More rugby photos

Okay, we'll leave it there for now.

On another note, regardless of your religious beliefs, let me wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Rugby photos

Time for my favorite type of post: rugby photos!

I'm going to stretch this out into a few posts, mostly because our schedule won't allow me to make it to another match for a number of weeks, so I need to savor this set! :)

Here we go...


You should see the build on the Gotham guy in this shot. Woof!




I know. Hard on the eyes, isn't he? He's even an Aussie, so you get the added bonus of that lovely accent!










He just threw the ball back in. This is one of the sweetest guys you could meet. One of my top choices for husband material, if I were in the market. :)

Okay, that's enough for today. Much more to come!

Distractions

While shooting rugby photos yesterday on Randall's Island (that's one of those little islands east of Manhattan), I saw a couple of things that I found interesting.

This building is one...



Anyone know if that's Rikers Island? I think it might be. I know, who cares? Well, my curiosity has me going.

And then there was this ship (or is it a barge?)...


Front of the ship


Middle of the ship--and I guess that's the name of the company that owns it


Back of it and the tugboat pushing it

The part that has me curious is that little red light and whatever it's mounted with. See it? Near the front? (Yeah, I know. Not front... bow.) Here's a closer look...


Closer look at the light

If you click on that last one, it will give you a hi-res version, so you can have a closer look. Any idea? Think it's some kind of device Homeland Security put on there? Or maybe it means Tinkerbell is on board. Just wondering.

So if anyone knows, please tell me. With that said, don't worry. The real rugby photos will be showing up soon. Here's one to whet your appetite...


And this sure is worth clicking on for a closer look!

If only Marc were here

If not for the absence of my husband, it would be an almost perfect morning.

Marc had to be out the door around 5:15 this morning. Yes, on a Sunday. He's in charge of "external affairs" for his hospital, and they're apparently taking part in a car show today. I didn't ask him exactly what's going on, but I know he has to be there.

So we went to bed early last night (around 9:30), and, not to sound like an old man, but that was pretty nice. I woke up when Marc did (4:15am) but then went back to sleep. Then I slept 'til 7:something and "napped" until about 7:45. Finally, feeling better rested than I have in too long, I got out of bed and started taking care of a few things.

I put the dogs out. Then we went downstairs for doggy breakfast. While they ate, I transferred rugby photos from the camera to the desktop computer (I'm blogging from my getting-too-old laptop that I keep by the TV) and began going through them, only getting through about 1/16th of them before the kids were done eating. Then it was time to go out again. They're not ready to deal with that favorite subject of a certain Canadian until they've had their breakfast.

By then it was almost 9am, so I turned on the TV and put on CBS to catch one of my favorite shows, CBS News Sunday Morning. The VCR is set to tape it every Sunday, in case I sleep late and don't get to watch the whole thing live. The way our house is, I can watch from the kitchen, and that's what I did as I made breakfast. I made myself an omelette & buttered toast and poured a glass of the all-the-rage cold-brewed coffee that my hubby prepared yesterday and left in the fridge. It all made for a lovely breakfast, and, by the way, that's some fine coffee.

After breakfast, I did the dishes, washing the frying pan, cleaning out the sink and loading the dishwasher, and now I'm watching the rest of my favorite 90 minutes on TV. After that, I think I'll go shower, get dressed and go do some book shopping. Then perhaps I'll get back to work on the rugby photos.

One funny thing this morning. Bernice is giving me grief about her seating arrangements. She has gotten used to being able to spend her days on the couch or in my chair, as she has had the run of the place for several months now when we go to work (since she's getting a little stiff in her middle age, we decided to let her stay up here while we're out, and the other two can stay downstairs on their dog beds). Since Marc's not here, she figures she should be on the couch, but Marc left work spread out on the couch, so I won't let her up there. When I told her to stay off the couch, she headed for my chair. I told her to stay off that, too, so she started heading back to the couch. And I stopped her again, so she went right back to the chair. At this point, I started an argument with her. Yes, that's the level of my insanity. I was arguing with a dog.

She stared at me like I was just being cruel, while I shook a finger at her, saying, "You get to use the furniture when we say you do. It isn't yours. Daddy Marc left his things on the couch, and that [pointing to the recliner, so she really got my point *sigh*] is my chair! You can sit in my chair when I'm not using it, but I get to use it when I want. So go pretend you're actually a dog and lie on the carpet!"

Since then, she's been staring at me. Every time I look up, she's staring at me, trying to will me to come to my senses, get my butt out of her chair and let her relax properly.

Okay, she's going to win. Time to finish this blog post, so I can go shower and Bernice can claim this chair as hers! Her stubbornness always seems to win out. :)

Paws? In rugby??

We had a rugby match today (and I will be posting some photos in the coming days). At the match, I was briefly confused by the referee.

