I completed the program entirely online through WVU. WVU is in The Big East Conference with an enrollment of approx. 27K and located in Morgantown, WV. Ironically, I have yet to visit the campus.

I'm still somewhat torn if I should flaunt the letters - somewhat in vogue or somewhat snobby depending on how you look at it. Plus, what should they be: MMC, MSIMC, MIMC?

I doubt I'll use them. Undercover.

Well, Buffalo may have their hit on television right now. It's a show about a doctor of sorts; a love doctor!

The show is titled `Confessions of a Matchmaker` and is both entertaining and bittersweet. Novak is hillariously pragmatic with her dating advice, and you begin to ask yourself 'shit - Buffalo looks happening`. I've already seen people I recognize. I could see this being the 'Dawg The Bounty Hunter' of real-world dating. Novak is king in a Vinny Parco kind of way.

If you haven't seen it - check it out at the official 'Confessions' website. Runs in a tough spot right now though - Saturdays at 10:30 pm, but I could see it changing if we're the norm.

If you're really into Buffalo and want to monitor what's up, here's the sites I visit. It's like you never left home....

1) Buffalo Rising - Elmwood-esque, updated daily. George and Newell do a great job.
2) Illuzziletter - Joe is still at it, but now has a gigantic following. The down-and-dirty of Buffalo politics.
3) The Buffalo News

It was one of my goals this year to prepare and pass the test. I found out this week I passed. For what it's worth, I can now put the 'CAE' letters behind my name. That and 25 cents....

Here's what I came away with in taking the exam for others considering it:

The Material - Don't sweat the legal stuff as much. The Professional Practices book delves into all you need to know about that area. Also, of the three texts they recommend, principles and practices are by far the most important. Read them. It worked for me. Supposedly the authoritative literature is changing; if you are a specialist, you should have an idea on your area that atleast check off off learning segment.

The Tricks - Read Ben Martin's 13 Tips (http://caeexam.blogspot.com/2005/03/13-tips-to-help-you-pass-cae-exam.html), especially Tip #7. Think at a national level. Read the question carefully. Always look to gather more data before acting on something. Staff - management. Board - policy. Study groups of some type help some, but your mileage will vary. If anything, you get to meet other association people and talk things out.

The Test - The questions on the exam we very similar to a variety of study exams out there. Check with your state/local society to help you connect with these materials. Remember to pace yourself; go back to the questions that were tough and stick with your gut instinct. Don't second guess this; it is usually right.

Work threw me a little party. My wife and family patted me on the back. Some of my professional colleagues took notice and have offered encouraging words.

For that it has been worth it. Go for it yourself.

Our club's contest question - Describe the last 24 hours - was basically slow-pitch softball. I took a chance and basically went into an act. The good 'ole 'It was hell' routine. It went over fine and I moved to the next round.

The Area Contest

I had been to several area events before, just not as a contestant. This one was held at a library in North Raleigh. The question caught all of us three combatants off guard. 'You were on a ship 20 years ago. Tell us what has changed and what has stayed the same'.

Had no idea on how to respond. I came up with some very, very lame story about how was still a man, a patriot and a friend. I just tried to keep talking. Nothing really made sense. Somehow, I won the chance to proceed to the division level.

The Division Contest

This turned out to be quite an event. I arrived at exactly 6:59 pm. Had I arrived anytime after 7:00 pm, I would have been disqualified. Thank goodness I decided to ask to directions from the very place the contest was being held at.

There were approximately 60-70 people there and I went against 6 others.. The question was 'Pick any moment in history to go back to and state the reason why'.

I came up with playing pool with the kings in medieval Europe. In hindsite, it was somewhat lame, although I thought I did a good job with it. I thought I performed well.

The judges obviously thought differently. Although I failed to win, place or show, I got a little trophy for my efforts.

1) Creates two separate accounts: the main domain account and an account that supports only the 'parked domains'. On the parked account, use a 301 redirect to the main site. Supposedly, this tells the Google that the URL is permanently moved and passes the duplicate content test.

2) If you are utlizing cPanel, add an 'Add-on Domain' of the domain you would like to park. Then, setup a redirect to the index of the main site. This creates as similar 301 permanent redirect that passes muster as non-duplicat content.

