Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Time for another post

It's been over 10 days since I've posted anything and I figured it was time. This really isn't much more than a placeholder, but you're lucky to get even this!

There has been a lot going on lately but it's finally calming down. A lot of the drama at home is lessening and I'm glad for that. My mother has been here the last week and it was really nice to have her here, and helpful too. I've not had much of a life the last week it seems, but it was for a good reason. Starting this weekend Jayson and I are going to be getting out more and doing more things. We had a friend in town two weekends ago and in spite of Jayson's subdued mood it was still fun. We didn't do many tourist things other than the market, but did do a lot of just hanging out and talking, and relaxing. It was good.

For some fun reading, I thought this was pretty good. I've actually seen a truck in Seattle just like what's described, and spoken online to the guy who drives it.

That's going to be about it for today. My day is getting very short and it's almost time to pick up Jayson from his new job, that he started just today. I'm really happy for him and proud that he brought it all together and made it work.


Friday, October 19, 2007

Ah, the life of a cat

When I got home tonight I find Truman the cat spread out in front of the fireplace. I think I'm in the wrong line of work. I want his job.


 

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Big weather in Seattle

I love this type of weather. Although, we've not had the 50MPH winds that were originally being forecast.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Wednesday afternoon rambling

Well, I've had lunch and I'm being very lazy right now. I've got work I should be doing but I'm just taking a break to think about my own stuff for a bit. I was going to post some rant about a couple of political things, but I'm just not in the mood I decided. It's been a busy day at work and, all told, a very hectic week. Jayson appears to be showing the beginning signs of feeling better, which is encouraging. Granted, there's still a long long way to go but little steps still count. Something he learned in a course a few years ago was to always look at "better than." I think in terms of better than whenever I can, and it's helpful. While he might not be where he wants to be or ultimately will be, he's better than he was yesterday, so we have to recognize that progress.

I don't feel like I've had much of a life lately; it's been home ---> work ---> home, repeat. I've been keeping myself pretty busy at home with some chores around there that have been needing to be done, like the banister on the stairs about to fall down. It's nice to get those things done if nothing else. I've been trying to spend more time reading, and I just can't seem to do it. I started a book my mother gave me called The Piano Tuner. The story is set in the mid-late 19th century and is about a piano tuner (imagine that) who travels to Burma to meet up with a British officer to tune a piano. It appears as though the officer will be using music to help bring peace to the area. Apparently the story will deal with pitfalls of empire-building, some historical facts, and who knows what else. From what I've read (up to page 37…oh boy!) it seems interesting so far. Maybe I can find some time to get further into it soon.

I signed up with a gym this week. I'm not sure it was the best idea with Jayson currently between jobs, but I think I'll enjoy it for my own sake and sanity. I'm going to do a few sessions with a trainer to get myself back into the mindset of working out, and also to refresh my memory on what to do. After that I'm hoping to have B and/or C as workout partners. Should be fun spending time, plus also having at least one regular workout buddy. In time I expect Jayson to go too but he's not ready for that yet. I'm looking forward to it since I've had body image issues all my life and even if I don't see major changes, working on change should help with that.

We're getting a houseguest this weekend. B is coming down from Anchorage and I'm really looking forward to it. We don't have any real plans yet, but we'll just hang out, do a little sightseeing with him, or whatever else sounds like fun. He's been here before I believe but I'm not sure how much he's seen. In any event, it should be a nice weekend.

Reading through news today a link to a link to a link led me to
this. Vaginal-American? I guess I should start referring to myself as a Penile-American. The only problem with the logic of these talking heads is that there is a larger population of women in this country than men. They should be concerned about that voting block instead of belittling its members.

