This postI am Bach. Er, back.
Going two days without the Internet was interesting. I was fine as long as I didn’t think about it, but when I did, I met with anxiety to get back and check my e-mails and write more blog posts. Crazy. :)
Anyway, Friday night after the family/friends dinner, we were out on the driveway with the groom-to-be, and he took off his wedding band to show us what his fiancée had inscribed on it. And then with a gasp from him and a clink-clink from the concrete it fell to the ground and rolled underneath his truck. We got a flashlight (it was 10:30 or so) and saw that it was in one of the inter-slab cracks, so one of us reached in to pick it up. Imagine his surprise when a cockroach skittered out of the ring. :) The roach kept moving, thankfully, and the ring was successfully recovered. I wonder if I’d kissed the cockroach if she would have turned into a beautiful princess… (If I had kissed it, though, I’d probably be six feet under now.)
When my future daughters get engaged, the first thing I’m going to do is give a cantaloupe to the couple. Get it? :P
The bathroom scale Saturday morning was somewhat less than complimentary. Or it was telling the truth, and the truth has become somewhat less than complimentary. Either I’ve lost 15 pounds or the scale thought I did. But I don’t really have 15 pounds to lose. Time to start packing it in…
One of the cool things about the Las Vegas Temple is the dome-shaped ceiling in the foyer. If you stand in the center and whisper, it sounds like the Nazgul scenes where Frodo puts on the ring. And if you stand at one edge and whisper, someone across from you can hear your voice as if you’re speaking into a microphone. Crazy acoustics. I need to get a room like that in my future house… :)
Saturday evening during the reception, we betook it upon ourselves to “prepare” the newlywed couple’s truck for their grand exit. Being nice fellows, though, we kept the damage minimal — balloons inside, streamers all over, shoe polish on the windows (and not on the paint!), and saran wrap everywhere. Considering that they were able to drive off two minutes after arriving at the vehicle, it wasn’t too bad. :)
But the best part was just before that.
See, at breakfast we’d been chatting, and I randomly happened to mention the Diet Coke and Mentos version of the Bellagio. Since we were in Vegas, it seemed like the perfect addition to the reception. So we stopped by Wal-Mart afterwards and picked up 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke, then went to a gas station and got some Mentos. Luckily there was an empty field nearby. We walked out there, opened up the bottle, and dropped a Mento in. Up went an eight-foot fountain.
Now, that was well and good, but we wanted something more spectacular. I reasoned that we needed to decrease the diameter of the aperture (which would theoretically increase pressure and shoot the fountain higher), so we borrowed a cordless drill from the groom’s brother-in-law and brought it to the reception, along with four bottles of soda and two packs of Mentos. We drilled holes in the caps (a centimeter or so in diameter), then speared four bobby pins with three Mentos each. We placed the Mentos underneath the cap, with a couple centimeters of bobby pin sticking out the top so we could hold onto it, and then waited for the bride and groom.
When they walked out, we dashed out to the middle of the street, placed the bottles in a line, screwed on the caps while holding tightly to the bobby pin, and counted off.
“One, two, three, four.” Four fountains shot up 20-30 feet in the air. We scuttled back so we wouldn’t get drenched with Diet Coke. I think the other guys made it, but as I was backing up, a stream pelted my head and the front of my shirt. Oh well. It was spectacular, and well worth it. Hopefully I’ll get some pictures from my roommate so I can post them on here. :)
Anyway, I’m glad to be back. Lots of work to be done…
