We're certainly fortunate in the weather today. It's bright and sunny, although it may be a little warm in a big suit or fancy wedding dress.

I have a wonderful feeling of peace and relaxation. For once in a very long time, work pressures are not on my mind. There's very little that I personally have to do before the wedding, and so wedding pressures are also gone. I feel very free, and very happy, and very comfortable. The feeling is very much akin to what I felt back in my days at University, especially during the holiday periods. No pressing matters, and plenty of time to relax, to learn, to invent and create.

Of course, I don't really have plenty of time. In a few hours I'll be shaving, putting wax in my hair, donning a suit, and heading off to the church. In other ways, I do have plenty of time. The honeymoon is going to be a huge break, and I'm really looking forward to it.

This beautiful feeling of freedom certainly re-inforces my conviction to retire as soon as possible.

Retirement
Whenever I talk about retiring at 30, or even as late as 35, I find that I'm often met with feelings of disbelief, shock, sometimes almost outrage. The biggest question people ask me is "what will you do?" and "won't you get bored?". There seems to be a big mentality out there that work is life, and life without work is empty and vaccuous.

Ask yourself, has there ever been anything that you wished that you could do, but couldn't because you never had the time? Aren't there skills you'd like to practice, knowledge you'd wish to gain, deeds that you'd wish to carry out? Without the constraint of having to work, you're incredibly empowered. You have a real opportunity to do things that are important to you. You can make the world a better place.

I have an almost endless list of things that I would rather be doing than working. I've been blessed with incredible friends, but I never seem to have enough time to spend with them. I have a great many things I would love to learn, or to teach, or to create, but only time for a scant few of them. I'd love to learn more about this world that I live in, and how I can make it better, but time constraints make that too difficult to put into practice.

To be able to do what I feel important, rather than what pays the bills, is definitely a dream for me, and one of the biggest reasons I left regular employment three years ago.

When people look at my calendar, they claim that I'm mad to be so busy. To me it all makes perfect sense. Money is time, and most importantly, interest on money is also time. When a day's worth of work means that Jacinta and myself can live comfortably for a week, and two busy months allows us to live comfortably for an entire year, being so busy isn't mad at all.

I better get ready, I'll be married in four hours.

I still have to write a speech, although I'm not too worried about that, being a regular public speaker has its advantages. There's a bunch of work things that I would have like to have done before the day, but they'll have to wait.

Right now, I'm kicking back, listening to some tunes, and just taking it easy. We've got house-sitters all organised, and all those wedding things, and most things in the business should run themselves.

Managed to drop my inbox down to less than 150 messages (down from 600).

Dive Medical
On our honeymoon we're planning on doings lost of diving. However, I used to be asthmatic. Uh-oh. Diving as an asthmatic in Australia is a no-no. The problem isn't that you may get asthma underwater and you can't use a bronchiodilator (eg, ventolin). The problem is that asthma means you lose lung capacity, which can mean trapped air. If you're underwater, and rise to the surface (or to less depth) that air will expand. If it expands too much, you can pop a lung.

Popping a lung isn't nice, but not the biggest thing to worry about. Air in the bloodstream after you've damaged your lung is a much bigger worry. It can give you an embolism, causing brain damage, permanent paralysis, or death. That's bad.

So, you can imagine that my doctor was cautious about even thinking about passing my medical after hearing that I used to have asthma. I got to visit a respiritory lab to be given bronchioconstrictants (lung-irritants) and my reaction measured.

The good news is, my reactions were considered to be well within the normal range, and as such I'm considered "fit to dive". I'm still going to be cautious, an ex-asthmatic is still more likely to have problems than a regular person. I suspect that if I do feel any tightness of chest underwater, I'll need to go against my regular instincts and ensure that I stay under until it passes.

Advice to business-owners
If you think that your tech-magician, who's getting married the next day, gives a toss that you've having problems with machines after you've completely disregarded his advice, then you're completely mistaken. He can deal with your problems any day. He's only going to get married once.

Goodwill is like a bank. You can deposit into it, and you can withdraw from it when things are tough. But if you try to withdraw from it when it's empty, it's going to end up costing you a lot.

As such, it was to my great surprise to discover that theives have been at work on our property. Our lovely silverbeet is almost entirely gone! Someone's helped themselves to our front vegie patch, and taken the biggest and bestest of our silverbeet leaves.

If it were any other plant, I probably wouldn't have minded. We've got plenty of lettuce, heaps of broad beans, lots of peas, and rhubarb everywhere. But we only had one silverbeet plant, and it was only just reaching the stage where we were ready to pick a few leaves from it. Now it will be a long time before we can safely harvest from it, as only a few leaves are left.

Buck's Night
Some last-minute mix-ups resulted in us changing venue for the dinner, but the laser-games afterwards were very successsful and enjoyed by all. Unfortunately my team got completely owned in the two team-games. A big congrats up to both Jacinta and scottp who did an excellent job at base-defense.

At this point I really miss being in a regular job, where I can just take a big wad of leave to get married in a relaxing manner, and not have to worry about how everyone else will survive.

Server Move
I have one client who wishes to move a whole rack of servers tomorrow, and is doing so on the understanding that availability of support for the week immediately following the move will be at an all-time-low. I've provided my professional opinion that it's a very bad idea, but it's going ahead nonetheless.

No doubt the client will find the matter a learning experience.