When I was about my son Trey’s age (11′ish), I had no idea where life was going to take me. Though even then, the novice romantic in me saw myself with an extraordinary partner living in a cute little house with the white picket fence and everything. My tastes in architecture have changed a little, and after 29 additional years of experience, I have learned that life has a way of kicking you in the butt at times. Nonetheless, another lesson I’ve learned is that Life does seem to give us what we wholeheartedly focus on in our deepest self and soul. Even after many walks down some broken paths, I always held on to that childhood dream.

I am absolutely certain that the young boy I once was would be proud — nay, deliriously ecstatic! – to know that the older, wiser me would one day announce my engagement to a truly beautiful and amazing woman, Kelly Lawrence. Through some very fortuitous twists of fate and what obviously has to be a case of temporary insanity on her part, Kelly has said “Yes” to my marriage proposal asked of her on September 26, 2006 (about 10:20pm). So there it is folks - I’m getting married. I officially asked, and she officially said yes!

Somehow I doubt my fiancée’s inner 11-year-old ever dreamed she’d see such a thing as a blog announcement for the world to see so soon after the event, but hey, her adult self is well aware of what she’s getting into. (And besides, I think she secretly digs it!) If she’s still speaking to me after she sees this, the 11-year-old IN me, AND the one I so proudly call my son, is looking forward to a long and happy life with her.

Stayed tuned for more exciting news and updates in the weeks and months to come. In the meanwhile, you can see what transpired during the proposal in this slide-show we put together here.

PS - No - that’s not the actual ring in the “mousetrap” photo; to see the Ring, Look up in the banner at the top of this page or click the mousetrap to see the slide-show.

The Apple Store - What a place! We went there to address a problem that Kelly’s 7 month old iPod Video (30G) was experiencing. It would not hold its charge longer than an hour which was quite annoying during workout’s and when you want to actually listen to music.

After entering the rather crowded store, (more…)

Here is a list of useful Excel websites and blogs. from my Del.icio.us account. They have been tremendously resourceful over the years. Once on Del.icio.us you can use the tags “Access”, “Visio”, “Word” and “Windows” for other useful sites related to those programs. Enjoy………..

Kelly and I finally got to meet our friends and get some photos taken today. We’ve always wanted to get some “Professional” photos done by someone that didn’t make us feel like we were auditioning for a low budget adult film and we finally got lucky with a friend of a friend of ours. In any case, we think the photos from the shoot turned out GREAT, (although I am sure we are a bit bias), but the most important part is WE HAD A BLAST!.

Click on the photo below to be taken to the slide-show on Phanfare.

We went to the fabulous beaches of Myrtle this past week. “Ernesto” decided to drop us a visit on our next to last day, but all of the rest were full of sunshine, eating, relaxing and simply recharging the batteries! Oh yes - And Monkeys!! Click the photo, or CLICK THIS LINK to go to our photo album from the week.