It’s our last full day in Bar Harbor. We decided to take the ferry over to the Schoodic Peninsula. During the journey over, we saw this behemoth in the harbor:

I don’t know if you can see it in the small image, but click through to the full size image and check out the tail of that helicopter on the back of that yacht. If you look carefully, you’ll recognize the helmet of the Miami Dolphins. A little bit of googling later and I confirm that it’s H. Wayne Huizenga’s yacht, The Floridian. With room for 12, a helipad (!), and a decompression chamber for divers, this boat is huge, and it looks it when you roll by.

We’ve heard the chopper flying overhead the last day or two. It passed over us when we were on Bar Island today and we saw it last night heading out to the ship. That helicopter is one of only three of its kind flying in the U.S. Must be nice to be Wayne Huizenga.

The Modern Bride

Originally uploaded by sujal.

Is this the sign of the times, or what? Heidi is putting a post up on her blog linking to the photos on my Flickr site after getting requests from friends for where they can find pictures.

48 hours after the wedding (almost exactly), we’ve got some pictures up already, blogged about it, and did all of that ourselves without really interfering with our vacation (click upload and go hike!).

My wedding was this past weekend, yesterday to be precise, and I have a collection of photos up on Flickr. I don’t have pictures from every event. It’s hard to be the photographer when you’re also the host. I have more photos coming in from friends and family, including the two below from my cousin. He took some phenomenal pictures, by the way, and I’m hoping to link to all of them soon.

I’ll keep this post updated with as many links as I get sent with photos from my wedding. Enjoy!

Clicking any of the sample images will show you a large image (1600×1065, about 400K).

Wedding Pictures at my Flickr Account

• Our Wedding: Sun-Wed - Lots of hiking, biking, and mingling.
• Our Wedding: Thurs-Fri - Wedding events, including bachelor hike and bride’s mendhi, and our “rehearsal” party/garba/dance lesson.
• Our Wedding: Wedding Day - the main event (limited pictures)
• Our Wedding: Epilogue - Pictures from post-wedding portion of the trip

I’ll keep adding links and we’ll be writing more about the whole wedding later.

So much stress now that we’re within 72 hours of the big day. Details everywhere left to get tied up, but we’re also trying to entertain all the guests every day up until the wedding. It’s been a chore to say the least, especially since Heidi and I both are the hands on type that try to minimize how much we ask of others. We’re quickly learning that delegation is as (or even more) important for weddings as it is in our jobs. It is, pretty much, the only way to keep sane.

It hasn’t been too bad, though. Especially when our days are filled with hikes or bike rides that lead to gorgeous views like this:

There is so much beauty in this one park that it’s more satisfying than Zion or anything else out there. There’s something to be said for a park that can be explored on foot, on bicycles, and via horses.

A selection of pictures from the first half of the wedding week is up at my Flickr account.

Apparently, YouTube made a change to their terms of service that grants them the right to sublicense, among other things, all submitted videos royalty free. Not so very nice.

On a personal note, yes, I’m blogging while away for my wedding and it’s not like I’ll be doing much of that, but tonight I have broadband and I’m just tired after a long day of wedding errands, a hike with some beautiful scenery, then the first event where both sides of the family met each other (aside from the parents, of course).

Don’t expect to hear much from me, but if I can find a USB cable, you may see some photos show up my Flickr account. It’s supposed to rain up here on Saturday, so the photos from the wedding day may not be as nice as some of the stuff we’re seeing this week.

Oh, and I can’t believe I left the cable and the card reader at home…

Out IT contractor/manager is in the office today. He has three New York City clients. They like him; he likes them. He gives them a (203) Connecticut phone number, and works remotely most of the time.

From Argentina.

His staff is Argentine, and he’s giving them technical instruction in Spanish. The only term I understand is “Exchange Server.” Sure, he’s on call, but he’s in pretty much the same time zone as New York City. And being paid in dollars, in a country with a more-rapidly depreciating currency. Good for him!

I used to have some respect for Bill Kristol. He’s clearly a partisan, but at least he seemed to follow some principles. Most importantly, he was able to admit some mistakes when asked tough questions. His Daily Show appearances were pretty good.

So, when I see him saying that the people of Iran would overthrow the government with the “right use of targeted military force.”

History is unkind to this view, and our experiences in Iraq should be a reminder about the unpredictability of these benevolent invasions. Totalitarian regimes so terribly corrupt and corrode civil institutions and the rule of law so much that without the regime, there’s only rot. In Iraq, the regime only maintained order with unbridled force and fear. Once that was removed, the country fell apart.

Even more frightening is that Kristol, like so many before the Iraq war, simply justifies his position with nothing specific to Iran or the Iranian people. We’re given the same “all people want to be free” nonsense that could apply to any country anywhere. He says nothing about Iran while advocating (once again) stepping in with force to make Iranians see how bad their regime is.

How ridiculous is that? Why does this type of punditry get media coverage?

I made the point in 2003 that neither the President or supporters like Kristol made an affirmative case for war. Playing on fears and uncertainty isn’t making an affirmative case. Kristol and his ilk should be talking about what war will do. For example, is there an active resistance movement? What populations will be disenfranchised by the toppling of the regime (and are divisions ethnic)? What about Iranian culture or society would lead them to focus on the regime rather than outside aggressors, as the U.S. would undoubtedly be painted? What’s the postwar plan?

Or maybe I should ask, do you have a postwar plan?

If you’re going to advocate using military force, putting our soldiers in harms way and putting some number of innocent civilians in harms way, you should be required to answer these sorts of questions. War isn’t the same as advocating tax cuts or abortion policy. Lazy punditry shouldn’t be acceptable here.

(found the Think Progress piece via Atrios)

Has anyone seen the new ads for the Hummer H3?  As described elsewhere, there are two ads in the campaign - one for women and one for men.  The one for women:

Woman and kid at the playground. Another kid cuts in line for the slide. First Mom complains to second kids Mom, “My kid was first.” Second Mom, “well now My kid is first.” First Mom backs down.

First Mom goes out and buys a Hummer. Straps kid in. Slogan says “Get your girl on.”

The one for men:

The man is in the grocery store, emasculated by buying tofu when the guy behind him is buying ribs. So he goes, buys a Hummer, and the tag line is “Restore your manhood.”

I must say, I don’t get it.  Of course the running joke is that anyone who buys a gargantuan tank like a Hummer is trying too hard to prove something, but why would you reinforce that perception with your commercials? What’s next, “Hummer, for the less endowed”?  

I hacked together a little plugin tonight while avoiding the wedding planning now staring us in the face. So, now you can enjoy the videos in the RSS feed if you happen to be using a desktop aggregator or a tool like Bloglines. In honor of the new functionality, and as a test to make sure it actually works through FeedBurner, I give you this video:

Hope that worked.