In both cases, one should utilize a Header checker to gauge what the Spider sees. Keep in mind that this technique has been known for sometime and comes up regularly.

John Graber (Joanna)
This is the house they lived in
-Howard Graber (Grandfather (dad's dad)
One Brohter / 6 sisters
- Arthur Graber / eddiys father
- Ethel
- Elsie
- Agnes
- Margeret
- Helen
- Dororthy


Eileen Graber (Kavanaugh) (13 children)
- Four Brothers
- 1 died in fight
- James
-Bill
-Joe
= Other guy killed in bar room fight

- Edith (oldest)
- Margaret
- Kate
- Mary
- Camella
- Anna


Mom's Side

Bert and Florence (Shea)

Bert Brown
- Came from Cleveland
- Youngest of 11 children
- Gussie married cop
- Like Buffalo. Got job with NiaMo.
- James (Detroit)
- Jim (detroit)
- Two sisters:

- Rhett:
- Two daugthers (Mary /Ellen)
- Ellen
- Mary Catherine
- Jimmy (!)
- Ann
- Michael (lawyer)
- Mary (died suddenly)
- four girls

- Gussie stayed in Ohio:
four children
(son / three daughters)

Florence
- Brother Danny
- Anna (Sister)
- Grace (Sister)

- Helen (Sister)
- Judy (statler)
- Walter (brother ?)

florence has 2 children
- Grace (Mother)
- Maryann (Aunt)
- JayBee
- Maureen
- David
- Donna
- Daniel James Brown (died in Hospital - never came home)

Check All Belts - The first thing to realise is that they build cars differently now days. Where something can be rubber instead of metal, it just might be that way. On the Jetta, for instance, I found out that my Timing Belt had broke and needed replacement. Unfortunately, I was driving while it happened. This inturn cause MAJOR damage to my intake values. Big error and costly. Fifteen benjamins.

Address The 'Funny' Things - The ignition key on the Jetta always went it funny. Not smooth. Felt almost like the wrong key. Part was put in wrong originally and inturn caused all sorts of problems. Starter, ingition switch. A judgement call or laziness, who knows. Only nine benjamins this time. However, there would be more.

Trust Your Instincts - The shop that completed the repair the first time got it back again. Their warranty covered everything, but it was a hassle. Lost my car for nearly a week. Finally, I get my car back and it breaks down the very next day - but this time I'm 90 miles from home out-of-town for work. Big fiasco that keeps me up to 2:30 am - thank God for Erin for picking me up. Because I was so pissed off, I lost trust in that shop. I decided to take it to the people who fixed my first problem. Yea it cost me another five benjamins, but I trust them. Plus I got a warranty. The other shop just seemed to be replacing parts.

I've addressed my concerns with the previous shop. Seems like they issue may have been non-OEM parts that didn't work well together. It will be interesting to see how it plays out....

Join AAA and Get The Plus Membership - I have been a AAA Plus member since 2000 because I drive used cars and anything can happen. I used my 3 free tows all up within the last six months. If I hadn't on had that, the tow I needed from Greenville would have cost me about $300.00. It didn't cost me anything.

The saga continues.

The Academy utilizes the fast-and-easy GoToMyPC.com. This tool performs wonderfully and is simple to set up. The only drawback is the price to use it. For personal use, it's $19.95/month. I thought this was pretty steep, so I set out to find a more economical way.

After a short amount of hunting, here's what I came up with.

RealVNC and DynDNS
RealVNC.com is a UK-based company spealizing in remote access software. As a test, I downloaded and installed their free Personal Edition. If things worked out, I planning on purchasing their $50 'enterprise edition'. Their package loads a 'VNC Server' and a 'VNC Viewer' application. The server and viewer is a whopping 800KB.

To set up the server, I following their online setup guide. It was pretty easy. What's nice about the package is the Java viewer. That means there's no download; any Java-enabled browser will work.

Configuring Firewall and Router
After the software install, I had to configure my Firewall and Wireless Router to accept connections from the Internet. This has been the toughest part. As I tinkered, I had the idea of accessing my computer via my company's domain name (Grabers.com) instead of just some IP addess. But because I use a cable mdoem for my connection and my IP address changes every so-often, I needed a solution to map my changing IP to my domain and have things refresh as they changed. This is where dyndns.org comes in: dynamic dns services.

