carmel accomodations

for those not so inclined to stay among the redwoods of big sur, far away from phones and tvs and clocks and air conditioning, i would like to recommend carmel. it's about 20 minutes from big sur and we will arrange a shuttle service to make a stop there on Ssaturday, the 21st. and also for those who aren't able to fit within the rules and regulations of the room block at the big sur lodge (it's a popular destination, sorry it's hard to stay in, but it's worth it!).

you're on your own the night of the arrival dinner, unfortunately. shuttles don't grow on trees yet.

Hotel in Carmel

REGISTRY

yeah, we registered. so i feel compelled to let you know where.

we have an open ended registry to benefit our never ending home repairs and home remodeling and our honeymoon fund here.

we've also registered, like most couples, at bed, bath & beyond because we like stuff and things.

not too long 'till you get to see this beautiful place, where it all goes down. woot!

Fernwood

I just came across this place and it looks fairly interesting for those on a budget.

***update 2-12/2008**** this place IS pretty nice. food's good, the lodging is nice for a small motel and for camping, etc. there's a grocery store on site, a goooood restaurant, free wireless, and it's got the only real tavern in big sur. you can have beers with the locals!

i strongly recommend, however, that you try the big sur lodge first, as it's the most convenient for the wedding shuttles/ rehearsal dinner. and you can share larger rooms with other groups, couples, etc... to save on costs. tell them that you're with the carnie/rockenfeller wedding.

Dave and I will be traveling up there this weekend, staying at the Big Sur Lodge so we can report on he rooms and food and whatnot there. And we're gonna pick what kind of food you people will be having on Midsummer Night. I'm thinking hot dogs and coleslaw. Or maybe Ray Gordon can cater it with that crazy Pollack dish he always makes for Thanksgiving.

Sleepover Time!

If you aren’t familiar with Big Sur, you might need some info about how to get there and stuff. I can give you that info!

If you’re flying in you can fly to Monterey Peninsula Airport, San Jose, or San Francisco and then rent a car to drive a bit to the central coast.

If you live in LA, you should probably just suck it up and enjoy the scenic drive, unless you like going to airports and waiting in security lines, dealing with the TSA, paying for parking, and then having no choice but to rent a car just to DRIVE the additional time it takes to get to Big Sur from whatever airport you land in (I’m talking to you, weirdo-Lorene). Below are some general directions from nearby landmarks to Big Sur. I figure that if you’re web savvy enough to have found this site, you can probably find the directions to suit your liking in a matter of clicks.

Airports

From Monterey Peninsula Airport
Approximate driving time one hour
• When leaving the airport on Olmsted Road, turn right onto Highway 68
• Follow the signs to Highway 1 South, Big Sur
• Stay on Highway 1 through Carmel,
drive about 30 miles to Big Sur

From San Jose Airport
Approximate driving time 2 hours to 2.5 hours
• When leaving the airport, follow signs to Highway 101 South
• Follow 101 South to Highway 156 West, Monterey Peninsula Exit (50 miles)
• Highway 156 will become Highway One South
• Follow Highway 1 past Carmel into Big Sur

From San Francisco Airport
Approximate driving time 3 hours to 3.5 hours
• Take Highway 101 South (approximately 1.5 hours)
• Follow 101 to Highway 156 West, Monterey Peninsula Exit (95 miles)
• Highway 156 merges into Highway One South
• Follow Highway 1 past Carmel into Big Sur

From Southern California
307 mi – about 5 hours 21 mins, up to 6 hours 20 mins in traffic
• Merge onto US-101 N for a couple hundred miles
• Take the CA-1 N exit toward Morro Bay/Hearst Castle
• Turn right at CA-1/Toro St
• Continue to follow CA-1

OR IF YOU HATE LOOKING AT THE OCEAN AND WOULD PREFER TO STOP AT SOME WINERIES IN PASO ROBLES...

