You read it correctly. I’m growing up right in front of your eyes. A few weeks ago I proposed to my girlfriend of almost 3 years and she happily accepted. We are planning a one year engagement and hope to be married in mid-April 2008.

A lot of people ask if I was nervous. The truth is… not really. When you know you have the right girl, then there’s nothing to be nervous about. I really didn’t have any doubts or thoughts of her saying no. It was just the right time to ask. I had bought the ring almost a month before I proposed and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to pop the question.

The whole wedding process is quite an ordeal. Luckily, the bride to be takes care of most of it. My top priorities are organizing the rehearsal dinner and planning the honeymoon. The bride takes care of the rest… the reception hall, cakes, dresses, invitations, favors, catering, and all that other stuff.

I know Katie has been planning her wedding for as long as she can remember. It’s going to be an exciting year no doubt. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are fortunate to have families that love us and support us and help us along the way.

What kind of post would this be without a picture?

Here we are just moments after being engaged. Excuse the ragged clothing…we were at the beach all day

I just found this clip from The Office. Check it out.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed a small increase in traffic on my Florida Gators Forum, Gator Envy. Usually it averages 100 unique visitors/day, but recently, it has been over 200. Traffic spiked to an all-time high on Monday at 535 uniques.

Registration signups are still low. Maybe 1 new member a day. Most of my traffic comes from Google for people searching for gator wallpapers or myspace layouts. Since I offer the layotus for free, people don’t tend to sign up to get them.

But it’s not all bad. I have noticed the number of pages indexed in Google is rapidly growing as well. Over 3,000 pages are now indexed and I have a total of 6,000+ posts. So that’s not bad at all.

To keep up with expansion, I added some new modifications. One is advanced forum stats seen at the bottom of the forum home page. The other mod I installed is a photo gallery. I really think by the time football season comes around, the gallery will be a huge asset to my community.

I still haven’t added any ads to the site yet. I probably will attempt to this weekend and see what happens. With only 100-200 uniques/day I can’t expect much.

The following is a paid post.

The 2008 Presidential elections are just around the corner. Do you know who the democractic party leader is? Barack Obama. Obama has a chance at becoming America’s first African American President. What better to way to show your support than to buy a t-shirt saying “Barack Obama is my Home Boy.” Check it out below:

BarackObamaIsMyHomeBoy.com offers a wide variety of Obama t-shirts, mugs, stickers, pins and more. Prices are cheap, so you really have no excuse not to purchase one. For more information and to make a purchase, visit the official Obama Shirts site.

The following is a paid post.

Could the United States see its first female president in 2008? There is a possibility with Senator Hillary Clinton campaigning for the democratic bid. Now is a great time to buy some Hilliary Clinton Shirts to show your support. HillaryClintonIsMyHomeGirl.com offers a wide range of t-shirts, mugs, buttons and other items that have the saying “Hillary Clinton is my HOMEGIRL” on them. Check it out here:

Whether you support Hillary and are bid for President or you just like the design of the graphic tee, and really…who wouldn’t love this design…you should pick one of these up for you or a friend. The price for a t-shirt is as little as $14.95.

First, I want to say Congratulations to the Florida Gators! You never cease to amaze me!

Second, I want to congratulate Byran Le for winning the Bloggers NCAA Tournament Pick’em Contest. Bryan correctly picked 44 of the 63 games, including the Gators in last night Championship game.Your’s truly placed 2nd, only losing to Bryan by 4 points. You can view the rest of the top ten in this picture:

For winning the Contest, Bryan will receive:

• A free link back from every blogger who signs up in the tournament. This could be a lot of free links if we get everyone to signup.
• 1 week of advertising on my blog in the 468×60 banner spot.
• Electric Shock package from Forum Shock - his own company lol
• Free customized skin from http://www.skinsforwp.com/

I hope everyone who entered honors the agreement to give Bryan a link back.

Come next year, I’m looking to have more bloggers involved in the pool. Maybe 50-100 bloggers. But for now, it was a great month and I had a lot of fun picking against you. If I wouldn’t have blabbed about how awesome the Gators are, maybe Bryan wouldn’t have picked them