Normality

Now close three weeks after the wedding all the visa stuff is filed and robin and I had finally sometime to relax a bit.

We managed to move all of her stuff using a 22 foot long truck (7.5 meters), which she somehow was able to fill...

And we still had no time to sort all the pictures.

But at least we managed to make some eggs Benedict for her, after she stayed with her sister at the hospital all night.

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picking music

well one of the last tasks we have to deal with is to pick the right music for the entrance, the walk away and  background.
Rather frustrating and leads to me not being able to hear certain songs anymore...

Wedding Menu finalized

yip our menu is finalized and that's what we got

Salad

Bruschetta toppesd with Olive Tapanade, Fresh Tomato, Basil & Garlic

EVO and Parmigiano

Entrée

Pan seared Salmon, Vegetable Ratatouille, Chardonnay Rosetta Sauce & basil Oil

Or

Pan Seared Filet Mignon, Garlic Potato Puree & Braised Greens

 Burgundy wine Reduction

Or

Rigatoni Pasta with home made Sausage, Green Peas & Granda Padano

 Roasted Tomato Cream sauce

Dessert

Tiramisu

engagement picture

last night we met with my friends Sara and Martin and Martin was so nice to take a couple hundred pictures of us, so that we have a bunch of shots as engagement pictures and while being out there I realized that I haven't been shooting or posing people for a long time. And he kept asking me where to put us and I had honestly no idea and felt so plain helpless...
Guess that's an excuse to shoot a bit more again and maybe get my photo business up and running again.

Anyway here are some of the pictures I personally really like.

she's not going to run away...

old gray men need some rest from time to time

we always hanging out somewhere

you are never to old to go down a slide

but than we didn't have to slide that far

our relationship is defiantly more stable than this platform 

made it at last

thanks Martin for these beautiful pictures! I hope you don't mind the postprocessing I did!

Capuchino aka Zipfelmuetzen

well it was time to show off my progress in the art of espresso and capuchino. After all the definition of a capuchino is

a harmonic blend of esspresso, hot milk and foam

which can mean basically anything, but I kinda like it heavy on the foam and espresso, while being low on the milk.

Zipfelmuetzen

food tasting in San Francisco - Zingari

there are terrible things you have todo while preparing a wedding. One of the most frustrating thing is you need togo out to nice resturant and are forced to taste there delicious food.

So after testing 2 different italian resturants in San Francisco we decided on...

Zingari

why?

there food is really tasty, it doesn't break the bank. They basically give you a 20% discount. The dinner we had was very good, the decoration was ok. And the owner of the restaurant actually joined us, showed us around.
They also provide us we an ala carte menu and so there is something for everybody. Be it vegetarians or carnivores.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase, The review of the food

Appetizer:

one of the appetizer was the classic italian dish bruschetta. Which was enhanced with an olive paste as a foundation. The bread was really crisp and the topping incredible moist, while the olive paste stopped the bread from getting soggy. Instead of plain garlic, they used roasted garlic, which gave the dish a certain sweetness.
Short it was the best bruschetta I had so far.


Entree:

For our main dish we chose something I refer to as a tasty bolognese. Sure it has a more fancy title. But it was basically Rigatoni with a meat sauce.
Now there were a lot of exciting dishes on the menu, which I'd had loved much more. But not everybody has the desire to eat something exciting or something they can't pronounce. So this was basically the most boring dish they had.
And it was absolutely tasty and delicious. It was incredible flavorful, the peas were very sweet and I was just really really impressed by it and all of our testers liked it. This is also the only dish which is offered as vegetarian option.

Desert

As desert we had the all time classic dish, Tiramisu and we all had plenty of these in our life. Sadly I did not take a picture for some strange reason.
Even more sadly it started out very very tasty and than it became really soggy. Now for there defense, Robin and my Friend Kim bothed loved the dish and did not understand why I'm so critical about it. It's just every time I bit down on one of the embedded cookies, I felt like biting into a capsule of water, which killed the experience for me.

The espresso

well after a good italian dish you need a cup of esspresso. I thought. Well I have to the change this statement to

you need a good cup of espresso

Sadly the espresso was one of the worst I ever had. It was just bitter and had no body at all.

