Rino and Jess

"It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married." - Robert Frost

This Thanksgiving weekend, my cousin Rino got married here in Austin to his fiance Jessica.  I was very happy for them and it was a beautiful wedding.  It also served as a family reunion of sorts and I enjoyed visiting with all family on my mother's side.  It was a memorable occasion.

My cousin Rino and I were born seven days apart and lived about an hour away from me growing up.  We spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house.  There were many male cousins in our age group including Adam, Isra, Mario, Abram and myself. Adam, Rino and myself spent a lot of time together as kids getting into all kinds of trouble, but we also made things, broke things and various projects that involved fire. 

When I think about what it means to be a cousin, Rino comes to mind.  Rino and I have this birthday tradition where on December 27th he gives me a dollar and on January 2nd, I give it back to him.  At one point we even framed the dollar and just exchanged the frame.  Even though we played a lot as kids, we didn't really catch up as adults until I moved back to Austin in 2007.  By then he had already met Jessica and it is hard to picture them any other way than together.  I feel like I got to know Jessica pretty well when Rino lived with me at our house in Buda.

You know, I get ahead of myself.  I'll take a step back and talk about the entire holiday weekend.

This year my immediate family had Thanksgiving at my new home.  It felt nice being able to host a holiday.  My father came into town before everyone else on that Tuesday so that we would have time to visit.  He helped me install the two ceiling fans that I bought for my house.  I was very happy with the way they turned out, but too bad I won't really get to enjoy their benefits until the spring.  The next wave of the gang showed up on Wednesday.  This included my niece Rebekkah, my mom, my sister Eliza, her daughters Tori and Celeste, and Gil.  Abram and Ashley helped prepare the turkey for Thanksgiving and I wasn't too involved in the food preparation other than enjoying everyone's good work.  We had a lot of family time, visited and of course, got to watch some football.  It was nice to have everyone together although my sister Ana and her kids didn't get to show up until Friday.

I didn't do any Black Friday shopping unless you count a new camera that I bought for myself online.  Friday we had the rehearsal for Rino and Jessica's wedding.  The church was nice, over 100 years old, with a very kind pastor.  The groomsmen consisted of Rino's cousins, so we were all pretty close.  The bridesmaids were nice and having known Jessica for some time now, I had either met or knew most of them.  I was not a big fan of the wedding planner, she meant well, but was a bit too condescending for my tastes.  I also couldn't understand how or why she could still have an original iPhone.  3G maybe I could understand, but the original?  We were instructed like petulant kids not to chew gum, and not to lock our knees for fear of fainting.  I will say I was honored to be able to stand next to the best man, Rino's cousin Vince.

After the rehearsal, we went to the rehearsal dinner where we were greeted with unlimited pizza and beer.  Had Thanksgiving not been the day before, I think I would've taken greater advantage of the situation.  This was the first time I really got to sit and talk to my cousin Adam, his wife Kirby and relatively newborn daughter Kali.  Something changes in a person when they become a parent I think, they just seem so much more responsible and grounded.  His daughter looked just like him and he called her as a nickname the Spanish word for monkey.  My cousin Israel was also there with his wife and his, also what I would consider relatively newborn, son Mateo.  His son looked a lot like my grandfather and also reminded me of myself as a baby, which made it easy to like him.  Seriously, there were babies and kids everywhere, including my cousin Vanessa's newborn daughter.  I want to make clear, when I use the word newborn, I just mean less than a year old since that is the best I can do in trying to understand the age of the baby without actually trying to keep up.

Friday night, now that my sister Ana and her three kids, Andrew, Michael, Sarah and my cousin Alex and her two daughters were over at my house, we played board games in my living room.  We played the game Gestures, which is just a form of charades that I actually remember playing with my older sister when I was a kid.  It was a very fun time, though I still have to say that Taboo is my favorite game.  I had at least 12 people staying over that night and it was like a little refugee camp, but in a good way that it created the atmosphere for a lot of bonding.  It reminded me how has a kid we would all stay at my grandmother's house for Christmas and it never felt like there were too many people.