Last year, they changed the specifics of what the ref says when there's a scrum. Not that the change would have much relevance to non-ruggers, but it was changed to, "Crouch. Touch. Pause. Engage."

Then, either early this year or late last year, came a directive (which I think was at the World Cup level but was adopted at all levels of rugby) that the "Touch" and "Pause" parts were to be said as one. I believe this was to avoid issues with varying delays being caused by different refs.

So now it's "Crouch. Touch-Pause. Engage."

I knew about this but had forgotten it until today. So I'm standing near a scrum, camera in hand, when I clearly hear, "Crouch. Touch paws. Engage."

Did he say, "Touch paws"? Thank God I said it to myself and didn't go up to anyone and make a fool of myself (although I've certainly been good enough at that in the past!). It took a few scrums for it to click in my head. Until then, I was one confused boy! I've heard people make comments about the ruggers being animalistic, but "touch paws" was going a bit too far!

He'll never change

I just read that our illustrious President said to the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, when Mr. Vaile asked about Iraq, "We're kicking ass." Well, how regular guy of him.

Will this man never display any class at all? Is Mister Nookyoolur's vocabulary so stunted that he can't speak to world leaders more eloquently than that?

There's no reason to be surprised, after living with this laughingstock as President for six-and-a-half years, but I really wish he'd make more of an effort. The damage this man has done to the reputation of the United States is beyond measure.

Don't go, Larry

I think I made my feelings about Larry Craig quite clear in a prior post.

Now comes word that he may try to stay in his Senate seat. Well, good. First of all, he'll be a gigantic, ongoing headache for the GOP. More importantly, he can stay and serve as a reminder of the hypocrisy of his party. My favorite contrasting example, to truly illuminate the extraordinary hypocrisy of the Republicans, is David Vitter. Vitter is a senator whose name is in the phone book of a DC madam and who, after this news broke, admitted to having committed "a very serious sin in my past."

Honestly, I don't care if he was into screwing hookers. That's his wife's issue. In her place, I'd start by taking a golf club to him and then divorce him and take every penny, but I digress.

The point is that Vitter quite clearly cheated on his wife and broke the law. Again, I wouldn't care, except that he's getting a pass from his fellow senators, while Larry Craig is being crucified when he never even got to first base in his quest for sex. The problem for him is that he was looking for sex with *gasp* another man.

Larry Craig is a hypocrite, and so are all of his former buddies in DC who are pretending to be such moral people when the truth is that they have the morals of a snake! (and I apologize to any of the snakes who may read this and will, no doubt, feel insulted)

Oh, by the way, the reason I don't care, in principle, if Vitter was having sex with hookers is that I really don't think it should be a crime. We'd do much better to license prostitutes, require regular testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and tax the business. Talk about sin taxes! We'd make a mint. More importantly, STD rates would drop, police would be freed up to handle more serious matters and the women who work as prostitutes could do so in a safer setting (as opposed to street corners and flophouses where they often face violence). If brothels weren't such horror-inducing establishments in this puritanical country, prostitutes could work in brothels where security could be provided, and the whole business would be safer.

While we're at it, let me add one other thing that will keep me from being elected to office at any time in future. I think it's time to legalize marijuana. It still should be a crime to smoke it in public. I've never even tried the stuff, and I don't even like having to walk through cigarette smoke on the street, let alone pot smoke (if I don't want to smoke it, I shouldn't have to breathe it). With that said, I really don't care if someone wants to get high on pot in the privacy of their own home. Don't expose kids to the smoke, either, since that would be unhealthy, but if you want to smoke it yourself, why are we wasting money trying to stop that? Really, like the cops can ever stop pot use anyhow!

A relaxing weekend

For the first time in about a month, we're having a nice, low-key weekend. Don't get me wrong. The past few weekends were fun, with friends or relatives staying with us each weekend. We enjoyed every visit, but it was time for a quieter weekend.

So we spent most of yesterday just spending time together and then finished the day by having dinner with two of our favorite people.

Today, we also took it easy, only venturing out when it was time to head over to my brother's house to hang out and have dinner. I took the camera, but I wound up taking very few photos. Most of the ones I did take were done at the direction of this young man...


Our nephew Owen

And what did he want me to shoot? Photos of his dinosaurs, of course...



But I still managed to get a few photos of Owen and his brother, Quinn. Here's one of Quinn...



And another of Owen



And here we see Uncle Marc swinging Owen around, like a good uncle should...



I did some nephew spinning, too. All in all, a very nice visit!

Yes, she was that special

Today, I was going through some mail (we get way too much, and I often have to spend some time on the weekends sorting through it and throwing stuff out). One piece of mail was the monthly newsletter from our town library. On the front page is an announcement of their annual concert in honor of my Mom (she was in charge of community services at the library).