Fazit

appetizer 5/5
entree 5/5
desert 3/5
espresso 1/5

After Zingari we went to another restaurant, called Credo

For some reason Robin and I both felt not to good and were just exhausted. So we ordered an appetizer and an entree. Which were both ok, but nothing special. The resturant was just pale compared to the first experience, it was a nightmare to get to the bathrooms and it was so loud in the restaurant that you could barley hold a conversation.

reception and ceremony planning

portals of the past

this weekend we took the opportunity to have another look at our venue and to start planning where to sit the guest, since the place is rather small. Smaller than we initially thought and so we will maybe have space for 10 chair.
Basically I'm trying to find the time now and make a 3D model of the whole area and see how this works out, since we wont have the possibility to test it with chairs.

Basically the path is only 3 yards wide and we need to have enough space for the bride to walk the aisle.

benches and makeshift table

Another Benefit is that there is a big green box, which we can cover over with a white table cloth for the champaign and maybe some crackers or water for the guest. Since we will be for 2 hours at this location after all.
And there are some benches too for people to sit and relax on and we can maybe incorporate this into the photography session.

Speaking of photography, this is one of the big unknowns right now. How to execute the shot, what has to be done and where are all the locations.

robin, smiling in front of the waterfall

Possible spots for this are:

• the portal
• the small spring/waterfall
• walking up the at the lake
• the benches

heron

While taking pictures of the location and try to work out the details a heron landed a couple of steps from me and so I had to take a couple of pictures of these gigantic birds.

They are just such beautiful creatures and always so skittish and keep flying away. I do wish I had a camera/lens combination with a more precise and reliable autofocus. Since of about 50 pictures, only 3 where in focus.








And last but not a least a shot from the other side of the lake

Portals of the Past

back from san diego

us two in the limo, prior to Robins friends wedding

we somewhat managed to survive the wedding in San Diego and it's kinda obvious. This ridiculous 40k$ is nothing what Robin or I want and way over the top and not personal at all. Sure the food was amazing, the best tri-tip I ever had!

But the venue looked like any other cookie cutter professionally planned wedding. And in 4 days I might got to spend 5 hours in total with my fiance, which is pretty sad.Because she had todo so much as a brides maid :(

At least I finally got to ride in a stretch limo again and I was surprised how cramped this stretched expedition was. It just made no sense that there was so much less space than in the Stretch Town Car I was in last year.

engagement brunch

well this actually happened a while ago, but since I had to wait till now to get the pictures of it. Since our maid of honor was a touch to busy with other stuff happening.

Basically I made a brunch for Robin (in my arms), Robins Roommate Lauren (opposite from Robin) and Robins Sister Becky (opposite of me) to proof my worthiness of a husband to be and cook.

Now what is on the table?

• prosciutto di parma with fig stuffing
• crepes
• apple sauce
• rasberries
• blueberries
• whipped cream
• ensalada caprese with fig infused balsamic vinegar
• sautéed bell peppers
• artichoke hearts
• fresh bread

To say that it was tasty was a slight understatement.

help - wedding stuff

Nun Robin und ich sind stark damit beschaeftigt unser Hochzeit zu planen und es sind so viele Sachen zu erledigen. Wir wissen gar nicht so richtig wo wir denn anfangen sollen.

• wo bekommt man einen Anzug her in meiner Groesse?
• wo plazieren wir denn alle. Es sind ja nun knapp 40 Leute gefunden?
• brauchen wir Stuehle und wenn ja wie viele?
• was muss alles rein in so ein Eheversprechen?
• wie schafft man es die Zeromonie in 2 Sprachen abzuhalten.?
• wann gibt es Sekt?
• wo geht man danach essen und was kann man machen damit alle das Essen moegen? Italienisch?
• wo gehen wir am naechsten morgen zum Brunchen und wer wir eingeladen?
• was passiert nach dem Essen?
• wie laeuft das mit Hochzeitsgeschenken ab. Schicken wir den Gaesten einen Karte mit einem Link zu unserer Amazon Registry?
• ist Wein und Bier genug fuer das Essen, oder sind harte Getraenke notwendig?
• sind Geschenke von uns and die Gaeste benoetigt?
• wo bekommt Robin ihr Kleid her?
• wie macht man den Brautjungfern klar das sie sich um Robin kuemmern muessen und ihr bei der Kleiderwahl helfen soll, aber nicht reinreden sollen?
• brauchen wir Verlobungsphotos?
• wo bekommen wir die Lizenz her und wann machen wir das Ueberhaupt
• und es gibt sicher 200 punkte die ich gerade vergesse...

