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Back in the Day...when I used LJ
Jun. 11th, 2009 09:03 am
Courtesy of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bobaloo here's a picture of Chris and I back from 2004, I think. Ahh, we were so young then, and I still had my hair...wait.
One More Day of Work Before Vacation!
Apr. 16th, 2009 08:46 am☆ Well, again I'm having to say something about how long it's been since I've written in my journal. For weeks I had a half written post about TBRU that never got off the ground. Partly it was due to stress at work and trying to get through tax season, and now that's over, thankfully. It may not have been as hard as we thought, but it's definitely been a stressful time at work. Otherwise I just haven't been so inspired to write and have been lazy, watching TV in my spare time.
Lets face it, TBRU can be boiled down to a few things. There was great people there, I did my best to stay out of crowds and kept the drama to a minimum. That's not to say that going to Six Flags during Spring Break was not frustrating with the long lines and rude people, but luckily the guys I went with were good company. Also, the Battlestar Galactica finale went great and it was fun to have fellow geeks come over to watch. It made viewing it much more of an event. The finale itself was good, not great, but I think there was a lot of expectations. I saw people I knew and was glad to see them, and met a couple of new people, mostly introduced by people I knew since I'm too shy to go meet them myself.
☆ I'll just a paragraph or five about politics here. I think Obama and his administration are doing fine. Sure, I don't agree with everything he does, but I do appreciate that he seems to be able to plan for the long term and doesn't get caught up in the day-to-day news cycle. Politicians are often too reactionary (see AIG bonuses) and try to respond too often to what the polling shows rather than getting out there and making real plans. I find it refreshing.
The tax day tea parties were ridiculous. What began as a libertarian thing suddenly became some way for disenfranchised Republicans to find a voice, but the problem with that voice is that it seems to find outrage but no substance or solutions. For many people there they seemed to be outraged, but didn't quite know what they were outraged about. Of course you have Fox News out there, actually adding their name to the event. If my parents ever try to tell me that Fox News is balanced again, all I have to do is point to this moment where the right-wing network didn't report the news, but tried to be an event organizer. While I don't find much in the way of objective journalism from any of the cable news outlets, I can't see either CNN or MSNBC trying to actually create a movement for their benefit. For anyone on fox who wants to remain a journalist, it's time to leave.
Funny that these tea bag protests about spending come after several years of Republicans raising deficits while Bush was in office. All this sturm and drang only seems to come around now that they are out of power. I'll take your message as seriously as I do the Code Pink housewives.
Oh, and our governor here in Texas, Rick Perry, is worried about a primary fight against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson next year, so naturally he decides to go to these tea party events to campaign. He's a complete idiot, but he knows the Republican Party here is a bunch of rabid fools (Just check out the Texas Republican Party Platform) so he knows he has to play to these guys. Kay is much more the moderate, and she would do better in a general election, but it will be harder for her to win the primary.
So Governor Good Hair, as we call him, goes out to start talking about Texas shouldn't be ruled by Washington, that states are sovereign and we need to look at secession from the US. Great! Just what we need here is an idiot telling us that we should leave the US. If we left the US, the US would also leave us. Do you think Texas would keep the US companies that headquarter here? Do you think that the US military would just leave all there equipment to us? Do you realize that there isn't a large enough bank based in the state to do commerce with? We are so tied into the US, that...why am I even arguing this, our governor is an idiot.
☆ Lastly, tomorrow we head out to LA for our cruise. I'm excited about going out to see a Dodger game tomorrow night and Saturday getting on the ship for a Mexican Riviera cruise. It's the Lazy Bear cruise, so there should be lots of good people on the ship. chris was on this same cruise a couple of years ago - as were a couple of other LJer's. I'll admit that I am not excited about any of the ports of call, but it will be nice to relax and get away from it all.
I'm packing, trying to get everything I need into one suitcase. You'd think going away for a week wouldn't require so much, especially going to somewhere warm, but I'm struggling to keep the bag under 50 pounds. Luckily this cruise I don't have to bring formal wear.
I have been on one other all-gay cruise, and that was the one to Alaska in 2007. I liked that one because people were dressed a little more warmly, but I see this cruise as a little more body competitive - beaches and pools and such. I'm sure there will be several people in skimpy swimsuits both on and off the ship. I'm already in my mindset that I will be the largest guy on the ship and won't want to be out at the pool area. Hopefully this feeling will change and I'll be able to let go and have a good time, but I'll tell you, it's easy to feel that you are very unattractive going into something like this.