I wish you all could have met her. She was an amazing person. I guess it says something that they're still running the concerts "in honor of our beloved Marilyn" three years after she died, with every intention of continuing them every year.

Honestly, the announcement of this year's concert is heartwarming. Then I went into the kitchen to show it to Marc. That was good, too. I felt good. And then I turned to our eldest dog, Bernice. Bernice and my Mom were quite taken with each other. I turned the paper in Bernice's direction (no, I don't think she can read it) and said, "Bernice, did you see this about Grandma?" With the word Grandma, her whole face fell. She looked so upset, and I felt my own pain come surging back. So then I went to pet her, and we comforted each other.

But I think that's the real tribute. Not the concert. The fact that the mention of my Mom to Bernice, someone who has now been gone for a third of Bernice's life, still hurts. I guess it says something for Bernice's sweetness, too. Whatever it says, our sweet dog sure brought me back down to reality!

No, you're not gay

I freely accept that you are not gay, Senator Craig. Perhaps your true sexuality has been telling you that you are since the first time you beat off to thoughts of other guys, but you shouldn't be able to proudly call yourself gay.

What you clearly are is a hate-filled, self-loathing, closet-case bigot who has done more in your selfishness to support homophobia and endorse hatred than anyone else in recent days, all so you can protect your ass from the constituent-based fucking it's about to get.

No, that strapping blond guy in the next stall isn't going to have his way with you, but the voters are. Serves you right, but you deserve far worse than that! (And I do love that your "colleagues" are the first ones to offer rope for the noose.)

You've told Mr. & Mrs. Average American that this is what gay life is about. Well, I am a gay man, and this isn't what my life is about, nor has it ever been. I'm a hard-working, tax-paying, voting, full participant in American life. I am a patriot, a homeowner and a loving partner.

Back in my dating days? Yes, I went out to clubs and dated men. That's how a gay man usually lives when he's single. But I never would have considered hitting on random strangers in an airport bathroom! What kind of sick, twisted, fucked up old closet case is thinking he can get some off the young stud in the next stall by tapping out the 1812 Overture with his wingtips and waving semaphore flags under the stall or whatever you did, you repulsive old pervert.

Yes, shit-for-brains, that's lewd conduct. I'd have you arrested, too, if you peeked into my stall and then tried to hit on me. It's not a matter of being gay. It's a matter of being a fucking sicko.

Instead of living your true life, it has come to this. The saddest part is that you have indirectly hurt countless honest, upstanding gay citizens by your actions. I'm not a very religious person, but people like you do make me hope there's a time to answer to God, so you can explain how you built your career on hatred and bigotry and couldn't even be honest when faced with what you've become.

I have many gay friends. Some are in monogamous relationships like mine. Some date now and then. Others have dated lots of guys, just like I've known straight guys who have dated lots of girls. All of these friends are good people, and their dating lives are honest approaches to what they want and need. What none of them do is pretend to be straight and attack other gay men for their own personal gain the way you do. More to the point, none of them are trolling the men's rooms at JFK, hitting on random strangers in the stalls.

Do us all a favor, scumbag. Tell the world the truth, that you're not what gay life is about, and then do the honorable thing, Samurai-style, and disembowel yourself on the Capitol steps.

Amazing what these planes can do

I've never seen anything quite like these. There are a few landings shown in this video. Each one shows a large jet landing while twisted to the side to fight very heavy crosswinds, but I couple of them are sufficient to cause gasps and/or shock-induced expletives.

Take a look. It's amazing stuff!

BTW, I don't know what the text says in the video. I believe the test flights were done in Brazil, so maybe that explains it.

And I wonder if the onboard computers were doing the maneuvering during those landings. Probably. If the pilots were actually handling that manually, I'm really amazed.

On The Bay

Each year, LIGALY holds an event called On The Bay. This year's honorees were a state legislator who has supported GLBT causes and Carson Kressley of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame. I was joined at the event by my other half and two dear friends of ours.


Jeff and my beloved Marc


Michael the sex machine (he said I should call him that)

The weather didn't cooperate (it was a gray day), but it still was a nice event. Right on the water, as the name implies, this fundraiser is held at the home of a supporter. The food wasn't fabulous, but there still were any number of things worth eating...







(Now let's see if any of the above boys read this blog. If they do, I bet I'll hear about this!) :)

Even if they didn't have such cute boys to ogle, it would have been fun. Of course, I had good friends along, so it didn't take much to make it fun!

I know I shouldn't be proud, but...

This is our nephew Owen...



Owen is 4 years old. Owen has many activities. One that he occasionally enjoys is punching a mini-punching bag in the basement of his house. As he will tell you, his dad has taught him that he's not to hit anyone unless they hit him first.