Normallerweise sollte ich ja auf meine eigenen Erfahrungen zurueckgreifen koennen von vergangenen Hochzeiten. Aber ich war hier bei 5 verschiedenen in den letzten 7 Jahren und jede war anders und kann nicht wirklich verglichen werden.

san diego - Wedding of Kaely and Jake - The rehearsal

after a 'nice' and 'fun' 8h drive from Davis to Carlsbad/San Diego we arrived at the Wedding location of Robins dear friends Kaely and Jake. Which we are planning to attend this sunday. But today it was time of the Reharsal of the Wedding, or in other words. The practice and training.

And I honestly have to say. Do people have to practice everything? Does everything has to become a play?

I mean I understand that you need to have a rough idea where everybody is going to be and which roles everybody has. But there should be a limit to everything and some things should be just natural.

Also I assume you should roughly know when to walk down the aisle.


Guess we have to sit down again and plan a bit more how our wedding is supposed to work and specially where we put all the guests at our rather small venue.

Well at least it gave me some moments to take some pictures and 'hunt' some ducklings on the property.

three little ducklings

Unrelated it gives me also the chance to secretly snap some more pictures of my fiance, when she is not looking for once. Well judging by the smile she saw me after all.

quibids.com addicted


recently I discovered the quibids.com service. Which is a different form of ebay and trying to use this system to get some nice deals on several gift cards to make some money and ease the shopping pain.
Like always it comes with a steep learning phase, but I'm making progress. Currently I'm 10$ up after an initial investment of 87$.

I still need to work on my strategie, but I'm starting to getting the hang of it. The best part is. I can just use the gift cards to pay for grocery and clothing and don't have to bother with craigslist to sell the stuff I don't need or desire again.

breakdown of the experiment after 2 days:

Rangefinder: 125$ (177$ value)
Toaster: 0.12$ (49$ value)
Gift Card: 0.31 (25$ value)
Memory Card: 0.74$ (44$ value)

property: 125.17$ paid
value: 295$ worth
bids: 147$ paid

total saving: ~23$

lesson: competition for high priced toys is to high. Stick to giftcards, they are much better return of investments. Well I wanted a rangefinder for the range since a while. So I will try next month todo better and not get carried away.

Pastrami Sandwhiches

ever since I tried pastrami my first time I wanted todo it myself. But it's so much work todo it right. First you have to bure the meat (brisket) for 2-3 days, than you have to smoke it for 3-5h and last but not least you are supposed to let it rest for 24-48h and than steam it.

Well I took a short cut and bought cured meat and smoked it and didn't let it rest...

And was rewarded with wonderful tasty, but a touch salty pastrami Sandwhiches, which had this amazingly purple/reddish meat

Let's see how they taste cold, tomorrow after a night in the frigde. Maybe I steam them afterall and make sandwiches for our trip to San Diego?

taken from here since I didn't had the camera handy

Back from Palm Springs,

before we drove to Palm Springs, Robin and I managed to stop by at her mums and afterwar in corona, where she grew up and went to school.

Obviously we couldn't just drive there without taking a picture of her old home.

Once this was done we continued to Palm Springs and there are not two many pictures to show for. For some reason we both where completely happy with 2 Tasks.

sitting at the pool reading and relaxing. I even managed to finally finished the Novel, Gone with the Wind.

And to relax on the patio and read a bit more, while enjoying drinks and eating tasty food.

But last, but not least here are some palms :)

Planning

Right now robin and I are both rather busy with planning our wedding and so there certain things to be taken care off.

First off we were driving from davis to sf to look at different venues and decided to book lloyds lake after long discussion since it gives us the flexibility to host a wedding for 5 people or up to the silly amount of 100 people.

