…taken just a few moments ago while I strolled around the area by my hotel just before dawn. And brought to your computer through the magic of digital photography and the World Wide Web. Seriously…an old friend of mine called me on his cell phone late last night as he was driving south through Wilmington Deleware, and there I was chatting with him on my cell phone while I was strolling around U.S. Route 1 in Key Largo and you have to appreciate that we both grew up in an era when telephones had wires connecting to them to the wall and a long distance call to just the next state over was a lot of money, and there we were chatting to each other with little devices that just fit in our pockets, he in Wilmington and I in Key Largo. And we haven’t really lived all that long.
I’m home…unpacking and sizing things up around the house after having been away for just over three weeks. The first thing I notice is that one of my detector alarms is chirping at me that it needs a new battery. So I have to walk around the house and figure out which one is hungry. I’ve got five detectors here at Casa del Garrett…three smoke detectors, one for each floor, and two carbon monoxide detectors, which come in handy now and then. Problem is when the damn things get hungry for a new battery they just emit these short little chirps every minute or so and in this house you practically have to be standing right next to it to know which one it is.
I check the house thermostat. The new heating and cooling system thermostat has a ‘vacation’ mode for when there’s nobody home. It won’t let it get so cold the pipes freeze or so hot that things start to melt inside, but it lets things get way out of the comfort zone to save on the energy bill. It’s still on Vacation mode when I check it. The house is a bit warm, but not stifling. I turn vacation mode off, because the forecast today is for brutal heat here in Baltimore.
After a morning on the road, I want to wash up. I turned off the water to Casa del Garrett before I left, and shut off the hot water heater. So before I start unloading the car I go down to the basement, open the tap at the utility sink, go to the main water valve and turn it on, then go back to the sink, make sure the air gets out of the pipes and then close it. No I have to fire up the hot water heater and let it come up to temperature. I figure while it’s heating up I can unload the car and figure out which detector is hungry for a new battery. But my first few tries at getting the new hot water heater going fail. This new one has an electric igniter and after several tries it still isn’t lighting the pilot. Oh great…
I plug the UPS feeding Bagheera, my art room G5 tower, back in, but I don’t fire up Bagheera just yet. I want to get Mowgli, my main household network workstation going first. I go upstairs, plug in and power up Mowgli’s UPS, and then hit the bathroom for a bit and wash my hands…with cold water. All this time I’m listening to hear which detector is chirping as I walk around the house and so far I still can’t tell which one it is. I try to fire up Mowgli. When I hit Mowgli’s power switch nothing happens. Oh great…
So with my luggage still in the car within minutes of getting home I’m debugging a hardware failure. Welcome Home Bruce! Eventually I get it narrowed down to my keyboard cable. Somehow it got loose in the keyboard socket, perhaps because of the temperature swings in the house while the air conditioning system was in vacation mode. The upstairs part of the house gets it worse in the summer. I reseated the cable in its socket and Mowgli booted up without trouble. Here’s a tip for all you other geeks out there: leave enough slack in your computer cabling so you can pull it out of wherever you have it tucked away…under a desk or wherever…and open it up with everything still plugged in. Makes checking out problems easier.
Eventually I got Mowgli up and running. I figured out it was the bedroom carbon monoxide detector that was hungry and fed it some new batteries. I got the hot water heater going after several tries. I got Bagheera up and running and downloading the software updates that came out while I was on the road. After it’s done with that I’ll plug in the iPhone and get the new firmware update.
It used to be I just unpacked when I got home. Now I have to restart the house. Perhaps the home of the future will just have a reset switch or something.
It’ll be lite posting for a while here because as of…er…Right Now…I’m heading out to the big highways to visit some friends, attend the Open Source Developer’s Conference in Portland, and do some exploring along the way. I’ll be on the road most of the day today, but I’m heading for Memphis and I’ll stay there for a while to see some friends, and…stand with Soul Force in front of Love In Action. Via Peterson Toscano…
Ex-Gay Survivor Initiative Heads to Memphis
What: Gay men visit Love in Action to tell of the psychological and spiritual harm that they experienced there and in other "ex-gay" ministries. Three survivors of the controversial residential program will present Love in Action with personal artwork depicting the damage caused by the message that gays and lesbians can and should change their sexual orientation.
When: Tuesday, July 17, at 10:30 a.m.
Where: Love in Action, 4780 Yale Road, Memphis, Tennessee
Who: David Christie is a former Love in Action client who spent 13 years in ex-gay therapy before accepting himself as a gay man at the age of 28.
Brandon Tidwell completed Love in Action’s adult residential program in 2002, but ultimately rejected the organization’s theology and reconciled his sexual orientation with his Christian faith.