Well, he was at the public pool the other day. As his father watched, he approached two kids who were playing together to see if he could play with them. One of the kids turned around and hit Owen in the stomach. Owen knew the rules. He'd been hit, so he was free to respond. The kid who hit Owen in the stomach got a fist to the head and was knocked unconscious.

I know I shouldn't be proud of my 4-year old nephew for an act of violence, but I'm glad he stood up for himself. He didn't start the fight, but he finished it and that works for me.

This has gone too far!

The gun culture in this country is out of control. The NRA and the rest of the gun nuts are way too in love with their guns. I knew there were lots of magazines to encourage, support and entertain the gun nuts (Guns & Ammo, Guns Magazine... there's even Garden & Gun magazine), but they've hit a new low. I saw this in a store in NYC's lovely Penn Station this evening...


Because dogs need firearms!

I'm sorry, but we don't need to be arming our dogs! I love my dogs as much as anyone and deny them virtually nothing, but this is where I draw the line! I say, no guns for dogs, and I'm standing firm on that!

An effort worthy of support

If any of you are inclined to give to charity in the near future, we have a friend who can use your support.

Adam Josephs is a member (and former President) of our rugby team, the Gotham Knights. To celebrate his 40th birthday, instead of throwing a big party and looking forward to presents, he has decided to participate in Braking the Cycle 2007, a 275 mile, 3 day bicycle ride supporting the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Adam is trying to raise $10,000 to support this noble cause. If you can do anything to help, please go here and give whatever you can.

Thank you!

Enough of these roadside memorials!

Someone died in a car crash. That's too bad, but does every one of these tragedies require a (typically cheesy and poorly made) memorial to be built where the crash happened? Is that what needs to be remembered? Is that someone special's life best summed up with a makeshift memorial where they crashed? Was dying in a car crash the person's greatest achievement?

Today, I saw one that had taken this questionable practice to new lows. Apparently, the departed's last bit of driving involved a Porsche (or maybe he just loved the cars). Anyhow, someone apparently had a couple of flower arrangements made, including one made to look like the Porsche logo/crest. So what did this do? It gave the gang of idiots that constitutes my fellow commuters yet another excuse to drive two miles per hour and gawk at something. Like rubbernecking at accidents isn't bad enough!

So what better tribute to someone who died in a car crash than to set up a distraction that should inevitably cause another crash? Nice job!

Revisionist bullshit

This article about a film on atomic bombing survivors dishonors the memories of Holocaust victims and survivors with this line:

The uncomfortable footage of cities reduced to rubble and grotesquely deformed survivors has received relatively little circulation because -- unlike the well-recorded Holocaust -- this was something done by Americans, Sheila Nevins, head of HBO's documentary unit, said.

As well as dishonoring victims of the Holocaust, it insults the Americans who fought World War II. The bombings are on the moral level with the unfathomable acts of genocide perpetrated by the Nazis? Anyone who thinks that either had terrible education or is simply a complete moron.

The Holocaust was genocide, carried out on a previously unimaginable scale. It was inflicted upon people because of their minority status, not because they were combatants or even residents of an enemy city. It was a systematic effort to murder people of certain religion, ethnicity, etc., wiping out whole peoples forever.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacks against enemy cities designed to bring the Empire of Japan to its knees (a nation known for fine accomplishments like the Rape of Nanking, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the enslavement and murder of countless civilians in the countries it invaded, the brutal murder of POWs... the list goes on and on). Were civilians killed? Certainly. Civilians also were killed in the bombings of London, Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, Stalingrad and many, many other cities. War is a nasty, horrible thing, and the warring countries bombed each other's cities in an effort to do sufficient damage to shift the balance in their favor.

Think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bad? Take a look at the death toll from the fire bombings of Tokyo not long before (by one estimate, 83,000 dead in one night, and that number may be conservative). That was a higher number than each of the atomic bomb blasts killed, and those people often died slower, more agonizing deaths than the people in the cities hit by atomic bombs. Of course, being on the receiving end of any of this isn't a good thing. The point is that it all was done with the same goal: to win the war.

That's not what the Nazi Germans were doing to the Jews and others. Those acts had nothing to do with winning the war. They were simply barbaric mass murders.

I'm just glad the Japanese didn't call our bluff and wait to see if we had any more atomic bombs, because we didn't. We would have made more, of course, but that would have taken a while. For right then, when we were trying to avoid the need to invade Japan, we were out of them. If they had called our bluff, it would have meant many more American casualties, and, in all probability, many more Japanese casualties as we went on bombing their cities to ash.

HBO's Sheila Nevins and the CNN people who put her assertion in the story should be ashamed of themselves. What a slander on the people who brought that horrific war to an end! I just hope the film that led to the article is more sensible in its view.

What a horse!

This is an amazing video of an amazing animal. It's worth watching, and she just keeps getting better as the performance continues!

