Get a bLaugh June 25, 2007

It’s funny because it’s true…

Meet the Men, Groomsmen that is… June 24, 2007

So Kristie has been on me to write this post for a few months now – since it is less then a week till we leave for our walk down the aisle, I figured I have waited long enough to tell you about the guys who will be accompanying me. Meet Scott Becker, Greg Marcellino and Coleman Hutchins – all good friends from college who are still friends with me after all these years, despite suffering through most of those 4 years of drunken madness at American University.

My best man (on left) is Scott Becker, all-star golfer, guitar player, entrepreneur, comedian and lover of the Jagermesiter. We have known each other since his first month at AU, which was during a particularly blurry time for me in my sophmore year. Scott was hanging out with some friend’s from Zeta Beta Tau in their dorm room, a pledge at the time. Since I was unusually hungry and atypically broke, the ZBT’s told me I should follow Scott to the vending machine and I should take anything I wanted under their authority. I took the Ding-Dong’s and we have been close friends ever since. Though we now live on opposite sides of the country (he is in North Miami), we are very fortunate in that we get to see each other and hang out at least 4 or more times each year. Over the past few years he learned to play the guitar and now performs about once or twice a month at various venues in South Florida. His company, Trust Event Solutions offers a golf event management software that is in use by many of the PGA Tour Pro-Am and Charity events. He recently navigated a very difficult time with his business as a result of some incompetent developers I sadly recommended, and I could not be more proud of his hard work, dedication and success. What a great guy to have as a friend and to serve as my best man.

Greg Marcellino (aka Zez, in middle) was my big brother in Phi Sigma Kappa. Oddly enough we did not really hang out a lot while I was pledging but afterwards we spent a lot of time together, especially in his Chevy Chase apartment. There are so many funny stories to tell about Zez, I hardly know where to begin. If podcasting and videocasting were available to us back in college, we would probably be in the entertainment industry by now – we were truly funnier than most anything you see on tv these days. His folks took me in and made me a part of the family when I lived in DC during school and especially when I lived there in the late 90’s – I even bought his dad’s yellow Cadillac Fleetwood for my pimp mobile! Their wedding was down in Puerto Rico and it was spectacular – he is one lucky guy to have Ivette for his wife and partner. When Kristie and I went to DC early last year, we had a chance to really get to know each other very well, especially nephew Ryan. I am so happy he and his wife are coming to the Wedding – it’s going to be a real treat to get to hang out with them again – I only wish we had more opportunities to do so.

Coleman Hutchins (right in photo) is also a member of my fraternity, though he joined in my Senior year, so we did not get to hang out too much, but what I do remember from back then is how much I liked this guy – smart, fun and laid back – a good combination all around. He reached out to me when I was working for the US Mint after seeing my name on a memo (his firm, Fleishman Hillard, was doing the PR for the Mint at the time). We have been good solid friends ever since. When he left FH for a while to strike it out on his own, I had the good fortune to bring him in to work with me on my Palm contract, putting him up in my house for a short while. That was an awesome time to have a great friend around as we got to go to tons of concerts, ball games and even golf in Colorado. In late 2005 , having returned to work with FH, Coleman invited me in to work with him and the DC office on some social media projects. During 2006, the work I was doing with him and his very sharp team in DC was my primary source of income – while I don’t work with FH any longer, we are still great friends and talk regularly about what is happening in the industry and our lives. Most importantly, Coleman is someone I respect and can have fun with – definitely in the friends for life category. I am really honored that he is taking the time off from work to come join us and be one of my groomsmen.

So, I could go on and on, and probably should, but I have to get to other work now. If you are coming to the wedding you are going to have a great time hanging out with these guys – I can hardly wait to see them all on the golf course together…

What I do for love…. the pre-wedding back wax. ouch! June 22, 2007

So Kristie really wanted me to get my back waxed for our weeklong destination wedding in Mexico. I have done it for her before, so I reluctantly obliged, but this time, I set up my Canon HD Video Camera so everyone could see what it was like…

Now, the thing is, it is really not so bad – over in under 20 minutes really, but it does hurt like crazy bad. Some parts of my screaming is really NSFW – other parts of my screaming are very much like a little girl. It is very funny though I need to make a short version of this but don’t have time…

PS – The kind woman who did this for me is a real pro and very good. The salon was a bit worried about being mentioned in this, so I won’t give the name or her name here, but I do reccomend them highly, so if you are looking for someone good to do it, let me know and I will put you in touch with them.