Another Left Handed Slam

This article about Enrique Iglesias pissed me off. I don't normally use that word in print, but this article was worthy of it. The upshot is that Iglesias says he is envious of his gay friends (his hairstylist -- no stereotype there) and George Michael (no newsflash there) -- because they have open relationships that allow them to play around (or in some terms cheat on their partners) when they are out of town. Enrique wishes he and his girlfriend (who was off and now is back on) had such a relationship. I find this article odious in that what most uninformed (many hetero) readers will read is that all gays have these open relationships. Now I am not so naive as to claim that those relationships don't exist or that they cannot work, but the majority of same sex relationships are closed monogamous committed relationships that should be cherished rather than discounted by such trashing as presented in this article. I have news for Enrique -- there ARE straight relationships that are as open as those of the unnamed hairstylist and Mr. Michael. I hold Enrique and the media responsible for this misconception of glbt people. I won't stop listening to his music -- never started. However, I think that some folks should rethink their undying support of "celebrities" who make such irresponsible statements to the media. And that's the way I see it today.

Work Update

Well, the job continues to unfold (or is that unravel?). We finished training for the call center the other day and spent most of the past three days sitting on our asses doing almost nothing. Each of those days we would do a couple of "practice" calls and today we began "live testing" calls. I was on the phone today with my computer connected to a web meeting being observed by at least 17 people. Additionally, I had four of my co-workers looking over my shoulder. I survived the call, but made a few fixable boo boos. Today's calls were with the ATT support folks and our own company people. Tomorrow's tests calls will be with the actual client company. They won't be observing our input, but only taking part in the call and seeing the finished tickets. That should be a bit better. And after the test calls for this project, they are putting us on the regular help desk for the rest of the week (this is the job that I was told, "Don't worry, you won't be doing this). This is the computer help desk (I wonder if we should call it the HELL desk instead). At least beginning next week we will focus again on the new project and be working day shift Monday through Friday. YAY. Pray for me tomorrow and for the poor fools who call me for correct answers to their computer problems. Boy, are they in for it.

Nature is Wonderful

I took this picture yesterday up near Houghton Lake. This pretty little creature had just run across the highway in front of us and then stood there looking at us. We even backed up and sat there watching for several minutes and the deer did not move. It was incredible to sit there and watch this animal in its natural habitat. Isn't nature great?

Some Thoughts During Pride Month

Ben has been reading a lot of the "ex-gay" stuff and anti-GLBT rhetoric on the web == mostly to see how nutzo much of it is. Don't worry -- he's not buying their pitch -- he's gay and staying that way. I stopped reading that kind of stuff a long long time ago. However, the more he reads it, the more crazy that bunch sounds. I realized this morning that there are couple of things that we as a GLBT community should strive to do. Read on!

1. Begin an ex-straight movement. Don't they realize that heterosexuality causes children and overpopulation? Too often it leads to marriages that often don't last, to loneliness, brokenness, broken homes, and such. Then there is the perpetuation of women as objects for male pleasure. Oh and the way that I see them throw their sexuality in our faces -- I get sick of seeing them walking hand in hand or arm in arm, kissing and hugging in public == makes me want to puke. Why can't they preactice the perversions in private? And they hang out in bars and make assigmations on the Internet. And don't they realize that the majority of sexual predators are heterosexuals? We need to show them the error of their ways and give them the hope that they can change and be free of their lifestyle that can only to misery and ultimate death.

2. On a little more serious note I think that when "those" church groups come and protest the Pride events on Saturday afternoon, we should gather a large contigent of our folks and make a visit to their churches on Sunday morning. Of course we should wear our Pride T shirts. We don't need to picket, spout rhetoric or anything -- just show up and be a part of what they are doing -- can you imagine how uncomfortable that would make them? I can see the church "MOM" asking how we came to be at church. My response would be, "I met your Pastor at the GAY pride rally yesterday." Just let that sink in for a few minutes and move on. I bet that church would never be quite the same.

While both of these options are offered "tongue in cheek", either would reflect the arrogance, hypocrisy, bigotry, and above all the stupidity of their movements. Well, I put the ideas out there -- what to do with them is up to each reader. Hug someone.

A Rose by Any Name

How can anyone see a rose like this and not praise God? End of sermon.