My every bridge-crossing fear come true (except that I wasn't on it)

I was going to say that I was making up the word "daymare," but it's actually in Dictionary.com.

Throughout my life, I've had many little daymares while crossing bridges. Living on an island, bridges are a part of life. Still, there was always this little worry that one could collapse with me on it. Given the size of many of our suspension bridges around here, the fall alone, buckled in or not, would likely be fatal. If not, drowning would be a real possibility.

Still, despite occasional spectacular failures, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, I've lived comfortably with the thought that the chances of a modern bridge collapsing with cars on it, plunging them into a river, was extremely unlikely. Sort of like nervousness about flying. Could something happen? Sure, anything can happen, but it's very unlikely, so why worry about it?

Now comes this...



That, Ladies and Germs, is what remains of the Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. During rush hour tonight, it collapsed. Fortunately, pieces of the roadbed seem to have stayed out of the water, but, sadly, not all of it. There are fatalities, and divers are searching in the water. What a mess! I just hope there are no other victims under that mess. What a sad day!

Flooding update

As I mentioned in my last post, we were having a flooding problem in our basement. As I also mentioned, we thought we'd found the source.

We determined that one of the basement window wells on the side of the house was the source of the water. It doesn't have a window well cover like the ones out front. So Marc went to search for one at the local home improvement stores. In the meantime, the rain started again full force.

Jeff and I went downstairs. While he stayed with me to help empty it as needed, I operated our Shop-Vac wet-dry vacuum. It's a 10-gallon one, and we had to empty it three times before the rain started to let up. Then once more, as it was about half full when we finished.

After the rain reduced, Jeff and I went outside and grabbed one of the front window well covers (where the roof overhangs that area, so it shouldn't be as big of an issue for it) and moved it to the problem one around the side (this was Marc's idea--he called from the road). Then we grabbed some stone blocks we had in the back of the yard and rebuilt the lip around the window well.

I carried the blocks and Jeff rebuilt the lip and then placed the relocated cover on top. I hope that will stop more flooding when the next round comes. Looking at the weather radar, more storms should be here in an hour or so, unless they break up first.

I'm just glad Jeff was here to help. He's always been a good friend, but he's really gone above and beyond today!

As safe as can be (unless he'd just stayed home)

Marc is doing some baking today. He needs some ingredients, so he decided to run out and get them. Jeff, who is visiting this weekend, went with him.

As he was leaving, the skies were looking ominous and it was starting to rain. I told him to take my car. His car, a Toyota Camry, is a pretty safe car, but I felt like my new Volvo S80 was the better choice if things were going to get bad while he was out.

I'm really glad I said what I did. Not only has it started to rain, but it's actually pouring and lighting bolts are streaking down all over the place. This is quite a storm! The lights even flickered a few times.

If he has to be out there in this mess (and, of course, he does... with apologies to the USPS, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor lack of ingredients shall stay my hubby from his appointed baking), I'm glad he's in the safest car I know. Now I just wish he'd get back here. This storm is wild. Mandy is upset and hiding, and Dodger is barking at it. If I knew how to save a snapshot of the weather.com radar image right now, I would. Lots of red!

The "Oh, hail!" update: The good news is that they're back home safely. The bad news? Well, these impressive storms now include hail pelting down. Worse yet (unless, of course, a tornado is next) is that we got a flood of water in the basement. On the plus side, we think we've figured out where it's coming from, and it looks like an easy fix.

Happy Birthday, Mom

July 27th was her birthday. She was taken from us way too soon.

She was wonderful beyond words. A wonderful person and the most wonderful Mom anyone could ever hope to have. I hope she's with Dad and they're happily dancing the night away, joyous in each other's arms.

I miss her so much.

I'd forgotten about that horrible day

I was just reminded of something from way back in my memories. In my senior year of high school, my physics teacher organized a class trip to Six Flags Great Adventure. He was the worst science teacher I'd ever encountered, but this at least seemed like a good idea.

So we took a bus to southern New Jersey and spent the day riding roller coasters, etc. The date was May 11, 1984.

As we reached the end of the day, smoke started to blow across the park. By the time this started, some of us were heading back to the bus. The smoke was thick, and we ran to the bus and started to shut the handful of windows that had been opened earlier.

We didn't know what was burning right away, but we soon learned. Some of my classmates returned to the bus a bit later and told us they had been waiting in line for the haunted house when smoke started pouring out of it. It took a while for everyone to get back to the bus. A few of our lot were on a rollercoaster when the smoke started to spread, and some rocket scientist decided that stopping the cars in mid-ride would be a good idea. So they were briefly stuck in the middle of the ride as the smoke filled the air. They didn't inhale enough to need medical attention, but they certainly weren't pleased.