308 mi – about 5 hours 34 mins
• Merge onto US-101 N
• Slight right at CA-170 N/Hollywood Fwy (signs for Hollywood Fwy
• Merge onto I-5 N for about a 130 miles
• Take exit 278 for CA-46 toward Lost Hills/Paso Robles
• Turn left at CA-46/Paso Robles Hwy
• Turn left to merge onto US-101 S
• Take the CA-46 W exit toward Hearst Castle/Cambria
• Turn right at CA-46
• Turn right at CA-1 for about 80 miles

Dave swears that the latter route is faster, but I think the wine that we buy on that route usually speeds up the drive in his mind. We're driving up this weekend, so I'll let you know.

Accomodations

Hotels book really fast during the summer on the California coast, so book your rooms quick. We have blocked off rooms at the Big Sur Lodge, near the site for you, so snatch 'em up. Big Sur Lodge

It’s in the heart of Big Sur, close to tons of nature and hiking and all of that hippie shit. They’ve even got a heated pool for those of you nature haters. It’s got a grocery store and restaurant onsite too if you’re not in to playing Survivorman in the woods. And it’s even got a gift shop for all those sweet postcards and dream catchers you know you wanna buy. Go look at the website, dudes.

The Big Sur River Inn is also pretty awesome. It’s by the river (duh) and has a sweet little restaurant (that has live bands and serves drunks so you can feel at home, you lushes) and gas station and free wireless.

The Ventana Inn is a delightful hotel on the mountainside of Highway 1. It’s got a rad restaurant there and pretty scenery and is all high falutin’ and stuff.
This place is interesting as well. And there're cool yurts at Treebones if you feel like roughin' it a little.

Carmel is lovely city by the sea that used to be able to boast Clint Eastwood as its mayor. It doesn’t have Clint Eastwood anymore, but it sure does have hotels with beds for you to lay your faces on! Woohoo! Beds! Aren’t beds awesome?

Monterey is pretty nice too. It’s got a sweet aquarium and a John Steinbeck museum.
And Pebble Beach. I don’t know nothin’ about Pebble Beach, but if you stay there, you can tell me all about it. Here are some hotels in those areas, separated by price.

I’ll add more stuff regularly now that Dave finally gave me the password to this website, but you know… I figured you’d want to get things goin’ by now.

P.S. We’ll be in Big Sur from June 19th – 23rd, in case you feel like extending your stay. If you really wanna stretch it out and wanna hang out, it won’t be hard to talk me into vacationing even longer.

P.P.S. for all you breeders out there, our wedding is totally kid friendly so feel free to bring them. Just keep 'em away from the cliff's edge, because we're probably not hiring sitters to do that for you. Sorry. *sad trombone noise*

A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM

If your calendar doesn't already have a JUNE 21 on it, put it on there because that's the day we're getting married.

HITCHED!

Tania and I got engaged to be married this weekend on Saturday, June 16. It’s our unofficial anniversary. I guess it’s official now that a ring is involved? June 16 represents the day six years ago we started “hanging out.” We don’t know the exact day, but it was right around then. We know because June 16 is “Bloom’s Day,” a day I tend to celebrate much like St Patrick’s Day, Part Two. Anyway, I gave her a ring, asked if she would marry me, and she said, “Yes.”

The long version:

“On June 16, James Joyce aficionados the world over celebrated Bloomsday. The day is named after advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, protagonist of Joyce's novel Ulysses. The entirety of this 700+ page book recounts one ordinary day, June 16, 1904, as various characters go about their ways in Dublin.”

Joyce and Ulysses means a lot to us. Part of our month long Ireland vacation a few years ago was devoted to Joyce nonsense. We had our own Odyssey trying to find the Martello tower that served as the opening scene in the book and which Joyce actually lived for a brief time.


Tania at the top of the stairs.


Me freezing my ass off trying to be a "stately, plump Buck Mulligan."

We also visited the James Joyce museum where the actual door from Leopold Bloom’s house at 7 Eccles St. is preserved.



And of course we went to a couple of pubs that appear in the story.