Eight Things About Me

I got tagged by Bento complete Eight Things About Me, so here goes.
1. I hate things like this. If anyone else sent it to me, I'd ignore it.
2. I sleep naked
3. I can waste time with the best of them
4. I saw My Fair Lady 5 times in one week
5. I have a poodle
6. I ignore doctors as much as possible
7. I am a junk food junkie
8. I usually leave the car radio OFF. I enjoy the quiet.

Now, since Ben and others have been tagging folks and since many of us know the same group of folks, I will not pass this on. If you see it and haven't been tagged, go for it and pass it on -- just don't pass it back to me. LOL.

Knocked Up

NO -- not me. It was the movie. I have been swearing that it would a cold day in Hell before I'd go see it. I have a problem with the title and how it theoretically demeans women and trivializes pregnancy, but I overcame that. Instead of a cold day in Hell it was a hot (very hot) day in Lansing, and we wanted to get out of the heat and into the AC. Isn't that a great excuse? Anyway, the movie was cute (some of it was kind of silly), although it was kind of sad that the primary word in the movie was the proverbial queen mother of all words (F***). The word with or without suffixes appeared no less than 110 times in a two hour movie -- we decided that was about once a minute. Now I'm no prude and I've been known on more than one occassion to utter the word, but come on -- 110 times in two hours. You've got to be kidding. How did they ever make movies before the language was allowed and before sex became a major movie theme? Ah well, I'm showing my age. Still, even with the language and several other sexual references and innuendoes (inuendi?) I had a good time and just enjoyed the cool air, Ben's company, and yes even the movie. I would surely not take kids or my Mom to see it, but it was what it was...... It was worth the price.......Hug someone

West Michigan Pride

Well gang, it's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday I played hooky from work and we went to the Detroit area and helped Mom pack up some more stuff to get rid of. Of course, that means that a bunch of stuff came home with us. After we finished there, we headed to the mall -- in such horrid traffic I nearly died (and I learned to drive in that area as a kid). We headed downtown to hit the church bookstore only to find it is closed on Friday -- go figure. Then we reached the main reason for the trip. It was a dinner party hosted by one ob Ben's fellow priests and his partner. There were about 8 of us -- all gay, all male, and mostly clergy people. It was a wonderful evening and then we headed home -- exhausted but renewed in some kind of way.

Then today it was off to Pride in Grand Rapids. See the pictures above. They "ran" the American and Rainbow flags across the park and onto the stage -- impressive. Notice the shoes in the second picture -- it was probably the most bizarre outfit at the event (After all, it was Grand Rapids). I conducted the annual commitment serive -- as the two or three token protesters spouted scripture and their other junk. It was helpful to the cause that the mayor was a guest of honor at Pride and that the police were so supportive. Most of the folks pretty much ignored the protestors, but one guy had to walk by and start shouting "F... You, F... You, F...You." Several of us quieted him down pretty quickly. If we ignre the protestors they won't have much impact. Do they really think that they are going to change anyone's mind about sexuality? Really!!

A wonderful day was had by all. It was Ben's first Pride event -- I imagine he will be posting something later. Right now I am pooped, so that's it for now. Hug someone.

The Weekend is HERE

Yes, it is THURSDAY, but I am taking tomorrow off to go to the Detroit area. In the early part of the day we will be helping Mom get a step closer to closing out her house -- there is SO MUCH STUFF. She's given stuff away, moved what she's keeping, and had a moving sale, and still there is stuff to get rid of. So we will head over in the morning and pack up stuff for Goodwill or Salvation Army. In the evening we are dining with a group of Episcopal priests and their partners. That should bode for an interesting and informative evening.

So today I finished up training for the job they kept telling us we wouldn;t be doing and on Monday will start doing it until the new project kicks off July 1. I told my coworkers at least two weeks ago that we would be in the call center, and they kept saying, "Well, such and such (Boss) told me we wouldn't be taking calls". I told them that you can't believe ANYTHING that the leadership team tells you because they will do what they want. So Monday I start taking calls to assist people with information that I still don't understand. That should be fun LOL. I think I will just enjoy the weekend with dinner tomorrow night and the Pride celebration in Grand Rapids on Saturday. In the meantime, stay happy and hug a loved one.