Setting up DynDns.org
This part was tricky. You must purchase 'Custom DNS' services from them at $24.95 a year. If you want to forgo this, they also offer a free version, but the domain names you can pick from a limited. I thought it would be 'more enterprise' if I used my own domain.

After purchasing, you must then setup up host-services. This is where it got tricky. I had to setup (or re-create) all of A, MX, and CNAME entries in my Zone File at my hosting provider. This info as easily obtained.

Adjusting Nameservers
The final step in getting this all to work is adjusting your domain name server pairs are your registrar. You enter the DNS entries given by DynDNS.org. The only tedious part is waiting for everything to propogate.

What appears to happen is that requests are directed at DYNDNS. From their, the Hosts file takes over. In my case, all web servering and email is directed back to my hosting provider. But my remote-control services are directed to my personal machine.

By the time everything settled, it was 6:00ish. I had to get me router back working and continue to make adjustments. These will probably be ongoing over the next few days.

Final tweaks have included making things convenient when logging-in. Accomplished via a simple 301 redirect.

The most ironic part was testing. The first time I succesfully logged-in, I used my Gotomypc connection to access my office computer. Weird.

Cross Platform Access
A very cool thing about this method is the ease in which you have a 'virtual cross-platform' machine. When I'm traveling, I bring my Powerbook. But since a majority of my day-to-day stuff is PC related, I now have a way to work on that platform without relying on VirtualPC. I simply open up Safari and I'm golden.

Another thing I may now be able to live without is a jump drive. If I have an internet connection, I can access all of my files. So what's the use?

Responsiveness / Speed
The solution is a little bit sluggish, but acceptable. To help it out, I optimized my 'local' machine to run as streamlined as possible. A lot of this had to do with the UI. The machine looks a bit retro, buts its tremendously more responsive locally. This should help out.

Windows-to-Windows seems to render fine. On the Mac, you get some dithering: seems to be running at only 256 colors. I'll continue to play with this.

In any case, you can definately get work done. It's not bad.

The International Pool Tour (IPT) is what everybody's talking about, even my favorite pool site, AZBillards.com, is lit up with it, even publishing a mini user forum made exclusively for its promotion. The tour offers the one thing that has been missing in pool for forever - reasonable prize money for winners. Because of this, people are just going nuts. In a sense, interest has been renewed I guess.

I've come to my own conclusion. I feel its a well-organized hustle. The tour is built on the premise of everyday pool players chasing big purses. To qualify for entrance, a player who doesn't already have an IPT 'card' must win or come runner-up in a qualifying tournament. Entry into these tournaments is either $750 or $1,500. The player chooses which fee he/she pays. One point: if they pay the lower fee, they are only entitled to half of the prize payouts during the 'championship'. While this is a steep entry fee for sure, it's easy to see how the IPT Qualification Tournament Entry System could atleast help offset some of IPTs large purse tournaments.

The way the tournaments are set up masks the fact that the qualifiers are simply a long shot for even an advanced player. But they also appear to be seeding the larger payouts as well. While many of their tournament qualifiers are attracting only 15-20 players, some of their bigger 'tour-card' qualifiers have attracted 75. For example, with 2006's 150 qualifying tournaments averaging 12 players @ $750, that's $1.35M. Still not a huge pot, but good seed money.

The point is that even with the seed money, the Tour is unsustainable long-term. In reading the IPT website, Trudeau does certainly make a great case for the tour, claiming that anyone who hasn't built a multi-billion dollar enterprise themselves shouldn't be critical. I especially liked his Q & A page

A Google Search on Trudeau
The most clear and convincing look at Trudeau (and possibly the IPT) came from a simple Google search, and of course the July 05 Salon article, titled What Kevin Trudeau doesn't want you to know . There's countless others in the mainstream media about this swindler, including ones in the New York Times. All give a straight-talk, no nonsense look at one of the best modern day hucksters.

All-in-all, the people Trudeau's hustling have never seen the money that he say's he committed to providing the tour. I'm certain they could care less; they just want to get paid. But it's a hustle in its grandest sense.

