Good morning, intarwebs. For better or worse (and there’s definitely a little bit of both today), there’s lots to talk about, so I’m just going to jump right in.

1. Nicole and I have continued to plow through the beginning steps of planning our wedding. Through last week, we’ve had the date, church, and reception location all locked down. Well as of yesterday, you can add the photographer(s) to the list of completed items. Nicole and I have decided to go with Robert and Kathleen Photographers, a husband-wife team from Fairfield County, Connecticut. Robert is an old acquaintance, a friend of a friend that I haven’t talked to in years. However, he’s been a friend on Facebook and I’ve been able to follow their progress over the years. They’ve got some great stuff in their portfolio and Nicole and I are definitely very excited to have them shoot both our engagement photos and our wedding next year!

2. A while back I had posted a list of locations throughout DC that I would like to set aside time to go photograph (find it here). Since Nicole and I returned from Boston early in July, I have indeed been able to find time to hit up some of those locations; three, in fact. Of course, I feel as though I’ve got to go back - I wanted better different lighting, different scenarios, etc. - but at least I’ve got some photos to start. I’ll be posting those to my Flickr page as soon as I’ve got the last roll developed.

3. Last week, I forgot to mention that I shot some video at the Depeche Mode concert. I’ve spliced together a number of clips into a montage and posted a video of the song “Stripped” (in full), both of which can be found on my Vimeo page.

4. One of the less exciting developments of the last week has been that the Red Sox have been playing ball like an inexperienced short-season Single-A summer league team. Absolutely pathetic. Some lowlights: consecutive shutouts at the hands of the Yankees (not to mention the 4 game sweep); 31 innings without scoring a run, including a 15 inning marathon Friday night; a fatigued bullpen’s inability to pitch effectively. The list goes on, but the point is that all of those things combined with and a six game losing streak amount to me being a very unhappy baseball fan.

5. And ironically, as the Red Sox fail, the Nationals prosper. Somehow, the stars aligned properly and over a span of 8 consecutive games, the Nationals failed to lose. In other words, the Nationals have an 8 game winning streak! What the ****? I mean, I know they are a professional baseball team comprised of some very talented ballplayers, but this has clearly exceeded everyone’s expectations. It is fun to see, though. Nicole and I and some friends went to Wednesday night’s game against the Florida Marlins, a 5-4 thriller in favor of the Nationals, win number 4 of the current streak (a slideshow of my photos are here).

6. My brother and his wife rented a house on Block Island for the last full week of August and have invited anyone from the family to join if they can make it. Nicole and I are headed up on Thursday the 27th, via a flight to TF Green Airport outside of Providence. The only difficulty we are having is somehow getting from the airport to Point Judith, RI to catch the ferry over to BI. I was expecting some sort of shuttle bus-type mass transit option, but of course there are none. Any suggestions out there? I’ve looked into chartering a flight from TF Green to BI on New England Airlines, but that will be prohibitively expensive. We’re looking for something in the $50-each-way area. Car rental is a possibiliity.

7. My pool team plays in the playoffs for the short summer session starting tonight. We had a really, really, crappy season so we’re playing in Tier 2, the lower level playoff bracket. Unfortunately, tier 2 champions can’t advance to regionals or Las Vegas Qualifiers, but if we play well tonight, we’d play in the final next week. And if we play well and win the final, we get more trophies. =]

8. I’ve just noticed that Pete’s Apizza now delivers. Though their established delivery area doesn’t encompass our apartment, they claim it to be “flexible.” Hmmmm.

9. And since I’ve been snooping around Pete’s site for a while, I’ve happened across something which, assuming it’s true, makes me a very, very happy man. From Pete’s page about their vision:

New York. Ah, New York. Frank Sinatra used to send a driver up to New Haven to get a pizza from Pepe’s whenever he was performing in New York City. New Haven style pizza is not New York style pizza, and it is not a derivative of New York style pizza.

Booyaa!

10. And since I’m on the subject of pizza… I’ve never been able to convince anyone other than a significant other to have pizza in New Haven. Ironically, though, I’ve never met anyone that didn’t love Pepe’s (my personal favorite). Well, my coworker Evan was recently telling me about a drive up to Vermont he’ll be making with friends this winter, so I touted Pepe’s for so long that it peeked his interest. He now plans to make his friends stop in New Haven for some slices of heaven when they pass through town. I can’t wait to hear what they all have to say.