Sunday

Ben and I had a nice day today. It started out with church. Ben was supply preaching in one of the nearby churches and I went to offer moral support. After church we went out for breakfast and as usual ate too much. This afternoon we decided to dream a little. We took part in the annual Parade of Homes by touring at least 10 new homes. Some of them had features we really liked, though for the first part of our tour neither of us was "WOW-ED". The places were "nice" but not to our taste or liking. Then we hit upon the 600,000 dollar place on a small manmade lake. It was gorgeous. We went down the street and found one a bit more rustic in style with a view of the woods behind it. It too was beautiful. Then we decided to head to the other end of town and saw one we really liked. It was going for 550 thousand dollars but it was incredible. It was somewhere between a Frank Lloyd Wright appearance and a traditional "Craftsman" home. If I had the money and the means, we'd be moving in there really soon. There was plenty of room for the two of us, the two cats and the dog with lots of room for guests and partys (of course if I bought a half million dollar home I couldn't afford the party -- LOL). It was wonderful to dream and great to spend the afternoon with Ben sharing dreams, tastes, and time. It's now evening and we are kicking back with the TV on wondering where God is going to lead us -- probably not those half million and up homes, but somewhere where we can make a difference, make a living, and enjoy one another. Ah well, it was fun to dream. Hug someone.

More Meanderings and Musings

Well, here I am again to share my thoughts and the journey of life. It's been a tough week. I've spent it in training for a job that they tell me I'm not going to be doing. Now that sounds like either corporate stupidity or corporate doublespeak. While the "plan" is to put us on the job that has been promised and to train us for that job, they will leverage us and move us to this "other" job for which we are training. Some of my fellow trainees have said that they aren't going to be working the helpdesk. I reply, "Well it's been nice knowing you." The truth is that we will either do the job the give us on any given day or we will be registering for work at Michigan Works and hoping for unemployment. We will be training until the middle of next week at which time some of us are supposed to be training for the new project for which we have been selected. We shall see. With this company the only thing that one person can count on for sure is that things will not go as promised or announced. AH well, corporate America. This evening Ben and I went to the choir potluck at the Episcopal church. It was very nice of them to include me and to treat us as a couple. There is some hope for Christendom.

Yesterday I got cruise control put on the new car. They did it quickly and efficiently and I was so pleased -- until I turned on the radio and it was flashing "code." Of course I did not have any record of the radio security code, so the radio/CD/clock became inoperable. A quick call to the Honda dealer resulted in an equally quick trip down there to get the code reset. So off we went and soon the radio was rockin' again (rocking? on NPR? LOL). So as you can read from this post, my "gay agenda" is to make it through training, survive whatever new job, deal with the church community, maintain the car and several other equally "boring" events. So -- to any who think that GLBT people somehow avoid all the normal things of life in some magical mysterious way -- WRONG!

Life Goes On

Here we are, a week past Memorial Day. As you may have read, I survived a "downsizing" at work last week and was offered a different position. So far that position feels like the one where you bend over and grab your ankles. We've been in training -- surprisingly(?) not specifically for the job we were told about, but for working the online help desk. Now, if you have been reading my blog or Ben's for some time, you have heard or read some of the horrors of that career path. Theoretically we will complete that training early next week and then get a couple of days training on the job we are supposed to be doing. My gut tells that that will probably happen, but that we will often be pulled from our tasks to help handle calls on the help desk -- this company has a history of sneaky stuff like that -- they call it leveraging, I call it unfair abuse of temporary employees who are giving and working their butts off for a company who might can us all tomorrow. A real morale booster I'd say. Anyway the training has been tiring -- the trainer is both boring and disorganized. He'd rather go off and tell jokes, tell stories about his favorite movies or stand up comics than to train. And when he does work in a few minutes of training his "flow" is such that there is no logic or cohesiveness. Are we learning anything? Yeah, some, but I think that the two weeks plus a few days of training could and should result in better preparedness for the online help desk job that we are being backdoored into. Ah well, corporate America!

On a happier note, the new car is wonderful! Tonight it is sitting in the shop waiting to be fitted with its cruise control tomorrow morning. We took the car to Detoit on Saturday and it rode and handled so well. Its only problem was its desire to zoom up to 80MPH without batting a cylinder. Hmm -- maybe Ben's definition of the color as "arrest me red" is accurate. The cruise control will perhaps pay for itself by avoiding traffic tickets -- we shall see. I will have it back tomorrow and we will be off and running yet again. That's about all from this end of the world -- what's new in yours? Hug someone you love.

One Picture says a LOT

Thought you could all use a little humor. Enjoy!!