The Hustle
The billiard industry has struggled for decades to free itself from the image of dirty tricks and scoundrels. With a niche audience that the game attracts, I don't see this changing anytime soon. While Trudeau claims his tour will help free the sport from this very perception, I think his involvement may just reinforce it. Anybody even half literate would come to the same conclusion. That's where the hustle lies - atleast for now.

What will be interesting to see is how the IPT will shake out. There's already rumors of him 'selling' the tour. As of today, I don't recognize a lot of corporate sponsorship. I still can't see the model...

I'm sure he'll figure out how to scam or hustle somebody with the tour. I see it culminating in the same way as many of Trudeau's past scams: someone's going to foot the bill. And it won't be Kevin.

After I arrived, Chris picked me up at the airport. We went to Nig's shop to pick up his dune buggy - at least that's what I call it. It's a Suzuki Sidekick. I love the way it drives.

We got to Lynn's house about 11:45. I called Judy and Lynn at their work and we decided to meet up for lunch. I met them at the credit union and we ate some lunch in their 'conference room'. It was cool. Great Nino's pizza...

Because I needed a haircut, I went over to Burn's in the plaza. I hadn't seen Mike in awhile . It was perfect timing. I waited only a bit to get in the chair.

After the buzz, I headed off to Tom Feeley's for a birthday party for his daughter Devon. I got there around 3:15. It was great to seem everybody. Mr & Mrs Feeley we're there, so was Ann Marie. I hadn't got to see most of them in awhile - probably 5-6 years. Mr. Feeley is still a riot. They both looked great.

There were a lot of kids and stuff at Tom's. Tom's neighbor's, child friends and family. Tony Finaldi and his wife stopped by as well, with their two kids. Hadn't seen Tony in five-or-six years. It was great to catch up. I ended up leaving about quarter past six. I had planned on meeting up with John Dray and Hummel to go out.

I called Hummel and picked him up about 7:30. Dray had to go to a wake, but we met at Checker's on Hertel about 8:15 pm. It was good to see him. He looked great. Mineo showed up about 8:45. The kid is still a concept! Hadn't seen Tommy probably since before I moved to Raleigh. He lives on Grand Island now and still drives a kick'en older car. Mineo always had a penchant to such things; some stuff never changes...

We hung out until about midnight. It was the first time I had ever been to the place. Everybody at the Bridge had always talked about Checker's. I think Tommy Downing used to go there a lot. What's messed-up though, is that you can't smoke in the bar. It's whacked. This will probably be happening in Raleigh not to far in the future...

After we left, I wanted to stop by the Hippodrome to shot some. They had moved from downtown a couple of years prior and I wanted to check it out. I ended up getting to talk to Dick Vallone a bit. Even got to see Jeff Van Buren of all people. Jeff is the one who bought Shooter from me way back in ’94. He was re-starting Shooter and I brought a couple of copies home. It was great to make contact with him and I hope he emails me or something.

We jetted about 12:15 am and on our way home, Mark talked me into stopping for some take out. Slime dogs basically. Buffalo has great food; something I miss. Anyways, I got back to Lynn's around 1:00 am. Lynn and I watched a movie and I crashed about 2:30 am.

Saturday
Mark's wedding ceremony was scheduled for 11:30 am at St. John Vianney. I got to the church about 11:15 am. I hadn't seem some of Mark's family is about 25 years. I took a bunch of photos and since I had never shot a wedding before, I thought I'd make the best use of the opportunity for practice. I got back from the ceremony about 1:00 pm; I had stayed a little bit later to help take some of the group shots for Mark's family.

When I got home, I showed Lynn all the photos I took. Since they're were some people there that Lynn or I hadn't seen in years. It was good to catch up. I got to see the Biemlers for the first time. Mrs. Bacher. Even Mrs. Kelleher. After we went through them, I called Hummell and hung out with him for a bit. Came back home and burned a CD of the images, Also, because it took Erin and I so long to get ours back, I know they'll both appreciate looking at them on their honeymoon. That was the only thing that sort of sucked with our wedding: waiting for the photos.

The reception started at 3:00 and I got there around 3:45. It took place at The Knox Farm in East Aurora. Never had been there either. Mark and Amy had about 60 people. I got to catch up with Peter Canney and his wife, as well as Tom Dougherty and his wife. The food was great. After hanging out for a bit, I left around 6:00. I got back to Lynn's and chatted with her a bit. Called Erin.