Still I can't just stay in our little cabin all vacation long. This will be odd for me because I'm always looking for things to do on vacation but this one seems to be more about doing nothing. I hope I don't go crazy with boredom as I can't think of any of these ports that I want to explore, or anything. I'll be missing my internet access, too. I'm guessing I'm going to be on deck reading a book quite often. We will see how it goes.
Now if I can just cram all these T-Shirts in the bag!
☆ Oh, and it's possible that California's Supreme Court will rule on marriage next week. I guess we'll see if our marriage is still valid (in selected states) or not. We'll be without internet, but I'm sure we will hear the news on the ship. not that I'm expecting it, but if they rule for marriage equality that is going to be one big party boat.
Lets face it, TBRU can be boiled down to a few things. There was great people there, I did my best to stay out of crowds and kept the drama to a minimum. That's not to say that going to Six Flags during Spring Break was not frustrating with the long lines and rude people, but luckily the guys I went with were good company. Also, the Battlestar Galactica finale went great and it was fun to have fellow geeks come over to watch. It made viewing it much more of an event. The finale itself was good, not great, but I think there was a lot of expectations. I saw people I knew and was glad to see them, and met a couple of new people, mostly introduced by people I knew since I'm too shy to go meet them myself.
☆ I'll just a paragraph or five about politics here. I think Obama and his administration are doing fine. Sure, I don't agree with everything he does, but I do appreciate that he seems to be able to plan for the long term and doesn't get caught up in the day-to-day news cycle. Politicians are often too reactionary (see AIG bonuses) and try to respond too often to what the polling shows rather than getting out there and making real plans. I find it refreshing.
The tax day tea parties were ridiculous. What began as a libertarian thing suddenly became some way for disenfranchised Republicans to find a voice, but the problem with that voice is that it seems to find outrage but no substance or solutions. For many people there they seemed to be outraged, but didn't quite know what they were outraged about. Of course you have Fox News out there, actually adding their name to the event. If my parents ever try to tell me that Fox News is balanced again, all I have to do is point to this moment where the right-wing network didn't report the news, but tried to be an event organizer. While I don't find much in the way of objective journalism from any of the cable news outlets, I can't see either CNN or MSNBC trying to actually create a movement for their benefit. For anyone on fox who wants to remain a journalist, it's time to leave.
Funny that these tea bag protests about spending come after several years of Republicans raising deficits while Bush was in office. All this sturm and drang only seems to come around now that they are out of power. I'll take your message as seriously as I do the Code Pink housewives.
Oh, and our governor here in Texas, Rick Perry, is worried about a primary fight against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson next year, so naturally he decides to go to these tea party events to campaign. He's a complete idiot, but he knows the Republican Party here is a bunch of rabid fools (Just check out the Texas Republican Party Platform) so he knows he has to play to these guys. Kay is much more the moderate, and she would do better in a general election, but it will be harder for her to win the primary.
So Governor Good Hair, as we call him, goes out to start talking about Texas shouldn't be ruled by Washington, that states are sovereign and we need to look at secession from the US. Great! Just what we need here is an idiot telling us that we should leave the US. If we left the US, the US would also leave us. Do you think Texas would keep the US companies that headquarter here? Do you think that the US military would just leave all there equipment to us? Do you realize that there isn't a large enough bank based in the state to do commerce with? We are so tied into the US, that...why am I even arguing this, our governor is an idiot.
☆ Lastly, tomorrow we head out to LA for our cruise. I'm excited about going out to see a Dodger game tomorrow night and Saturday getting on the ship for a Mexican Riviera cruise. It's the Lazy Bear cruise, so there should be lots of good people on the ship. chris was on this same cruise a couple of years ago - as were a couple of other LJer's. I'll admit that I am not excited about any of the ports of call, but it will be nice to relax and get away from it all.
I'm packing, trying to get everything I need into one suitcase. You'd think going away for a week wouldn't require so much, especially going to somewhere warm, but I'm struggling to keep the bag under 50 pounds. Luckily this cruise I don't have to bring formal wear.
I have been on one other all-gay cruise, and that was the one to Alaska in 2007. I liked that one because people were dressed a little more warmly, but I see this cruise as a little more body competitive - beaches and pools and such. I'm sure there will be several people in skimpy swimsuits both on and off the ship. I'm already in my mindset that I will be the largest guy on the ship and won't want to be out at the pool area. Hopefully this feeling will change and I'll be able to let go and have a good time, but I'll tell you, it's easy to feel that you are very unattractive going into something like this.