I was worried that the news of the fire would get to my parents before I did (since we had a roughly two-hour drive before we got back home), but that didn't happen. Later that night, the word started to spread. By the next morning, the horror of what had happened was in all the papers: 8 PEOPLE KILLED, 7 HURT IN BLAZE AT THEME PARK

I don't know if that link from the Times archive will work once I post this, but the headline really says it all. Eight people were dead.

So what reminded me of this? Well, our local news radio station, WCBS 880, is celebrating "40 Years of News Radio" by revisiting big stories from the past 40 years. I hadn't thought of that day in ages, and then they started talking about it and it all came rushing back. It's funny how we bury some memories deeper than others, only to have them come flooding back when we're reminded.

Some photos

For lack of something better to post, I'll share a few photos from last week's dud of a block party and from today.


Before the party started, I went to the LIRR station to pick up Byrne (and shot this photo through the open sunroof).


There were fun moments, like when the dragons came by.




Appropriate accompaniment for dragons.


Eventually, Marc and Byrne decided that lying on the front lawn would be as good a use of their time as any.


The kids spent some of their time inside, watching us, although Mandy came out front for part of the day and they all had backyard time.


Sometimes a girl needs more space than one step will provide.

And the few photos from today...


I spent part of the afternoon reading in the hammock out back. This was the view.


When I looked to the right, I had this nice view of the bird feeder. The sound of the camera scared the birds away, but I had a nice view of various finches for most of my time in the hammock.


This is Junior. He and his mom live under the back of our house. They think the yard belongs to them. The dogs beg to differ. It's an ongoing dispute.

That's all, folks.

Nice things to see

We went to a barbecue this afternoon. It was at the home of some friends. We knew some of the people there but not others. Among those we hadn't met before today was a couple who had brought two of their kids, a boy and girl, and a friend of the boy.

I'd guess that the two boys were around 12 or 13 years old. I occasionally noticed the friends interacting and, eventually, as I saw Marc looking at them at one point, I said, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Marc was: "The friend is very affectionate with him."

It was clear that the son's friend has a huge crush on him. He would lean in close to talk to him and place his hands on his head and shoulders in ways that one normally doesn't see except with lovers. It was touching, really. I don't know if the father sees what's going on, but maybe he's just glad that his son has a friend who loves him. Or maybe he just thinks they're too young for it to mean anything.

The really funny thing is that the one who apparently has the crush is the far better looking of the two. In fact, unless his looks change a lot over the coming years, he is going to be a strikingly handsome man. (Now where were such affectionate, handsome boys when I was that age?)

This display of affection was nice to see. Of course, they're kids, so who knows what, if anything, might come of it in the years ahead. I just hope they stay good friends, since the caring is so very clearly there.

After the barbecue, we did a quick run to Trader Joe's for some groceries. Then we drove down to the beach. As we drove along bridges over the water, we opened the sun roof and enjoyed the gorgeous sunset. Thin, high clouds were lit a beautiful pink by the setting sun, and the rippling water was shimmering beautifully.

Just one nice thing after another today.

So full of shit

The weather prognosticators and talking heads on TV are such bullshit artists. Yesterday morning, we had a small typhoon here. My roughly 10 mile drive to work took almost two hours, due to flooded out roads, and we had water in the basement (not much, thankfully). There even was a tornado east of us... A Long Island style tornado. Not a Kansas F-5. More like an F-minus one (it just knocked over some trees and fences).

So did the weather idiots predict any of this? Not at all. I didn't expect a tornado prediction, of course, but maybe "the possibility of heavy rain" or words to that effect. Not a bit of it. The night before, they said something about afternoon and evening storms, but nothing about torrential downpours for the morning commute.

Of course, having completely botched the forecast for yesterday, they're trying to redeem themselves by overreacting today. Typical forecast for today: "OH MY GOD! EVERYONE RUN FOR IT! GET INTO THE CELLAR! DEFINITE CHANCE OF SCATTERED HURRICANES AND TORNADOES! POSSIBLE HAIL AND LOCUSTS!! IF YOU'RE STILL ALIVE TOMORROW, TUNE IN FOR COVERAGE OF THE DEVASTATION!!!"

Um, yeah. Yesterday, the surprise storm dropped an average of about 4 inches of rain in an hour or so.

Now? It's drizzling.

Assholes.

No, I don't want a business affiliation

I received an e-mail today that complimented me on the content of my website and asked me to form an affiliation with a particular gay-focused company. I must admit that I read it very quickly, so it's possible that it was a sincere comment on my site.

That, however, is unlikely. I get these e-mails every so often. I'd be willing to bet that lots of you got the same e-mail. It probably was mass-mailed to a bunch of gay blogs. I suppose there's nothing wrong with affiliating with whomever you'd like and perhaps even making some money from the deal. But that's just not my purpose here.