With the night essentially free, I thought that I would play in Skulski's tournament they used to have on Saturday nights. Well, I went down there. Turn's out they closed back in November. Going back up Clinton, I decided to stop in Pocketeer. I went in and asked them if there were any tournaments they know of. Turned out that Diane Skulski was now working at the Metropolitan next door. I went over to say hello. They had their tables set up. After playing a couple of games and shooting the shit, Diane convinced me to try to go and find Norm again. I went back down Clinton and rapped on the door a few times. He wasn't there , so I finally gave up.

Now it was about 8:00 and I had nothing to do. I thought about going to Classic, but decided it was too far. I ended up calling John Dray and went to his house on Manchester. We hung out for awhilea and watched the race, went to go see his new house and then came back. I waited for a call.

Earlier, before I had left for the night, Lynn told me to give Tiffany a call later. She'd told me all about her new apartment and was dying to have me see it. I called Tiffany and we decided to meet up after she got out of work.

Her place is on West Utica, right near Elmwood. It's a great apartment. Her roommate's mother is an interior decorator and the place looked wonderful. I shot a bunch of photos of it. I even got to meet her roommate Michael. After seeing the place, we decided to go around the block to Faherty's. I used to go there on the weekends in the day. I ended up knocking them around for awhile. We left about 1:00 am, got a couple of slices on the way back. Even bumped into Todd Sedeegan, this dude I went to college with. Still the same; story-after-story.

I got home to Lynn's about ten mintues of 2:00 am. I was beat. I read the copy of the new Shooter I had and crashed.

Thinking about the weekend, it was great that I ended up having so much time. I got to see a lot of people. Do a lot of shit and wasn't rushed. The only bad thing was not having Erin there...she would have had a great time.

What was interesting is that he told me Carl Galante has a bunch of old copies of the original Shooter. Since I don't have anywhere near the complete set myself, the next time I'm in Buffalo, I'm going to try to get with Carl for copies.

Closure of The Pump Inn
On a more disappointing note, I found out that The Pump Inn closed back in November, 2005. For anybody into bar box pool knows, the Pump was synonmous with pool players, Saturday night action and charity tournaments run by Norm and Diane Skulski. I got to speak with Diane about the closing; she's now working at the old Metropolitan right next door to Pocketeer. I think that space has a fantastic amount of potential as the next mecca for Buffalo bar-box.

Looking back, I think I probably was hanging out at The Pump during its heyday. Every weekend brought a lot of players. KC Cogan, Mario, Jerry Howard, ReyRey, Phil Segio, the Kid, Fast Eddie, Billy Soles, Uncle Mark, Mark Hatch, Paul McKeal, Dennis Hatch, Joe Coia, Santo Merlo and the late Joe Mueller all would be there on Saturday nights for the eight ball tournament. You never know who would stop in. I saw a few touring pros and road players stop by. Everybody would match up. Of course who could forget AFT, Diane, Larrry the Magician and some of the other characters.

It went on for awhile - about a good year and a half I would say. Every weekend. Then things gradually petered off. Everybody just sort of moved on. It was great while it lasted. I got to see it first hand.

Friday - Drive & Rehearsal Day
I began the day by picking up Jim Little - Tiffany's boyfriend. I thought it was going to be a hassle and all finding him at the airport. Turns out I was running a bit late - I thought. It turned out to be almost perfect timing.

I met him right outside the terminal. It was a picture perfect interlude. He jumped in. And we were off.

We got gas and some shit and got of the road. It was Raleigh traffic at 12:30 pm and it wasn't so bad.

Our drive was pretty relaxing. There's was some traffic. We got through fine. Right around Wallace, however, we took a little detour.

Right at the Wallace exit, there was something up on 40. We got off and decided to catch a bite to eat at McD's. It dawned on me that we had to see Dr. Blair and Blair Family Practice. Unfortunately, it turns out that he was closed. Snapped some photos to prove it.

Since Wallace is only about 40 miles from the coast, we just jumped back on and missed everything. Interestingly, though, myself and Jim got a first hand look at this guy lose control of his car. He took out about 8-9 of those posts. The guard rail held, though. It was pretty freaky in a cool sort of way.

