The Future "Mrs. Stark"

My girlfriend has now become my fiancée, and we are both very excited about our wedding next summer, as well as everything that lies beyond.

At the dance after OCON's closing banquet Saturday, she sang two songs ["The More I See You" and "I've Got You Under My Skin"]. When she finished, I surprised her by taking the microphone and proposing to her. We met at last year's conference in San Diego, and it seemed to be an appropriate time to ask her to spend the rest of our lives together.

We are planning to be married in early July, 2007 in Boulder, CO, a town that I loved living in 10 years ago though I generally did not like the politics of its residents. After the wedding we'll go to Telluride for OCON, tying it all back together, then leave for our honeymoon when it's over.

At this year's conference, several people mentioned that many talks and the general state of the culture were depressing. Dr. Yaron Brook made the excellent point that he was not depressed; this is the best time to be alive, and there are many, many wonderful values out there to be pursued and achieved right now. Well, I'm not depressed, either, and I am working hard to make my life as full and wonderful as I can. I hope that, as a side effect, the people who saw my proposal got a very concrete example of one of the things that can be worth living for.