The Column

Motto: Whoa. Just to set the scene properly for your read through this post, this is a picture from this exact moment: Today is Thursday, May 8th, 2014. I’m on a ship somewhere between Falmouth, Jamaica and Cozumel, Mexico. There’s some sort of vaguely mariachi and tropical band playing somewhere behind me. I am sitting on a deck chair overlooking the Atlantic (or the sea of whatever). Next to me is my wife of 5 days, reading the book “Wicked”. On my other side is an old lady in a sun hat reading something on a Kindle and her overachiever husband reading “The Art of War”. I haven’t been on the internet for 4 days. That’s a record, so far as I know, since the first time I've had internet access (or, at the very least, since the first time I've had a smartphone). I am writing a post on the only laptop I've seen this whole trip - my Chromebook (who ever said you can’t do anything on a Chromebook without internet access was mistaken). I am happy, worn out, a little m...

Motto: Have You Ever Had a Perfect Day? I had a perfect day. It happened about 3 weeks ago. Melissa and I were married on Saturday the 3rd of May in Lawrence, KS. It was an outdoor ceremony just up the hill from Potter Lake on the University of Kansas. The weather cooperated with the ceremony. It was mostly sunny, in the low 80’s, and not terribly windy. All the best people I've ever met were in attendance. The best person I've ever met was standing right next to me, and that’s what mattered most. The whole ceremony was over in ~24 minutes. It went off (almost) without a hitch. There was one minor incident with a paper lantern that took some coaxing to get lit and flying… but that incident led to what has become an early favorite ceremony photo: The party bus took longer than we anticipated, the driver didn't exactly take the most direct route available, but that didn't bother me. The hour we spent on that bus was one of the best hours of my life. I had th...

Motto: That's MR. Gillespie to you. The original title for this post was "No Wedding Talk". I opened the Column with 3 paragraphs talking about how I wasn't going to talk about the wedding. When I was done I realized I didn't have anything else to say. I have erased those words. This post will be left up for the next two weeks. I should make it a good one. Marriage. The sacred vows. The beginning of a lifelong journey. The joining of a couple in the eyes of the Lord. Two becoming one. The start of a new family. The everlasting bond. A formal, written contract stating that you intend to date the same person for the rest of your life. Wedlock. The joining of a couple in the eyes of the County Judge. Going it steady. A lucrative tax setup. The intertwining of two souls. Becoming husband and wife. The fulfillment of the necessary prerequisites to have legitimate children in the eyes of the government and most of society. Matrimony. The basis of most RomC...