When regular readers wed

I’m excited to announce that Tina and I will be shooting regular reader Luis V and his fiancée Becky’s wedding in March!

Last October, Tina and I had a job in New York City, where we took one evening to eat at regular reader Luis V’s house.

While we were with Luis and his then girlfriend Becky, suddenly Becky’s face brightened with excitement and she said, “We have an announcement to make. We’re engaged!”

Screams were squealed. Hugs were given. And many congratulations and shared excitement ensued.

Luis told me that night that he’d like us to be there and to shoot the wedding. To which I immediately said, “Of course.”

Just before Christmas, Luis called us and officially hired us. Which, oddly enough, I didn’t announce here right away because of the holidays. You guys all run for the hills around that time, and I wanted the announcement to get full exposure.

Becky and Luis are getting married in Maryland, and it’ll be the second wedding I’ve shot for a regular reader. Many of you remember that I shot Xina’s wedding in 2010.

We’re lucky enough to have hung out with both Becky and Luis when we have visited NYC, so we feel like we’re going to be a welcome, familiar part of their celebration.

Just to give you a bit of background, Becky and Luis met on match.com. I met Luis online and in person a few times before meeting Becky, and I could tell when I met her that Luis caught a genuine case of the smittens. They’re great together. When you’re in their presence, it’s like walking into a fog of smart.

I love that.

Most of all, I’m excited to shoot a secular wedding. Becky and Luis will be leaving god out of their celebration, although by state law, they are required to have a church-related officiant perform the ceremony.

I mean, unless you’re having an orgy, there really is no reason to invite a third entity into your marriage. It makes things complicated. Love is hard enough as it is without inviting Yeshua or any other deity into it.

I’ve been twiddling my thumbs trying to come up with this post for a couple weeks. I hope I do justice to my excitement.

 

 

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A 13-year-old vs. vinyl

SciFi author, John Scalzi, introduces his daughter to vinyl.

Via Cynical C

NPR: Why Do So Many Have Trouble Believing In Evolution?

Image via Wikipedia

I have found the emboldened line below (my emphasis) to be very true:

The evidence is clear, as in a February 2009 Gallup Poll, taken on the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, that reported only 39 percent of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36 percent don’t have an opinion either way.

The same poll correlated belief in evolution with educational level: 21 percent of people with a high school education or less believed in evolution. That number rose to 41 percent for people with some college attendance, 53 percent for college graduates, and 74 percent for people with a postgraduate education.

Clearly, the level of education has an impact on how people feel about evolution.

Read on

John Williams gets canine’d

In an effort to make you want to drive a Volkswagen, the car maker has deliberately created this commercial featuring dogs barking out music from Star Wars.

Can you believe that crap?

Via The Daily What

Following up to my silence on yesterday’s SOPA and PIPA blackouts

Most of you know that the Internet was abuzz with information about the Internet threatening legislation awareness that went on yesterday. It was all over the news and the Internets.

Biodork wrote up a great followup here. Check it out.

And also, checkout Gizmodo’s short article on which senators changed their minds about the legislation.

See you next Tuesday, South Asia

This is a story that will break your heart. I’ll let you read:

It’s a girl: The three deadliest words in the world

It’s a girl, a film being released this year, documents the practice of killing unwanted baby girls in South Asia. The trailer’s most chilling scene is one with an Indian woman who, unable to contain her laughter, confesses to having killed eight infant daughters.

The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year. Lianyungang in China has the worst infant gender ratio on record with 163 boys born for every 100 girls. Taiwan, South Korea and Pakistan are also countries in which unwanted female babies are aborted, killed or abandoned.

Gendercide in South Asia takes many forms: baby girls are killed or abandoned if not aborted as foetuses. Girls that are not killed often suffer malnutrition and medical neglect as sons are favoured when shelter, medicine and food are scarce. Trafficking, dowry deaths, honour killings and deaths resulting from domestic violence are all further evils perpetrated against women. This femicide has led the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces to report in ‘Women in an Insecure World’ that a secret genocide is being carried out against women at a time when deaths resulting from armed conflicts have decreased.

Read on

UPDATE. Here’s the trailer for the film mentioned above.

Another post about North Carolina

Not too much to comment on here. Only,  Do what’s right, NC. 

About the video:

Uploaded by ProtectNCFamilies on Jan 17, 2012

Real families, who will face real harms if Amendment One passes, speak out. Stand with us today, share the toolkit, tell your story, and more athttp://www.protectncfamilies.org.