We finally got to the hotel at about 3:40pm. AFter checking in, the candles needed to be done. All hands were on deck. Everyone helped and they got it done in about twenty minutes.

I put out some fires and went with Mark to go pickup the cake. Apple Annies. After a quick stop to Wings for some flip flops, we had to get back from the rehearsal dinner.

The Rehearsal went great. The food was good. It was a nice setting. People really got a hoot out of the gifts we got them. Even Tommy made it - although somewhat later than expected, but still. Hopefully his food wasn't that cold... I thought the whole thing was just wonderful. Very nice time had by all. .

We got back to the hotel about 10:15. Everyone went to the bar pretty much. I just sort of visited with everyone. It was so special to see Erin with her friends. It was just such an amazing sight. She was just so 'having a good time'. Never seen her like that....Perfecto.

Got to visit with everyone. I was feeling good. Unbelievable actually. Just so great seeing everyone have a good time.

I saw Erin for the last time just about 12:00 Midnight. Before we parted ways, we walked down the aisle - just the two of us. We practiced our wedding kiss and even the twinkle. We listened to the waves. The ocean. We hugged...
I won't see her again to the wedding.

I concluded by hanging out with everyone at the bar. Bill Bond and Dan Bond showed up. Hanging out. Was great.

Near the end of the night, I was especially stoked by with the toast Charles made. He sort of roasted me. It was fantastic.

The exclamation point of the night was when the security guard had to kick us out. Not really a big deal.

The Rehearsal
This happened Friday night and started in the hotel. Nick took some excellent pictures of how some of it happened. Thank God for these!

We all met in the hotel's lobby and greeted. Carol got things going.

The rehearsal dinner turned out pretty cool too. The food was excellent and the room was the perfect size. What was even neater was the scenary as well.

After dinner and stuff, we gave everyone thier gifts. Tommy ended up getting there later than expected. But it worked out fine..

We all went back to the hotel and hit the bar. Erin got to hang out with her law school buddies. It was the happiest I've ever seen her while hanging out.

It turned that the idiot bartender decided to close the bar. She had three deep and buying at the bar. Tommy eventually ordered some shots...the bitch charged him some outrageous price.

The night ended with something awesome from Charles though. He had brought this truly excellent champagne and offered a toast. Everyone was there...very cool.

After that I went up to crash. I didn't get too much sleep. Tomorrow was a big day

Saturday - The Big Day

My big day started out by getting breakfast and spending some time with family and friends. The hotel ended up having a pretty bomb breakfast bar with great food. I got a chance to have breakfast with Dad, the D'Amicos and saw a bunch of other people. I met some of Erin's family for the first time.

I was nervous about seeing Erin - but I was assured that she was still in her room.

After breakfast, I hooked up with Mark Edwards and we grabbed cues and headed over to Break Time to play some. I had never been to Breaktime in Wilmington, but had heard about it for awhile. I turned out that the place was one of the better pool rooms I had been to. Great equipment. It had an attached bowling alley too.

After Mark kicked my ass for a couple hours, we had to pick up the cake at Apple Annies. When I went in, I overheard a couple in front of me talking about their wedding. I chimed in to tell them we were using Nancy Hearn. They told me that they had heard of her too, but had thought that her tasting cake was 'really dry'. I felt a lump in my throat; how could this be? Anyways, I decided to keep it a secret.

After that stop, I also picked up some hankerchiefs. I needed these to wipe Erin's eyes.

During this time (it actually started some in the pool room) I could feel myself getting pretty keyed up. Not a shaking nervous mind you, just a tight feeling in my stomach. It came and went.

I got back to the hotel about 2:30. I went over to the bar and we watched a little bit of the Sabres game. It was the first game in their series with Carolina. Turned out the won, thankfully.

At this point it was about time to start getting ready. I went up to Kirk's room and did my thing. Erin supposedly was doing her's one flight above.

My wedding party met me here eventually. Dad was there, as was Jim. We just shot the shit for a bit. Tommy had the great idea to play some cards. After some argument, we ended up playing some hands. We even had some 'chips' so to speak. At the end of the game, one of the players even took his winnings; it was a real hoot.
I really would have liked to watch the Preakness. It had been scheduled to run at 6:10 pm. (It's a good thing we didn't)

Finally, about 5:57 we all walked down. This was it.

