August 2005 Archives

   I've been watching the news for the past few days since Katrina was in the Gulf to now the effects of the hurricane. I was scared for the people who had to leave their homes. I was ticked at the discussions in the media about oil prices while people lost everything. I am horrified at the photos coming from the afflicted areas. I'm anxious for the people who are waiting to go home, or to see what's left of it. My heart goes out to you. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like...

(photo source: AP)

Vision Statement of Equality Ohio:

We envision an Ohio where everyone feels at home; living in families and communities where equality, diversity and inclusiveness are universally valued; and where government protects all people and responds to their needs, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. (Adopted April 23, 2005)

   Equality Ohio is running an online pledge campaign promoting equality in Ohio - a concept that our leaders need to hear night and day. The part of their vision that really strikes me is that part about feeling "at home" in Ohio. Many LGBT folks If you have the inclination and live in Ohio follow this link to add your name.
(source: Equality Ohio)

My mom and I went to the Cleveland Zoo today. We got some great pictures - like the one of this guy. Very friendly and photogenic! Was it a roar or just a yawn? Nice teeth though... I haven't been to the Cleveland Zoo in quite a long time, and I was impressed with everything there. I think I most enjoyed the lions, cheetahs, and the elephants. And of course spending the day with my mom!

   As the holiday season approaches (yes it's getting closer) the Mall of America has a new store hoping to help during your time of crisis. They are putting in a nap store - where you can take a nap right there in the mall. It would only be 70¢ an hour which ends up being $42 an hour. I don't know about this - if you're really so tired that you can't make it through a shopping trip, perhaps you should stay home and shop online.
   This kinda reminds me of when bottled water came out for sale. "Who would buy something that is free everywhere," people said. And that's what I'm saying about sleep. Why would you pay to take a nap in a mall? Hell, go out to your car if you can't keep your eyes open for another minute. (Don't turn it on though!) Although, now that I think about it, if they could bottle sleep and sell it I might be interested.
(source: St. Cloud Times)

   Do you ever write a whole blog only to delete it because you talked around what you really wanted to say? My point this evening is that I think it's very interesting and fantastic how life leads you down an often twisting and turning path to get you where you should be. Ten years ago I would not quite have imagined my life as it is now. I wouldn't have thought I would have so many leadership roles or be in the business that I'm in. But then again, I wouldn't have had the experience to know that my life is going in the direction that I want it to. A lot of changes are going on right now. I feel like doors are opening at just the right times to continue a journey I didn't know I started about a decade ago. And when I look at the whole thing and take in the new perspective, I see how every event affected the journey that I'm on. It's just rather... amazing.

   I went to the gas station today to fill up the gas container for the lawn mower. While I pumped gas into my little gas can, a man was pumping gas into a very large Dodge truck. I went in to pay for my 4 gallons and the attendant and I were talking about how painful that fill-up must be for him. She counted as the meter climbed... $66....$67....$68.... Can you imagine putting almost $70 into your car to tank up? I thought $25 was bad!

   Six days in a row at work isn't that much usually, but after this weekend and the crazies shopping for last minute school supplies I'm about done. Add to that a full moon this weekend and oh boy, watch out. We actually had a Janet Jackson-like wardrobe malfunction at the store this weekend. It wasn't an employee thank goodness! But this woman apparently was not aware that the malfunction had occurred. There was also a man who was hitting on a cashier. It was very apparent that he was... shall we say, visibly turned on. Uhh.. yeah. And then there was the man who flipped out because a fly landed on him - screaming and everything.
   Note to parents shopping with kids for school supplies: It is not acceptable to let your children roam and destroy a store while you shop.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has detained a U.S. citizen on suspicion of spying for ideological foe Taiwan, keeping him under house arrest without charge for nearly three months, the U.S. embassy in Beijing said on Friday.

   How dare a country detain a US citizen for three months without charge! (source: China holds U.S. citizen accused of spying for Taiwan)

   I've seen this new domain name in the news a few times - ".xxx." It's pretty apparent what kind of web sites it's for, and of course you know decent people everywhere are up in arms over what this will do to the internet and society in general. Even the Bush Administration has weighed in saying that the new domain name would create a "virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography." I honestly don't see what the problem is here.
   Type in any search on the web and you get at least a few porn results. Any word in the dictionary has somehow been subverted into living in a meta tag on a porn site so that if you type in "ball point pen" you're going to stumble upon something. Software companies have had programs out for quite awhile that filters this crap out so that children have a less likely chance of stumbling upon it. But it's there, everywhere and that's just the fact of it.
   How is denying this new .xxx domain going to help anything? The offending material is already there. It lives on .com, .net, .whatever. One would think that being on a specific domain would help to filter some of it out. I could see if it was .fuk or .poo how it might be a bad idea. Really, for those people who think that porn is a problem, there are other, more constructive things to be doing. Besides, maybe they're afraid that people will know that they've been surfing porn then! Maybe when the domain comes out I'll get one for The Rhetoric just for fun!
(sources: Bush administration objects to .xxx domains; ICANN Delays .xxx Top-Level Domain)

   All good things must come to an end, and this is the case with HBO's Six Feet Under. After 5 seasons the show that deals with endings is finding its own time expiring. I just watched the 2001-2005 In Memoriam documentary about the making ending of 6FU. I must say although Queer as Folk just ended, I'm more sad to see 6FU ending. The characters were so deep and complex that after watching over 65 episodes I feel like I know these people. It's silly I guess, but what I know is what I see of myself in them. I honestly don't feel quite as crazy or psychotic as they often appear, but many times I can say I know the feeling.
   Most recently my favorite moment was when Claire was at her job fuming about having to wear panty hose, and suddenly broke into a fantasy song about how much she hated them. She hopped up on her desk and sang into her Swingline like she was the star of her own private show. It was a moment that many of us can picture in our own jobs - not always about panty hose but whatever. I too hate wearing panty hose at work. There have been many such situations in the show where characters imagine what they really want to say, and then return to reality. This happens in my own head every so often. Perhaps there are medications for that.
   The last episode is this coming Sunday and it's a special 75 minute episode. I have to work until 10pm, but I'll be racing home to watch. (Thank goodness for TiVo!) I hope the ending does the series justice.

   Convenience and taste all in one! It's the new BK Chicken Fries. Hmmm.. now this is just my opinion, but how silly is this? If you can't quite manage a chicken tender, how is a "chicken fry" going to make it any easier? Supposedly they are "designed" to go where ever you go - where are you going that you need chicken specifically designed for it - outer space? And do we need to have little teeny pieces of chicken made into fries? It's like a very small appetizer. On top of this, if you get 8 or 9 chicken fries, it still doesn't quite equal 5 chicken tenders, yet they cost more. They say they are strips of chicken, but they are more like little shards (not sharp mind you) of chicken.
   What a fun sounding little gimmick, but I really think that's all it is. If you want pieces of chicken from BK, stick to chicken tenders.

   Today was the start of the drive home. We drove to South Bend, IN before heading into Ohio. How did I celebrate my return to civilization? With a vanilla bean cheesecake and a Cosmo from Fridays! Mmmm...
[re-dated for your enjoyment]

   The Mustard Festival was quite a treat! We got to see the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, the French's Mustard Mascot, and even Dr. Mustard himself! (and I have the pictures to prove it) The band Red Hot Horn Dawgs played, and everyone got a free hot dog. (unless you wanted ketchup on it). Now I can say I've been to the annual Mustard Festival - maybe I'll go back next year.
   We also went out to Gov, Dodge State Park and hiked a trail out there. We saw the waterfall, the "lost" canyon, and the rock springhouse along the way. The odd thing was that I think most of the trail was uphill - it was pretty tiring.
   Tonight's campfire was... unlucky. We were going to cook our last meal over the fire, but the darn thing just wouldn't stay lit. To top it off, it was the smokiest fire we've had all week. I think our neighbors downwind were wearing respirators.
   Which brings me to my next topic. The woman next to us seems to be the most negative, irritating, and insulting grandmother I've ever seen. There was something wrong with everything, and boy did she let everyone know. The other odd thing was the sheep noise coming from their direction. Baaaflling!
[re-dated to make sense]

   I'm so glad we decided to stay in Wisconsin. Just didn't feel like packing everything up today. And we got to do a few fun things around here.
   First we went to the Cave of the Mounds. It was just a few miles from here and it was an interesting place to visit. The tour was informative and we saw various geological things. The tour guide was cute too, but he talked like the girl from American Pie - "This one time at band camp..."
   We also went hiking. We were looking for a Geocache and went all over the place hiking in and around a local county park. We didn't end up finding the cache, but we got a two and a half mile workout.
   Afterwards we went looking for a grocery store in Mt. Horeb. We also found that National Mustard Museum (who knew!) which was sponsoring the annual National Mustard Festival the very next day. It sounds quite interesting so we'll have to check it out.
   The best part of today was this evening when we went to the top of the mound (1760ft above sea level) to watch the sunset. They have these towers that you can climb and get to just above the treetops. The views are incredible - on a clear day you can see about 25 miles.
   Tomorrow is the Mustard Festival!
[re-dated entry]

   Today was our trip to the Wisconsin Dells - mainly to go to Mt. Olympus which surprisingly wasn't in Greece but in WI. It's an amusement park with a new coaster by Gravity Group called Hades. What a blast! The station is pretty high up so even before you get to the lift there's some kick to it. After the lift, you dive down into a tunnel that takes you down under the parking lot. Very cool ride that lives up to its cousins Legend and Raven.
   We stopped at Pizza Hut on the way back since it was getting late and we knew we wouldn't want to cook when we got back. We also stopped at this one store that made excessive use of the paging system. "Would maintenance please come to the women's room at the front of the store for a cleanup??" Why not just announce that someone pooed on the floor?
   The best thing about today (besides spending uninterrupted time with my man) is that I'm finally starting to relax. No work, no board crap, no yard to mow. I actually have time to think about useless stuff which is more fun than the stressful stuff. And I'm getting much better at making campfires which is good because I'm getting hungry.

   Here we are in Blue Mound, Wisconsin at our lovely campsite. It's a very nice one - large, private, shady... There's a few little towns nearby that we're going to check out, and now we even have an annual pass to the Wisconsin State Parks. We actually like it here so much that we're going to cancel our camping reservations in Michigan so we can stay here through the weekend. It's so much nicer camping knowing that you don't have to pack up and move in a few days.
[re-dated entry]