This is not one of the pubs. This the pub in the Clarence hotel which is owned by U2. I was trying to take a photo of my pint of Guinness but this pretty little bird kept getting in my shot.

We’re completely aware of our level of nerdiness.

We were supposed to have our Gentleman’s Hockey party this last weekend, but Tania said, “No hockey on our anniversary.” I agreed. So the hockey party is next weekend. As the rules state, “There must be a keg, meat and ice cream and it better be fun.” Except for the year “The Other Guy” won—and actually that bitch was the reason we had to make rules in the first place—every hockey party since has been a success. Although the Dog Patch Winos attended last year’s and they took turns throwing each other into the cactus patch. When they sobered up, I don’t think they would have considered it a success. So we decided that this last weekend would be spent in the woods camping. Not the most romantic place in the world to propose, considering the fact that I hate nature, but it would have to do.

I decided to employ the ole “Router a Hole In a Copy of Ulysses and Place the Ring in the Hole” style of proposing. It’s a cliché, I know, everyone does it, but I’m a traditional kind of guy. I practiced on an old math book I had hiding behind the stacks, and once I was satisfied the router actually worked on a book, I took out a copy of Ulysses and began flipping through it to find the page I wanted to propose on. I had originally intended to do it at the beginning of Chapter Two (because, you know, this is the second chapter in our relationship), but instead I went for page 55, Chapter Four, the beginning of Book Two, which begins with a giant M. which, besides standing for “Mr. Bloom…” and “Molly” (Bloom’s wife), it also stands for “Marry Me.” Upside down it makes a nice W for “Will you?”



To read any Joyce, you kind of need one of the many annotations, compendiums or notes to completely appreciate his genius and what he’s doing. Every chapter in Ulysses, for instance, besides paralleling a chapter in Homer’s Odyssey, is also represented by a variety of symbols. The “organ” for Chapter Four is the kidney, which Bloom is frying up at the beginning of the chapter. In ancient Jewish rites, apparently, the kidneys were regarded as “the special parts to be burned upon the altar as a gift to Yahweh.” Neither of us are particularly fond of kidneys, nor do we have a drop of Jewish blood in our veins (Tania, being German, is completely the opposite, as is our dachshund who, unfortunately, is decidedly anti-Semite), but if it’s good enough for a Yahweh ceremony, it’s good enough for our wedding. I’m sure we’ll have an argument about this, but I think we should serve kidneys at the reception. “Would you like the pork kidney, or the chicken kidney?”

So there’s that. I also like Chapter Four because right where I drilled the hole for the ring, Bloom’s cat is winding its way around his legs while he’s frying up the kidney. Gary! And I remember the first time I read that passage, I thought, “That is the best phonetic rendering of what a cat sounds like that I’ve ever seen on paper.”

—Mrkgnao! the cat cried.
They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.
—Afraid of the chickens she is. He said mockingly. Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.
—Mrkrgnao! The cat said loudly.

Lastly, Ulysses is about Yes. The deconstructive philosopher Jacque Derrida even wrote an entire essay about it titled, “Ulysses Gramophone: Hear Say Yes in Joyce.” I’ve read it, but I couldn’t tell you what the hell he’s talking about. All I know is that the last line in the book, the last word even, is very famous: “Yes.” Which is kind of what I was going for.

Everyone in our expedition went on a hike except Tania and I. Fuck hiking. We are anti hiking. I had originally intended on popping the question at the waterfall at the campground we go to—it’s a very idyllic location, even a nature hater such as myself has to admire it—but to get there entails a short hike. And out of principle, we had silently vowed not to do any hiking of any sort. Plus we haven’t gotten any rain, so I don’t even think it would have been worth it to even walk up there anyway. The point is, their hike provided the perfect opportunity to steal away and pop the question.

“Wanna take the dog up to the end of the campsite for a short WALK?” I said. Strolling, walking, even scampering is allowed, but no hiking.

“Sure,” she said.

