DieselGotKelly

We finally got our wedding pictures back from the photographer. The site he gave us for viewing is setup so that you can purchase pictures from it. That’s nice but the site sucks compared to flickr. I’ll upload all of the pics to flickr in the next few days, but in the meantime you can view them at www.pictage.com. You have to search for the event. There is not a direct URL.

More instructions. After going to the home page, find “Find Your Event” and type “Sale” for a groom’s name and September 2006 for the Event Date. Click “Go”. Choose “Kelly Chow & Tim Sale Wedding” on the next page. Hooray.

Marriage is HARD.  It starts with the name change.  It sounds simple enough:  you go to Social Security, get your name changed, then go to the DMV and use your SS card to get your new driver’s license.  The only problem is that the government seems to have no regard for the fact that people actually WORK during the 8-6 timeframe.  Having the well-being of the greater population in mind, they set up their business hours to coincide exactly with the time when people canNOT go to their office:  9am-4pm with a one hour lunch break; that’s a full-time schedule for a government employee.  And not only that, there is simply no sense of urgency in any of these government agencies.

Never mind that you have to work.  I took a day off to get everything out of the way.  A big black lady with unnecessarily long nails tried to type in my new name.  Not with her fingers, but with her nails (since the long nails got in the way between her fingers and keyboard).  After a long time, I finally get instructed to go to the picture line.  “Kelly Sale-Ch0w,” they call out.  “Who is Kelly Sale-Ch0w?,” I ask myself.  It can’t be me, because I handed her a piece of paper with my name, EXACTLY as it should appear.  But no, she typed in Sale-Ch0w.  So I have to go back to the last line.  Miraculously, the process is done, and I have a new license.

Needless to say, the headaches don’t stop there. Trying to change your name over the phone proves to be even more difficult.  Out of the 6 cards for which I requested new cards with my married name, exactly ONE arrived.  One was for a “Kelly Ch0w-Sales” and “Kelly Ch0w-Fale.”  Who the heck are these people???

Thanks to everyone who came out to the wedding. It was better than we could have possibly imagained. K and I just got back from the honeymoon which consisted of stays throughout Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Tokyo and are exhausted. We have this weekend to recover and then it’s back to work. Hope to see you all in the near future.

It’s hard to believe that we’re only ten days away from getting married.

OK. It’s not THAT hard to believe as we’ve been doing a million little things to tie up the loose ends. Last night we went over songs with the guitarist, went over the flow of the ceremony with the officiant, and finished up the little wedding favors.

My whole immediate family arrives on Saturday. They are staying the whole week in Seattle at a house in Capitol Hill. We’ve already got some more golf on the schedule as well as a Baseball game on Monday night. With the Mariners almost 15 games back we might only see the latest recruits from the Minors, but it should be fun anyway. Kelly and I have to work the first few days of next week, but they should be able to keep themselves busy with trips to the Pike Place Market, Space Needle and Aquarium.

If you’re coming to Seattle, here are a few insider tips:

1. Get the little donut holes at the Market. They are DELICIOUS. The little donut stand is located right near the main entrance on Pike, across from the fish throwers.

2. See them make cheese and get fresh cheese at Bleecher’s cheese, also in the Market. Our favorite is the Homboldt Fog from CA. NO, it isn’t local but it’s SO GOOD.

3. Get a savory tart from La Panier French bakery in the Market. Are you noticing a pattern here?

4. VISIT THE SEATTLE LIBRARY. It’s the most amazing building in Seattle. SERIOUSLY. I take clients there it’s that cool. Designed by Rem Koolhaus. You can spend hours roaming around it.

5. The Space Needle gives a good view of the city and is located right in the middle of a number of other tourist attractions, but if you’re here during the week, the best view is from the Bank of America tower on 4th Ave. It’s the big, tall, black, and round building.

6. Stop by our new apartment in Belltown. We always looking for a reason to open a bottle of wine and the best restaurants and bars are located just blocks away. Our address is 2440 Western Ave, Seattle WA.

See you soon.

There was no map to Alderbrook in the invites! That’s okay. You can use the internet to find the way.

Click here for a map from SEATAC airport to Alderbrook

Click here for a map from Seattle to Alderbrook

You can also take the ferry from Seattle to Bremerton and start your drive there. The ferry takes about an hour to get to BRemerton, but it’s a great way to see Seattle from the water.

Click here for a list of Ferry times

Click here for directions from Bremerton to Alderbrook

So my brother called me the other day. He said he got the invitation. Good. He said we mispelled RSVP. Bad. REALLY BAD.

The thing is Tim and I were doing invites until 1am.  We did read the text on the invites.  And we did reread it.  But it was late at night and with our bad French or dyslexia, “RSVP” turned into “RVSP.”

So despite our oversight, we hope you can all make it to the wedding.  And RSVP…

K and I stopped by the couthouse today and picked up our marriage license. We now have 60 days to get married.

You might be wondering what it takes to get married in the great northwest state of Washington and the answer is: not much.

Apparently, as long as you can sign your name and come up with three Jacksons, you’re good to go. The application took all of ten minutes to fill out and that’s only because Kelly had to call home and find out where her father was born and which name he is currently using (Man Chu Chow, as it turns out).

Kelly and I were up late working on those invitations and by the end, it’s obvious that our proofreading process (or lack thereof) fell down.

If you didn’t already notice, the invitations ask you to RVSP by August 7th, instead of the traditional RSVP. doh!

After a whole week of relaxing, seeing sights and enjoying the World Cup in a country where soccer REALLY matters.

After al our teams lost–USA, Brazil and then Germany–the World Cup suddenly became not as exciting, almost uninteresting…until the Germany x Portugal game. We watched it at an Italian restaurant with Winny, his roommate Ramona and her crew. The 3rd roommate, Anja was apalled when she found out we went to an Italian restaurant–she started boycotting all things Italian after Germany lost to Italy.

The crowd was animated and gathered around the big screen that was set up outside. Germany 3 x Portugal 1. P-A-R-T-Y. We all headed over to Leopoldstrasse, one of the many Fan Meilen (fan miles) set up in the major German cities where streets were closed, giving way to a flood of excited soccer fans ready to party all night. When in Germany, do as the Germans do. And so we did.

Leopoldstrasse was madness. German flags dotting the sea of people; black, red and yellow stretching over for miles.

We partied till 2 in the morning. Half of us left and the other half showed up early that morning, when we all had a nice and cozy breakfast in Winny’s balcony.

Kelly and I spent the last two days traveling around Baveria. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a good clear stretch of the Autobahn so as to get our little Passat beyond 100-105 mph…

Kelly at 170 kph

Since we only had the car for two days, we had to spend some time hitting “the sites”. We went to the Disneyland Castle, aka Schloss Neuschawnstein, drove down the Romantisch Strasse, had dinner and beers with a Presbyterian minister, stayed the night in Landsberg am Lecher, picked up fresh fruit, olives, and bread for lunch at the street market, visited a 1000 year old church in Augsburg, and finally took the picture above on the A8 back to Munich.

So far our trip has been wonderful and we’re not looking forward to our flight home on Monday. However, we ARE looking forward to seeing you at the wedding in September. Cheers!

at the match