st we got the chance to visit the University of Greenwich, the Maritime Greenwich Campus, which is centered on the principal buildings of the Old Royal Naval College, part of a World Heritage Site on the banks of the River Thames. Henry VIII, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I were all born here. Go to the link below to see a pic of the grand square. (Note: The Statue is of George II)

Follow Link

The chapel was also very beautiful, and there seems to be no picture that can capture the 3-D celing that is all carved flowers. The Painted Hall is also very beautiful.

On the first of August we traveled to the Ammerdown center, just outside of Radstock, England, to go to the conference we were scheduled to speak at, Autscape, the only conference in the world to address Autistic adults. Most autism conferences will not address the needs of Autistics themselves, and of the few that do, Autscape is the only one that specifies the needs of Adults. Em and I were speaking on the subject of autism and dating. We had one principal address, which went well, and we ran two workshops on the same subject, both of which were outstanding. People were enthusiastic, and I believe we learned more from the participants than they did from us.

We got a chance to reconnect with some people we have not seen in a while, and we met some cool new people...all in all WE HAD A BLAST!!! On our way back home, we spent a few hours in Bath, and one of my favorite sights is below:



This is the Pultney bridge, which is one of three bridges of its kind in the world, with shops on both sides, foot, and car traffic. It crosses the River Avon, and is a romantic sight to stroll by.

On August 5th, just before we went to the Heathrow Airport in London, we visited the St Pancras Old Chuch, which is the Oldest sight that is still used for Christian worship in England. It is rumored to have been used since the 4th century, but the most reliable records date back to the 6th century, when St. Augustine rededicated the church. there is only an alter stone that dates back to the 6th century that remains. All the rest of the archetecture has been rebuild and/or refix afte...over the centuries. It is a merry mix of shtuff on the inside especially.

On our flight back home, a gentleman had a heart attack on the plane, colapsing at my feet, which was an exciting affair, and even more exciting was the fact that he lived. When we flew into Seattle at 5:30, leaving London just 1.5 hours before (the magic of time zones) we had to wait till 8:10 to catch a Geyhound to Portland, getting us in just after 11;00 P.M. There is a lot more that I can say, but for now, I will leave it at this. Oh...for those who are counting, there are 25 days after today till the wedding.

Peace

Jody

back home

This has been such an eventful week, I don't know where to begin! Our trip to England has taught me valuable lessons about working together as a team, and about communication. Also, if I am ever flying out of Heathrow again, I will forget what the ticket suggests- getting there two hours early- and make it three. I have never seen such crowds or such confusion massed together in one place.
The Ammerdown center, where the conference was held, is beautiful, out in the countryside. We took the train from London to Bath Spa, and had some time there to explore before we were picked up to go to Autscape. I would like to spend more time there in the future, given the chance. We didn't see the Roman Baths because it was expensive to get in, and we didn't have that much time. I will look forward to seeing them next time. The Abby was amazing. I got a postcard and mailed it back to my parents in Bozeman MT.
I will write more about the trip later.