Wedding and Marathon

It was definitely a full weekend (leading to harrassment for not blogging). My friend, former roommate, and coworker Matt Ostercamp got married this weekend. Yea Matt! But the fun started Thursday night when I was surprised at 5:30 by a phone call from my friends Nicki and Erick in China. It was 6:30 in the morning their time, but they were used to being up early for classes--they're English teachers--and decided they could use the time to call me. That was a great surprise, though I didn't recognize Nicki's voice at first and had to ask to whom I was talking.
Friday night was Matt's bachelor party. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs at his friend Brian's house and then went and played Whirlyball. Whirlyball is a sport that is kind of a combination of basketball and lacrosse played in bumber cars. You use trackball rackets (a.k.a. "flippy things") to pass the ball and shoot at a net that is where the square would be on a basketball backboard. It's a great game at which I am not very ept, though I got more ept with a faster car. I started and finished in a car that was a yugo when everybody else was driving beamers. It also gets you good and sore between driving the car and getting bumped all over the court. When I got home I read for a while, and finished In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, the 6th in the Ladies' No.1 Detective Agency Series. It's a good light book and involves a very pleasant moment for Mma Makutsi. After that I watched The Big Lebowski and then stumbled off to bed around 3:30.
Saturday was the wedding rehearsal and dinner. The rehearsal was alright but the air conditioning was not on in the church, or at least wasn't noticable, and this was a hot weekend. This was more than made up for by the delicious Chicago deep dish pizza at Stefano's in the city and spending time with Matt and Unity's friends and family. Matt also gave a copy of the War of the Ring strategy game, which I look forward to figuring out and playing with him sometime. He gave each of the groomsmen a game, which is very Matt. I like mine, though I'm a little jealous of the guy that got Conquest of the Empire--that's a sweet game that I used to play with some other Hewitt guards. Saturday night also included a viewing of X-men 3. I enjoyed it but thought there were too many characters and too much plot for the time alotted. I often think the latter about movies. I don't have any investment in the X-Men as a comic book series so I wasn't as disturbed by the movie as some fans have been.
Sunday I got to hear a good sermon on Mark 10:35-45 and secret servanthood delivered by Nate, our youth pastor, and grabbed a quick Culver's lunch with some guys before rushing down to Elmhurst for the wedding. It was a good ceremony but a long time to be standing on the steps in my groomsman shoes. At least I wasn't standing there in bridesmaid shoes and at least the AC was on. A couple of cool things I appreciated in the ceremony: Matt and Unity each read a letter that they had written to their in law families thanking them for the influence they had had on the respective partner; also during the lighting of the unity candle (it didn't seem quite fair that there wasn't a Matt candle as well) Matt and Unity stood head to head and prayed for one another after the candle was lit and while the song progressed. The reception was fun. It was a good meal and the dancing was fun. I got out there for some of it. My friend Jennine, who was up from Tennessee said it looked like what her father would do if he danced. It's probably about one terpsichoric evolutionary stage beyond what Daddy and Don Miller do, but she didn't see me let loose on "Cotton-Eyed Joe" Unity's family is Puerto Rican so there was some salsa, including the father/daughter dance. Another cool thing they did instead of tossing the bouquet or "pulling the sock" was to call all the married couples out on the floor to dance. Eventually the d.j. would ask all the couples that had been married less than 1 yr. to step to the side and then progressed to see which couple at the reception had been married longest. I think it was 42 years. That couple got the bouquet.
Monday it was over to my friend Sarah Beyer's for a Lord of the Rings marathon. We started at some time after 10 a.m. and watched all three extended editions, taking a couple of breaks in between to get some good pizza for lupper and to watch a nice sunset. It finished a little before 11 p.m. Those are some great movies. Combine the movie marathon with the fact that I'm listening to the last few chapters of The Two Towers in my car and you've got my quote of the day.
Well, it doesn't rain but it pours as they say in the Shire. Hopefully this satisfies you post-callers for another 12 hrs. or so.