Saturday was the big wedding day.  I put on my tuxedo, which included suspenders, something I had never worn before.  I can see why Larry King likes them so much.  I'm not usually a fan of brown, but I think they were nice.  I got to the church early to meet up with the rest of the groomsmen and take some pictures.  I don't often chew gum,  but I decided to chew gum that day.  A fellow groomsmen may or may not have brought with him a bottle of Crown of which I for one enjoyed. I got to see the bride before the wedding, Jessica had on a very pretty white dress that she looked very nice in.  I can only imagine how hard it is to shop for a wedding dress.  I've been to my fair share weddings recently, but this is the first wedding in a while where I really knew the bride well as opposed to mainly the groom.  Rino's nephew Sebastian was the honorary ringbearer and looked adorable.

It was now time for the wedding, the pews were filled with family and friends and I walked out with my corresponding bridesmaid to find our place.  The actual wedding is kind of a blur, but what I remember was the happy expressions on the bride and groom's faces.  The two moments I most vividly recall were when they exchanged rings and how they almost kissed before it was time.  It was a very nice ceremony and I hope everything that the bride and groom imagined.

Then it was time for the reception.  My housemate Norbert worked the bar.  I thought the DJ played good music and a lot of time was spent visiting with family I had not seen in quite some time.  We don't have family reunions, but family weddings seem to serve this purpose perfectly.  But what I will say, was that the comment, "so when are you getting married?" seemed to come a lot more often on this occasion.  It normally doesn't bother me, and I know this is a common issue for single people my age, but it also seems to come with unsaid assumptions or insinuations that can be awkward.  This was extremely apparent when it came time for the garter toss.  There was only a handful of us standing up there, and when you take away the teenagers and the people in unmarried relationships, there was 2 or 3 of us.  As the garter flew towards me, in what felt like slow-motion, I figured I wouldn't be a jerk and move and instead I would just catch it and accept my fate.  This thought process was short-lived, as an older gentleman who I didn't see behind me, pushed me out of the way and lurched for the garter.  He seemed so very happy and proud as if somehow this really meant that he would be getting married next.  I was happy for him and still remain garter-less in the weddings I have attended.

The rest the night was spent drinking, dancing and talking with family.  They had a photo booth, which is starting to become a staple at most weddings, that everyone found to be very enjoyable including myself.  I still don't get the stupid mustache thing but hopefully that hipster trend will fade over time.  I enjoyed some debates about the idea of having a "no kids" wedding in a family with as many kids as mine has.  This can stir quite the emotions I must say.  Here are my photos from the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyadus/sets/72157628393337905/

The night ended with sparklers and a send off.  I'm very happy for Rino and Jessica and since they have always been a team for as long as I've known them as adults, I look for to see them embark on this next stage together.

As far as weddings go, 2012 already has 3 more lined up.  My friend Rick's, my friend Oscar's and my brother Abram's.  It is shaping up to be a good year.

books

Splitting Image

"There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins." -Josh Billings

I have always found identical twins interesting.  As a kid I always wondered what it would be like if I had a twin sibling, well that and being left handed....and how cool it would be to fly, but I digress.  How crazy would it be for there to be another person who looked just like me, with the same genetic information, but still a completely different person.  The closest I could use to compare was that I was lucky enough to have many siblings including one brother, but the idea of twin I didn't know about crossed my mind.

I haven't personally known too many pairs of identical twins in my life, but I have known some.  In Junior high, there was a girl, who I hate to say I don't remember her name, that was a twin that had a crush on me, or so said her letter.  I remember thinking that I really wished I liked her cause how cool is it that she was a twin.  I never really got to know her though as we went to different schools.  My sophomore year in high school I met a girl who was a few grades older than me and was also a twin. We became good friends and it was the first time I started seeing twins as two separate individuals rather than as one entity.  I grew to know her well in a short time, but I didn't know her sister very much at all. They had different personalities from what I could tell and my childhood preconceptions were being shattered or more appropriately educated the more I got to talk to her.  The cool thing was how rarely it actually came up.  I remember thinking that it was weird that I was just good friends with one of them, but not both.  It didn't take long to realize how much that didn't make sense and in retrospect, I feel silly having thought things like that.

That same year I also became friends with another girl who was a twin and this time she was younger than me.  I got to know both her and her sister, but grew much closer to one.  She was probably the person that taught me the most about how everyone is their own unique individual and the effects of viewing people as a pair.  I also got to observe the bond that some twins have.  It doesn't take long to get past all the childish questions, but they were so much fun to ask.  Can you read each other's minds? do you feel each other's pain? how did they not mix you up as kids? who is older? How do people tell you apart? Have you guys ever pretended to be each other? etc.  This is actually in a small way similar my experience with one of my first openly gay friends where I was able to get out all my silly questions upfront and then just get to know them as a person after.  I always enjoyed trying to tell identical twins apart. There were other twins in my school, but I just didn't know them as well.

