Some Nerdy Hanukkah Fun

I know it doesn't start until the 20th, but still, you have to love it.

Two Nerds do Christmas

Well it is that time of the year again; Christmas. Lights, trees, candy canes and... a nerdy flare!

Our first Christmas in Florida we found ourselves in need of a tree. While live trees may smell nice, we have candles for that, and decided to go the route of artificial. At Walmart we looked at some pre lit Christmas trees and others which had no lights. but the one we settled on was a 32 inch fiber optic, for a whopping.... $12.88! It glows through the colors of the rainbow and is just the right size for our apartment.

Over the past 2 years we have collected a myriad of ornaments, most of which are from some of our favorite movies (I apologize for picture quality...)


(Blog continued bellow initial pictures)

Star Wars

 

Indiana Jones

Other more "traditional" ornaments

Well, as with any Christmas, there has to be a little drama right? Well... one of our Star Wars ornament's has raised some eyebrows. If you've been watching Star Wars since the very original movies you might remember  George Lucas's decision to change the scene in the cantina where Han and Greedo have the conversation about Jabba's money.  Originally, Han didn't wait for Greedo to fire a weapon. Being a bit of a rogue, he shot him first to save his skin. 

Well, Lucas changed that in later versions of the movie while adding in extra scenes and tweaking the graphics. In the new version, Greedo takes a shot (and presumably he is a terrible shot despite being a seemingly seasoned bounty hunter) and then Han shoots him.

When we first posted a picture of the ornament, and mentioned it talked through the scene, the question immediately came up, "does Han shoot first?" Admittedly, while we had listened to the ornament before, we hadn't really listened to it, so we checked it out to be sure, and then proudly posted that this lovely ornament followed cannon and Han, did in fact, shoot first. 

 I look forward to doing a follow up post later about who gets added to the tree this year. If you enjoyed the start of our Christmas tree (yes start, we intend to continue to nerd it up) You should also check out this article and see the trees some of our fellow nerds came up with. rather amusing: Geeky Christmas Trees [Pics]

A Traditional Wedding, Nerd Style!

Ok, so going into the whole "wedding planning" thing I knew two things:

1. Our wedding had to have a good bit of Nerd in it
2. Anything less than a traditional wedding wouldn't be acceptable

I say that it wouldn't be acceptable to not have a traditional wedding because I know my mother has always seen me as her little princess, and she wanted to see our wedding be all those things a mother wishes for her daughter's wedding to be: beautiful, dignified, lovely, a symbol of who the bride and groom are... Well... the bride and groom are nerds, and most "nerd weddings" I've seen are either slightly offbeat, totally traditional, or people are in costumes and Vader brought in the cake (Mom would kill me).

So my mission, which I chose to accept, was to do both!

And I did!

We were married on a beautiful afternoon in May surrounded by our friends & family. 

The ceremony was fairly traditional, but with just a few quirks.

First, we had two ministers. 

My Uncle and Rev Studley, a member of a fellow paintball team. 

Yep, married by a paintballing reverend (who, by the way, can kick some serious tail on the field.)

This was probably the only wedding most of our guests will ever see, where paintball was discussed during the ceremony. Studley did so very tactfully and it added a unique spin to the service.

After the Ceremony we took pictures with the bridal party (above) and then with the paintballers! (bellow)

The Ceremony went off without a hitch. The travel to the reception... well that was a slightly different story. Even though I was the one who wrote the directions to the reception site, we managed to miss the exit, with out entire caravan of the bridal party in tow (about 6 cars)! 

We then, all made an illegal U-turn (together, in one big chain) and eventually found our way back about 10 minutes later than anticipated, but we chalked it up to pictures and no one noticed... except all the cars who witnessed the lovely U-turn extravaganza.



Our Wedding cake? Traditional. White, blue scroll, green initials, and a lovely cake topper.
The Nerd? Well you see that cake topper? Han and Leia.




Our First dance was to U2, Beautiful Day.

