A Weekend Wedding Ceremony

Yes, Amy and I are already legally married. We did do a Thanksgiving JoP run in Georgia. But you know what, that wasn’t our real wedding ceremony. No, that was a legal contract, nothing more.

Its Saturday that is our real wedding ceremony. Its January 12th that we’ll proclaim our love to closest friends and family. It is at 7pm that we’ll be truly wed.

For we have the belief that marriage does not start with judges, cannot be enforced by courts, and will not be constrained by paper. Marriage comes from the heart, flows through community, and returns as a bond most public.

And here is a public proclamation of my feelings these moments before being a groom yet again:

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Goodbye Bernard, May You Rest in Peace

Tonight I kissed a man. I put my lips to his without hesitation, without thought. I didn’t think of the blood on his face, only of pinching his nose. Of exhaling with force into his mouth, of filling his lungs with my breath.

All the while, my beloved Amy pushed against his chest with rhythmic thrusts, compressing his heart to make it pump. Pushing hard, she only stopped to feel for pulse. Faint. Gone. Faint again.

She, the medical professional, the physician’s assistant in George Washington University Hospital’s intensive care unit. Me the husband who heard the crash in the YMCA National Capitol men’s locker room.

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One XO Laptop Per Obsessive Fanboy

Wow! My XO laptop from One Laptop Per Child is finally here. It really exists and it’s in my very hands. I never really knew if this moment would happen.

Now, I never doubted that OLPC could build the laptop, or that it would be clock-stopping hot technology that everyone would want. I knew it would be the geek gadget to have this Christmas, I’m just surprised I have one, now.

I’ve been obsessed with OLPC for the last two years, ever since I first heard Nicholas Negroponte start talking about a “$100 laptop” in February 2005. Since then, I developed thought leadership on his grand plan through OLPC News, my obsession turned digital as a website that tracked the program’s every move.

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A Florida Running-Moon Vacation

What to do after you and your beloved have a legal wedding in Georgia? Why have a running-moon vacation in Florida, of course!

But what is a “running-moon vacation”?

That is when you fly down to Vero Beach, Florida to see your Mom and spend the entire long weekend running. Now Amy and I were not running from the law, or her father, we were running for the fun and joy of it.

Starting with easy three and four mile runs at the Memorial Park Fitness Trail, Amy and I built up our warm winter in the tropics stamina for Saturday’s grand challenge: the 24th Annual Jack Island Cross Country Run.

Don’t be fooled, the Jack Island run is a challenge. It may look like an easy four mile loop on a picturesque island in the Indian River lagoon, but once you get there, you realize that its four miles of hot, sweaty trails through swarming noseeums as the Florida morning heat dehydrates you by the minute.

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Legally, We are Married

Wow! What earth-shattering news today! Can you believe it? OLPC took G1G1 global and extended it to December 31. Yes, I know, it’s shocking, but it’s not the most exciting moment in world history today.

Nope, that honor goes to Amy Ross Vota. Yes, read that name again, slowly this time: Amy Ross Vota. Today the Betrothed Butterbean is no longer legally betrothed. She is my wife. In a mad dash to the Cobb County courthouse in central Georgia, Amy and I wed today in a quick civil ceremony.

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