It has been a little while since I had to hit the road to take on a trade show or work event, but in less than 12 hours, I'm scheduled to fly from San Jose to Tampa, Florida for a conference I've attended four times in the last five years, searching for potential customers and prospects - some we've met before, and some we may be meeting for the first time.

At 7:00 a.m. sharp, our Delta jet will fly eastward to Atlanta, before angling south to Tampa, the final destination, where I'll be through Friday morning, when again, at 7:00 a.m. sharp, we turn around and try it in the opposite direction. That's right: 4:00 a.m. Pacific time.

My body is already dreading it, and I'm letting the caffeine seep out of me, in an attempt to get enough sleep tonight that it all will work out. We hope to continue posting throughout the trip, and to stay wired. Otherwise, I'd probably have to be hospitalized for withdrawal.

Listening to ''Cold Fusion'', by Perry O'Neil (Play Count: 1)

Today, following in the successful footsteps of sites like Athletics Nation and Sactown Royalty, the sports blogs network debuted a site dedicated to the Cal Golden Bears, at www.thebandisoutonthefield.com, a tribute of course to Joe Starkey's famous call of the dramatic end to the 1982 Big Game against Stanford.

If I didn't already have a full-time job, I'd be jealous. Seeing the Cal Bears as an obvious gap in the hugely popular and rapid growing sports blogs family, I had considered contacting the network's owners and throwing my hat into the ring, but I knew I couldn't really devote any more time to fandom than I already do, casually at both AN and Sactown Royalty. But the debut of thebandisoutonthefield.com is a great thing - a one-stop destination to celebrate and mourn every Cal game, be it football, basketball, or anything.

Now, instead of voicing my excitement and frustrations here on this site, I can do so there, with an audience who similarly has bled blue and gold, and knows the difference between a Bruin and a real bear - an audience who understands the benefits of a real band, and an audience who walks the fine line of world class athletics, mixed with elite academics.

With Cal football potentially making it to the Rose Bowl this year, should they defeat USC and Stanford the rest of the way, it's already been a fun year for Cal fans. Now, things are even better.

Listening to ''Largo (Mark Otten Remix)'', by Markus Schulz presents Elevation (Play Count: 1)

When my wife and I got married at the Oakland Temple in April of 2003, we somehow picked the absolute worst, most stormy, rainy and hailing day of the Spring. The weather was great the day before, the day after, and the following Saturday.

People keep telling us rain on our wedding day was good luck. But, needless to say, we didn't get any great photos outdoors. And when presented with the opportunity to get new photos taken, to help a friend who plans weddings for a living, we jumped at it this last week. Kristine, who now looks even better than ever, has slimmed down to the point she can't even wear her own wedding dress. As you ladies know, usually the wedding dress gets too small, not the other way around. But we found her one that fit her new, trimmer, figure, and I squeezed into the one suit that fits me (I'm not exactly losing weight...), and we were off.

With some friends we knew, and some we didn't, Kristine walked down the aisle in Half Moon Bay, in perfect weather. I waited next to the faux officiant, who held a lunch menu, disguised as our vows. While professional photographers snapped rolls of film, we pretended as if Friday was our big day, and complete strangers cheered. Then, we switched roles and cheered other faux brides and grooms. Pretty silly.

But while we're waiting for the real photos (some of which might be used in advertising the venue), we thought we'd share photos we wish we had had more than 3 1/2 years ago. As always, you can click any of the photos to open them in a new window and see them in more detail.
Bride Kristine in Dress With Bouquet


Bride Kristine With Bouquet On the Grass


The "Now-Married" Couple, Smooching


The "Now-Married" Couple, With Background


Wait! How did that one get in there? Molly!!!



OK, I admit I put that last one in. Everybody wants to know how our 16-year-old beagle is doing, and I liked this picture. She's doing very well, even though she had to stay home when we were on our trip. She clearly enjoys company, and the general requirements of being a house beagle.

I've run the full gamut on RapidWeaver - the blog engine that powers this site. When I first got it, I thought it was a great tool. But when I continued to post with some regularity, it bogged down, and is now so slow, I get completely frustrated using it. Making the issue worse, RapidWeaver utilizes a proprietary file structure, making it impossible (as far as I know) to import and export my data - meaning that I can't easily migrate to TypePad or any other engine, should I want to. 

Given that my Web hosting provider (Register.com) doesn't provide MySQL access, my choices here are limited, but on further investigation, I've learned that Google's Blogger service enables remote FTP posting via the Web, and after some initial work, it looks like we can retain the louisgray.com domain name, and the vast majority of the site's look and feel, even after making a change. So we're already starting the move, and you can expect new posts here to be somewhat slowed as I start the manual process of moving over each of the 550+ posts over the last year to the new engine. I even have to redo nearly all the hyperlinks! (Just think how much fun that will be, given my proclivity for links) Thousands will need work!

Upon that move, I will need to ensure that some basic items, such as the RSS feeds, Feedblitz, and commenting are not broken. I expect the Haloscan comments engine will be replaced with Blogger. We'll see. Now, just as some on the Web are complaining about Blogger outages, I'm moving there. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

See the work in progress here at a temporary URL: http://www.louisgray.com/test.html

Listening to ''One In A Million'', by Saint Feat. Suzanne Dee (Play Count: 6)