First, some photos of my Boston friends who were able to make it to the wedding.
This is my wedding party, consisting of my brother Jeremiah along with Boston friends Ekrem (best friend from college) and Sandy (best friend from high school):
Can you find them in the large group photo below? A few people needed to climb onto the rocks:
Some people wore impossibly tenuous, gossamer footwear that necessitated assistance on descent:
The pictures taken on the grassy hill were moderately less strenuous:
Unbenknownst to me, my college friend Alyse occupied herself with a large outdoor art project as a part of a "collaborative production game." (This actually greatly intrigues me - I may yet join in.) She and two other people in the game spent the morning and afternoon coloring over 300 feet of the sidewalk with chalk! It ended up at the pavilion where the wedding was held. We noticed the decorations as we were walking from the grassy field photos to the lakeside photos. Thinking it was simply some people out having fun with chalk, I was shocked to see that the message at the end of the trail indicated that the decorating must have been perpetrated by someone we knew:
I didn't find out until later that it was Alyse (rongo rongo in the game) who was responsible for the decorating. Very fun!Adrian gave a toast recounting a prank he pulled on me in college in collusion with my mother (who cackled along from her table). I was Adrian's best man at his wedding. Sadly, a heavy March snowstorm prevented me (twice! on successive days!) from landing in Chicago to attend the wedding. Ekrem filled my tuxedo and Albert read my best man's speech, which I faxed from the airport after Chicago turned me back for the second time. I was elated that Adrian was willing to repay the honor:
Ekrem and Sandy gave wonderful toasts as well, but I decided they've already been overrepresented, so I held back their toast pictures.Here is Katie talking to Craig, who is Adrian's better half. In the background are Chris, Adrian, Jan, and (I think) my blurry mother:
Sadly, our official photographer was kept busy with photographing people in the middle of the action and wasn't able to take as many photos of the guests as I'd have liked. If you have some photos that you haven't yet shared with us, please do! (We have the candid photos from the cameras left on the tables, but have not yet digitized them.)This is Alyse's description summary for the Epsilon Theta folk (i.e. my college friends):
A number of ET alums were delighted to attend Josh Michael Andresen (PC '90) and Katie's wedding on June 9th in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The couple will be living in Saint Paul near both their families. Josh continues working on molecular biology of neurodegenerative disease and Katie is a patent litigator.
Chris (PC '88) flew out from New Hampshire, where he has a house in Manchester. Chris is still with Autodesk, programming a software tool for civil engineers. He's been getting into lake kayaking, playing board games, and would respond positively to an enticement to visit Boston. Ekrem (PC '89) was a groomsman and gave a nice speech about the joys of being Josh's long-time bridge partner and friend. Unfortunately, we missed Leanne (PC '90), who was back home busily gestating. Ekrem, Leanne, and brother Will are looking forward to the arrival of a baby girl very soon. Ekrem is still working at Oracle, and plays some World of Warcraft when he has a chance. Jan (PC '89) was glad to have a chance to dance to some Abba classics. He is working at Sun Microsystems. Both Jan and his wife Andrea (MIT '97) have been bicycling quite a bit, and Andrea recently directed a production of "Arms and the Man." Jason (PC '89) and boyfriend Ryan both looked stylish in matching outfits. Jason is still programming at Millenium and they just finished planting a garden at their Somerville condo. (Andrea is looking for a new job as an education researcher and Ryan is seeking a position in college administration---any leads would be appreciated!)
Andrian (PC '90) and Craig (MIT '94) flew out from Athens, Georgia and both had good news. Adrian recently got tenure as a professor of music, and Craig was promoted to a tenure-track professorship. Joey (PC '92) was as charming as ever, as he led a small expedition to see the nearby Weisman museum in a building designed by Frank Gehry. Joey is living in NY city and continues to work in advertising. He reports that he regularly sees Charles (PC '92), who works in theater, concentrating on positive portrayals of science. Joey hopes that the pace at work will soon return to normal so he'll have time to visit Boston. Rachel (PC '92) brought clone #3 along. Poor Julian experienced a critical seating failure right before the ceremony, but otherwise seemed to enjoy the party. Rachel has been tutoring kids, knitting, scrapbooking, considering puppies, and otherwise doing a million things simultaneously. She and Dave (MIT '86?) live in Tewksbury with sons Seth, Eli, and Julian.
On to my trip out to Boston, I was to be working. I needed to access a number of DNA samples that were in an MIT refrigerator in order to quantitate the amount of DNA in each and then send a portion to another investigator. In actuality, this was a semi-vacation and I tried to fit as many visits with friends as I could. It turned out to be somewhat embarrassing that I didn't quite get the DNA samples shipped out to the other Boston lab that needed them. I had to bring them all back to Minneapolis and then mail them back to Boston. But I had a fun week!
I stayed with Ekrem and Leanne through the week, and Katie came to stay there too when she landed. Julia (the newborn) is adorable and Will (now three-and-three-quarters, as he will eagerly tell you) was as cute as ever. (Actually, I think he gets cuter all the time, and we had a lot of fun hanging out.)
I saw Sandy a number of times. She came over to Ekrem and Leanne's house once for dinner, we went out to dinner one other time, and then she came to dinner with Katie and me right after Katie landed on Friday night.
Tuesday evening I went to see Lorraine and the darts team I used to play on (back in '04). It was fun watching a league match and talking with her. Lorraine's husband Matthew was able to attend the wedding and organized the bridge game at the Sunday brunch after the wedding.
During the day on Thursday, I drove down to Providence to spend the afternoon with Dave, my friend and bridge partner from grad school. I found his office (he's a recently tenured professor at Brown University) and we started a fun conversation about psychological and neurobiological reductionism started by a diagram scribbled on his white board. Then we went to lunch and then he took me on a driving tour of downtown Providence. He's been there for a while now and pointed out a wide range of interesting things. (Embarrassingly, I don't think I would be able to give such a captivating tour of any of the places that I've lived.)
Thursday evening, I had dinner with Leah (my favorite of the ten or so roommates I had while living in Cambridge the two years before moving back to Minnesota) and her boyfriend Mike. I think Leah is the friend of mine who looks most like Katie. Katie thinks this is because they each have high, prominent cheekbones. You can judge for yourself. This was taken of Leah and me at my favorite Cambridge restaurant, Helmand:
On Saturday, I gave Katie a driving tour of some of the places in the Boston area that I had lived. This included stopping by Epsilon Theta, the co-ed fraternity I lived in as an undergrad at MIT. Katie listened to my stories about the place with a certain incredulity, in particular the fact that everyone slept in bunk beds in one large room on the top floor of the house. She thought the house itself was quite beautiful, but found the "dorm" on the fourth floor to be rather horrifying. It was nice to show her that rather important bit of my history and memory.
On Saturday evening, we threw a party for all the Boston folk at Ekrem and Leanne's house. We ordered Indian takeout for the nine guests who joined the six hosts (Ekrem, Leanne, Will, Julia, Katie, and me): Rachel (no clones this time), Jan & Andrea, Alyse, Marcus (who couldn't make it out for the wedding because I chose MIT's graduation day for the wedding ceremony), and my friend Jill from the MIT lab along with her husband Kyle and toddler Oliver (who loved playing with Will). My MIT boss (David) stopped by later on, as well. It was great to hang out with everyone. I've got a great group of friends that make me quite happy! (Though I'm embarrassed that I failed to take any pictures of this event!) I'm already looking forward to my next trip to Boston, probably next summer.
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