Monday, June 04, 2007

How did I get by without one?


My wife and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this past Friday. It's an event that falls off most people's radar and I think that's due to the way we did our wedding.

Neither of us wanted a big wedding and we didn't want to spend the money that is needed for such an event either. We decided we would have a small ceremony at the home of a retired Navy Chaplain. We had two witnesses and the Chaplain's wife in attendance. Their home was beautiful with a HUGE staircase that the bride was able to walk down as she entered the room. It was an emotional ceremony and had none of the tension of the more theatrical big wedding. We left for our honeymoon trip immediately after the ceremony and everything was great and grand.

For all intents and purposes it was like an elopement rather than a traditional church wedding. We have the most fond memories of our small ceremony, but I suspect the lack of other participants is why the anniversary itself goes without fanfare except between she and I. It's our own fault for being so quiet about the event, I know, and think for some people it was a point of contention. Family out of state and in, as well as others were offended that they didn't get a wedding invitation. Pure and simple - no one got a wedding invitation. There were none. The ceremony was for us and God since that was really what it is all about for us.

So, if you are a person who thinks you were slighted those 17 years ago, please know, you weren't.

OK...that's a long road to go down to talk about an anniversary gift, but here goes...

My dear wife bought me an iPod Shuffle. I have never owned an iPod, though I had checked them out from time to time when in department stores. It seemed like a great idea, but it always struck me as a little extravigant for some reason.

I was sorely wrong as I now deem this sliver of technology to be a necessity!

I have the Generation 2 version which is teeny tiny and holds 240 or so songs and will play for around 12 hours on a full charge. It integrates with iTunes on my MAC and works like a charm. The sound is amazing and the unit is almost weightless. It plays in the car through my casette adapter and so the portable CD player is a thing of the past.

I was listening to music I hadn't heard in years as I quickly compiled a playlist from my moderate CD collection. What's on my iPod? Well, just about a little bit of everything: Kerry Livgren, Beatles, U2, Resurrection Band, Bride, Evanescance, Kiss, Al Green, Johnny Cash, Badfinger, Grammartrain, POD, Alanis Morissette, 12 Stones, Extreme, Larry Norman, Stryper and Van Halen.

It's an eclectic mix to be sure and sometimes the transition is a bit jarring when randomly switching from one of these artists to the other, but this is all my music, all the time.

Ha ha...life is grand!

3 Comments:

Blogger Brett Brooks said...

I have never felt in the least bit slighted that I wasn't at your wedding.

But...wow. Seventeen years? Really? Hey, at least I can count myself as one of the people that was there when you met your wife. But that's only fair, since you were there when I met mine.

Congrats to you both!

June 08, 2007 12:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. Has it REALLY been 17 years? I too was there when you met Taura. I consider it to be an honor to have been your friend at that time. Laura and I are coming up on 25 years in July, so congrats! I was fortunate enough to get an 80GB iPod for Christmas, then bought myself a Macbook Pro last month. I've since converted all of my church tracks from tape to digital, plus have software to transfer video from my Tivo to my Mac (which came in handy writing DVD's for Corey in Kenya). Tell your wife I said hello and congratulations to you both. You've earned it.

June 12, 2007 10:22 PM  
Blogger cliff said...

Congrats on seventeen--Susan and I just celebrated our thirty-sixth anniversary on Friday, June 15th (or our thirty-ninth on Saturday, June 16th--we met on 6/16/68 and hoped to get married on that same date in 1971, but that was a Wednesday and the church was already spoken for because of Wednesday night services, so we opted for Tuesday 6/15/71 for the wedding).

And I'm glad you've discovered the simple joys of an iPod. Wait 'til you've got an 80gb iPod to fill up; you'd be amazed what an eclectic mix you can get then! (I keep all my Christmas songs in my 15,000 song active mix, which can drive Brett crazy during the weekly drives to the warehouse...)

June 17, 2007 11:51 PM  

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