So two weeks and counting

We're officially hitched. Married. Knot tied. Balled and Chained ... (ok, so I made the last one up).

There were so many interesting things that went on from just prior to the wedding, through the honeymoon, and now with being married.

Yesterday, Abby forwarded me an e-mail she'd sent to Sarah about "this Jason guy" early on in our relationship. Well, maybe before it really became a "relationship."

Before we got married, we "celebrated" our first date as the start of our relationship, although I didn't ask her to be my girlfriend until about two-three weeks later. It was pretty sappy and yes, I actually "asked" her to be my girlfriend. We might have been watching Top Chef at the time.

Anyway, March 25 will have its place in our lives, but so will May 8.

I'm now into a townhouse and out of my co-worker's spare room. Gary, said co-worker, has long been a friend and was the only employee who came to the wedding. You might have seen him with his wife Patricia sitting with my family. Gary and Pat have been pseudo-parents to me for a while, since I actually saw them more during wrestling trips than I did my own parents during some stretches of my life.

Abby packed up her place and the movers got my storage unit emptied today. But that's for future talk. Here's some things that were memorable about our marriage so far.

1. It snowed on our wedding day. Abby wanted a December wedding. My job (and the timing of our relationship) didn't allow this. So she got the next best thing, a May wedding with snow. My friends who came from Virginia (and Colorado) said, "I came all the way to Minnesota in May to get snowed on?" Or something of the like. I found it fitting for our Minnesota wedding.

2. The South African pinotage at the wedding was a huge hit. Point to Abby for making me a borderline wine-snob. the pinotage is awesome and something we discovered in South Africa.

3. During the ceremony, I almost "lost it" three times. You could see me walk down, start the chatter of the jaw, then take a deep breath.

4. In Aruba, we were swimming on the beach, and within 10 minutes, my wedding ring was gone. Yes, I lost my wedding ring on the Monday after our wedding. It slipped off my finger as I was about to climb a ladder to a platform to jump back into the water. Stupid sunblock made my fingers uber slippery. I found the ring (Well, someone else did) about 12 feet down on the bottom of the sandy Caribbean Sea.

5. We got strep throat on our honeymoon. Go figure. Had to wait until we got to Philadelphia and hit a minute clinic to get some meds. We're better now.

6. Cheesesteaks. While in Philly, we went to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Then we hit Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's ... some of you might have first heard of Geno's from the Boys II Men video for "Motownphilly," still one of my favorite songs. The two are across the street from one another and have had a battle for decades. We split a cheesesteak from each. Abby liked Geno's better, I prefer Pat's ... I'd been to both on several occasions prior, having lived 90 minutes away.

7. Amish Double Beds. Seriously ... we're on our honeymoon, and the only rooms available at the Historic Strasburg Inn, had double beds. Not to mention, they were nailed to the wall. You couldn't move them! And to unplug the lamps! They were blocked off too. We borrowed the alarm clock to take to my house so we could listen to some music. The alarm clock had an MP3 input, so I used my iPod and this alarm clock to kill time while painting and cleaning out all the bugs from my house in Lancaster.

8. Never used Budget for anything. We had several problems with Budget Rent-A-Car with the wedding and the honeymoon. Apparently, if you book online, you can't get an answer from an attendant. You have to change things online, you can't deal with customer service in person. The two do not co-exist.

9. It's strange calling someone "my wife." Especially when you were single for 29 years.

10. Holy Crap ... we're married!

Sometimes I wonder what she sees in me ...

... and I don't mean that negatively, but for someone who is as wonderful as Abby to put up with me has been nothing short of amazing.

I'm currently sitting in O'Hare ... after missing a connection (or four) and spending my fifth night here. I'd previously spent four individual nights in this airport and of course, with the weather, you can't do anything about it.

However, this is the second time in a few months United has screwed me over. While checking in at the Colo. Springs airport, I knew my flight was delayed. This would cause a problem with my 45-minute connection in Chicago. I asked to be re-routed away from Chicago, to which, the attendant explained that with all the delays, my connection would be sitting there.

She didn't account for the ground-stop that caught a lot of delayed flights up with passengers. I sat and watched as my flight to Richmond backed out of the gate and taxied out to the runway, all while I was still on my plane from Colorado Springs.

So why did I start this the way I did? I'm talking to another insomniac wrestling friend of mine talking about all this travel. I know there are some issues with how my job works that doesn't fit within the traditional realm of work/business/whatever. It's a non-profit, the second I've worked for. We work in this business because we love the sport (well, most of us anyway).

So I'm looking back at the last few weeks and upcoming weeks of travel. This ... is what I'm referring to.

Here are my weekends.
March 4-5: Division III Nationals in Cedar Rapids
March 12-13: Division II Nationals in Omaha
March 18-20: Division I Nationals in Omaha
March 26-27: USA Wrestling Girls Folkstyle Nationals in Oklahoma City.
April 2-3: Easter (I didn't travel, but there was a national tournament in Iowa we ran)
April 9-10: USA Wrestling University/FILA Cadet Nationals in Akron.
April 16-18: Abby came to visit.
April 20-25: U.S. Open in Cleveland
April 30-May 2: In Virginia for the kind of Bachelor Party (tame, I assure you, or it will be, since I'm still NOT THERE YET!)
May 7-8: Minnesota, Getting Married to the most wonderful woman in the world.
May 9-13: Aruba
May 13-14: Philadelphia
May 15-17: Lancaster, Pa.
May 21-22: NOTHING!
May 28-29: USA Wrestling University & FILA Junior World Team Trials in Colorado Springs
June 4-5: NOTHING!
June 10-11: U.S. World Team Trials in Council Bluffs

And I sometimes wonder why she puts up with me!