I'm here to share details of my life (boring though they may be), occasionally rant about politics or some other subject, and share my photos, whether they're of hot boys from the rugby matches, travel photos or the occasional family hound shot.

So I'm glad to trade blogroll links, but forming more commercial affiliations just isn't my goal at the moment. Besides, the commercial sites should know better. How many hits do they think my poor little blog gets? This isn't Towleroad or Joe.My.God!

What a name!

Were you aware that the British have a dessert called spotted dick? Sounds like a reason to rush to the doctor, but it seems that it's actually a kind of pudding (and, I suppose, remains a reason to rush to the doctor if it shows up in the way that first comes to my mind).

I don't know why I'm surprised. When we visited London last February, our hotel, the Rubens at the Palace, included a "genuine English breakfast" in the price of the room, and that breakfast caused us enough gastric distress to nearly require medical attention. So why should an appalling dessert name come as any surprise?

Still, spotted dick? Now there's a name that can use changing!

I was at my aunt & uncle's apartment

The blackout of '77 hit while I was staying at my aunt & uncle's apartment in Brooklyn. When the power went out in the apartment, we went to the apartment's balcony so we could look around and see if the whole building was out.

Well, not only was the whole building out, but all of the surrounding buildings were out. And what I found amazing was that we could see the power dropping out neighborhood by neighborhood. Huge squares of blocks were dropping out at a time. If not for how much a summertime blackout sucked, it would have been pure entertainment.

We were pretty well stuck in the apartment for the duration of the blackout. We could have gone down the stairs to street level, but going back up would have sucked, since their apartment was pretty high up in the building. So we stayed in the apartment.

Eventually, the water ran out. Water in the building came from tanks on the roof. The tanks were filled by electric pumps. No power meant no refilling of the tanks. So the water ran out.

When that happened, there was some added entertainment. Some of the people in the other apartments had fishing poles and were using them to lower buckets down so people on the ground could fill them with water from other sources.

It was an event to remember, but I'd hardly call it fun!

That was 30 years ago today. It sure doesn't seem like 30 years, but the calendar doesn't lie. 30 years. Wow, I'm getting old! :)

A medical mystery unraveled

For years, I've suffered from neck and back pain, cramps and muscle spasms. Massage therapists have noted how hard my muscles get. That, of course, is because I'm such a musclebound stud (in a fat, non-muscular kind of way).

Recently, I've again been having neck and shoulder pain, and Marc finally talked me into going to see a doctor. The doctor sent me for x-rays which I had done in my hospital's radiology department today. Since I work there, they had a radiologist look at the x-rays and provide a report right away. Normally, the radiologist just reports to the referring doctor, but, under the circumstances, he was nice enough to tell me his findings directly.

Radiologist: So you've been having some neck pain?

Me: Yes, for a while, so I decided to finally have it checked out.

Radiologist: [Indicating screen where x-rays were] Well, that'll do it.

He then proceeded to show me my x-rays and a "normal" x-ray of a cervical spine, so I could see the difference.

Apparently, despite my having pretty normal "range of motion" in my neck, I've been working with some hidden challenges. It seems that I was born with some problems in my spinal column that no one has detected until now.

Specifically, quoting from doctor's report, "fusion of the C2 and C3 vertebrae . . . fusion of the C4 and C5 vertebrae . . . [and there] may also be a small area of fusion between the C3 and C4 vertebrae." All of these issues have existed from birth.

In other words, a number of the bones in my neck and upper back that should move independently of each other are instead, in essence, welded together.

Fortunately, there's nothing life-threatening or even crippling in any of this, but it does mean that the pain I've lived with for so many years is likely to go on and can only be treated, not fully resolved. He also said that there's a good chance that there are disc herniations, but they can only tell that with an MRI. Even if there are herniations, it doesn't mean we necessarily need to do anything about them just now.

In a way, I'm glad to have these results. Yes, something that could be resolved simply would be better, but at least I now know why I've had so many painful problems. Hey, if not for this, maybe I would have been a star athlete! :)

Most importantly, this news makes for good blog fodder, and what could be more important than that?

Should they be saying that?

I didn't get enough sleep last night. Then I went to give a pint of blood this morning and followed that with a couple of shopping trips. By this afternoon, I felt like taking a nap. So I set the clock-radio and climbed into bed.

When the alarm goes off, it plays 880 AM, the CBS news radio station here in New York. Sadly, they sometimes abandon news coverage so they can broadcast Yankee games, for those who don't find baseball quite boring enough live or on TV. :)

Anyhow, the radio comes on, and I hear the broadcasters discussing how one of the players is "on the DL."

For all I know, maybe the guy doesn't have a wife or girlfriend, but, if he does and she hears that, he's dead meat.

Besides, professional sports isn't exactly a gay-friendly environment. So what are they thinking? If they happen to know he's "on the DL," they shouldn't be announcing it to the world! Geez!