Still I can't just stay in our little cabin all vacation long. This will be odd for me because I'm always looking for things to do on vacation but this one seems to be more about doing nothing. I hope I don't go crazy with boredom as I can't think of any of these ports that I want to explore, or anything. I'll be missing my internet access, too. I'm guessing I'm going to be on deck reading a book quite often. We will see how it goes.
Now if I can just cram all these T-Shirts in the bag!
☆ Oh, and it's possible that California's Supreme Court will rule on marriage next week. I guess we'll see if our marriage is still valid (in selected states) or not. We'll be without internet, but I'm sure we will hear the news on the ship. not that I'm expecting it, but if they rule for marriage equality that is going to be one big party boat.
I Need a Politician-Free Holiday
Apr. 29th, 2008 11:49 pmSo hey, what's been going on?
★Well, at work I'm still in training. After a few weeks of being on the training wheels queue, helping out during tax season, we went back into the classroom. It's very hard to stay awake sometimes, as it seems like we've been in training forever, but the information is crucial.
★Spring has come, and so have several big storms, a few tornadoes and such. Monday was probably the last day where it was cool enough to wear a long-sleeved shirt, comfortably. unfortunately our tax-season jeans month is almost up, but we do go back to business casual. We'll till have some strong storms for a few weeks, but then it will be time for the hot summer heat.
★Chris and I have gone to two big comedy shows lately. A couple of weeks ago Mikey (mikeybeartx) and Michael (starzcub) gave us their tickets to see Lisa Lampanelli. Wow, how many racial stereotype jokes can one throw out? Still, she had pretty diverse audience just eating it all up. Lots of gays in the audience, too. Still, after about an hour, there was really a kind of "well, that's about as much of that that I need" kind of feeling...kind of like when you've got a large cheesecake slice from the Cheesecake Factory. You're done before it is.
Sunday night we went with Josh (joshjeffcoat) to see Margaret Cho. I was really more interested in seeing Kelly, but there are definitely things that are better about Liam Sullivan's video performances. He seems to know that, and part of his performance was projected on the screen. Margaret was funny, hilarious even, but as we went home we were all having a hard time remembering anything she said. I guess it's more personal than something where you can throw out a one liner she used.
★OK, a political rant to finish up with here. As John McCain seems to be in full middle-class pander mode (I saw someone use the term "pander bear"), he has suggested that their be a summertime "tax holiday" from the gas tax. In a way, this is sort of like the "tax free holiday" the State of Texas does on sales tax for a weekend right before school starts to give people a break.
So this has been criticized as a rather stupid plan, as the federal gas tax, if missing for several months, impacts the Federal Highway Fund. Not only do we have a problem with crumbling infrastructure, but now you're going to destroy a fund that pays for many jobs during a time of growing unemployment? The effect would likely hurt the economy stopping billions in projects and laying off millions of workers. When John McCain said he wasn't very knowledgeable about the economy, he wasn't kidding.
Well, Barack Obama came out against the idea of a Gas Tax Holiday for most of the reasons that I mentioned, and that the idea of having cheaper gas for a short time does nothing to keep us from using less oil in the future. It's a disincentive.
Well, seeing that Obama was against something that might be a wedge between him an gas-guzzling voters, Hillary Clinton said she would support the Gas Tax Holiday. In her world, she would then fund the Highway Fund by re-creating the windfall profits tax on oil companies. While I applaud her for at least trying to find a funding source to try to pay the way for a tax cut - something the republicans can't seem to be bothered with - the problem is that the oil companies will just pay for the tax as any other company does, by raising the price of it's product!
Look, we have enough problems caused by oil, and I'd love to hear one of these candidates come out with a better plan to encourage less use, and more efficent use, but that isn't the way the game is played right now. No one's talking real issues but everyone's trying to demean the other guy or gal's character. Frankly, I've had enough with all of them for now. I wish I could easily stop watching this trainwreck.
★Well, at work I'm still in training. After a few weeks of being on the training wheels queue, helping out during tax season, we went back into the classroom. It's very hard to stay awake sometimes, as it seems like we've been in training forever, but the information is crucial.
★Spring has come, and so have several big storms, a few tornadoes and such. Monday was probably the last day where it was cool enough to wear a long-sleeved shirt, comfortably. unfortunately our tax-season jeans month is almost up, but we do go back to business casual. We'll till have some strong storms for a few weeks, but then it will be time for the hot summer heat.