Now this also means that we need a place for the reception and so we were looking at the first restaurant, called 'Suppenkueche'

After being there for 5 minutes it was obvious that this place is way to rowdy and loud, but a perfect place for a bachelors party. After all they have all my favorite beers there.

So we shall return to san Francisco in two weeks to look at some more restaurants. But we will most likely go with Italian food, since everybody likes it and we both love it.

But now it's time for a week of relaxing in palm springs.



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The future of us

A week ago on a beautiful sunny friday afternoon I decided to ask my girlfriend a certain question, which was rather scary and wonderful at the same time.

Would you like to be my wife and spend the rest of my life with me?

Obviously you can't just ask this question. As a modern human being you have to make this event rather special. So I was thinking what I could do and decided to recreate our first date and hire some people to help me out with this.

So how exactly did this go?

Robin called me around 4 pm to let me know that she is going to be at my place around 5pm and that she needs a nap, since she is not feeling too well. So I told her just to come over and take a quick nap. 30 minutes later I woke her up to make sure she wa doing better and since I wanted to grab a coffee downtown and enjoy this sunny day for a nice walk down the arboretum.

So after we had our coffee I mentioned I'm getting a touch cold in my shorts and would like to walk a bit to warm up. So I basically rushed her our of the coffee shop to the car to drive to the arboretum.

So while we were walking slightly chaotically back and forth I steered robin to this little picnic table, which has some stuff on it. She kept wondering why we were going there. Doesn't he notice that people setup a nice picnic?






I mean there a even roses laying around!







And while she was turning around to ask me what we're doing here, I was already being busy on my knee and asking her to spend the rest of her life with me.
A minute of shaking and nodding later she finally said yes and we enjoyed a rather nice and fancy picnic together.

So how did this picnic get there?

Well my friend John and his fiancé set it all up for us and step by at my place, while Robin was sleeping, to pickup the picnic basket and wine.

Oh and here is an impromptu snapshot of my lovely fiancé.






In our kitchen. We still have to find someone to take our official engagement pictures.


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Location:Davis - arboretum

San Francisco

well after Robin mentioned that she never has been on the golden gate bridge before and really want's to see it we decided to drive there for a day and enjoy the nice weather.

So we first went to Treasure Island, since you have such a nice low angled view of San Francisco

random boat in front of the Bay bridge

The Bay Bridge, from the Treasure Island

I really like the tiny ships below the bay bridge 

And drove from there into San Francisco, to look a bit around and walk around the Fisherman Wharfs.

typical shot for Robin, I always have to find soem reflections

After we successfully crossed the Golden Bridge in heavy Traffic we continued to Fort Baker, up in the hills

it was a touch windy at Fort Baker

and taking the classical Golden Gate and San Francisco Post Card shot

and last, but not least the Golden Gate

I even managed to grab a clam chowder at the same restaurant and location I had my first clam chowder ever, when I arrived in SF 7 years ago.

gravlax - again

well after I made gravlax a couple of months ago and ate so much of it that I couldn't see or smell it anymore I decided to buy some today at the nugget.

Needless to say, my homemade lax was so much better. It's doesn't even compare and the store bought one just tastes bland and boring.

Time for some German food

This evening I decided to have a look at robins school and it's quite nice the way she set everything up and very colorful.
It was also nice to see her patiently explaining things to parents and students, so I guess she won't run away from me.... I really hope I'm easier to deal with than a couple of nine year old.

Well for dinner I decided to make a common dish when I was a kid. So what could this be?

Cauliflower with sauce hollandaise, parsley potatos and tiny steaks.

And the iPad camera is terrible...

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Location:H St,Sacramento,United States

still sick...

I'm sorry for being out of touch with the world right now, but I'm still out with the flu and just curled up in my little bubble right now, hoping to get better and trying to remember how it is to breath without a stuffed nose.
I also discovered that Theraflu and I do not go along. To be precise there is some compound in it, which introduces nausea.
Another discovery was that DayQuil has no effect what soever on me, but Sudafed works. Curiously they are based on the exact same ingredients and identical concentration.

Needless to say, I spend now 5 days in bed and not having much fun or getting any work done. But Robin is doing an amazing job nursing me back to health.