Other participants: Jeffrey Harwood, Lance Carroll
Why: Love in Action (LIA) is a Christian residential program that claims to help clients "break out" of "homosexual attraction and behavior" at a cost of $7000 for 3 months. In 2005, the facility was under investigation by the state of Tennessee for operating a mental health facility without a license. LIA has since changed its operating procedures to avoid state regulation. Most recently, LIA closed its controversial Refuge program for teenagers and replaced it with "Family Freedom Intensives," a 4-day, $600 per person. The program is for parents of gay or questioning teenagers.
Love in Action is part of a larger "ex-gay" movement, which continues to thrive in spite of Americans’ growing conviction that sexual orientation is not subject to change and despite a growing willingness on the part of faith communities to accept gays and lesbians as whole and valuable members.
This event is part of the Survivor’s Initiative, a national campaign to share the stories of "Ex-gay Survivors"-men and women who feel that ex-gay messages and programs did them more harm than good.
If you are in or near Memphis, come and show your solidarity. Also, spread the word. It’s been two years since the summer protests sparked by Zach Stark’s blog entries. No matter how LIA words it, Refuge is no more. Even so, the voices of their former LIA clients need to be heard as a witness and a warning.
If you can be there to stand peacefully in witness and solidarity with the survivors, please come. The ex-gay movement cynically pleads tolerance for religious diversity and freedom of choice but they have none to offer themselves for gay people. They instill shame where there should be joy. They teach fear where there should be love. They build walls of shame and fear and mistrust between parents and their children. All so that our hearts may bleed, so that they can feel righteous. If there is such a thing as Sin in this world, Capital S, then to put a dagger of shame into a person’s heart and take away the possibility of finding that intimate other and building a life together, must surely be a big one. For years the ex-gay ministries have claimed that thousands have changed. Now another voice is making itself heard: that of the ones who tried, and who learned after great hardship and pain that to finally become whole persons, they first had to accept themselves, in the words of the old spiritual, "Just As I Am."
Come, stand with us if you can, in witness and in solidarity. Just as you are. Just as we are.
Great old lodge style place that’s been added on to and added on to, such that it has all kinds of nice neat little nooks and comfy lounge areas hidden away here and there throughout the lodge and the grounds around it. There’s a lot of space here, and yet so many little places in this corner and that full of very nice comfortable furniture where groups or couples or individuals can have some privacy too. Yet you can just take a few steps and be out in one of the public areas again at your leisure. Very nice. It’s got a first-rate dinning room and a little community breakfast room (they actually ring a triangle bell in the morning to call the guests to breakfast). There’s a nice bar, an exercise room, two hot tubs and a steam room.
Wireless broadband works too (obviously since I’m posting) But the cell phones are completely dead. It’s a long windy gravel road to get here. You’re tucked into a nice stretch of West Virginia scenery. The lodge and the little guest houses have a very, very nice comfy feel. Lots of oversized leather sofas and chairs all over the place. I’m in a little room in the top floor of their "carriage house". it almost has a treehouse quality to it on the inside. Bed was one of the most comfortable I’ve ever slept on and I’ve lost count of all the hotel beds I’ve slept on. I’ll definitely be coming back here regularly.
I’ll post some photos as soon as I get them processed. I have my film cameras with me this trip so, sorry, no instant digital images for now…
I’m heading out to The Guest House at Lost River in West Virginia with some pals of mine from D.C. It’s a gay resort (straight couples occasionally go there too) tucked away in the hills near Dolly Sods wilderness area, which I’ve backpacked a time or two. They say there is wireless there now, but last year the cell phones didn’t work, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to post over the weekend, and anyway this is a mini vacation, so I don’t plan on posting much. Just guy watching mostly. And a little warm-up to my annual southwestern/California road trip.
My friends say the pool there is heated, which it damn well better be that close to Dolly Sods, and there is a hot tub, and they insist on my joining in. Diet notwithstanding, I’m not sure I’m ready to let anyone see my stomach yet. It still needs a little work. But they insist and so I went out yesterday looking for a decent pair of swimming trucks. All I could find at the local stores were either Speedos, which I don’t quite have the figure for again yet (getting there though) and the god awful Bozo The Clown trunks American heterosexual males have been wearing at the beach now for over a decade. Crap that goes down to your knees and is big enough to fit three sets of legs in. Fuck that. I was looking for a nice pair of Brazilian cut trucks…something like this…
…ideally in some nice colors. I am not wearing Bozo The Clown trunks to the pool, or the beach, or anywhere else! So I guess I’m mail ordering swim suits now too. In the meantime I bought a couple Speedos anyway, more for motivation to stick to my diet then anything else, and a close-to-decently fitting set of white Fila trunks that apparently aren’t being made anymore so they had them on clearence. I’ll probably wear the Fila’s this weekend. At least they fit fairly well and they don’t hang down around my knees, but just above mid-thigh.