I always thought that when I was ready to have kids, how great would it be if I had twins. It is a random comment I have made to family and friends. Yeah, I assume it would make the whole raising a baby thing twice as hard, but in the end you would have two kids in the same time it would take to raise one, though the effort and expense would probably also double.  Maybe I view raising a child as such an enormous undertaking that I'd rather get two out of the way at once rather than have to go through it twice. Considering that I've waited to get married or have kids it would also let me have a bigger family than I might otherwise have had.

The thing is that twins don't run in my family, so the chances are low, unless I married a person who had twins in their family.  I'm not completely knowledgeable about the science, but that is how I generally understand it. I also remember the adage, be careful what you wish for.  I probably haven't thought much about this since I was much younger, but it has recently come to mind and it brought back a lot of memories.  Twins are rare, which is what makes them interesting.

shellfish

Apple II

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs 

I found out last Wednesday that Steve Jobs had passed away.  I wasn't surprised, but I was still sad to hear the news.  I was never a big Apple person, but I do own an iPhone, MacBook and iPad, so I guess I'm more of an Apple person than I thought. Steve Jobs was pretty inspiring and makes me really look at my own life and if I'm really working towards my full potential. I'm impressed with his life story and though I personally have issues with some of Apple's labor practices over seas, it doesn't stop me from buying Apple products, so I don't say much about them.

I don't remember how old I was when we got our first computer, but it was an Apple.  It was an Apple II+ which my dad bought at a garage sale. My research shows that it was introduced in 1979, so we got it many years after in possibly the mid 80s around 2nd grade. It as new to me and awesome.  Plus, going from no computer to your first computer is a huge milestone.

What I remember most was the green screen monitor, the car racing game and the dot matrix printer.  You know, the type with the holes on the sides of the paper that fed through the printer.  There was a program called "The Print Shop" and you could print banners.  I LOVED printing banners and thought the idea was so awesome.  It is funny that since technology advanced making that long paper unnecessary, we lost the ability to print out long banners.  That is a setback in my opinion still today. You could even make your own greeting cards, which I thought was cool, but never used the function, except maybe once for invitations.  I remember getting invitations that were printed from the Print Shop and how cheap they seemed.  But back to the printer, man, I would just love watching it print, each line and how memorized I was.

Later on, we moved on to getting a PC and my love for computers grew.  I spent a lot of time on it and wanted to learn everything about.  I started in the AOL days and quickly learned how to get free services.  I'll never forget my 14.4k modem and that momentous day when I got to upgrade to a 52k modem.   I spent a lot of times in chat rooms and enjoyed editing my AOL profile, which was kind of like the first Facebook since you could search other people's profiles and add them to your buddy list.  Do chat rooms even still exist?  I haven't used one since high school.

I never learned to program, something I regret to this day, but I spent enough time playing with computers that in college I was able to get a job as a computer helpdesk technition, helping people solve their computer programs over the phone and in person.  Even today, I can help most friends with their computing problems, but I'm still a bit behind the times. I have seen technology pass me by and I just focus on the things that interest me.

I never went back to Apple until the iPhone came out.  Then about 2 years ago, I got my first MacBook and really like it.  I still use my PC as my main desktop computer, but really like my MacBook for everything else.  I even got an iPad for my father who seems to enjoy it.

So those are my computer nerd stories. Yeah, I don't know Steve Jobs, but from what I know of him, his work, I'm sorry that he had to pass away so young.  But man, it also makes you feel like no matter how crazy rich you are, you might be able to delay death, but once you die, you take nothing with you.  That in part does inspire me to just follow my heart.

peace of mind

Looking for my whole life

"Fortune and love favor the brave." -Ovid 

I know this has been a trending topic in my entries recently, but love is definitely in the air.  I got some pretty exciting news this month, twice.  First, one of my closest friends since elementary school just got engaged to a wonderful woman.  Then, not too long after, a good friend of mine who I met in college also got engaged to a great woman.  How cool is that?  I am very happy for both of them and, of course, for their fiances as well.

There is something about knowing a person as an individual and then watching them meet a person they fall in love with and watching as they grow as a person.  You can see the happiness in their eyes and in their demeanor.  This is going to be one of my shorter entries as I just wanted to memorialize my excited feelings in my blog, but I look forward to watching everything develop leading up to their big days.

joy