It's interesting to note how the right-wingnuts keep trying to find new reasons to oppose marriage equality as the idea catches on more and more around the country. In this piece  a pychologist trots out the defense of children to further their cause.  Responding to the five reasons listed in the article is very easy:

1: What about single-parent families?
2: What about single-parent families?
3: What about single-parent families?
4: Sexual confusion? It's been shown that children of same-sex couples are much more well-adjusted sexually than many children of opposite-sex couples. And yes, all choices are equally acceptable and desirable.
5: This is a slippery slope argument. One thing does not necessarily lead to or endorse another. Just shows what a weak argument she has.

I think that's all I've got at the moment. Hope everyone out there is well.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tuesday afternoon satire

This has been around for a while, but I ran across it again the other day and thought it was worth sharing for those who hadn't seen it.

**Warning: some explicit language in the link**

More proof the Dems are afraid of power

This story just proves again that the power the Dems were handed in 2006, and promised to use to thwart Bush, is just being wasted. They seem to be afraid to stick their necks out against a president that has an approval rating of 28%. Pelosi is trying to end the war by praying for Bush? Spare us your pandering to middle-America and do what you were elected to do. Do these "leaders" in Congress need us to enroll them in junior high school civics class so they can learn what power the Constitution actually gives them?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Sunrise in Seattle

It's not often I see a really spectacular sunrise in Seattle, but today was one of those days. Since I couldn't get to my good camera in my bag, I snapped a picture with my phone out the truck window. Not great quality, but it gets the point across.



The supposed weather forecasters on TV are predicting beautiful weather the next few days. The sailor in me remembers the adage "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning", meaning bad weather is coming, so we'll see who's right. 

**Update: Apparently I was wrong. The weather is pretty amazing for mid-October!

Monday, October 8, 2007

The tearoom story that won't go away

I'm not fan of SNL and I've not watched it in years; I don't even know who these particular people are. However, this was kind of funny.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Evangelical fun from my hometown

It's always interesting to hear what's going on in my hometown of Tulsa, OK and I ran across this new story today about ORU and the Oral Roberts family. The story did not surprise me at all. Growing up with Oral Roberts' family in town I always just assumed there was funny business going on. Anyone who claimed to be a simple country boy and interested only in spreading god's word but with that much money to spend just didn't seem right to me. The university campus was architecturally interesting but way over the top. Then he said god spoke to him and told him to build the huge City of Faith Medical Center, which was the tallest building in Tulsa (over 60 stories, plus two smaller but still large towers) and massive failure. The "prayer hands" statue shown in the news story used to be in front of the medical center. The local joke even back in the early 1980's was that when you walked up to the hands one of them would drop down with its palm open to put money into. If you didn't put money into it the other hand would drop palm down down to squash you. I remember when Oral said that he'd spoken to god (or was it god that spoke to him?) and was told that if he didn't raise $8 million within a certain time frame he would be "called home". I was disappointed when someone from back east gave him the money, supposedly just to shut him up. What I could never understand is if going "home" to heaven is supposed to be eternal bliss and everlasting happiness, why do so many christians fear and avoid it? Why was it such a bad thing that Oral should have been called home to be with his god? Is it that their faith isn't nearly as strong as they want us to believe and fear what amounts to the unknown with them?

This newest scandal with the Roberts family just shows me how uninterested in spreading their faith these people really are. They've learned that spreading religion is a money-making industry and they have tapped into that. And now Richard Roberts is saying god spoke to him and told him to fight these charges. It's downright sacrilegious to to say that god has nothing better to do than speak this family and tell them to keep doing what they're doing. It's just very sad, but also typical anymore, to see these evangelists abusing their followers to give themselves a cushy life. It gets very old hearing of these Christian groups using religion to further their own selfish interests. When was the last time you heard of a Pagan, Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim organization using their religion to do what amounts to stealing from donors?