I remember the ceremony quite well. I remember walking to down the aisle in formation. I remember having trouble getting the words out for the vows. It was just a great ceremony. I could hear the ocean.

After the ceremony we took photos on the beach. It was cool. After that our reception started.

After we walked in, we immediately did our first dance. This was something that we had worked pretty hard on. While I didn't know we I was going to do, I knew we were going to do well. I think we nailed it!

After that, the formalities took over. I thought my brother Vince gave an excellent speech. But Erin's father's was the best. I thought Megan did a great job too.

The food and the rest of the party was great. We visited as many tables as we could together. I think people had a good time.

After that I relaxed a bit and just tried to take it all in.

The only thing I regret was missing the last dance. I got tied up with BB.

Everything wound down and everyone sort of either left or went to the bar. Myself and Erin retired briefly but came back down to hang out a bit. The security guard was a bit more foregiving tonight.

Sunday - The Wedding Breakfast
In the morning, Jim and Kathie hosted a wonderful wedding breakfast for everyone. If gave us a chance to see everyone once again before wishing them off.

After we hung out and packed up everything, mostly everyone was either headed back to Raleigh or waiting to fly out that night. Erin and I had to get back because we were flying out early Monday. Besides, we were having house guests on Monday night (Bobby/Rob/Danny/Jill) because they were catching the Sabres game in Raleigh.

We were at sea by the time the Sabres lost.

Cartier-Bresson specialized in natural-light, 50mm photography. Click here to see and learn about his life and work.

Recently on a trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC to do some wedding planning, we stopped by the restaurant where we'll be having our rehearsal dinner - The Bluewater Inn. While having lunch dockside, I snapped the shot below. I think it contains some elements similar to Bresson's famous work, if only a few. Kind of a throwback. (Shot at 70mm/f18/100)

One thing Cartier-Bresson tried to teach other photographers is to use their instincts and to look (feel) for the 'decisive moment'. More often than not, in their pursuit of mechanical perfection and the resultant hesitation, they miss the shot entirely. Cartier-Bresson always stressed 'take the shot!'. He was the master of the decisive moment.

This is much easier said than done.

According to Bresson, "To take a photograph means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organisation of visually perceived forms that give it meaning." In laymen's terms, it's called fleeting reality. You hestitate, you miss it.

I think that's what I did somehow in the shot above - if only in a small way. If I would have thought about of the other things (focus, aperature, etc) I would have missed it. I shot anyway.

Take the shot!!!!

To confirm my hunch, I visited one of the foremost authorities on web user statistics - the W3Schools.com Browser Statistics Page. Although their stats come with a very clear disclaimer, noteably that 'You cannot - as a web developer - rely only on statistics. Statistics can often be misleading. Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, other sites attract hobbyists using older low spec computers', it still suggests a lot to consider when building and maintaining a site.

Since clients often confuse monitor size with available 'screen real estate', it's nice to have the stats to refer to.

A key point in these statistics, however, is that W3Schools measures and samples only visitors to its own site, and their statistics cannot reliably be extropolated on a global basis. And because their visitors are mainly comprised of web workers and professionals, some of their stats (especially pertaining to Javascript and user-agent type) may be a bit skewed. Either way, it does give you a good glimpse.

One thing also to consider as far as what format and screen resolution to support is there are work arounds. For instance, liquid-based design conforms to nearly any size. Its drawback is the difficulty in maintaining a 'tight design'. Sites utilizing it take longer to construct and the conceptual methophor changes dramatically. It's also tricky to implement due to limitations/differences in browser implementations of standards, especially CSS.

In the future, browser support for the standards should become more consistent. While this should make implementation easier, coming up with workable concepts will still be a challenge.

Another path to mediate screen resolution is a growing trend of dynamic resolution-dependant layouts. This essentially combines three existing technologies: javascript, CSS and the Document Object Model (DOM). Basically, the Javascript samples the user's agent or browser, gets its screen resolution and them adjust the CSS dynamically. All of it happens on page load. It's more work and requires scripting skills and knowlegdge of the DOM.