The new criminal code

It's only fair that I begin to share some of the changes people will see when I'm elected Emperor. So here's a first example.

When I'm Emperor, anyone who disposes of chewed gum by throwing it on the ground where someone else may step on it shall be killed.

Murder won't get the death penalty. My regime will favor life in prison for such offenses. Toss chewed gum on the ground, however... shot in the head. The beauty of this plan, as well as teaching some decency and manners, is that the crew that cleans up the blood and gore can also remove the gum.

Great, right? :)

Where did that come from?

For a while now, there's been a project underway to replace the current incarnation of New York's Pennsylvania Station. I'd regularly walk by the main post office, across the street from Penn Station, when I worked in Manhattan, and have seen it draped in huge tarps as work has been going on.

The idea was supposed to be to replace the current station with something grander, more fitting for a great city like New York and more like the old Penn Station that was demolished decades ago.


The prior version of Penn Station


Inside old Penn Station


Another view inside the old station

That sounded great to me, but now comes word that the project is blossoming into something new and huge. According to today's New York Times, the project now includes grander plans, including building two towers, one of which will be taller than the Empire State Building!!!

Okay, so where did this come from? I'm all for new business ventures and progress that will help move the city forward, but what's that all about? Clearly, there's a feeling that we've all gotten over the post-9/11 "I won't work in a tall building" sentiment, but do we really need such huge towers there? It just seems like it's a bit much to me, but then what do I know? Plenty of people will become filthy rich through this project, while I just sit here and wonder what they're thinking. Clearly, they know something (or at least "someone") that I don't!

The Scooter thing gets more upsetting

I wish I'd thought of this, but I didn't. Rather, I read this post by Miles Mogulescu on The Huffington Post and realized that Bush's actions may be even more sinister than I'd realized. When I heard that Bush had commuted Scooter Libby's sentence to eliminate the jail time, I thought it was some hypocritical half-measure, but I didn't put it together the way Mr. Mogulescu has. Here, read it for yourself:

President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's [sentence] may seem like some kind of compromise between a full pardon and sending Libby to jail.

It may be more sinister than that. Since Libby's conviction stands, Libby will almost certainly continue his appeal to have his conviction overturned. His many Republican supporters will probably defray the costs of the appeal so it will cost Libby nothing.

Now, with an ongoing criminal appeal, if Libby were called before a Congressional Committee and asked to testify about efforts by the Vice President's and President's offices--including Cheney, Bush and Rove personally--to discredit Joe Wilson and reveal that his wife Valerie Plame worked for the CIA--Libby can refuse to testify by taking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. If Bush gave Libby a full criminal pardon, the Fifth Amendment would no longer be applicable and Libby could probably be forced to testify o[r] face jail for contempt of Congress.

The same applies to the civil suit by Plame against Libby in which he could otherwise be asked in depositions or on the witness stand how the Vice President's and President's office participated in Plame's outing. Moreover, if Libby knew he was going to jail (and he probably received secret assurance from the administration all along that they would never let that happen), he might have gone to federal prosecutor Fitzgerald and provided information on Cheney, Bush and Rove in exchange for Fitzgerald recommending a reduced sentence to the Judge.

So by commuting the sentence, Libby avoids prison, and the Bush/Cheney administration keeps the details of its campaign against Wilson and its outing of Plame secret. Libby's supporters will almost surely raise money to pay off his $250,000 fine. And while Libby may be disbarred from practicing law, he still has a lucrative career ahead of him as a lobbyist or consultant for a right wing think tank.

It makes so much sense that I'm really pissed off!

If that's the best they can do...

Let me begin by saying that I'm glad no one was hurt by the car bombs in London and that there were no major casualties from the flaming car in Glasgow (the burned terrorist doesn't count). With that said, if that's the best they can do, I'm quite relieved.

If the best these clowns could do was cans of gasoline and some hardware to make shrapnel, they're just not a huge threat. Although gunpowder may be tougher to obtain in Britain than here, I'm still amazed that they couldn't even manage a gunpowder bomb. I mean, we're talking about material that Guy Fawkes was able to get in great quantities for his plot over 400 years ago, let alone anything more modern like plastic explosives.

I'm glad these murderous bastards couldn't get better material, but I think it says something about the real capabilities of our enemy (sorry to sound like W, but this is one of the few areas where he's right--they are our enemy--not that his actions have helped the situation!). Yes, the fight must go on and we must remain vigilant. These people really would like to kill us. Still, they seem a lot less threatening now. I just hope all the rest of them are as incompetent as the ones who've been causing trouble in Britain lately. (Selfishly, I also hope this week is quiet here, since my baby is traveling to visit family down south later this week, and I don't want anyone messing with things while he's flying.)