I had my little bike messenger bag with my new camera and the drilled out copy of Ulysses, laden with ring, inside. The ring fit snugly in the hole, but I had a rubber band around the book just in case. Carrying the full bag on a short walk was a little peculiar, but Tania didn’t say anything. We walked through the campsite commenting on all the sites we passed.

“Oh there’s the loud Asian family we almost had as neighbors,” Tania said pointing at a group of Asians unpacking.
“It’s hard to tell if someone is really a boy scout these days,” she said as we passed a teenager in a boy scout uniform, “or if they just got it at a thrift store.”

I don't know how she does it, but Tania, even after a night of drinking in the dirt next to a fire she somehow manages to look beautiful. She is simply awesome. Unlike Beckett who panted at the end of his leash and barked at imaginary devil rats. I love that girl. I tried to put my arm around her, but failed because I had dislocated my shoulder the day before in a croquet related accident. Yes, I dislocated my shoulder playing croquet. When we go camping we play “Rugged Mountain Terrain Croquet.” I don’t play golf, but Jason likens it to the Master’s Tournament that just went down at whatever that “gnarly” course is. Anyway, we’re totally gnarly. Extreme even. We had set up a couple of wickets on one side of a felled log and dug a hole under the log through which you had to hit your ball to get to the next wicket. Once I finally got through, I went to climb over the log and I tried to employ a hunk of bark as a kind of step. The bark, however, gave way and I fell. I threw my arm up in the air and, POP! out of the socket. I don’t think I squealed, but I fell to the ground and instantly thought, “Arm out of socket! Very far from hospital! Shit!” But just as Tania arrived at my side, POP! it slid back into place all by itself. I don’t thank God for anything, but if I did, that would have been a perfect opportunity.

“Shit,” I said while walking beside her, “I want to put my arm around you, but I can’t lift it that high.”

“Aww,” she said.

My second choice, after the waterfall, for a place to pop the question was this little stone plateau above a creek and in the shadow of a miniature Yosemite-ish rock. I remembered it looking fairly majestic, but as we approached it was anything but. Just a bunch of dirt in the hot sun, not a tree in sight and a small pool of still water below. “Shit,” I thought. I was already getting really nervous. I wasn’t really worried about her answer, we’ve talked about marriage a lot, but I just didn’t want to fuck it up. I wanted it to be romantic. I wanted it to be something we’d remember. But here we were in what might as well have been the parking lot at the county fair.

“Oh well,” I said, "it’s now or never.”

I got out my camera and took a few pictures to stall for time and kind of figure out how I was going to do this. She posed with Beckett for a couple. Once I got myself together, I said, “Well it is Bloom’s Day, after all. And I brought a copy of Ulysses.” Which I hoped still contained a very expensive ring.

“Oh god,” she said laughing.

“But this is a really special copy,” I said kind of shaking.

“What?” she said. She was suddenly paying attention because I think she sensed how nervous I was. It was about this point that everything gets kind of blurry.

“Yeah,” I stammered trying to take the rubber bands off. Once I opened it and found the page (the ring was there), I dropped to one knee and proffered her the text and the ring. “Because Book Two begins with the sentence, ‘Will you marry me?’”
The words felt weird. Not bad weird, good weird, but really heavy. “Our lives have just changed,” I thought. "Cool."

Tania was stunned. It took her a second to realize what was going on, but eventually she was able to choke out a, “Yes.”

Above us, on the trail we had just left, a boy scout troop was passing. I had always envisioned asking for her hand in at least a semi-private environment. I’m not one to do it in a crowd, or at a restaurant. But unfortunately that’s just what I did. “WOOOO!” they screamed. “YEAAAAAH!” “WAY TO GO!” I didn’t even look up. I was too busy kissing my fiancée who had tears streaming down her face.

When we were done, she turned to the last page of the book and read the last words, “’…yes,’” she said, “’I said yes I will Yes.’”

Yes.


this is tania before the ring. see how she's all bummed? lost? unwed?


then you give her a ring and she pipes right up!

"love you tania!"

"love you david!"

"we love each other!"