Swear to God…it ought to be illegal for men to wear this sort of thing in public…!
As it was last year, there are far, far too many cute longhaired computer geeks here for my own good. And as it was last year, the foreign guys are just a tad sexier. I think that’s because they just feel more comfortable inside their own bodies. One of those little ways that American sex-negative religiosity shows though, is in the way American guys dress below the waist.
Portland’s having a bit of a heat wave, and some of the guys here are in shorts or cutoffs, and you can reliably tell who are the American guys and who are the foreigners, by the length of their shorts. The American guys (generally) won’t wear shorts that are cut well above the knee. Can’t be showing a little thigh or people might think you’re gay.
I was watching some guys swimming in the hotel pool late yesterday, and swear their swim trunks reached down past their knees, halfway to their ankles. Except for one cute blond who was wearing a speedo style trunk. I ran into him at the hotel restaurant and he turned out to be from Spain. It’s like American guys are wearing below the waist burkas these days.
This is how you get to Catalina. They have regular jet-catamaran boats to and from the island, and they are comfortable and fast. Even on a fairly rough sea you don’t feel much. But the sea was very calm on the trip out and back.
At the entrance to Avalon harbor. At the very top of the hill is, I’m told, the Wrigley Mansion. That’s Wrigley as in the chewing gum. The family owns most of the island I’m told.
One of the streets of Avalon looking west. Most of the island is a wilderness preserve. Avalon is the largest town on the island and it ain’t big. Everything the people who live on the island need has to be trucked in by boat. But there is a nice tourest zone right at the beach with good food, a few clubs, shopping, and stuff to do. I’m told there is surfing on the western side of the island. Avalon is on the eastern side, and doesn’t get much wave action at all. The main activites around Avalon seem to be boating, fishing and scuba diving. My brother and my nephew did the scuba park by the casino while I was wandering around taking pictures.
Looking from the end of the Avalon Pier, back to Avalon, as the sun sets.
Boats docked in Avalon harbor. Some of those moorings, I’m told, sell for over a million dollars. Yes…that’s a million bucks just to park your boat..
Avalon harbor from the Casino. It’s not a gambling casino, it’s an old, grand movie theater.
This is the way most folks get around on the island. They don’t like having cars over there, although you’ll see some. Mostly people use these golf carts and small lawnmower engine powered light trucks (and I mean light). Instead of car garages, most houses that have them, have golf cart garages or parking spots.
Many of the nice houses here are built on quite steep hillsides.
Finally…the catamaran trip over and back takes you past the Queen Mary, which is now doing duty as a beautiful art deco hotel. If you like anything art deco, you Have to go see the Queen Mary sometime, it is just amazingly beautiful inside (and out…it’s a lovely ship from the days of the grand trans-Atlantic ocean liners). On the trip back one of those new cruse line ship things was parked nearby, so I snapped this shot of the two of them together. A contrast in Ocean going eras.
More postcards later. I’m on my way now to Portland Oregon for a software developer’s conference. I’ll post more photos of my trip when I get settled in up there.
A few more shots from my recent road trip. I left Guymon Oklahoma and headed west to Boise City and from there to Clayton New Mexico. I picked up I-25 in Raton and in Tridadad Colorado I took 350 to La Junta, what was once a spur on the Santa Fe Trail, and then to Granada when I took 385 to I-70 in Burlington.
This is the territory I think of as the Big Empty. The high plains, where the wind is constant, the land gently swells like a calm sea of grass, and there is nothing, nothing between the little villages and towns but the random farm house here and there, and, sometimes, a line of high voltage towers that stand across the landscape in relentless single file from horizon to horizon. Driving it at night, the little towns appear out of the darkness like small galaxies, and the random house lights seem as isolated stars slowly drifting by you in the night, while overhead the light of the milky way blazes down over everything.
I love travelling through this place. I’d go nuts if I had to live in it. I hear that once upon a time many pioneers did just that. But there is a solitude within me, that only this place speaks to. Somehow, it’s good for me to visit here.
Highway 64, Near Guymon, Oklahoma
Sign – Guymon Oklahoma
Grain Elevator And Propane Tank Trailors – Boise City Oklahoma
I’m going to do a small loop around southwestern Kansas, maybe into New Mexico and Colorado, and then head back to Baltimore for a few days. Maybe. I am making no firm plans this road trip save for being back in Memphis on the 6th. I want to see Liberal Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle though.
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