Justin and Amber

Hopefully this is just part 1 of a 3 part series…. There was a photo I had taken when I got married that even before I saw it I decided it was going to be my favorite.

It wasn’t the photo of Amber and I kissing… Nor a photo of us dancing. It was a photo we took from the roof of the church that had *mostly* everyone who could make it at our wedding in it. It was and is to me, probably the strongest representation of our friends and family supporting us… Although, it would have been cooler to have about 100 or 200 more people who got left out of it in it…

In any case, for the longest time I’ve wanted to build an index of people in this photo, and make it easy to find them without having to play where’s Waldo. I wanted to do this using Google Maps. However, until last night, I hadn’t taken the time to actually learn the API well enough to make this happen… Well, here it is… my first attempt at a google map. I don’t have the index yet, nor am I going to explain how this was all done… but soon, maybe I will… For now, just enjoy the photo as if it were a google map .

It’s hard for me to comprehend how long 25 years is.

After all, it’s roughly the amount of time that I’ve been alive. The only people I can claim to really have known that long are my parents and immediate family… With the first non-relative that I still consider to be a best friend being Richard coming in at 17 years. Relationships take work to maintain that long…

So yesterday, I found myself celebrating 25 years of marriage with Mike and Jill Radabaugh (Amber’s parents). It was quite a day. It started by going to church at the church where they were married. Followed by a photo shoot (I wouldn’t be surprised if more photos were taken yesterday than on their actual wedding day) with the family. We then went to lunch where they had their wedding reception (and I ate WAY to many eggs, it was all you can eat…) From there, we spent the rest of the day playing Clue, watching the Indy 500, and testing out their new Blueray player.

It’s quite impressive to see a marriage that has gone that long. I know how much work it must have taken (ok, probably not, but I’m guessing it was the amount of work it took Amber and me the last year, times 25). I can only imagine what Amber and I will be like in 25 years when we get to that same point.

So I’m not really a bachelor… but I am alone this weekend.

Amber went to Nebraska to be with Amy for graduation… I had some obligations Friday and Saturday that I really didn’t want to try to get out of… On top of that, I really wasn’t in the mood for an 16 hour trip for a 1 day stay. I love my sister, and am very proud that she graduated.

That said, so far this weekend has felt like the single life for me… Which to be honest, is kind of a refresher for me. It’s good to get some time away from the wife for a little bit (sometimes).

The biggest change: the time at which I’m going to bed. I stayed up last night til 2:00. Tonight, I plan on doing the same. It’s funny, I seem to be at my best, both as a late night person, and an early morning person… I’m not very much of an afternoon person… I’ve also been watching movies while I work… which is something I used to always do on the weekend, but no so much since I’ve been married because my Wife wants to watch them with me, not while I’m on the computer.  I’ve also made a little bit of time for World of Warcraft .

I spent today coding and playing DnD with the group (2 very epic sized battles today…). Tonight I watched Nascar (I’ve barely done that at all this season, and was happy to catch the last 50 laps… Jeff’s mistake made me mad. Jeff’s charge from 12th to 4th in the last 15 laps made it all worth while. Now I’m going to write some more code, probably watch another movie… And maybe play a little bit more gameboy (I’ve been paying Fire Emblem for the DS).

Really (and this is going to sound bad) I’ve only missed Amber twice… Once while falling asleep last night… and then again today when I could find a good way to get rid of Alabaster (Amber is pretty good at that).

And since I feel like the proverbial multimedia reference must be made in this post, and I don’t have any of my DnD related stuff ready to go that is worth posting… I figure I’ll just post this: