Month: October 2014

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I’ve been feeling Compressed

PADI 2014 Oct 12

No, not as in diving compressed, (although I could use some underwater time). Any Divers out there wanna get wet? [Thanks to PADI for the nifty photo]

My compression stems from issues in my life.

As I’ve mentioned before, I share internet with the next door neighbor. Generally this isn’t a problem,  they’re using an old Windows based machine that I suspect is rife with malware. This doesn’t really affect me, except that when that machine logs onto the network it sucks up pretty much all the available DSL bandwidth.

For the non techies… The internet gets really slow.

Most of the time, even that doesn’t bother me unless I’m streaming a movie or something. But it reminds me that I’m not alone, and someone else has the ability to affect my life through my own niceness.

Then there’s the ugly assed fence which focuses my vision on their back yard, making me to be completely unable to ignore all the kids stuff, trampoline, monkey bars, various toys scattered about, and the pile ‘o junk stuffed in the corner.

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This fence also makes me feel that I have no privacy because it’s a constant reminder that there are kids there, even when they’re not out screaming, squabbling, or using the trampoline to jump up above the fence to ask me what I’m doing out on my deck. I can’t look past it, god knows I’ve tried. The 7ft tall monstrosity is THERE  protecting the children from… what? The occasional wayward hiker?

Then there’s the ceiling fan in my office. You see, the neighbors apparently put up a new ceiling fan in their house, and they left the unit’s code set to default. (Lots of new ceiling fans have these nifty remotes that allow you to change the speed of the fan and / or control the light in the fan.)

The problem is that when you put one of these fans in, you really should choose a new code other than the default one. Guess how I found out the electrician that built this house hadn’t bothered to change the code?

You guessed it. The great fan war started this summer. There are three neighbors that could possibly be close enough to control my office ceiling fan. One house is under going major remodeling. Since that place is gutted, I scratched them off the list. The other neighbor isn’t likely to have made any real changes, since she’s cold all the time. Which leaves the next door neighbors!

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Dammit! They’re jacking my internet up, have destroyed the view, have left me feeling like I’m having to accommodate their kids, “Asked” that we hose down our back yard every day during a drought while letting our plants die because she was pregnant and her nose was too sensitive, and finally…

Because they don’t want to figure out why their new fan isn’t working quite right, I’m the one that has to get up on a ladder with a screwdriver and a spring hook, (a spring hook looks a lot like a dental tool its sharp and pointy with a slight hook at one end. Great for flipping tiny little switches.) to manhandle 70lbs of ceiling fan to change the code to something they’re not using. 

But then it continues…

Once I’ve got the fan issue fixed, I think, “hey its time for me to rearrange the office” and so I begin that process only to find that my other half has systematically occupied every single open space in both closets, the filing cabinet, and a substantial portion of the basement with… for want of a better term CRAP! 

There’s no way for me to put my stuff out of the way or reorganize my stuff because his stuff is literally everywhere.

SO after grumbling about living with the equivalent of a 13 year old packrat, LOUDLY.  I start whipping through my shit and tossing anything that isn’t nailed down and functional. 

But the whole time I’m thinking, why am I the one that’s adapting to the situation AGAIN. 

I find myself thinking, “Maybe I should just pack whatever shit from this house that I want, and that will fit in my damn car and that will be MY space. Perhaps my life will be easier if I just allow the forces in my life that are conspiring to compress me into a tight little space, win. Then everyone will be happier and I’ll finally have some peace. Maybe I should sell every vehicle I own, buy a pickup truck with a tonneau cover (I don’t like camper shells) and be a true nomad, wandering towns and highways randomly. I’ll stop in interesting places do piece work for cash then move on. Maybe I should become ’That Guy’, the stranger, the scary dude in the corner of your local bar. ”

Then again maybe all this is just another way for the universe to tell me “Its time to move on.”

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Well, that was relatively painless

OSX Yosemite

Ok, Perhaps I am a fan boi.

I downloaded Apples newest OS today and it installed without a hitch… so far as I can tell.

Yosemite is awesome, flat and fast.

I’ve never had an OS update that was faster than it’s predecessor and I’m kinda digging this.

Obviously there is a lot more to investigate but honestly, in this full OS Upgrade thing, Apple is king.

I’m looking forward to the integration between the Computer, the phone, and the iPad. All that stuff should be implemented fully on Monday when the IOS update to 8.1 happens.

In the mean time, I get to explore a new Mac OS. 

Happy Friday!

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Gay politics

Sad to say my brothers & sisters but we’re blowing it big time.

Especially in light of the new reports, one of which says we’re less than 2% of the population and the other report that says overall new HIV infection is down, EXCEPT in the young Gay / Bisexual crowd where the numbers of infection are climbing.

First, it is time for us to stop making the marriage fight about the GAY, instead make marriage about freedom and equality.

We need to stop pissing off the conservative base. We need to recognize they could be our natural allies. I know its hard to fathom but let me explain:

Conservatives are about freedom and constitutional rights. In this age of Obama we might be wise to capitialize on those issues rather than continue to have our collective wagons hitched to a President that may well have assured a conservative Republican takeover in the House and Senate.

The planks these Conservative Republicans are likely to be running on will be Freedom, Smaller, Less Intrusive Government, and Constitutional Rights.

I submit to you that it is a Constitutional right to marry the adult of the same species that you love. The Constitutionalists will be looking to swing disillusioned Democratic voters to their way of thinking and aren’t likely to rock the boat if some or even a lot of those voters happen to be gay, especially given the recent rulings and non-rulings by the SCOTUS.

We could easily have inclusion, not “speciality” in the political process and full equal standing in all rights within the next 5 years. We could even be respected for fighting when it was necessary and knowing when the fight was over.

Mayor Parker

But then we have IDIOTS like the Houston Mayor.

After someone like this garners national attention over a stupid ordinance, ALL Gay folks are screwed.

Let me set the stage for you.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to get rid of gender specific bathrooms in Houston and proposed an ordinance to the city council.

(Have you ever cleaned a women’s public bathroom? Let me tell you something, you’d rather clean all the bathrooms in a frat house with a toothbrush, the monday after homecoming, than clean a single public women’s restroom. As a male, I’ll take my urinals and relatively clean bathrooms thank you very much.)

This ordinance was passed, a lot of people were pissed off about it and they took action.

What they did was legal and correct, they gathered signatures for a referendum. Specifically, they gathered three times the number of signatures required for a referendum. The City Secretary did their job and certified that there were indeed enough signatures for a referendum.

Then the City Attorney and the Mayor rejected the certification of the referendum. This effectively put The City Attorney & Mayor in defiance of the law, not to mention defiance of the will of a number of civic minded citizens.

The citizens responded by filing a law suit against the Mayor. The Mayor, “aka the city” responded by using the power of her position to attempt to violate the first amendment rights of a number of local pastors and churches, by demanding their sermons and communications with their congregations. Its possible there is a fourth amendment violation in here too but I don’t think that will hold up in court.

If it was JUST that this Mayor was an idiot, it would be one thing. But in this case its well known that the Mayor is gay.

Folks are noticing and commenting on how similar her actions are to the actions of others In the so called Pink Mafia, or those forcing the “GAY Agenda”. 

Surely you remember;

Gay people suing bakers to bake wedding cakes

Gays suing to stay at a bed and breakfast, causing the B&B to close forever because the legal fees bankrupted the owners

Gays trying to sue a church into allowing them to have their wedding in the sanctuary. 

Don’t even start talking about GLAAD and their bitching about someones offhanded comment.

Lets not forget the great Vodka and Pasta, and Coors boycotts.

Or the forced resignation of corporate executives because they expressed their opinion about gay people, which they have every right to under the first amendment. 

Its time for HRC and GLAAD to start being useful in a more mature fashion. Yes, continue to watch for abuses of gay people or curtailment of peoples right based on their sexuality. But a more important job for both organizations might be to begin educating gay folks in how to use their newly gained rights without being assholes.

What we need is a situation where we can all point to an idiotic Mayor and call them an Idiot because of their policies or actions, regardless of their sexuality.