Guest post: A Man's Perspective

TGIF everyone!  Since I had a termination trial yesterday and was busy with that, T has graciously offered to guest post for me today.  (Isn't he the best?)  So without furter ado...

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Hi, everyone out there in Blogland! I am T, the future husband of Nain. Many of you liked her idea of a guest post from me, so I decided it might be fun to give this a try. Besides, I always look forward to reading Nain’s posts everyday, so I figured I would give her a break for a day and take the reigns.

First, I will tell you a little about me. I am an engineer for Cummi
ns here in Indiana. If you are not aware, Cummins makes diesel engines for many different types of vehicles. I work in the on-highway heavy duty engineering department. I help develop engines for the large semi trucks you see on the highways. I work as a combustion / performance / emissions engineer. That means I work on developing the calibrations that control the fueling and air handling of the engine. The engines have to perform and meet emissions laws in all environments and the calibration helps it do that. Because it has to work in extreme environments, we take test trips to some strange places. Right after I started there, I took a trip where we drove three trucks from Indiana to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada in the middle of February! Needless to say, it was the first time I got to experience an air temperature of -30 degrees F! It was cold! That summer, I was on a trip out to Frisco, Colorado for altitude testing. Frisco is about 70 miles west of Denver in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. I will tell you that is some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. I am including a couple pictures I took when I was out there. I have not made the trip to Death Valley yet, but there are trucks out there right now. I hear the temperature is 125 degrees F out there right now. That would be interesting, as well! I love my job and couldn’t be happier with it!

Now, on to the topic about which everyone wanted to hear. The bachelor party, or as we called it, “The party to end all parties, the moment in time that will go down among the most important events in the history of humankind. The bachelor party.” My dad and brother made the 5 hour trip from Michigan to join in the festivities. I was very excited to see them! Around 3:15 on Saturday, everyone arrived at the house. You have got to love a meeting of a bunch of men that don’t know each other too well. We were sitting watching TV having a very painful and awkward conversation about weather and other awesome topics. But, if you know men, that is how they are. We are not always the most social of creatures.

We left for some go-karting. Nain’s brother planned it, but was a little unsure of how it would go. Truth be told, we all thought it might not be the best. But we went. I will say it turned out to be a lot of fun so I have no idea why we were all worried. We raced four separate times on three tracks. We did the hardest track twice to test our skills. There was some serious male bonding taking place. We then headed to Oaken Barrel for dinner. Oaken Barrel is a local microbrewery around where we live, and the beer and food are awesome. After our round of beers arrived at the table, Nain’s dad gave me a really nice toast. I had two IPA’s with dinner. If you don’t know, an IPA is a strong beer, around 7.5% alcohol so needless to say, I was already buzzing at this point. Once dinner was complete, the men of ill repute headed off for a night of pub crawling. We met a couple of our friends at the Chatam Tap, which is a British pub. We ordered our round of beverages and watched the cricket and soccer on TV. There was also men’s only discussion. We then headed to the Biergarten at the Rathskellar. If you don’t know about the Biergarten, it is an outdoor bar with live music. That night was a Santana cover band that was pretty good. Nain’s brother bought me a tall beer. Now a tall at the Rathskellar means a glass of 32 ounces of frothy goodness. At this point in the evening, I was feeling really good. We finished the night at McNiven’s Tavern with a specialty beer that was 10% alcohol. I was really feeling it at this point. We came back to the house and Nain’s brother and I were up talking until 3:00AM. He left to head home and I crashed into bed. It was an epic night by my standards. The next morning, we woke up around 9:30 and my dad made some strong coffee. I was still dizzy, but not too bad considering the amount of beer I drank that night. We went out to breakfast and my dad and brother hit the road. I was sad to see them go, but my dad said the big day is only 6 weeks away. Overall, it was a great weekend and I got to experience something I had not done too often in college.

So, to conclude, I wanted to let you know that Nain is truly my best friend. I now know that soulmates do exist. I now understand why a man would want to give his everything to his wife and care for her as if he was caring for himself. I love you Nain!