Fred and Valerie

I’m in the process of paying bills and I was writing down how much I’d be paying Sprint for our cell phone bill when I noticed something odd. Most companies have an empty box where the customer would write in the amount that they’re paying with their bill. Sprint, on the other hand, has a series of boxes for each digit, complete with arrows as substitute for commas. This is the gist of what it looks like/represents:

_ , _ _ _ , _ _ _ . _ _

For those who may have missed math class, that’s enough spaces to account for a bill that is one penny shy of $10 million. Maybe it has something to do with their newly increased fees for text messaging?

Specifically, the Red Carpet shows. When you have hosts like Ryan Seacrest asking Jessica Alba if she’ll be breastfeeding her soon-to-be-born child, it’ll make you feel like a genius. We’re talking Albert Einstein levels here.

We’re officially licensed to wed!

This time, it wasn’t me. Instead, we had to take Valerie to the Emergency Room last night at 12:00 am because she had broken out in a rash/hives. By the time we were leaving to go to the Emergency Room, it was pretty much visible on her entire body. The doctor told us it wasn’t a food allergy, but was very likely something she came in contact with. We don’t know what that was because we haven’t changed detergents or anything like that.

It all went away by the time we crawled, half awake, out of bed to get ready for work, but we’re still searching our brains to think of possible causes.

It’s Presidential Primary time here in Virginia, so if you live in the Commonwealth (or Maryland or D.C.), be sure to get out and vote today!

We got our votes in at 7 am this morning. We were numbers 20 and 21 at our polling location.

And for those who are interested, the Virginia/Maryland/Washington D.C. Primary has been referred to as:

• Potomac Primary
• Chesapeake Primary
• Pundit Primary
• Crabcake Primary (had we known this before watching last night’s Daily Show, Valerie would have made crabcakes!)

The short version is: Don’t use Blue Mountain Weddings to video your special day.

The slightly longer version is:

As Valerie and I are neck-deep in the process of planning our wedding, we are keenly aware of the large number of wedding services provided to brides and grooms who want to have their special day made as special as possible. But how does one choose the right services for their wedding? Unless someone you know has recently been married, it may be difficult to find good advice for whose services to use. And even then, there may not be enough of a track record to know if you’re being provided with a good service or not.

Despite being able to easily book an amazing photographer for our wedding, Valerie and I knew we had gotten lucky. This fact was emphasized after a co-worker used the same photographer for the wedding of her son and daughter-in-law. It’s been even further emphasized by the troubles and lack of professionalism they have experienced with their wedding videographer, Blue Mountain Weddings.

I won’t go too much further into this, but things like failing to write protect original tapes (see: “Basic Filming Tips”), constantly zooming in and out without necessity, and filming most of a wedding at a Forest Gump-like tilt are simply inexcusable for a “professional” videographer and reek of being an amateur.

Valerie and I already eschewed the idea of having a videographer for our wedding and our decision has been firmly affirmed by my co-worker’s experience with Blue Mountain Weddings. Because this is a co-worker and her son and daughter-in-law, it saddens me to think this, but we will stick with putting our own video camera on top of a tripod and will likely end up with a superior final product.

Last year, Valerie received a refund of a whopping $0.20. Actually, she never received this refund and while I don’t recall the reason, I think it had something to do with the fact that the refund was less than $1.

It seems that this year was no different with regards to Valerie’s state taxes, but instead of receiving $0.20, this year she got a bit more:

Refund Information
Your Refund is: $0.60

And, unlike last year, this year I DID choose to receive the refund by check. I really didn’t fell like putting in all the bank account information for a refund she’s not likely to receive.