★Chris and I have gone to two big comedy shows lately. A couple of weeks ago Mikey (
mikeybeartx) and Michael (starzcub) gave us their tickets to see Lisa Lampanelli. Wow, how many racial stereotype jokes can one throw out? Still, she had pretty diverse audience just eating it all up. Lots of gays in the audience, too. Still, after about an hour, there was really a kind of "well, that's about as much of that that I need" kind of feeling...kind of like when you've got a large cheesecake slice from the Cheesecake Factory. You're done before it is.Sunday night we went with Josh (
joshjeffcoat) to see Margaret Cho. I was really more interested in seeing Kelly, but there are definitely things that are better about Liam Sullivan's video performances. He seems to know that, and part of his performance was projected on the screen. Margaret was funny, hilarious even, but as we went home we were all having a hard time remembering anything she said. I guess it's more personal than something where you can throw out a one liner she used.★OK, a political rant to finish up with here. As John McCain seems to be in full middle-class pander mode (I saw someone use the term "pander bear"), he has suggested that their be a summertime "tax holiday" from the gas tax. In a way, this is sort of like the "tax free holiday" the State of Texas does on sales tax for a weekend right before school starts to give people a break.
So this has been criticized as a rather stupid plan, as the federal gas tax, if missing for several months, impacts the Federal Highway Fund. Not only do we have a problem with crumbling infrastructure, but now you're going to destroy a fund that pays for many jobs during a time of growing unemployment? The effect would likely hurt the economy stopping billions in projects and laying off millions of workers. When John McCain said he wasn't very knowledgeable about the economy, he wasn't kidding.
Well, Barack Obama came out against the idea of a Gas Tax Holiday for most of the reasons that I mentioned, and that the idea of having cheaper gas for a short time does nothing to keep us from using less oil in the future. It's a disincentive.
Well, seeing that Obama was against something that might be a wedge between him an gas-guzzling voters, Hillary Clinton said she would support the Gas Tax Holiday. In her world, she would then fund the Highway Fund by re-creating the windfall profits tax on oil companies. While I applaud her for at least trying to find a funding source to try to pay the way for a tax cut - something the republicans can't seem to be bothered with - the problem is that the oil companies will just pay for the tax as any other company does, by raising the price of it's product!
Look, we have enough problems caused by oil, and I'd love to hear one of these candidates come out with a better plan to encourage less use, and more efficent use, but that isn't the way the game is played right now. No one's talking real issues but everyone's trying to demean the other guy or gal's character. Frankly, I've had enough with all of them for now. I wish I could easily stop watching this trainwreck.
I'd be remiss if I didn't say something about the passing of James (jamesbeary). Hearing about it surprised me so much. It was so unexpected.
James was one of my first LJ friends. I met him at my first TBRU and watched as people around him used various means, ASL, writing on slips of paper, lip reading, etc. to communicate with him. The electronic world of journals, emails and IM's were a boon to him. He was one of the first people I ever saw using the text messaging feature on a cell phone.
It could be a bit intimidating to try to talk to him one on one. It took effort, but if you made the effort you were rewarded. James was a warm fellow with a smile and hug for everyone. He also had a wealth of stories from moving about the country and working in some interesting jobs. Heck, he worked at the publisher of Bear magazine, and I have the issue where he appears as one of the phone operators!
There's a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda right now, knowing that he was so close here in Dallas, but I've hardly seen him this year. I guess I'll have to make one more visit this weekend for the service. It doesn't make up for anything, but it's the right thing to do now.
Goodbye, James
jamesbeary). Hearing about it surprised me so much. It was so unexpected.James was one of my first LJ friends. I met him at my first TBRU and watched as people around him used various means, ASL, writing on slips of paper, lip reading, etc. to communicate with him. The electronic world of journals, emails and IM's were a boon to him. He was one of the first people I ever saw using the text messaging feature on a cell phone.
It could be a bit intimidating to try to talk to him one on one. It took effort, but if you made the effort you were rewarded. James was a warm fellow with a smile and hug for everyone. He also had a wealth of stories from moving about the country and working in some interesting jobs. Heck, he worked at the publisher of Bear magazine, and I have the issue where he appears as one of the phone operators!
There's a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda right now, knowing that he was so close here in Dallas, but I've hardly seen him this year. I guess I'll have to make one more visit this weekend for the service. It doesn't make up for anything, but it's the right thing to do now.
Goodbye, James