We took pictures in the gardens.
The girls' pictures were pretty Traditional.








The guys' pictures, well I think you get the idea.

 If you remember, in our first post, In the Beginning, I mentioned that Jason (on the right of the picture) smacked me with a magazine. You may also notice that that same magazine is in his hand in this picture, which he gave to us after the toast (where he told the story of how he met us).

We did the traditional bouquet toss but instead of the garter toss we did the breaking of the glass.

Then there was dancing, some traditional songs, and then some not so traditional ones, like the Cantina song, White and Nerdy, Raise your Glass, and All along the watch tower (for Galactica).








Here are some additional decorations from the reception including:

M&M's,

the Candy bar,

blue pinwheels made by my Mom,

The Exit? We went out to "Returns a King" from 300 under a light saber arch with rose petals being thrown,

SO MUCH FUN!

In the Beginning....

This tale started with 2 nerds, completely independent of each other. They didn't know each other, but they both knew a 3rd nerd, Jason. Possibly one of the biggest nerds.

I (Sarah) met Jason in high school when, during freshman year (when I was still just a whelp of a nerd), I made one great mistake ("great" meaning both good and huge{but not at the same time!}). I saw Jason reading  a magazine with Yoda on it before band class began. The main article was about John Williams. The name sounded familiar, so in an effort to make at least one friend, I (ignorantly) asked if he did the voice of Yoda.

Jason promptly rolled up the magazine and smacked me over the head repeatedly with it and informed me that not only was John Williams NOT the voice of Yoda but he was the amazing composer who did all the music of Star Wars. How could I not know this?! Despite the beating, we became fast friends. It was Jason, along with a friend, who converted me from Clarinet to Tuba, who I geeked out with at band competitions, and who gave me my tour of the college I would go on to attend (and play Tuba in the marching band alongside).

Jason had found a group of people who played D&D and other dice base role play games with and my roomie sometimes played with them, so on one evening I stopped by to hang out. Enter the second nerd!

On a couch, working up a character, sat Tom. At the time he had a girl with him, and I wasn't really looking to meet anyone new, so this meeting was simply in passing. It wasn't until several weeks later, when someone in our dorm failed a wiring experiment, that we spoke again. I returned to the dorm to find 2 firetrucks infront of the building and everyone on the lawn, watching firemen walk into our building with axes. I didn't see smoke or fire, but I was a bit worried. I looked around and saw "Jason's friend" and walked over, asking if he knew what was going on. Tom explained that some idiot had been messing with some wires and set off the smoke alarm. We kept chatting but again, nothing much came of it.

Still more weeks passed, and I found myself late for class without my book. As I literally ran into our dorm, I heard a voice ask if I wanted to hang out later. Without knowing who the heck I was talking too, I replied "yea sure!" and ran off to find my book so I could get to class. Hours later, on Facebook, Tom messaged me asking if we were still hanging out. We were supposed to hang out? Yeah, sure why not. I'd be over in a few minutes. I completely forgot I had band that evening, and it was the first and only time I missed band class (my favorite class). We went to see Hot Fuzz and got into a game of poking each other. We chatted the rest of the evening back at the dorm, and I completely lost track of time. I realized this as the sun was just glimmering in the window, and then I realized it was sunrise, not sunset. We walked out to the band field and watched the sun rise together, then split ways. I'd completely forgotten to check in with my roomie, or even let her know I was alive. I'm pretty sure she believed I'd either been kidnapped or murdered because I NEVER just "didn't come home."

While that was the first time Tom and I hung out, it wasn't the last.
----- Within a month we were dating
----- 2.5 years later we were engaged
----- a bit over 2 years after that we became 2 nerds, married.

It's now been just over 6 months since the big day and 5.5 years together. 

We don't claim to be perfect, but we balance each other out. 

This blog is going to focus on our nerdy side and the various things we like, experience, and go through both together and independently.

This is our Nerd Life. Enjoy!