Saturday Morning

It's finally the weekend, and I'm glad about that. I'm sitting here having a pot of tea, Irish Breakfast for what it's worth. Jayson is upstairs still asleep so I let him be and I'm in the office watching I Love Lucy. One of the benefits of having a 3-story house is that I can crash around in the kitchen and he can't hear it on the top floor. The fireplace kicked on earlier this morning so the house is nice and toasty. Not a bad morning so far. On top of that it's cold and grey and rainy outside, weather I really like. There's not much on tap for this weekend. We're supposed to help a couple of friends haul something from Home Depot; having a truck makes me the default moving guy I guess. We're also going to go through our closets one last time and then take a large mound of stuff to the local AIDS alliance. We've had so much stuff to giveaway in the guest room that I can't get in there anymore. I'll be really happy to have that stuff out of there, especially as that room is supposed to be my practice space.

Speaking of practice, I had an interesting violin lesson this last week. My instructor and I spent the entire time in his home studio doing some recording. It was really a lot of fun. We're not done and may re-record some portions of the piece we worked on, but what I heard sounded okay (and I'm by far my own worst critic). When this one is done I'm hoping we record another Celtic fiddle piece I'm working on, and both might go onto a CD he's producing of his students' work. Depending on how I think I sound, I might even let other people listen to it.

After all the talk about the painting I've been doing at home I decided it was time to post a couple of pictures. I'm afraid that neither pic is the greatest, but they give an idea of the change.

           
Before                                                                               After

That's about it for this morning. It's getting late in the day, I've had almost a full pot of tea, and I think it's time I went up to rouse Jayson. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

"Tolerance Gone Wild"

After all, we certainly wouldn't want tolerance to run rampant through our society now would we?

This story, breathlessly reported on the Americans for Truth website, has finally exposed the depravity of San Francisco in general, and the homosexual (we prefer to be called "gay", thank you) community specifically. After 25 years of this going on, I'm surprised no one noticed this before now. Thank goodness the world has Peter and Allyson to let the world see what everyone already knows has been happening at Folsom.

Too bad they don't see the hypocrisy of the fact that they are not tolerant of the goings-on at Folsom, even though they made a special effort to be there, but the rest of the world is supposed to be tolerant of their religious beliefs. I'm sure there were people doing tattoos at Folsom so maybe they should have had "victim" tattooed across their foreheads.

The authors of this "article" mention that it costs $5 to get into the street fair. Then they proceed to decry the fact that people are walking around nude in public and performing sexual acts on public streets. Um...if you have to pay to get in, it's not happening in public. If you don't want to see those things, don't pay your $5 and don't go in. I can't very well pay to go to a football game and then complain about all the sports fans there, can I?

I also thought it interesting that the authors of this thing know exactly in what cities Steamworks has locations. Been doing a little research for upcoming vacations maybe...?

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Clearing away the cobwebs

It's been almost two weeks since I posted anything here, and I figured it was about time. It's not that I have much to say today, but I want to keep the habit up. Lately life has been work and that's it. We spent last weekend finishing up the painting on the ground floor and in the stairwell. Those spaces were a nightmare to paint, and deciding that the color in the stairwell looked terrible after one coat didn't help. So, after settling on a new color we got it all done. Most of Sunday was spent pulling up drop clothes, pulling off tape, putting things away, arranging the furniture downstairs, putting the kitchen back together...Monday morning I was beat. It's pretty sad when I have to come to work to relax! Work has been work has been work, so I can't complain. I get things done, they pay me; seems like a pretty fair deal to me.

I decided to add a racing stripe to one side of my truck yesterday. Pulling into the parking garage at work (a very tight fit) I cut the first corner too close and scraped it along the right rear fender. On that corner there's a big orange steel box protecting a pipe, and I hit the box. At least I now understand why the box is needed to protect the pipe. So, I ended up with a nice dent and a big orange scar down the back right side of the truck. In retaliation I left a significant amount of red paint on the orange box, but that didn't make me feel much better. It's not going to be too bad getting it fixed so I'm taking it in Monday to have it done.

That's about all I have to say at the moment. Just to fill in space and make it look like I've written a lot more I'll add some links to things that I thought were worth reading.

Hope everyone's having a good week.